The Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

They get paid when we buy the game? 🤔

The first Mac I used was actually a Macintosh with a black and white screen. I don’t remember the exact model. We also had iMac G3 in school and later modern iMacs at work. My wife is also a Mac owner and has worked with them.

I’m no way an Apple expert in any way, shape or form. However. I do know enough about them to know that they’re ridiculously locked down to the point that you can barley call yourself an owner of your own system.

With that said. Apple computers are popular, so it’s apparently a winning concept for some, but it’s not something for me.

Then GNOME seems to be a perfect fit. ;)

Oh! Well. Yes. X11 does not handle different DPIs at the same time very well.

Linux based operating systems is great! However. GNOME? Can you even change the wallpaper there? :D

Not locked down at all? I’d be surprised if you can even change the wallpaper. :D

I like being given a workflow designed by UX engineers, it means I don’t have to think about it and I can just do my work instead of figuring out the best workflow.

And that’s perfectly fine, and probably the most sensible thing ad well. However. The user should have the option to do whatever they want to.

My opinion is that computers should stay out of the way as much as possible. It’s an appliance.

Exactly! And that’s not possible if you have to fight it every time you use it.

That’s the issue. IMHO. A desktop environment should not dictate how the user use it. That’s just stupid.

X11?

Phone numbers are an issue, true, though you can get around that using a burner SIM or even a virtual phone number.

You can’t buy any SIM here without providing ID. I believe that’s more of a rule than an exception these days, but I don’t have any actual numbers to back up my claim.

However. I don’t think that anyone requiring extreme privacy would use any phone whatsoever.

Also, contact discovery has been working without exposing your phone number for over a year now.

I trust Signal when it comes to security and privacy.

The phone can be made by anyone. The OS needs to be Android or iOS at some point, which is unfortunate

With the Google Play Services or whatever it’s called, which is required for notifications to work.

Remember that they have killed people based on metadata alone.

That said, deGoogled Android has been around for more than a decade, allowing you to use Android in a privacy-friendly way.

It’s what I’ve been using for years. :) GApps has always been optional. Back in the days vanilla Android was even perfectly useable without GApps! It feels like AOSP is basically only a kernel these days.

So if you want, you absolutely can avoid being tied to Google and use Signal.

Yes, but you will have to rely on third party clients, which Signal don’t like. That’s not a great experience. :/

As you can see, there’s a lot more nuance here than “Signal isn’t private”; privacy, after all, isn’t binary, but rather a gradient.

I guess so. I’m not much of a person of nuances though. I like living in a binary world. :D

The way I see it, Signal sits in a Goldilocks Zone of “private enough” (for most threat models) and “convenient enough” for mainstream adoption.

That is true. Perhaps I’m a bit hard at them, but then again, I’m a binary person. ;)

That sounds like a wise thing to do!

You’re forced to use a phone number and a phone from Google or Apple. Do I have to say more? This is not a claim. It’s a fact. Well. Unless something has changed?

I have never whined, but I can see how you wish that would be true. ;)

And, my apologies, if I have somehow hurt your feelings. It was never my intention to do so.

I’m not saying that you can’t find good stuff there. :)

I personally try to avoid it as much as possible due to them being unethical and they not caring about the environment at all.

PS. Happy cakeday!

Aw. :(

If you’re even remotely worried about anything shady, you shouldn’t even be on Amazon to begin with.

Mediocre and repairable hardware for premium prices is not for everyone. Most people probably want the most performance for the least amount of money without any regards or respect for money or the environment.

It probably doesn’t help that they have been in some controversial drama either.

And let’s not forget that Linus Sebastian from Linus Tech Tips is an investor as well. I don’t want my money to go to that greedy turd who screwed over his own audience for money in pure greed, and when he became a rich turd he instantly became the very greedy person he used to hate on the WAN Show.

Haha! I appreciate your refreshing honesty, and I reward you with an upvote. ;)

Don’t use Signal if you care about privacy.

Edit: Cool. This is just like Reddit! You get downvoted for stating facts. :D

Oh my. I’m in lack of words… :D