Going rogue...
"... which appears to be the default in the subscription service's settings..."
Coded by some rogue lone developer, no doubt...
Posts by RyokuMas
1755 posts • joined 29 Oct 2009
Page:
Publishers signed up to Apple's premium News may be less than 'appy to discover the iGiant snatching readers
Chrome Web Store slammed again after 295 ad-injecting, spammy extensions downloaded 80 million times
Friday 7th August 2020 09:59 GMT 
Maybe I'm thinking too simply...
Hey, how about this, Google: perhaps if you stopped tracking us and forcing ads upon us (often for your own products) at every given opportunity, then maybe fewer people would use ad blockers?
Or - here's a radical idea - only serving ads that are plain text/a static image, that are of a limited number of pixels in size, and positioned on screen in such a way as to not be obtrusive and interrupt the flow of someone using the page??? Come on, I know you've got the page analysis tech to manage it!
... yeah right, who am I kidding. Personally, I think that these "initiatives" of Google are all a smokescreen - they've got their snouts too deep in the trough to really care about this.
University of Cambridge to decommission its homegrown email service Hermes in favour of Microsoft Exchange Online
Tuesday 4th August 2020 13:02 GMT
Re: MS' deep pockets
"A university is not a goddamn business, no such perspective needed."
I guess there was enough of a gap in time between the axing of the grant/introduction of tuition fees and the browser wars for those who were students at the right time to not remember when universities weren't actually a business, but to still develop a chip on their shoulder about Microsoft.
I was lucky enough to be in the penultimate year of the grant - and just escaped tuition fees be the skin of my teeth. I watched the final throes of our higher education system being dismantled and turned into a business - all in the name of "equality".
What the govenments of the time (both Tory and Labour) did to the University system between 1992 and 1998 - now that's the real dishonour and affront to the memory of Turing and co.
Alarming news: ADT to flog Nest smart home kit after Google ploughs $450m into corporate security dinosaur
'I'm telling you, I haven't got an iPad!' – Sent from my iPad
No Google Play, no problem: Huawei pinches global phone sales crown off Samsung
Thursday 30th July 2020 18:52 GMT
Re: @karlkarl - Yes but
"Malware disguised as legit stuff."
As if that doesn't happen with the Google Play Store...
Admittedly, it's been over five years since I threw in the towel and gave mobile gamedev the finger. But back then, a mere $25 was enough to get you lifetime ability to upload to the Play store. And yes, the store's security has improved in that time - but then so have the techniques used by malware developers.
I don't use Android, simply because it is now waaaaay too tightly coupled to Google, no matter how much some might say "but it's open source". But if I did, I'd probably feel more comfortable about sideloading an APK that I have downloaded from a link on the developer's own site than going via the Play store (although in the particular case linked, the developer has given up and gone in with the store - shame).
Better return for the developer, too...
USA seeks Moon and Mars nuke power plant designs ready to fly in 2027
The W3C steers the way the World Wide Web works. Yet it is reluctant to record crucial meetings – and its minutes are incomplete
Wednesday 22nd July 2020 12:15 GMT 
Hmmm.... interesting
"... another Googler, Chrome developer advocate Yoav Weiss, made the case for the benefits of recordings..."
The immediate snark instinct here is to go with "... and then was promptly fired by Google". But looking a bit deeper:
- This lack of accurate records potentially could impact the integrity of the W3C
- Google's representatives are advocating that meetings should be recorded, with a preference for accuracy
So in this instance, the W3C look bad, but Google look good. The same Google who have a vested interest in controlling what we see on the web and how we see it (insert usual links regarding AMP, ad "blocking", censored browsers for China, etc). The same Google who have always used "user security and convenience" as a cover for adding yet more tracking and profiling.
I'm willing to bet that Google would love to see the W3C undermined - without a cohesive forum for the creation and ratification of standards, it would be childs play for them to effectively lobby and use their market position in search, browser, mobile OS, video etc. to put themselves in a place where they can dictate the "standards" of the web, and rest of the world would have to bend over and accept it.
Heck, it's practically happening now: ladies and gentlemen, I give you Chromium-based Edge by Microsoft.
And having a private company trying to dictate how everything should be done worked soooo well in past. IE6, I'm looking at you...
Sick of AI engines scraping your pics for facial recognition? Here's a way to Fawkes them right up
China successfully launches Mars probe that packs an orbiter, lander, rover
Only EU can help us, pleads Slack as it slings competition complaint against Microsoft Teams
Thursday 23rd July 2020 07:45 GMT
Not exactly surprising reading...
So someone sues Microsoft and immediately we have the usual accusations of "monopoly abuse" being flung about...
Personally, I hate the idea of monopolies... politics and everything else aside, they create an environment that is hostile to innovation - IE6, I'm looking at you here! But having made the jump from Slack to Teams (thanks to a buy-out and corporate decision), I have to agree that Slack simply did not offer the facilities a lot of people required in order to operate in the COVID-19 environment at a competing price.
Whether that was a deliberate decision, or that they have no choice due to their size versus the of Microsoft is not really relevant here; as I established some time ago when I was still making mobile games and apps, unless there is some killer feature they require, people will always go for what is cheapest. Zoom is proof enough of this - free video conferencing at just the time it was needed most have definitely pushed it into a "king" position, and (as far as I'm aware) there's no word of them suing Microsoft for anti-competitive behaviour.
Yes, I fully acknowledge that Microsoft have previously exhibited very dubious practices, and indeed continue to do so - while I loathe the way privacy has become part and parcel of life on the web, to bake it into an actual operating system is an entirely different level of evil - but in this instance, I can't help but think that this boils down to sour grapes on the part of Slack.
And as for all those commenting on here about monopoly abuse... how many of you own Android phones and use the browser that came bundled with the phone when you got it? Just sayin'...
Honey, I built the app! Amazon's beta no-code dev platform is great for ad-hoc stuff, but not much else – yet
Friday 26th June 2020 09:59 GMT 
In a salesman's dreams...
"Low or no-code app development is touted... as a solution to the shortage of developers and the backlog of enterprise applications."
And why, pray tell, is there this shortage and backlog? Because so many of us devs are tied up with maintenance of legacy apps built with the wrong tooling, often by the wrong people for the job, and based on piss-poor/cheapest option decisions made by people who wouldn't know a line of code even if it hit them over the head then dances round them singing "I'm a line of code"!!!
#doneranting
Indonesia’s capital city is literally sinking. Google just opened a new cloud region there anyway
Google and Parallels bring Windows apps to Chromebooks, in parallel with VMware and Citrix
Thursday 18th June 2020 08:14 GMT
Re: Chromebooks are a breeze . . .
Easy to deploy, easy to administer, cheap & no BSOD headaches like you get with a Windows laptop - can't understand why more don't use them.
Wow, almost a direct quote from the (usually unskippable) Chromebook ads that periodically seem to latch themselves onto the start of Youtube vids... hey, maybe if the Aussies can set a long overdue prescedent, some of Google's other leverages might get questioned too...
... but I digress.
Chromebooks may "not BSOD" and "not have viruses", but I'm willing to bet that they'll have their fair share of niggles, especially if they start picking up a significant market share.
Similarly, this idea of "no viruses" is a fantasy - unless qualified with " - yet" on the end. Again, if/when Chromebooks get to a significant share of the market, they will inveitably become worthwhile targets for black-hatters to try and break into - after all, the #1 infection vector these days is convicing the end user to click a link or perform some other action, so it is inevitable that someone will find a way to exploit Chromebooks.
Personally, I always advise people to stay away from Chromebooks... call me old fashioned, but I come from an era when there was this thing called "privacy". And I sure as hell am not going to recommend a machine - or any other hardware or software - made by a company whose business model is built around gathering people's data.
It looks like you want to browse the internet with Chrome. Would you like help? Maybe try Edge? Please?
Tuesday 16th June 2020 07:29 GMT
To be fair...
"Having installed Chrome following the clean install, typing "Chrome" into the search box brought up the required application as well as a recommendation for the also-installed Microsoft Edge.
To be fair, think back to when Chrome first launched - if you weren't already using it, there would be a "recommendation" ("download Chrome for faster, more secure browsing!") at the top of the Google search results page, regardless of what you were searching for... and given that this was back when the vast majority of people (even in IT) still bought into the "dont's be evil" BS, it's no wonder that Chrome suddenly grabbed to highest market share - it's tantamount to Microsoft leveraging Windows to detect whenever any web browser is started and sticking a great big "Use Edge!" message up.
To only pop something in Edge when someone searches for Chrome is pretty small potatoes by comparison, really...
Pixel perfect: 2019 was best year yet for Google's mobile hardware biz, says analyst
GnuTLS patches huge security hole that hung around for two years – worse than Heartbleed, says Google cryptoboffin
Not just its VCS console that's MIA, Atari is a no-show in court, too: Reborn biz ignores hardware architect's lawsuit over unpaid wages
Nice wallpaper you've got there. It would be a shame if it bricked your phone
They've only gone and bloody done it! NASA, SpaceX send two fellas off to the International Space Station
The longest card game in the world: Microsoft Solitaire is 30
Friday 22nd May 2020 14:06 GMT 
... because someone had to...
LOOK at that FLATTY MCFLATSO INTERFACE! We should ALL go BACK to using ASCII CHARACTERS!!! Moving AWAY from the CLI is the *WORST* *THING* *EVAAAARRRRRR*!!!! I blame the COMMIES for the GUI!!! ANYONE who DISAGREES is a HOWLER MONKEY!!!!!!!!!!
... eveyone's thinking it. I'm just saying it...
Project Reunion: Microsoft's attempt to tear down all those barriers it's built for Windows developers over the years
Google says it'll pick up the tab – and stick it in a lovely colour-coded Chrome group
Huawei gets misty-eyed for the good old days (of a year ago) with maudlin P30 Pro remaster
Author of infamous Google diversity manifesto drops lawsuit against web giant
Monday 11th May 2020 06:43 GMT
Ran out of money...
"... late last week Damore’s solicitors filed to have his lawsuit against Google dismissed without prejudice..."
What's the betting that he and the other plaintifs in this case can't afford the ongoing legal fees, and have had to do this in order to prevent themselves going bankrupt?
Behold: The ghastly, preening, lesser-spotted Incredible Bullsh*tting Customer
Monday 11th May 2020 06:42 GMT
"Well, that doesn't explain why I got those phone calls"...
The correct response in that case is: "You're absolutely right - but since we have already verified that the photos aren't on the CD, there must be something else going here. I'll need the names and numbers of everyone who called you about this, as it sounds like your machine might have gotten a virus on it somehow, and I'll need to make sure they haven't been infected as well. Oh, and I'll need your browser history too..."
Watch the bullshit machine reverse faster than Boris Johnson's lockdown policy...
Uber, Lyft struck by sue-ball, no, sue-meteorite in California after insisting their apps' drivers aren't employees
Apple-Google COVID-19 virus contact-tracing API to bar location-tracking access
Family meeting! Chocolate Factory makes its business-like video-chat service free to anyone with a Google account
Wednesday 29th April 2020 13:54 GMT
free to anyone with a Google account
... and therein lies the crunch: "Here! Have some free stuff! Just click the 'I agree' box on the EULA, don't worry about scrolling to the bottom! Never mind that we're foremost an advertising business, and our business model is based on grabbing as much information about you as we possibly can..."
Yeah... not on my machine, thank you.
CFOs are crossing fingers and hoping a second wave of COVID-19 does not appear, says Gartner
Wednesday 29th April 2020 08:04 GMT
Re: If the CFO's are worried
If that's how you FEEL Bob, then I suggest you do one of the following:
- Swallow your pride (yeah right, as if that's going to happen) and try a different stack/role - I'm still getting scalper emails for permanent .NET web-dev roles at least twice a week... just' sayin' (again)
- Volunteer at a hospital or mortuary - they could sure use the help and hey, if you end up getting COVID19, well that's just going to help build that good ole herd immunity, right?
- Or, since you've obviously drunk Mr. Trump's kool aid, try drinking - or injecting - something else he suggested.
Like life for a lot of us, Google's 2020 was going relatively fine until March hit. Ad sales nosedive, but yay for cloud and Chromebooks?
Wall Street analyst worries iPhone is facing '2nd recession' after 2019 annus horribilis
Tuesday 28th April 2020 07:01 GMT
Re: "the global pandemic derailed Apple and the rest of the industry"
"... look at how they treated the rest of the world with respect to masks and gloves..."
Kinda like Trump did to Canada?
People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones...
Realme's X50m is a decently specced 5G phone – for the price of a 1995 Nissan Micra
Google productises its own not-a-VPN secure remote access tool
Tuesday 21st April 2020 08:22 GMT
Coming soon to Chrome...
I think I speak for the majority of people on these forums when I say "it'll be a cold day in hell before I run all my web traffic through a Google proxy".
However, I can see a good number of the less tech savvy being taken in when they open Chrome/search on Google, see a great big call-to-action saying "Install BeyondCorp for safer, more secure web browsing!" or somesuch, and immediately clicking that "download & install" button - much the same way the Chrome became the #1 browser.
Again, a prime example of why Google needs to be split up, and all internal / inter-product interations being made publicly visible.
Coronavirus lockdown forces UK retailers to shut 382 million square feet of floor space
Tuesday 21st April 2020 07:25 GMT
You can lead a horse to water
@IGotOut
Hate to say this bud, but however long it took you to type that - well, that's time from your life you ain't getting back. At best you'll be ignored, at worst, you'll be branded a "howler monkey", just like anyone else who doesn't fit with that vision of the world.
Just report the post - I think points 2, 3, 4, 7, and 15 of the comment guidelines are broken on a fairly regular basis by these sort of posts, and with the "howler monkey" responses and everything about the lockdown, I'm also questioning how near the line he is for point 11 too.
Stop worrying – Larry Ellison and Prez Trump will have this whole coronavirus thing licked shortly with the power of data
Wednesday 15th April 2020 08:15 GMT
Re: Salvation from the Devil
"... reflexively JUMP at ANY potential opportunity to VENT..."
I draw your attention to pretty much any post you have made about the current lockdown situation, "modern" UI, current software approaches and methodologies, .NET, Microsoft, etc., etc.
But in particular, about the bottom two thirds of this particular outpouring deserves a special mention - mainly because it was made after your above comment accusing others of venting.
Bob, you are a hypocrite of the first order. Nobody takes your childish name-calling, capitals, underscores, letter substitutions, deliberate mis-spellings and other attempts to draw attention to yourself seriously. Every comment you post in this manner only serves to undermine your credibility.
In short, you have become the "howler monkey" you are so quick to accuse your downvoters of being.
I hope for your sake that you do not persist this behaviour across the rest of the internet where potential employers may see it, otherwise I would believe that COVID-19 would be far less impacting on your chances of obtaining further contracts than the damage you are inflicting upon your own image.
I feel sorry for you.
April 2020 and – rest assured – your Windows PC can still be pwned by something so innocuous as an unruly font
Wednesday 15th April 2020 07:50 GMT
Re: An attacker could also embed an ActiveX control marked 'safe for initialization'
For the same reason your "beloved" Win32 is still out there, Bob - because some organisations are either too scared to upgrade, or do not see any profit in replacing something that "works for them", even if it is a security concern.
You know, it's basically prioritising money above safety - kind of like your attitude towards COVID-19.
Suspicious senate stock sale spurt spurs scrutiny scheme: This website tracks which shares US senators are unloading mid-pandemic
Tuesday 14th April 2020 07:01 GMT
Re: How long before his site is DoS'd or forced to be taken down?
"we're ready for it anyway, at least here in the USA, with medications, extra hospital beds, and an emergency supply line for hospital supplies"
So are you going to be turning away people to die if they don't have adequate health insurance, or are you going to be just treating them but putting them and their families into debt for the next three generations?
French monopoly watchdog orders Google to talk payment terms with French publishers
Tuesday 14th April 2020 06:58 GMT
Re: The consequences are simple
" There's nothing to stop them indexing their own material..."
Quite so. However, given that we are now in a state where the very word "Google" is used in common parlance as a verb meaning "to search on the internet", what do you think the chances would be of such a rival search engine gaining any significant traction?
Google has land-grabbed its way to the top in search - and quite rightly so at the time, since when this happened, it was easily the best search engine out there. The issue here is that the power that such a position provided was not recognised until it was too late. For example, one of the biggest (if not the single biggest) reasons that Chrome is currently the number one browser is because Google plastered their search pages with calls to action stating to "download Chrome for a better browsing experience".
Somehow, I doubt Google would willingly list such a rival search engine on their browser. Same with Android, and I would not be surprised if a swathe of Youtube ads hit to promote Google search in this event as well.
Then there's perception to consider - despite the fact that a lot of us tech-savvy have wised up to Google (the vote-counts from five years ago compared to now are an interesting read!), a lot of the average public still consider Google as go-to and gold standard. So if this new search engine started offering "different results" to Google, chances are that people would not think it as good.
Lastly, it's not just search that such an engine would need to crack - it's analytics as well. An entire industry - SEO - has grown up around reading the site data provided by Google and trying to second-guess what Google will do next. Have you ever heard anyone worrying about their Duck Duck Go ranking? A new search engine would have to offer data similar to Google analytics in order to enable SEO, and then become significant quickly enough to create the disruption required to break into the market.
So yes, someone else could create their own search engine and deny Google their content. But they would also have to win the hearts and minds of the users, and given how deeply Google is entrenched in our lives (Search, Chrome, Analytics, Youtube, Android, Nest, Gmail, Maps, etc., etc.), this would be not so much an uphill battle but like attempting to climb a near vertical ice-sheet without crampons.
Who's essential right now? Medicos, of course. Food producers, natch. And in Singapore social media workers have made the list
Thursday 9th April 2020 07:21 GMT
Re: shutdowns are EXCESSIVE - just be ready to treat people
"SHUTTING DOWN THE ECONOMIES - *RIDICULOUS*"
Some pretty strong FEELINGS there, Bob! Good job feelings are irrelevant, eh?
Here's something to THINK about: The UK coronavirus strategy was initially for herd immunity. It did an abrupt u-turn and went into lockdown when it was pointed out that between quarter and half a million people would die - not because their situation made them any more or less vulnerable than anyone else, but because the health service would be unable to cope with the sheer numbers.
This is not feelings - this is facts: there are only so many hospital beds available. If more people are sick with a potentially fatal illness than there are hospital beds then someone has to be left to take their chances and possibly die - someone who, with the proper care and treatment - may well have survived and (since you seem to worship the almighty dollar) continued contributing to the economy.
Ramp that up to the quarter to half million fatalities in the UK alone that were calculated from the herd immunity strategy, and that's a lot of people.
The lockdown is not about preventing people getting this illness - until we do have herd immunity, it's pretty much inevitable. It's about preventing the health services from collapsing under the strain - the whole "flattening the curve" thing. After all, the more staff there are treating coronavirus cases, the greater the exposure rate and therefore the greater number of those vital staff having to take time off to recover - or worse, being lost to this disease.
And given your overall attitude, I'd be willing to be that if you ended up with coronavirus, but were unable to see a doctor, you would be the first one to start whining about it, probably with various cases of "how healthcare was better in the old days".
If you really want to contribute to the situation, I suggest that - since you have the time to spare - you volunteer in a hospital or a morgue or something (I would suggest the latter, if your bedside manner is anything like your comments on here). That way, instead of bemoaning the situation, you can actually make a difference and hey! if you're lucky, you might even get coronavirus yourself and start contributing to that "herd immunity" you keep citing as a valid reason to put people at risk (in which case, hope your health insurance is up to date)!
Maybe having to deal with it yourself - possibly (if it's severe enough to cause you to question your own mortality*) you might actually realise people are losing loved ones left, right and centre.
Tell me - how would you FEEL if you lost a family member?
Oh, that's right - feelings are irrelevant.
Microsoft prevents Domain of Danger from falling into miscreants' paws by forking out cash for corp.com
Commit to Android codebase suggests Google may strong-arm phone makers into using 'seamless' partitioned updates
Wednesday 8th April 2020 16:57 GMT
Hardly surprising...
People have been predicting this for years. After all, this way Google can ensure that everyone is dancing to their tune and not blocking the release of their latest products/version while singing their usual song about "ensuring a better/more secure experience for the end user"...
Asleep at the wheel: Why did it take 5 HOURS for Microsoft to acknowledge an Azure DevOps TITSUP*?
Revenues up, taxes down: Google UK reports its slice of the Chocolate Factory pie
Tuesday 7th April 2020 15:18 GMT
Re: And yet another tax fiddle
"Amazingly the tax man in the UK is hounding every little one man show and trying to grab tax off him..."
Of course - take a "big boy" to court over tax and you're in for months - if not years - of legal pissing contest, of appeal and counter appeal as the lawyers from both sides try every loophole under the sun to win their case... with the only real winners being the lawyers and the losers being the taxpayers who have paid the tax man's costs.
Whereas a small fry - well, he's not got the money for an extended legal battle, so he's either gonna roll over or go bankrupt.
It's exactly the same principle as the big boys suing the small fry for infringement of copyrights, patents, trademarks etc.
Tuesday 7th April 2020 15:13 GMT
Re: "We are in this together..."
Sensible choice of browser (ie: not Chrome) and search engine (no prizes here), plus a decent array of ad and tracker-blockers should see you right.
Of course, if you're browsing on mobile, your either a bit stuffed or completely buggered, dependent on your choice of OS.
