banned from connecting to wifi networks based on thier mac address

MAC addresses are easy to spoof in a Linux PC though. So you should be able to workaround that limitation if it’s ever a problem.

In fact, in theory you can also spoof the IMEI in a phone via software, it’s just that the software in phones is generally not as open and it would require rooting and some tweaking that not everyone is comfortable doing.

Another thing is that this standard does not allow setting an absolute size… you can only use fractions, for example, 2/3 of normal size, which can still be relatively big if your normal size is big.

I also expect making things bigger for emphasis (or adding headings) would likely be more common than making them smaller (that’s what I hope at least). Outside of things like mathematical notation where superscript/subscript might be useful (see this comment for some examples).

The problem with the web is that some websites use absolute units that might not scale well (like px) to define the sizes.

Personaly I use KeepassXC autotype functionality for this kind of thing (since I’m already using it as a password manager anyway)… I have entries that are just notes and then have the autotype command be: {NOTES}{ENTER} so it types the content of the note and presses enter.

The nice thing is that I can leverage the autotype dialogs from Keepass so I just need to remember 1 shortcut and it will open a dialog showing different Note options based on the title of the window I’m in. It also works across platforms (which is great if at work you still need to use Windows). However, Wayland is still not supported well.

I haven’t tried to use date/time placeholders, but in theory, they are suported in the keepass documentation (no idea if keepassXC in particular supports them): https://keepass.info/help/base/placeholders.html (check out the {CMD:/CommandLine/Options/} placeholder that lets you run arbitrary commands and optionally have their output replace the placeholder, which is very powerful)

In the auto-type docs they also have placeholders that even allow you to add delays, switch active windows, and press all kind of key combinations. Again, I’ve not tested if all of that works in KeepassXC but if not you can always use the official keepass app.

A compositor is normally a component in a DE, not a DE on its own. For it to be a DE in my book the “standalone” installation needs to, at minimum, provide: a launcher to execute apps, a toolbar/statusbar, and maybe a terminal emulator (or at least call some generic wrapper to automatically hook into one, something like xdg-terminal-exec).

I mean… openbox is used in X11 desktop environments like LXDE… I don’t see why labwc (essentially wayland’s openbox) should be treated like it cannot be a component of one.

And river has almost as a mission statement to become more of a framework than a DE on its own… they even have the goal in the long term to remove things from it and instead expose more to the commands/API to make it more modular… it’s definitely not something intended to work standalone and they expect people to develop third party layout generator programs.

Maybe sway is the one in that list that might be the most “standalone”, since it does have swaybar built-in… but the default configuration still expects you to provide at least something like dmenu to use as launcher, as well as making sure you have your terminal, etc, since it does not list them as specific dependencies of the sway package, so officially they aren’t really part of sway as if it were a DE suite.

It was just an example of what I’m doing for my particular situation where I don’t have root access and I want some personal scripts for myself, I’m not saying you should choose the same location. If everyone is already sourcing the same file, I expect there’s already a shared storage you are maintaining that everyone has access to.

About something breaking, I guess it’s up to you and your team if you prefer functions, but it also means not everyone will need to be annoyed when someone else’s code has a small syntax error. And also I expect the only errors you are able to get feedback about right now would be only structural syntax errors for the function declaration (I expect you don’t have unit tests or anything like that for your bash functions…) so technically a function could still be broken and you wouldn’t know until you use it.

Scripts also give the advantage of being able to use other languages beyond bash, if perl/python or others are available.

Anyway, you are free to have your reasons, I was just saying that root access is not necessarily needed.

The thing is that, if you are not sticking to POSIX, you might as well use more widely available alternative scripting languages like perl or python, which are often included in most workspaces by default, so I’d say it’s more useful to get experienced in those than to get experienced in fish.

It still limits where / how you use them.

For example, it’s easier / more efficient to call a shell script from sway (or whichever other software that might be running without a bash login session behind) than to try and force it to load a whole shell login session that includes those functions (which might also slow down the startup of the program and make it need a bit more ram without much of a benefit).

Scripts can reliably be run from everywhere (specially if placed somewhere in $PATH), functions require some preloading for every single new shell process and making sure the program invoking the shell (be it a terminal emulator or something else) is actually loading it. So as someone who likes to automate everything and often assigns hotkeys to particular commandline oneliners, scripts are much better… even a symlink might be more reliable than an alias.

You don’t need root level access though. What I usually do is stick a PATH="$PATH:$HOME/.local/bin and then place all the scripts in there.

No, it’s not the same. Firedragon users have a different default. I’ll repeat the question that you didn’t answer yet:

“would a search engine be willing to pay Mozilla to have them be a default search engine if it (upstream Firefox) had no users?”

And this is just an example. There are many other forms of partnership possible beyond search engines… the point is that the number of users that actually are exposed to the default browser settings (ie. the users of upstream Firefox, whether they change the settings or not) does give some leverage for making funds out of, while still giving options/freedom to the users who can freely change the setting.

When you watch a video article with sponsored content, even if you skip the sponsor, the creator still benefits because it builds up the numbers and that’s what attracts sponsors… but if someone starts re-posting the videos with the sponsor bits cut out and the re-posting channel becomes MORE popular than the original to the point that the original gets much less views… do you think companies are gonna want to still have as many sponsor deals with that creator who now gets very few views on their sponsored content?

No I did not say that. Do you recommend people to use their browser on default settings?

Mozilla gets paid for having it be the default, regardless of whether the user switches it. They get to make money from it because of the number of users alone being already something interesting to target for their partners. So just you using the browser is beneficial for Mozilla, even if you turn all the sponsored features off.

And do you think that most Firefox users donate to Mozilla?

No, most don’t donate directly, but some do use some of the features that indirectly do provide funds. Like for example, would a search engine be willing to pay Mozilla to have them be a default search engine if it had no users?

I feel the weight of Firefox being a popular browser has allowed them to have some partnerships and carry on some strategies that are likely to have been a source of funds. I expect many people do not turn off sponsored links and other features that are likely to help them support the browser and that are likely not available in the forks.

The thing is that it’s not very common for people who use a fork of Firefox to donate or encourage contributions to Mozilla… most of the people who go for forks do it because they do not trust Mozilla in the first place or don’t agree with the decisions they take. They are not willing to let Mozilla make profit out of their use of the browser, even when done through an option that can be turned off in the browser, they don’t like it even existing.

So if enough people did that, I don’t think Mozilla would keep developing Firefox, at least not at the level that they are now. In fact, I think even today Mozilla is not seeing much gain, since they keep starting side projects to raise funds in other ways.

If there were a separate foundation that was started by all these forks to maintain a base from which to build on (sort of the Chromium-equivalent but in Firefox world) that isn’t connected to Mozilla and that can fully sustain itself… then that would be good in my book. But as things stand, those projects don’t look like they would survive without Mozilla.

I feel like it makes more sense to support an alternative project entirely, like Ladybird or so.

The biggest part of people use Chrome-based browsers.

Also… the point is that it’s thanks to those people who use stock Firefox that the codebase stays maintained. So admitting that having those people is a good thing is kind of against the idea of encouraging people to move away from stock Firefox.

It’s ironic that GTK actually used to stand for GIMP ToolKit.

They were the first ones to use Gtk ever… and it’s looking like they will be the last ones to migrate to the newer major versions :P

Just because it entered RC phase doesn’t mean it won’t take long to release. It’s not unlikely that a lot of bugs and problems could have been reported in the RC phase, specially for such a big changelog in a popular program that many people are likely to be interested to test during the RC phase.

To be honest, I expected it would take at least 4 months (specially given how it took them years to reach this far). I’m pleasantly surprised that it was this fast.

But in there the virus and Megaman was part of the same software system/universe. What I’m arguing is that it would have been possible to set up 2 separate systems/universes, one is the one where Megaman is plugged, and the other one is one that has read/write access to all inputs/outputs of the first, without the first being able to detect that in any way.

So… Megaman would be sent to the first and see no problem (or worse, see enemies that aren’t real to keep him distracted) while the other alternate OS would have no Megaman in it, but still it would be able to analyze all Megaman is doing in the first system/universe (sort of like in Matrix), and possibly even transmit/translate his actions in a modified way so that it serves a different purpose.

But it’s not something the plugged OS can do anything about, because the malware is not running on it. It’s an attack that uses hardware, you can’t use antivirus against that, you’d need a person to physically manipulate the circuitry in the keyboard/monitor or whatever peripheral that is being manipulated.

Wouldn’t it be kind of insecure to be plugging your private data into public places?

In theory, the publicly available terminals could very well have their own system under the hood, wired into the hardware, just so they can run some keylogging or recording of everything that goes through the peripherals, including the screen, without the plugged OS being able to know, right?

The bad guys in those shows/games could have hijacked the terminals so they can take remote control of the inputs when an OS is inserted and wreak havoc. Dr. Wily could have messed with some terminals so that when Megaman saves its progress on them parts of his brain are saved with different data, so when it’s restored you’ll get a different/evil Megaman.

Bluetooth works great in Android for me though… once the devices have been paired, they connect the moment they are available and it just works.

However, for some reason on PC it’s often quirky (Windows or Linux). My PC bluetooth works through a dongle so I wonder if an integrated card would do better.

Also, most devices will not keep more than 1 pairing, so it will be annoying if you plan to be jumping around between computers. But that’s not the fault of the protocol, in theory remembering multiple pairings can be supported if the devices wanted to implement that.

They didn’t have the right frame of reference.