Posts by gzgweilo 28 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Mar 2013
<and the not entirely ethical blocking some ads and replacing them with Braves own ad network.>
A couple of posters mention seeing ads. I am a little confused as it is easy to set up to not see any ads at all. The same with all the crypto nonsense and BATs.
As a non technical user it is a damned sight easier than trying to use U Block and similar which I did for some years previously on Firefox.
Purely my personal opinion and YMMV.
This is a subject of much discussion on an expat web site I frequent.
Some of us are specifically looking for the cheapest option to make occasional calls back to UK govt. departments and other businesses who use a landline.
Skype out with pay as you go or a subscription was perfect just for that - and calling my very old father at a reasonable rate.
Suggestions specifically for UK were -
mytello app
yolla app on https://yollacalls.com/en/
https://www.localphone.com/
viber
For pc, which I want, localphone is probably the best fit but only if I can get past the negative reviews on Trustpilot........
Thanks to those who suggested some other options above. I will need to have a look at them.
<Late last week Thailand's prime minister, Paethongtarn Shinawatra, signed into existence a National Semiconductor Board, which he will personal chair. >
Not sure if just a typo (followed buy another - personal/personally?) but in case the author does not know Paetongtarn is actually a she - daughter of Thaksin Shinawatra
I had this last night. As far as I was concerned I had pretty much excised Edge from my machine when I got it 2 years ago and have seen neither hide nor hair of it since through all the subsequent updates..
I decided to install the October win 10 updates and after longer than normal my system was back up and running ........you guessed it with Edge front and centre........
Could not delete directly in Programs in the Control panel. Then spent about 15 minutes looking at possible solutions online (using Brave) and then deleting 4 lines in the registry has got rid of it for now. However I note there are still multiple Edge mentions in the registry.
Linux is beckoning me again.........
"Many trunk outages caused by (what the fault reports said were) squirrels. "
I can confirm this. We had one phase go out recently in our village due to fried squirrel...........
The other issue with the communication wires in Thailand is they very rarely remove any redundant cable even when upgrading from VDSL to fibre or when someone changes provider..
The picture shown is actually pretty normal in any city in Thailand.
The other problem is where wires get loose and hang down and cause accidents - several reports every year of motor cyclists being almost decapitated......
Example here - https://aseannow.com/topic/1263890-73-year-old-american-motorbike-driver-injured-by-hanging-communication-wires/
" who bought an infected set-top Android box from Amazon manufactured by Chinese company AllWinner, several popular models from AllWinner and fellow Chinese firm RockChip"
My understanding is they are the chip manufacturers and as far as I know just supply the chips to a multitude of small and medium sized box manufacturers/copiers.....So is it the actual chips or additional code added?
Are boxes with Amlogic chips ok?
"The article indicates the problem is with Xiaomi's firmware, which would not necessarily be affected by the installation of a custom ROM. "
I unfortunately bought a Xiaomi Note 8 and after only 3 months or so ended up rooting it and putting on a custom Rom. The amount of phoning home is non stop.
I also installed AFWall+ to stop parts of the Linux kernel and the Android system plus others from accessing the internet/data even though not allowed.......
With all the comments above I am surprised i have not seen any mention of Brave?
Blocks ads by default and there is a fairly simple option to block java script completely (an earlier poster was complaining about these)
I use in preference to FF as a secondary browser but maybe I am missing something......
"Note the Linage 14.1......."
I take it you meant 18.1............
A number of other custom Roms can be pretty much without Google if you want it but you will still need some sort of firewall to stop the underlying firmware sending home - especially Xiaomi........
I don't currently have a google account registered on my phone and using microG and or other location back ends gives a little more privacy but I know it is still not ideal.
Just root and choose a suitable custom rom and you can certainly achieve a lot of what you ask for.
However reading XDA it seems is getting harder with each successive iteration of Android especially if you want to use your phone for online financial stuff.
"and b) if you wanted to use a chrome-based browser for some reason there would be no easy way to choose DDG as the default (or at least this was true the last time I tried to use a chrome-based browser on android)."
You can just download Brave and Firefox apps (or even DDG I think?) and set one as default browser and make search engine choices from there - DDG and Startpage for me usually.
I go further and delete Google from my android phone completely which is not for everyone but normally, depending on the phone, it is not that difficult to get rid of the google browser.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
