As Doctor Syntax wrote, "Much worse is the growing habit of web sites checking the browser and refusing to play if it isn't one of their favoured ones...". Even some operating systems, read mictosoft windows, are written to use one particular browser. With the umpteen thousand security patches mictosoft has had to push out I wouldn't trust anything out of Redmond for use on the internet.
Posts by Kev99
952 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Sep 2010
Europe wants easy default browser selection screens. Mozilla is already sounding the alarm on dirty tricks
Google on trial: Feds challenge deals that set your web search defaults
Lawsuit claims Google Maps led dad of two over collapsed bridge to his death

Did the local street department post signs the bridge was out? Was the driver in command of his faculties at the time of the accident? Was he wearing proper restraints? What was his speed? Did this occur during daylight or night time hours? Was this a properly dedicated roadway or a private lane? In most states, landowner are not liable for the condition of private lanes unless they are a recognised highway. Just some of the counter claims Google et al will probably raise.
Scientists suggest possible solution to space-induced bone loss
So what if China has 7nm chips now, there's no Huawei it can make them 'at scale'

The powers that be have conveniently ignored that China got its start in making semiconductors because the US industry was too stinking cheap and concerned about hitting quarterly earnings target set by Wall Street. This has been true ever since US manufacturers decided their stock price was more important than sustainability or giving aid and comfort to possible adversaries.
The Clorox Company admits cyberattack causing 'widescale disruption'

Yup, let's put our business critical, confidential, proprietary, private data out on the 'net (a bunch of holes held together with string) or the cloud (a bunch of holes held together by vapor). IT's perfectly safe. We don't need 256 bit or better encryptions, two factor authentication.What could possibly go wrong?
Airbus takes its long, thin, plane on a ten-day test campaign
When does tackling pandemic misinfo become censorship? US courts argue it out
US amends hypersonic weapons strategy: If you can't zoom with 'em, boom 'em
Local governments aren't businesses – so why are they force-fed business software?

I worked in the fiscal office of a large county when the county welfare department "tried" to install Oracle to manage its fiscal operations and caseloads. When I retired a few years later the implementation was still ongoing, it still could not "talk" to our fiscal software without special interfaces that had to be hand coded for each connection, and had become a branch of Oracle University with all the programmers who came in, got trained, and then left for other jobs. This "failure to communicate" was quite a pleasant experience for the people in that department when payday came around.
Bombshell biography: Fearing nuclear war, Musk blocked Starlink to stymie Ukraine attack on Russia
Linux distros drop their feelgood hits of the summer
You patched yet? Years-old Microsoft security holes still hot targets for cyber-crooks

Re: Windows targeted only because it's more popular?
Windows broad user base is a direct result of mictosoft's marketing practices that have basically strong armed computer makers into bundling mictosoft products in their kit. Then the software sycophants make their code comply with what mictosoft dictates with little to no regard to oerability with existing hardware.

"...15 of the 20 most-exploited software vulnerabilities it has observed are in Microsoft's code." Is that all? Considering mictosoft's record of foisting buggy software that requires hundreds of fixes every year and an apparent total lack of quality control and testing, I'm surprised it's not 20 of 20.
Scientists turn to mid-20th century tech for low-power underwater comms
Toyota servers ran out of storage, crashed production at 14 plants in Japan
ArcaOS 5.1 gives vintage OS/2 a UEFI facelift for the 21st century
How to ask Facebook's Meta to not train its AI models on some of your personal info

I requested and here's Zuck's response -
Thank you for contacting us.
We don’t automatically fulfill requests and we review them consistent with your local laws.
If you want to learn more about generative AI, and our privacy work in this new space, please review the information we have in Privacy Center."
In other words, unless you're in California, you're screwed.
Right to repair advocates have a new opponent: Scientologists
BOFH: What a beautiful tinfoil hat, Boss!
Microsoft maybe still dreams of bendy phones, judging from 360° folding screen patent
USENET, the OG social network, rises again like a text-only phoenix

The article on the first commercial spam message is almost identical to the ambulance chasers today saying they'll help Camp Lejuene victims or those claiming to help get the federal compensation relief funds. Both programs are free to access, free to apply, and free to monitor. The ambulance chasers want to get their 40% off the top for doing ten minutes of work.
We all scream for ice cream – so why are McDonald's machines always broken?
US Air Force wants $6B to build 2,000 AI-powered drones
Polishing off a printer with a flourish revealed not to be best practice
Microsoft still prohibits Google or Alibaba from running O365 Windows Apps
Europe's tough new rules for Big Tech start today. Is anyone ready?

It sure seems like a lot of people believe who ever sits behind the "Hayes - Resolute" knows everything that every agency, department bureau and other rabbit holes is doing. Passing information that could result in the deaths of even a handful of people should not be allowed. It ranks right down there with yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater.
Xebian is the Marie Kondo of Linux distros – it's here to declutter
LibreOffice 7.6 arrives: Open source stalwart is showing its maturity

Way back in the Stone Age, I used pfs:Professional Write on DOS and Windows 3.0. The only features in word that it didn't have that I can remember were mail merge and easy envelope printing. Between it, pfs:Publisher and Quatro Pro 4 (which had features in DOS Excel didn't have in windows), I ran our multi-million dollar entity. Most of the features in word and excel are just so much bloat.
Now if I could just get LO to install without throwing repeated 2503/2504 errors.
Space junk targeted for cleanup mission was hit by different space junk, making more space junk
Lockheed's ARRW hypersonic missile: Sometimes it flies, sometimes it just tries
OpenAI's ChatGPT has a left wing bias – at times
Germany to cut Huawei from networks 'irrespective of costs'
Version 5 of the Endless OS enters testing
Microsoft may store your conversations with Bing if you're not an enterprise user
Sparkling fresh updates to Ubuntu, Mint and Zorin on way
Microsoft, Intel lead this month's security fix emissions
Soon the most popular 'real' desktop will be the Linux desktop

Great way to have your data stolen
Like anyone with an gram of grey matter would ever trust to put any of their private, proprietary, confidential, business critical, personal data in the bunch of holes held together with string or vapor. It's bad enough mictosoft's one drive insists on foisting its irritating icon overlays onto all my files even though I'm not now nor have I even been connected to one drive.There's no way on earth I'll let mictosoft have access to my data. If I absolutely need to access my data remotely, I'll either have it on a thumb drive or on my personal, encrypted NAS.
Couple admit they laundered $4B in stolen Bitcoins after Bitfinex super-heist
Japanese boffins slice semiconductors from diamonds – with lasers!
Panasonic liquidates its liquid crystal display business

I wonder if slumping PC sales is a result of buyers realising that yesterday's kit does the job just as well as today's but without the hype and questionable "improvements". Maybe gaining a few nanoseconds in processing speed is important to Fermi Labs but to the vast majority of users they couldn't care less.
GNOME project considers adding window tiling by default
The choice: Pay BT megabucks, or do something a bit illegal. OK, that’s no choice

The article on running cable thru a BT conduit reminded me of an Abbott & Costello movie. They opened a gas station across from another but could match their prices. The discovered the other station had its petrol piped into their tanks. So, A&C dug a tunnel and tapped into the other station's supply pipe.
Intel adds fresh x86 and vector instructions for future chips

Once I ask this question. How does an original chip, be it CPU, GPU. Pi, ARM, or whatever get coded. I can understand how a designer can add registers through modifying the microcode or whatever, but how does the original chip designer get the chip to respond to:
r
PB PC NVmxDIZC .A .X .Y SP DP DB
; 00 E012 00110000 0000 0000 0002 CFFF 0000 00
g 2000
BREAK
And then how does the designer get the mirocode to respond to machine code, and so on.
Too many bytes and not enough bricks for datacenters
GlobalFoundries claims German chip subsidies will 'distort competition'

And how many millions or billions has Global Foundries glommed off the federal, state & local taxpayers? During my 20+ years reviewing tax incentives, very, VERY seldom did the companies coming to us hat-in-hand need the tax break. Such as Ford wanting $125,000 tax break to expand an existing plant when its alternatives were France & Brazil. Or KAO wanting even more to expand its Jergens plant. Personally, for every cent/pence/sen/fen/etc given as tax breaks should be levied as tax at the national level.