Yeah, it did shut down :( Ever since, I haven't really found an English-speaking replacement. Rutracker has the absolute majority of what I need but doesn't have some newer American children's cartoons that I used to get from Rarbg. For example, one show had full seasons on Rarbg, but only individual episodes on 1337 (of which none are from the newest season), and Rutracker only has the first two seasons, only with a TV dub and in a horrific quality :/
I don't think I'd prefer this, tbh. I would want to see the whole topic information when choosing what exact torrent to download. Is it marked "verified" or "questionable"? If it's "questionable", is it for some arbitrary formality, or something like "the audio is desynced"? Are there many different dubs (because I'd rather prefer not to have them, as they're bloating the files?)...
Eh, not really. Using EOL devices is genuinely a bad idea, it's just that with phones you have no choice due to the updates usually being only like 2-3 years and alternative OSes not being as accessible as Linux. And most people don't even care or know anyway.
> Seems to me that if we want this at all, it should be an independent body that approves signing keys of vetted vendors (e.g. vendors roll out security updates timely, etc.).
This is also a horrible idea. If an OS can be vetoed for untimely security updates, it can also be vetoed for not having something like clientside scanning.
> The attestation API in AOSP allows companies to trust signing key fingerprints (such as those of GrapheneOS), which means that the attestation system is not controlled by a single company (Google).
I wonder if this would exclude rooted OSes, non-relocked bootloaders and things like that? Sorry for stupid question, still not quite understanding how this works.
I feel like the complaint about this not adding to security could be read in a really wrong way. Instead of "this is some hypocritical BS", could be interpreted as "lol let's lock EOL devices from even lower integrity tiers". Doubt this is possible because so, so many people use EOL phones, but still.
I don't have hearing problems, but I have noticed I arrive at places quicker when I don't have headphones on. Sadly this doesn't happen often because I'm low-key addicted.
If we're talking about people having a hard time affording a phone - why tf are you bringing up high-end phones at all? I'm in no way poor and my $300 phone was already a pretty painful expense. In those cases, we'd be talking about a <$200 Chinaphone.
Also yeah, indeed, there are affordable laptop options given how much of a necessity it feels like. That tends to be more value per dollar in a laptop too. Personally not comfortable buying secondhand though because I can't risk money on that scale, and there are much less guarantees on the state of the hardware, although would like to eventually learn how to do it as safely as buying new.
For me, a phone is mostly less distracting because it's not very comfortable to use compared to a laptop. It's much less likely to get sucked into doing unrelated things when the experience is actively not that pleasant (especially when it comes to anything with typing).
I don't feel comfortable reading from my laptop or phone in general. If a text isn't very short, I prefer saving it as .html or .pdf onto my e-reader, and that's such a MASSIVE improvement. That includes long comment sections too.
The only situation I can think of is when you're in public transport and settling down with a laptop or paper is not really feasible. But if that came up frequently, I'd rather buy a tablet. Some students in my class also use tablets in class instead of laptops.
First - why are you singling out Apple devices? Most kids who do have tablets are probably using something cheaper, it's not like a tween can be trusted with a device this expensive. And second - a lot more kids have phones than tablets, so the difference for a lot of people is still there.
If true, then it's just unfamiliarity, not comfort. A bigger screen and bigger buttons are a pretty objective upgrade. "Why switch if you're already good at using touch controls" - because you assume it could be better? It not obstructing vision and being more precise is a good enough argument to try it out.
Although personally still not used to controllers. I mostly play FPS so that's only KB+M.
To my understanding, you need Google services for passkeys to work, at least for now. I wouldn't want them even sandboxed, and on Lineage they're not restricted in any way so this would be a big concession.
For me, the main benefit over the browser are the progress tracking and playlists. You can do both with bookmarks in the browser, but it's much less convenient.
For downloads, I prefer Seal - a wrapper for yt-dlp. yt-dlp can update faster like this since doesn't have to update together with the app, and can add metadata and apply Sponsorblock. Could just use yt-dlp from Termux but this is more convenient.
I'd feel very ripped off because it gives a directly worse experience than free tools. Not only does it not turn off Shorts, as previous commenters mentioned, but the most offensive scam in my eyes are downloads. I'd need to use yt-dlp for them anyway, as the paid downloads are directly inferior - DRMed and expire without online checks. Worthless for archival that I'm currently doing a lot.
Wouldn't the age verification provider then be able to retain logs of what exact credentials it signed and for whom? And if the certificates are identical for every user, couldn't everyone change the presented certificate for the universal correct one?
to be fair - kind of yeah. I do have a bank card, but minimize its usage for privacy reasons, mainly using cash. As for electronics - I do keep most of my data local and use OSes that don't upload them on their own.
And yeah, as the previous commenter said - those are not quite comparable.
When it comes to age verification - I still don't understand how you'd make it subpoena-proof? Like, the ones I've seen proposed protect you from the site itself getting more data than it should. But what about a government agency subpoenaing the website to see what credential this account was verified with and then comparing with the age-assuring agency's logs?..
Thankfully, Ublock Origin in advanced mod can block those requests by default. It's just very irritating and I'd say disrespectful when you HAVE to unblock them for the site to work.
It also works with Gadgetbridge without having to pair it in the official app first (for Xiaomi bands, you need to do it to extract a key, not sure how consistently it's doable nowadays). Apparently the supported featureset is not as complete as for Xiaomi devices, but seems to be enough to cover the basics.
So Huawei are also easier to use without having to send your data anywhere.