Google Confirms Non-ADB APK Installs Will Require Developer Registration I get there is still ADB installation as an option, but that often requires a cable connection and disabling security in the Dev settings of the phone. The whole philosophy around Android was having the freedom of choice to do what you wanted with your phone (a bit like some countries used to have freedoms of choice and speech). Many countries for example have abortion as a perfectly legal procedure, and those countries want the choice to freely access abortion apps if they want to. I get too that Android is proposing a free alternative for Devs that would still allow sideloading, but this has serious restrictions in terms of how the app can be distributed there, including limited numbers of installs. The biggest loss here would be for privacy. Apps like Bitchat are intended to be 100% private with zero registration or exposure, and the app can be directly sent to other users. The new proposal completely kills this method of transfer. I do also realise that many average/mass users do maybe need more protection from rogue apps, but then just pop up a message to make it more difficult, and to inform the user of possible risks. But let users decide whether they want to take the risk or not. There are also web apps yes, but they require online access, and usually also don't do push alerts. Google has already not been very popular since they ditched their “Do No Evil” slogan, and this just screams of more control, wanting to know who everybody is, etc. Imagine if your desktop OS would only allow you to install apps from the official store? Linux would collapse, as it was founded on the freedom to choose! As it is, Microsoft is now apparently wanting to restrict users to not being able to register their Windows OS with offline account registration. I'm for protecting mass users, but I am also FOR other users being able to exercise their own choices at their own risk. That is called a win-win. See

Hackaday

Google Confirms Non-ADB APK Installs Will Require Developer Registration

After the news cycle recently exploded with the announcement that Google would require every single Android app to be from a registered and verifie...

#technology #Android #privacy #freedoms

Cairo-Dock 3.6 Released With Wayland Support and HiDPI Display Handling “Cairo-Dock 3.6 is ported to Wayland to mark the project's return to relevance now in 2025 in working with the many Wayland-focused desktops. Cairo-Dock 3.6 is working with the likes of the Wayfire, KDE KWin, Labwc, COSMIC, Sway, Hyprland, and other Wayland compositors. But GNOME/Mutter is not currently supported.” Yes, it has been a very long (years) time since Cairo-Dock had any major update. I thought it was dying. The global keyboard shortcuts I think is more a limitation of Wayland, as I'm having to use ydotool for my shortcuts with my Elgato Stream Deck still under Wayland. The HiDPI support will handle higher resolution screens and proper scaling of the displays. See https://www.phoronix.com/news/Cairo-Dock-3.6-Released #technology #Linux #Wayland #CairoDock #opensource

Linux 6.18 Will Be A Big Improvement For Servers Encountering DDoS Attacks “A set of patches merged via the networking pull request for the Linux 6.18 will help servers better cope with distributed denial of service “DDoS” attacks. Thanks to a Google engineer there are some significant optimisations found in the Linux 6.18 kernel code for more efficiently handling of UDP receive performance under stress, such as in DDoS scenarios.” This will be welcome news to most hosting services. The only issue though down the line may be that with cybersecurity, the goalposts also keep shifting and evolving. The details though are in the linked post. See https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.18-DDoS-Improvement #technology #hosting #opensource

Austria's military has switched from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice "Austria's military has completed a major IT overhaul, replacing Microsoft Office with the open-source LibreOffice suite across all its desktop systems. The change, finalised this month, affects approximately 16,000 workstations in the Austrian Armed Forces. This move will substantially reduce Austria's software bill. At $33.75 per user per month, a Microsoft 365 E3 subscription for 16,000 workstations costs approximately $6,480,000 per year, compared to LibreOffice's zero cost." But despite all the cost savings, the main reason for the change was in fact for digital sovereignty and to gain control over critical data. The whole marketing towards moving everything into foreign controlled clouds not only creates a dependency and lock-in to those services, it also often means reducing an organisation's own capacity to support itself. Any organisation should be basing its decisions on a very holistic view of all the factors involved. Be very wary of the allure of glitzy PR and nice-to-haves. See

ZDNET

This European military just ditched Microsoft for open-source LibreOffice - here's why

It's not about the cost savings, either. Many government organizations are replacing Microsoft software for a more important reason.

#technology #Austria #opensource #digitalsovereignty

Which browsers with integrated AIs collect the most user data The big thing with using integrated AI within browsers is that you are potentially giving a lot more access to your user metadata versus just visiting the AIs webpage and doing a search there. The linked article measures across 23 different types of metadata and in case you think it is just harmless data, it includes data points such as your contacts, location (which can be precise), browser history (what you did in the past), purchases, identifying data (which can be used to build your profile of user behaviour across all the sites you visit), etc. Although we know that WhatsApp and Facebook already collect and even share this information with others (it is stated in their terms and conditions), many don't realise that allowing their browsers integrated AI to have this access, is potentially just as bad. From the Surfshark report, we can see that Google's data collection is at least as bad as Facebooks. One thing that is different is maybe that Google is not actually sharing that data to their partners (well, it is not stated as far as I know). But where this is of serious concern, is for political activists, whistle-blowers, or refugees, where there is a real danger of their governments being able to access this data, just because it is collected and stored. And of course, the contacts' info just helps to connect all the dots between everyone's contacts and friends... So, if you are in any sort of sensitive situation, you want to avoid browser integrated AI, and even consider rather using privacy respecting AI such as Venice or Proton's Lumo. See

Surfshark

New Gemini in Chrome integration collects excessive user data

Gemini AI, which has just been integrated into the Chrome browser, collects the most user data among all browser-integrated AIs, including users’...

#technology #privacy #AI

Steam Client Adds Advanced Options to the In-Game Overlay for AMD & NVIDIA GPUs on Linux “The big news for Linux gamers is the implementation of advanced options for the in-game performance overlay for AMD and NVIDIA GPUs, improved Steam UI scaling in XWayland, improved system display scale in the in-game overlay, and improved Big Picture update progress UI. Also for Linux users, the new Steam Client update fixes several bugs, including an issue where the ‘Browse Local Files’ button in ‘Game Properties’ fails to open the system file browser, an issue where the Steam Client fails to reload or shows dialogs unexpectedly after a render process crash, and an issue with crash dump reporting.” Seeing that I have successfully migrated to Wayland, this was of a lot of interest to me. It is also good to see CPU temp added to the on-screen performance monitor. Once about 10 major game updates have finished downloading, I'll be able to try this out. Why are there always so many big updates ;-) See

9to5Linux

Steam Client Adds Advanced Options to the In-Game Overlay for AMD & NVIDIA GPUs - 9to5Linux

The latest stable Steam Client update introduces advanced options for the in-game performance overlay for AMD and NVIDIA GPUs.

#technology #gaming #Linux #opensource

Mastodon social network is bringing quote posts to the Fediverse "Mastodon is officially rolling out quote posts. Starting next week, you’ll see an option to quote another user by selecting the repost — or “boost” — button, allowing you to add your thoughts to someone else’s post.” I know there were concerns about this, but it does seem to be the way to go. For influencers or bloggers, it does at least link back to their original post for attribution, which is important to them. It also seems users will have the option to disable it for their posts, so surely this choice to have or not have, is the best of both worlds. ActivityPub, which is what powers the Fediverse including Mastodon, is quite significant as it is an open standard and is probably the most used social network protocol outside of the centralised social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. See

The Verge

Mastodon is bringing quote posts to the fediverse

Quote posts on Mastodon are finally happening.

#technology #Mastodon #socialnetworks

New Movie “Python: The Documentary” Traces the Language’s Story “Some things in the open-source ecosystem are absolutely foundational—they’ve shaped it into what we know today. One of the biggest is the Python programming language. And now, it’s giving its global community something a little different—and pretty exciting. A movie!” This is one of the most popular programming languages in the world, and known for its quirky sense of humour. The documentary should be entertaining to watch. There is a link to the movie in the linked article below. See

Linuxiac

New Movie “Python: The Documentary” Traces the Language’s Story

“Python: The Documentary” is a new 90-minute film that tells the story of how a side project evolved into one of the world’s most influential...

#technology #Python #programming

A Love Letter To Internet Relay Chat — The Original Social Media That Is Still With Us Today “Although kids these days tend to hang out on so-called “Social Media”, Internet Relay Chat (IRC) was first, by decades. IRC is a real-time communication technology that allows people to socialize online in both chat rooms and private chat sessions. As a decentralized communication protocol, anyone can set up an IRC server and connect multiple servers into networks, with the source code for these servers readily available ever since its inception by a student, and IRC clients are correspondingly very easy to write.” Yep, even though it was the first, and was around before today's youngsters were even born, the fact is IRC is still around. With so many becoming disenchanted with all the trackers, adverts, high bandwidth requirements, and bloat of modern social networks, there is still IRC, and it works much the same as it did way back when. It's true, it is more a network that people escaped to, and not from. I actually use IRC daily, even if it is just posting to my own two channels I manage there. I also suspect that IRC will be around still long after other networks have disappeared. Not only that, but I'm just wondering if it won't get “rediscovered” by today's youth at some point, in the quest to find something simpler and more pure as a social network. There are quite a few IRC clients around, but something that may help with onboarding of brand-new users is also having a really user-friendly client that obscures some of the slash commands. I know IRC purists will turn their noses up at this, but remember attracting new blood also often means offering new interfaces. My channel is called #gadgeteerza and is on the Libera IRC server. If you want to try IRC out without installing a client or a server, you can just head to

Kiwi IRC

in your browser and try listing and joining channels. There is an interesting video to watch about IRC at the linked article below. See

Hackaday

A Love Letter To Internet Relay Chat

Although kids these days tend to hang out on so-called “Social Media”, Internet Relay Chat (IRC) was first, by decades. IRC is a real-t...

#technology #IRC #socialnetworks

[URGENT] DEF CON Researcher Exposes How Password Managers Betray Your Trust "Czech security researcher Marek Tóth demonstrated at DEF CON 33 how a single click on any malicious website can steal passwords, credit cards, and 2FA codes from 40 million users of major password managers, with vendors like 1Password and LastPass refusing to fix the vulnerabilities." What this brings home yet once again is, in regard to security, the easier something is to use is usually not better for security. In this case, much of the issue is around the autofilling of passwords on page loading (because that is easier). So, to some extent, this is all helped along by settings we choose to set. Again for subdomains vs exact domain, it is easier to match to just the base domain… Many password managers will be addressing these issues in the coming week or two, but it is worth rethinking your "ease of use" settings on your password manager so long. See

Sam Bent

[URGENT] DEF CON Researcher Exposes How Password Managers Betray Your Trust

Czech security researcher Marek Tóth demonstrated at DEF CON 33 how a single click on any malicious website can steal passwords, credit cards, and...

#technology #security #vulnerabilities