
Why is Linux mentioned?
I must be blind, but I don't see Linux on the chart and it just seems to be added to the list of operating systems as an afterthought.
2726 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Apr 2007
I'm with Llanfair in noting that copper based phones generally stay working when the power goes out, whereas a fibre based phone system probably won't. However I also notice that very few people have non cordless phones at home. Certainly in this area I've tried phoning around when the power goes out and nobody else has a working phone. So, I guess the bottom line is that people don't care if their phone always works or not.
First of all, if you don't want to deal with the problems of Windows (including the price), perhaps you should use something else. If you have the option of buying used computers, then you probably have the option to make other choices as well. The problem detailed in this article does not need to effect you - nor a lot of people. It effects people who don't have a choice, whether the browser is work mandated, or they just don't know what's going on.
Second, while I agree that low resource systems are the way to go, 250MB is not a lot for a program to use, and the browser is also pretty much the de facto OS these days.
As to only having one window open, with Firefox specifically, you will find that the usage does not go up hugely. I'm using FF right now and it has 48 windows open (not tabs) and the usage is only twice yours. That's actually pretty good. However, I also use a number of other browsers (there's lots of choices you know) and I can vouch for the fact that there are several which "are just browsers". Epiphany is currently using 46MB and Konqueror a mere 5MB. You can also install an older version of Firefox. I suggest you start looking around.
Only five tabs? You should be able to run ten times that. Chrome is fast, but not ready.
I run several browsers simultaneously and the others don't need to be restarted. Alter less than a week Chrome has grabbed all the memory available and chewed far into swap as well. I think we need more than a few versions before this is out of beta.
I don't agree with lumping corporate interests in with mine. It also looks to me like the author is using a completely different internet than I've come to know.
"The security defenses available to us are clumsy and inadequate."
What are you talking about? I've been using the client side of the internet since the beginning and I'm not having any problems with security. You must be doing something wrong and assuming that other people are too. Email works just fine. I have several different mail services and the amount of spam I get is almost unmeasurable - and thanks to the professional server management which we've come to expect nowadays, I get all my mail too. I can only assume that someone who has a problem with spam either runs their own amateur server or made a particularly bad choice of service provider. Yes spam is a huge percentage of e-mail traffic, but it is not a huge amount of bandwidth. It is just not a problem any more. As for security; one does not have to be a professional to run a secure computer nowadays, even with MS-Windows, but if you're having a problem, why not find an easier to manage OS while you still have the freedom.
"If we, as corporations and individuals, want the internet to remain free and open as it is today, then we have to solve these problems before the governments of the world try to do it for us."
I agree that it would be bad to have too much government interference, but you make a mistake in lumping together corporations and individuals. Corporate and government interests are similar, and both counter the freedom of the individual. There are not a lot of problems that need to be solved as far as internet freedom for the individual is concerned. However, I agree that there is indeed a threat of governments and corporations from taking away the freedom that the individual has now.
"It could be that the only to preserve the freedom of the internet is to do away with the presumption of innocence."
No it couldn't be. That way of thinking has been tried many times by governments in the past. It has always ended in disaster. Let's not go there.
"You know, this may sound pretty shallow, . . ."
It is.
". . . but I really think that calling their browser 'Opera' instead of something more dynamic and male-appealing like 'FireFox' or 'Chrome' is what is hurting them badly."
Yes, 'Opera' isn't very manly and you wouldn't want anybody to get the, you know, wrong idea. Anyway, you don't have to tell anybody you're using it. You could just be a closet user.
It looks like people get as attached to using only one browser almost as much as using only one OS. However with a browser there is no practical reason for it.
I'm with Daniel 1 on not using only one. With a modicum of computer skills one can take advantage of the differences. On this oldish kit I have 6 different browsers open on different desktops. Really, there's no reason to just run one browser unless you've got pre Pentium hardware and a small harddrive.
Yes, proselytising can be a nuisance but who is to agree on which kind to ban? Personally sports fans irritate me. I'm also particularly pissed off by salesmen. However, as an adult I am able to put up with all these different kinds of religious fanatics. We have to be tolerant of each other. However, those who believe in "stringing" people up do push the limits of my tolerance a little. :)
One of the hallmarks of understanding proper adult interaction with children is understanding consent. Children simply don't have the experience to be able to give it because they don't understand the implications of what they (or the adult) are doing. This puts the adult in a position of responsibility. I wonder if Disney has considered this. Is it even legal for someone other than a child's parents to track their online behaviour? It seems to me that one should get the parent's permission first.
My thought is that if you are going to use tracking cookies, then you need to have a consenting age form upon entry. Perhaps there should also be the ability for parents to filter these "cookie" sites.
Linux may have a relatively small amount of home users, but I don't think that number is important. What matters to WD is the number of hard drives - after all that is what they're selling isn't it? I bet the number of individual drives with Linux is pretty high when you include servers.
Anyway, like someone said up above, there's plenty of tools out there and it is just possible that Linux users are not particularly envious (or even aware) of the Windows diagnostic which WD supplies.
"Not sure everyone posting comments has understood what Google are talking about,"
I don't think you understand what everyone's posting about. :) The thing is that many people put the mouse where they're not looking so that it doesn't get in the way. In my case that would be on the far left, or right, or white space, or scroll bar. Where does the "area around each link" come into it?
"The incident is not the first time a patch for the open source browser has been prompted by problems involving its extensions, rather than bugs in its basic build."
Yes, I've noticed that the "bugs in its basic build" are still there - specifically the memory leak.
You move through windows with Alt-Tab and through tabs with Ctrl-Tab, other that that the only difference between tabs and windows is that with tabs all the sites are shown the same size, which is a bad idea. I normally have 30 to 50 windows open and it's really easy to control - tabs would just be a mess. For a clean desktop, just go to another one. Basically only people with a limited number of desktops are going to have a use for this.
"Still decades behind the times. When we're all using Minority Report style interfaces Linux will still require some archaic tactile keyboard or something."
This post was written using one of those archaic keyboards. What did you use to write yours? Did you cut and paste letters from the rest of this page?
This article does indeed aim low. How about telling us more about how it is actually difficult to get even a small distro on old hardware like a P1 or 486 because those machines don't have, or sometimes don't support, enough memory to do an installation. Yes this can be worked around, and that is the kind of information that is suitable for an IT site. Also, how about some of the subtleties like how Ubuntu is in danger of becoming MS dependent through it's use of mono, and why one might want to chose Kubuntu instead? That is a discussion worthy of El Reg readers.
Good article. Wrong site.
It's clear that there is a problem with the system the way it stands, but I really don't want "law enforcement" to be fixing it. That's almost guaranteed to make things worse.
As it stands private people are putting up their home addresses and home telephone numbers for all to see. That is wrong. Actually, to have either of those as a requirement is discriminatory to my way of thinking. Certainly to force people to buy a telephone subscription which they might not otherwise need (at ~$40 per month), is wrong.
At least in this country, one can get a passport or drivers licence without being forced to make your personal information public or get a phone . Why should a domain name rank higher than those?
To me this has only a little to do with privacy. Letting web sites know what you were searching on is a very bad idea because some of them will modify their content accordingly. As long as we have that kind of sleazy behaviour, it is a good idea to block referrers. It will help keep websites honest.
On the other hand, I'm not sure that Google particularly cares how I feel about that. Since they will have this information and web masters won't, could they be planning to sell it? Either way, I win.
"Actually, I did think of the idea years ago. I dismissed it. Why? Simple. It will offer little, if any, boost to security."
And I guess you think that the purpose is to boost security? Very funny. Blocking referrer data is where this is at. I am looking forward to not having my time wasted by fake pages customized with my search terms.
"For some reason, everybody seems to take it for granted. Like maybe other people do this every time they walk the dog. Do they? What am I missing?"
In my case the answer is simple: I don't have a dog. However, I suspect Google doesn't either, so it's even more mysterious. :)
Seriously: No, it is not normal to collect information on private networks, especially by someone who has the ability to correlate this with other information about the people involved. A private person doing this would probably get thrown in the clink. I think Google just wants to collect as much information on people as possible. They'll go as far as they can get away with.