* Posts by RyokuMas

1913 publicly visible posts • joined 29 Oct 2009

Windows Fall Creators Update is here: What do you want first – bad news or good news?

RyokuMas
Facepalm

Re: Start menu

You can lead a zealot to a decision but you can't make him think...

So the 'Year of Linux' never happened. When is it Chrome OS's turn?

RyokuMas
Facepalm

That's like Jeremy Corbyn saying he's won the election...

Google isn't saying Microsoft security sucks but Chrome for Windows has its own antivirus

RyokuMas
Trollface

Viruses... and what else?

Hmmm, so Google is adding something to Chrome that removes "unwanted software" - something that "scans for and cleans potentially harmful applications, specifically the types that negatively impact or target the Chrome browsing experience"

"Unwanted" - by whom, exactly? I know I don't want malware on my PC, but this doesn't specifically state "malware". I don't want software that enables Google (or anyone else) to track me on my PC - will it remove that? I somehow doubt it...

This is typical Google - the front is "we're helping! we're making things better for you!" - but it reality, they are merely tightening their grip over controlling what we see. Not to long ago, we had Google's adblocker, and before that blocking for sites that prompt app installation...

This creeping censorship needs to be stopped, right now. And the only way this will be achieved is to completely separate the various concerns that Google, sorry, Alphabet currently control - just as Microsoft before them were forced to display alternatives to Internet Explorer, so Google search should have to clearly label their own products in search results and present alternatives with the same prominence on the results page - no more "Upgrade your browsing experience!" calls to action at the head of the results page (probably the primary reason why Chrome now leads the browser market share).

Microsoft's control of the desktop is probably the greatest obstacle Google have right now, as when using a PC, the vast majority of people still have to go through a Microsoft product to use a Google one, hence Google's ongoing aggressive efforts to discredit Microsoft, (as opposed to getting their own house in order) - personally, I would not be surprised if the 90-day limit had its roots in anti-competition laws, and Google would be all too willing to disclose earlier if they thought they could get away with it.

They must be laughing their arses off at all the commentards in whose grudges are so deep-rooted that they cannot see what is going on right under their noses...

Argh, my loafer just fell down the rope ladder! Yes, I'm in the Microsoft treehouse

RyokuMas
Facepalm

Re: Fresh air won't fix pissing your Integrity away

"But you won't ever be Facebook or Google Microsoft!"

Thank goodness for that. At least Microsoft started out as a software business rather than an advertising/data collecting business...

Kubernetes has won. Docker Enterprise Edition will support rival container-wrangling tech

RyokuMas
Devil

Oh, what a surprise...

Go to Google and search for "docker container orchestration" - every single link above the fold is "kubernetes".

Go to bing or duckduckgo, and it's a mixture of docker, github and "what are containers" - basically, the same links that appear below the fold on Google...

Yet another example the ghoul abusing its dominant position in search to undermine the competition.

The Google Home Mini: Great, right up until you want to smash it in fury

RyokuMas
Devil

... and the more they can force you to talk, the more data they can gather...

Android ransomware DoubleLocker encrypts data and changes PINs

RyokuMas
Facepalm

Better they are reported now than after it has been re-engineered in such a way that it can circumvent Play Store security.

It's very embarrassing how some people either have their heads stuck in the sand over potential security issues... or is this a case of attempted reputation damage limitation?

It's Patch Blues-day: Bad October Windows updates trigger BSODs

RyokuMas
Facepalm

Deja vu...

Another week, another cocked-up patch...

Every time I read this sort of thing, I wonder just how much downtime it would take to find equivalent tools and get up to speed on a non-windows OS...

Q. Why's Oracle so two-faced over open source? A. Moolah, wonga, dosh

RyokuMas
Mushroom

Simples...

Oracle are doing this all wrong - they need to embrace open source...

... literally. Take what they need from open source, contribute to it and wrap it up in a bunch of proprietary support systems so tightly it's almost impossible to decouple without massive functionality loss.

Hackers nick $60m from Taiwanese bank in tailored SWIFT attack

RyokuMas
Facepalm

Re: Patsy

I'd like to agree, but in my experience, people really are that stupid.

How many times can Microsoft kill Mobile?

RyokuMas
Facepalm

Re: Microsoft is trying very hard to kill itself.

"You only have to look at a current Chromebook to see the future..."

... and yet these are exactly the same people who are bitching about Win10 telemetry. Google's entire business is based on spying on us, it has been pretty much since day one! And people are blindly accepting it! Not even Microsoft achieved that!

Wake up!

Video games used to be an escape. Now not even they are safe from ads

RyokuMas
Facepalm

Welcome to the race to the bottom!

"Of the top 30 games on Google Play, 27 apps contained ads and the same number contained in-app purchases. All were free to download and targeted casual gamers."

When faced with this sort of attitude, coupled with an ever-increasing demand for content, is it really such a surprise that game devs are turning to ads to get a return for their hard graft?

Ultimately, it's up to the consumers to reverse this situation - but when even the biggest names in game development get shot down for trying to use the free-trial-paid-full-game model, it does not bode well for the future.

Microsoft's foray into phones was a bumbling, half-hearted fiasco, and Nadella always knew it

RyokuMas
Facepalm

Lack of "cool"...

Ten years ago, in the pre-iPhone/Android days, Windows Mobile was "the most popular smartphone software in the US"... but it was still Microsoft; it wan't cool.

Had Microsoft done the same thing as they had in the console market and dropped the "Windows" branding, they might have had a better chance... but I guess that was far too sensible an idea.

Moon trumps Mars in new US space policy

RyokuMas
Joke

Law of averages...

"Re-establishing the Council was a Trump policy."

Well, I guess with the sheer volume of shit policies, there had to be a decent one in there somewhere!

FCC gives Google's broadband balloons 'experimental license' in Puerto Rico

RyokuMas

Re: Uh oh

While I the only thing I trust Google to do is be dishonest, I can see a small amount of merit in this project, given the current environment...

(Yep, this link has "anti-adblocker" measures on it, but they're easy to disable).

Dumb bug of the week: Apple's macOS reveals your encrypted drive's password in the hint box

RyokuMas
Facepalm

You couldn't make it up...

2017 in review:

Microsoft: Hey, we didn't validate our update before rolling it out - top that!

Google: That's nothing - we released the latest version of our mobile OS with a bug that eats all your data - top that!

Apple: Hold my beer...

DeepMind now has an ethics unit – which may have helped when it ate 1.6m NHS patient details

RyokuMas
Stop

"At DeepMind, we start from the premise that all AI applications should remain under meaningful human Google's control, and be used for socially beneficial purposes gathering the greatest volume of data possible. We'll buy our way out of any trouble later."

TFTFY

Man with 74 convictions refused permission to fling sueball at Google

RyokuMas
Devil

Re: Google Uk does not blah blah

Of course Google UK does not own Google Search - otherwise they'd have to pay UK tax

Patch your Android, peeps, it has up to 14 nasty flaws to flog

RyokuMas
Big Brother

Re: And people mock me

"Maybe, just maybe, Apple is better at security?"

Oh no no no no no. You just can't say stuff round here. Repeat the mantra after me:

"Open - good, walled garden - bad. Open - good, walled garden - bad."

Ignore the fact that "Open" these days means "closely tied in with a suite of proprietary support systems that it is almost impossible to operate without."

Conform.

Microsoft gives all staff a marked-up 'Employee Edition' of Satya Nadella's new book

RyokuMas
Joke

Wobbly table?

Nerf that - my insomnia's been playing up something rotten these last few weeks, this sounds like a cure!

'Alexa, play Charlie Bit My Finger.' I can't do that, Dave. No, really

RyokuMas
Facepalm

Re: Deja vu...

"For the video creator..."

If Youtube were an channel created by Google and contained exclusively content that Google had paid for the use of or commissioned themselves then yes, I would agree.

But it's not - anyone and their mother can load up a video to Youtube.

It would be like if a hosting company started making PCs, then turned round to everyone whose site was hosted on their servers and said "Oh, we're only going to be serving your sites to people using the PCs we've made from now on". Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it?

RyokuMas
Devil

Deja vu...

I'm sure we've seen this behaviour from Google before...

Not that Google would buy out the front-runner of a service, push it to the top of their search results, then once it has the lions share of the market, pull its availability from competitors in other arenas.

Feels a lot like tying to me...

Google's pay-to-play 'remedy' is warming Eurocrats' hearts

RyokuMas
Boffin

Re: How about..

"FoundEm & all the other price comparison sites develop their own search engine and make it better than Google"

That's like saying "How about Google develop their own desktop OS and make it better than Windows".

Whether or not Windows is better than Chrome OS is a matter of personal belief and irrelevant - Windows is deeply entrenched in enterprise by virtue of a massive land-grab early on, and to replace it will require changing the minds of those who are used to Windows (this probably explains Google's decision to target the education market - the "hook 'em while they're young" strategy).

Similarly, Google has made the same sort of landgrab in web search - having the best search engine at the time was vital, but ultimately by marketing themselves as the good guys ("Don't be evil") at a time when the dominant Microsoft were being torn a new one over bundling IE, they won the hearts and minds of the devs. Microsoft then missed the boat with the web as a whole, and now we have reached the point where we no longer "search the web" for something - we "google" it.

By controlling search, Google effectively control discoverability and marketing of pretty much anything on the web - their Chrome browser being a prime example. Do you think for one moment that Google will allow a competing service to make any kind of headway in winning over it audience?

Short of some kind of large-scale legal injunction, on a similar level as this one for price comparison, Google will maintain their stranglehold on web search, just as Microsoft continues to have dominance over the desktop OS market. And even then, the chances are if offered a choice of search engine in the same way Microsoft were forced to offer a choice of browser, most people would choose Google as it is what they are used to - just as they did with Internet Explorer post-browser-wars, until Google started splashing "upgrade your browser" links to Chrome all over their search pages.

RyokuMas
Facepalm

Meet the new evil, same as the old evil...

So basically, Google shopping - being a "separate entity" - can bid on the slots for Google search page.

... except that Alphabet, parent to the both of these, is one of the top five most profitable companies in the world, with several billion at its disposal to invest in any of its child companies.

Yeah, any competitor to Google shopping is really going to be able to outbid that. And - as previously pointed out - potentially another way to avoid tax.

Google's capacity for evil seems to be rivalled only by the EU admin's capacity to be really stupid.

The power JavaScript: 'Gandalf of JS' Wirfs-Brock on ECMAscript 2017

RyokuMas
Childcatcher

Gandalf of JS

So basically, you're saying that you need to be some kind of amazing wizard in order to learn Javascript?

Welcome to the future: Bluetooth jackets you can only wash 10 times. Gee, thanks, Google

RyokuMas
Coat

Hmmm...

I guess by cross referencing the position of your Android phone against that of your jacket, Google can harvest data on how much you feel the cold and try and sell you thermal underwear...

Bing fling sting: Apple dumps Microsoft search engine for Google

RyokuMas
FAIL

So much for precedent...

Given the furore over default browsers about a decade and a half ago, surely the "correct" behaviour in this instance - and indeed for whenever any browser is first started - would be to put up a page with Bing, Google, Duck Duck Go et. al. all presented in a random order and ask the user to select which one they want to make their default search engine?

Either we have forgotten the past or we're so stuck in it we can't see what is happening out there.

The new monopoly rolls on...

iPhone 8: Apple has CPU cycles to burn

RyokuMas
Joke

"I don't think he's feeling at all well"

If he's feeling unwell, I hate to imagine how certain commentards who are all to quick to question what the iPhone's cosmetics may be inspired by must be feeling...

AI in Medicine? It's back to the future, Dr Watson

RyokuMas
Trollface

Not enough data...

"... especially in domains such as medicine, where there is a large and increasing body of factual information."

In short, they did not illegallyinappropriately obtain more data?

Want to keep in contact with friends and family without having to sell your personal data?

RyokuMas
FAIL

What's on the other end?

Remember when the whole thing about Google reading you emails? Just because the person you needed to email had been suckered into signing up to a gmail account, your emails were on Google's radar with no consent?

Yeah.

Video chat with a smartphone on the other end? A smartphone app to control it? Playing Youtube videos?

'Nuff said.

Want to get around app whitelists by pretending to be Microsoft? Of course you can...

RyokuMas
Facepalm

Wow...

There's a way round Microsoft's app security process? I guess they're just copying Google again...

Microsoft reveals details of flagship London store within spitting distance from Apple's

RyokuMas
Coat

Does this means...

That there will be public viewings for their oh-so-frequent self-inflicted gun-related foot injuries?

RyokuMas
Trollface

Re: Homage to Red Dwarf

To be fair, the actual quote is " "Androids, everybody needs good Androids..."

... since stalking is nasty and a criminal offence, I'm still waiting to see one of these mythical "good" Androids...

Google blows $1.1bn to hire HTC's Pixel people, forming one big happy handset team

RyokuMas
Devil

bricks and mortar shops full of "geniuses".

They won't need them - all they'll do is splat a great big link on their search homepage and results page with a call to action along the lines of "Why not upgrade your mobile device experience today?", just like they did to make Chrome the #1 browser.

Hell, they'd probably "update" Chrome with the sole purpose of putting such a link somewhere on it so if Chrome's your browser of choice (ie: either your a web dev or you got taken in by the aforementioned links), you're seeing the advert every time you start your browser - especially on the mobile version when running on a competitor's device.

Then ordering will be just a couple of clicks, a name and address, a credit card number and a checkbox at next to a T&Cs link that nobody will read but contains clauses to allow Google to do what they damn well please with the device, the OS and any data they gather on you from any source, from now until the end of time.

RyokuMas
Devil

Embrace, extend...

"Google... wants a pure-play GooglePhone it completely controls."

And so the end goal is now openly on the table - Google controlled hardware running an OS that is supposedly "open", but whose major contributor is in fact Google, and is so tightly coupled to Google's own 3rd party components that it is practically proprietary. And marketed at every opportunity on Google's web search.

All they need to do now is introduce a range of low-cost Pixel phones to undercut prices and slowly run their competitors out of business. And, of course, any court cases of anti-competitive behaviour (predatory pricing, search abuse) could be dragged out long enough so as not to make any difference.

Downvote if you like - but personally, the idea of the vast majority of public electronic communication being controlled by a single entity that's sole purpose is to profile you as closely as possible and doesn't mind playing fast and loose with the law (NHS records, monopoly abuse, stolen wifi details etc) fills me with dread.

You lost your ballpoint pen, Slack? Why's your Linux version unsigned?

RyokuMas
Trollface

To quote...

... (or at least paraphrase) a lot of the commentards' response to anything when Windows Phone was still a thing:

"Why worry? It's only 3% of the market!"

Top video game dev nerve-center Unity can now be used to train AI

RyokuMas
Facepalm

Interesting...

I'll be very interested in seeing what the uptake is on this - from my experience, Unity is the most popular because any idiot can download a bunch of assets and hack together a load of copy-pasted code - or worse, reskin a "complete game" asset and try to pass it off as their own work - and float their abomonation on whatever store in the utterly misguided belief that they are going to get rich.

"Birdy Flap out now on Android and iOS - now with Machine Learning!"

Google India launches payment service that sends money as sound

RyokuMas
Facepalm

Sounds about as secure as the Play store's ability to keep malware out. I'll pass, thanks.

Microsoft's AI is so good it steered Renault into bottom of the F1 league

RyokuMas
Facepalm

You couldn't make it up...

a seventh-place start is "pole position in our world"

Life shot Microsoft in the foot... so they went and used a bazooka on the other one.

RyokuMas
Trollface

Re: Not for the first time

Gosh, another five-year old link in a desperate attempt to give an otherwise unrelated article from last month some relevance...

How very Eadon of you.

Back under your bridge.

RyokuMas
Paris Hilton

Re: Results speak for themselves.

"I believe that is being slightly unfair on Microsoft."

Par the course for El Reg forums, I'm afraid - there's still a lot of people here who are stuck in the browser wars, and another handful in Google's pocket...

Linux 4.14 'getting very core new functionality' says Linus Torvalds

RyokuMas
Meh

Re: @Geoffrey W

Geoffrey W - I can identify entirely. I started writing programs back in the 8-bit days, when you could just switch on your machine and start typing. My interest in computers is what I can create - I don't want to spend ages trying trying to cajole a machine to function as the manual says it should.

This is one of the reasons why I've never really gotten into Linux - admittedly my experiences are a few years out of date now, but whenever I have tried in past to set up a PC to run Linux, I have invariably ended up with a very expensive doorstop. So while I am no great fan of Microsoft - or any giant IT-derived company, for that matter - Windows has always done the trick for me: I buy the PC, I install the tools I need, I fire them up and I'm working.

Now if there's something I can download onto a USB which I can then boot from and install Linux with only a few mouse clicks/keystrokes, I'll hold my hands up and admit my ignorance of how things are now. But given my income and budget, I'll need some convincing, as the aforementioned expensive doorstops have gone a long way to put me off.

Sacre bleu! Apple's high price, marginal gain iPhone strategy leaves it stuck in the mud

RyokuMas
Joke

Re: £1,149

In other news, Apple have made giant strides in proving that you can in fact milk a sheep...

Windows 10 Creators Update will add app-level privacy controls

RyokuMas
Unhappy

Re: W10 spyware

Ah, the difference here is in the packaging: Microsoft came into this with a history, and have a notable talent for shooting themselves in the foot when it comes to marketing etc, the pop-up with no close button and options updating to Windows 10 "now" or "later" being probably the most relevant here. The fact that compared to the big players, Microsoft's tracking prior to Win10 was pretty minimal is irrelevant.

Whereas Google have a talent for painting themselves as heroes while sliding their nastiness in on the quiet - under the guise of "free stuff" and "improving your experience", they have pretty much taken control of what is now the worlds #1 mobile operating system, abused their early success in web search to take the majority share of the browser market and attempted to undermine their competitors in other markets, and introduced more ways to track and spy on our every move than I care to imagine.

It seems we are doomed to be in a race to the bottom for the crown of "most evil"...

Government lab that gives a crap pushes open source

RyokuMas
Joke

I guess it's because cows don't care about I.P....

Samsung mobile launches bug bounty program

RyokuMas
Trollface

The biggest bug...

Here's a fix for the worst bug on Samsung mobiles, can I have my bounty please?!

'Don't Google Google, Googling Google is wrong', says Google

RyokuMas
Big Brother

Timeline...

2017: "Googling Google is wrong"

2020: "You will not Google Google"

2022: "Documents instructing to 'Google Google' will not be indexed"

...

Apple: Our stores are your 'town square' and a $1,000 iPhone is your 'future'

RyokuMas
FAIL

Re: These "new" iPhones

"where do they get their ideas from?"

Public domain, perhaps?

Five ways Apple can fix the iPhone, but won't

RyokuMas
Happy

Re: Headphone Jack Please

In that case, try this...

Google to kill Symantec certs in Chrome 66, due in early 2018

RyokuMas
Trollface

Re: Old certs surely?

"If you think something's expired when it has a year to go then yeah....."

Assuming that cert lifespan is always three years and purchase/renewal rate is reasonably constant, by the law of averages around 66% of certs currently in use will have expired by the time this comes into effect - that's a more solid "most" than the Brexit result...