Nonsense Thread

[ForcedFirebird]

wtf fail beyond belief



https://www.ebay.com/itm/8-pc-2-5-Go....c100047.m2108

I see your gold charge pipes, and raise you an e30...err...e31...err e301?

[Melon]

also, is it possible to get all of the google trackware out of a pixel or is it one of those situations where they locked the bootloader down hard like my S5 and it's impossible to root?

I've honestly never tried.

[2mAn]

I was an Android owner until a few years ago when it was time to get a new phone and all of them were too damn big. I researched and found the iPhone 6 SE which was all the 6's bells and whistles in the smaller case. Ive had it for years now and it works just fine for what I need. Im worried what will happen when Apple starts to phase it out, but Ive also heard that they are considering making another "small" phone

[varg]

I really dislike apple products, but the experience of shopping for an android phone that suits my needs did leave me considering one until I saw that a 128gb iphone 8 was $500 and that they're trying to upsell people to phones that cost $1,000 or more. I was honestly surprised by that price considering the ubiquity of iphones. I guess people just finance them through the carrier for X per month and don't realize how much they're paying. Either that or they honestly believe it's worth that expense to have a phone, and I don't see how.

Tangentially related, I had a nice bit of schadenfreude on seeing articles popping up about the Samsung Galaxy fold's screen wearing out. What did you expect, you dopes? Did you think that just because it cost nearly $2,000 it was going to rewrite the book on materials and somehow a flexible screen was going to last? Laughable.

[Melon]

iPhones are fine, the updates slowing them down over a year or two got to be too much. Planned obsolescence got to be their motto.

[2mAn]

I really dislike apple products, but the experience of shopping for an android phone that suits my needs did leave me considering one until I saw that a 128gb iphone 8 was $500 and that they're trying to upsell people to phones that cost $1,000 or more. I was honestly surprised by that price considering the ubiquity of iphones. I guess people just finance them through the carrier for X per month and don't realize how much they're paying. Either that or they honestly believe it's worth that expense to have a phone, and I don't see how.

Im with you about Apple products, and I was opposed to it until I basically had no other options. Having owned it a while now, its worked out quite well. Im happy with it.

As far as the payment plans go, there is no interest on it, just a way to make the insanely priced phone affordable. For ex: Your $500 iPhone 8 would be $22/month for 2 years. zero interest. Better believe that once its up they will try to upsell you again though, but if youre not gung ho about having the newest, latest "greatest" it should last years before you actually need to do something about it.


Good luck!

[varg]

Yeah, it's not like Google is any better though, actually they seem to be way worse when it comes to privacy and tracking (my pi-hole reports indicate that my S5 attempts to phone home with staggering frequency compared to my wife's iphone). I might wind up just getting a refurb or used 256gb iphone 7 or 8 with a and putting privacy pro on it. Everyone in my family has had iphones as long as they've had smartphones and they all seem to last with no issues other than the whole purposefully-slowing-them-down debacle two generations back. I'm pretty done with looking at this point, I'm not going to like anything as much as I did my blackberry torch and it's not like I'm going to magically find something that is exactly what I want.

Moving away from the stale varg's-search-for-a-phone conversation; I highly recommend putting a pi-hole on your home network. It's like a crap-blocking hosts file for your whole network. It is easy to set up and is both useful and fascinating to watch work. Ad/tracker blocking is built in on my network with it, and all kinds of useless metric reporting "features" of apps and devices that you don't really want if you care about what is being done with your data are blocked by it. The "smart" tv with its roku and netflix and such is always trying (and failing, thanks to the pi-hole) to report back to various logging and metrics servers. I've only had to whitelist one address due to a broken app since I got the thing so it's not like it messes everything up by blocking stuff, showing just how noncritical the crap it blocks is. I can log in and see a running log of traffic on my network, and am floored by the sheer amount of useless BS that is being blocked and the pattern of activity throughout a day. Current average is 43.4% of queries blocked.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Yeah, it's not like Google is any better though, actually they seem to be way worse when it comes to privacy and tracking (my pi-hole reports indicate that my S5 attempts to phone home with staggering frequency compared to my wife's iphone). I might wind up just getting a refurb or used 256gb iphone 7 or 8 with a and putting privacy pro on it. Everyone in my family has had iphones as long as they've had smartphones and they all seem to last with no issues other than the whole purposefully-slowing-them-down debacle two generations back. I'm pretty done with looking at this point, I'm not going to like anything as much as I did my blackberry torch and it's not like I'm going to magically find something that is exactly what I want.

Moving away from the stale varg's-search-for-a-phone conversation; I highly recommend putting a pi-hole on your home network. It's like a crap-blocking hosts file for your whole network. It is easy to set up and is both useful and fascinating to watch work. Ad/tracker blocking is built in on my network with it, and all kinds of useless metric reporting "features" of apps and devices that you don't really want if you care about what is being done with your data are blocked by it. The "smart" tv with its roku and netflix and such is always trying (and failing, thanks to the pi-hole) to report back to various logging and metrics servers. I've only had to whitelist one address due to a broken app since I got the thing so it's not like it messes everything up by blocking stuff, showing just how noncritical the crap it blocks is. I can log in and see a running log of traffic on my network, and am floored by the sheer amount of useless BS that is being blocked and the pattern of activity throughout a day. Current average is 43.4% of queries blocked.

I recently bought a Currant "smart" bluetooth outlet from Amazon.
It won't even pair with my phone unless I download the app... Ok, not too surprising on that front.
The app will do *ABSOLUTELY NOTHING* until you create an account with them... so the product is 100% cripple-ware unless you're willing to hand them all usage data for all Currant devices in your house.
Fuckers.

[Melon]

@Varg

You're bringing up a lot of valid points about cyber security, and data collection.
It's not something I really pay attention to, but I'll look into your pi-hole (huehuehue) solution.

[2mAn]

I highly recommend putting a pi-hole on your home network. It's like a crap-blocking hosts file for your whole network. It is easy to set up and is both useful and fascinating to watch work. Ad/tracker blocking is built in on my network with it, and all kinds of useless metric reporting "features" of apps and devices that you don't really want if you care about what is being done with your data are blocked by it. The "smart" tv with its roku and netflix and such is always trying (and failing, thanks to the pi-hole) to report back to various logging and metrics servers. I've only had to whitelist one address due to a broken app since I got the thing so it's not like it messes everything up by blocking stuff, showing just how noncritical the crap it blocks is. I can log in and see a running log of traffic on my network, and am floored by the sheer amount of useless BS that is being blocked and the pattern of activity throughout a day. Current average is 43.4% of queries blocked.

Can you explain this to us apes here?

I understand some of it but yea Im not a techie guy... I still listen to cassettes lol

[roguetoaster]

I recently bought a Currant "smart" bluetooth outlet from Amazon.
It won't even pair with my phone unless I download the app... Ok, not too surprising on that front.
The app will do *ABSOLUTELY NOTHING* until you create an account with them... so the product is 100% cripple-ware unless you're willing to hand them all usage data for all Currant devices in your house.
Fuckers.

IMO, skip any home tech with a companion app as there is no assurance that it will function in a few years. Also, low tech is good, and do the able bodied really need all of these convenience items that somehow make our lives "easier?"

[ForcedFirebird]

IMO, skip any home tech with a companion app as there is no assurance that it will function in a few years. Also, low tech is good, and do the able bodied really need all of these convenience items that somehow make our lives "easier?"

Yes. There's very good reason I want to monitor my refrigerator from my smart phone lol. Unbelievable IMO.

About the only "smart" thing that has seemed to be handy to me (besides phone) is the HVAC thermostat - but even at that, they have timers and clocks you can set on even the cheapest of t-stats..

[Motheye99]

I hate to admit it but I've almost gone full circle and want to get back with a iPhone again. The amount of data they leak and how vulnerable android is scares me.

I may be paranoid but I also hate home smart devices due to microphones and how much of your personal info is stored in them. The only smart home device I tolerate is the original Nest thermostat, we have one at the family cabin the Sierras and its worth it to turn on the heater before you get there in the winter.

[MrBurgundy]

Hey Varg, I think you'd like these guys

maybe look into getting a used one. It's an android, but it doesn't come with all those stock apps that you can't get rid of

https://www.oneplus.com/

[varg]

Can you explain this to us apes here?

I understand some of it but yea Im not a techie guy... I still listen to cassettes lol

The pi-hole functions as a DNS server on a raspberry pi, a single board micro computer. You set your router to point to the pi-hole's static ip address as the DNS server and all requests are filtered according to the blacklists and filters you impose, regardless of which device is accessing the internet through your router. Anything not on a list is forwarded to a real DNS of your choice. There are a variety of block lists available and manual blocking/whitelisting options. Ads that are external to a site you are on never load, your connection behaves as if the ad server hosting them is down. The only ads that do show, in my experience, are internal ads like youtube ads. Those still require a browser extension to block. It does require some not-too-common computer skills to set one up, such as using PuTTY for SSH and basic raspberry pi setup, but the instructions are available and anyone who has used a command line before should be able to grasp it quickly.

I hate to admit it but I've almost gone full circle and want to get back with a iPhone again. The amount of data they leak and how vulnerable android is scares me.

I may be paranoid but I also hate home smart devices due to microphones and how much of your personal info is stored in them. The only smart home device I tolerate is the original Nest thermostat, we have one at the family cabin the Sierras and its worth it to turn on the heater before you get there in the winter.

You're not paranoid, you're informed. Security breaches are commonplace on smart devices and the tracking and phoning home done them is apparent to anyone who looks at the logs. The only smart device in my house is the smart tv, which was a gift, and doesn't have any cameras or voice command stuff, luckily. It just has streaming apps apps. I have an internet enabled thermostat but it is not 'smart' it's just accessible through the honeywell app to remotely set the temperature or change the internal schedule. Traffic originating from it is pretty much non-existent when I look at the logs, it just checks for connection occasionally and responds when I log in to the app. There never will be any nest, alexa, google home, ring, etc devices in my home. I don't need them and furthermore I do not trust the companies to protect my best interests.

Hey Varg, I think you'd like these guys

maybe look into getting a used one. It's an android, but it doesn't come with all those stock apps that you can't get rid of

https://www.oneplus.com/

Thanks for the pointer. At first glance, it looks like they're all bigger than I desire, but I'll look into it further.