Best Free and Open Source Alternatives to Google Gboard
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Saturday 18th of June 2022 04:22:49 AMGoogle has a firm grip on the desktop. Their products and services are ubiquitous. Don’t get us wrong, we’re long-standing admirers of many of Google’s products and services. They are often high quality, easy to use, and ‘free’, but there can be downsides of over-reliance on a specific company. For example, there are concerns about their privacy policies, business practices, and an almost insatiable desire to control all of our data, all of the time.
What if you are looking to move away from Google and embark on a new world of online freedom, where you are not constantly tracked, monetised and attached to Google’s ecosystem.
In this series we explore how you can migrate from Google without missing out on anything. We recommend open source solutions.
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Hacker installs Ubuntu on a Google Nest Hub (2nd-gen) smart display
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Thursday 16th of June 2022 05:54:34 PMThe 2nd-gen Google Nest Hub is a smart display with a 7 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel touchscreen display, a built-in speaker, and a lightweight operating system designed to put Google Assistant front and center.
But security expert Frédéric Basse found a security vulnerability that could be exploited to install other operating systems on the Nest Hub, and as a demonstration he installed Ubuntu Linux.
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Dashamir Hoxha & Debian harassment
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Tuesday 14th of June 2022 03:39:37 PMThanks to the WIPO legal dossier, we now have more evidence of the source of harassment in Debian.
We previously reported on a Google Summer of Code (GSoC) intern from Bhopal, India, who was not paid the full stipend.
It raises numerous questions: the intern who failed, Deepanshu Gajbhiye, had done more technical work than the Albanian woman who received $6,000 for Outreachy in 2019.
Today we release another fact: Deepanshu's mentor was an Albanian, Dashamir Hoxha. Deepanshu had sent a written complaint about the mentor. The complaint was escalated to the Debian anti-harassment team and they did nothing. We feel the Debian anti-harassment team has protected the Albanians because the Albanians bring pretty young female interns to conferences.
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From Windows to Ubuntu and What Google Can Do to Boost the Sales of Chromebooks
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Monday 13th of June 2022 12:00:17 AM-
Migrating From Windows to Ubuntu: The Ultimate Guide
If you are a Windows user and still haven't made the switch to the latest version, you may want to consider migrating to Ubuntu, the popular Linux distribution from Canonical.
Ubuntu has strong support from developers and a massive software repository. It's free, fast, and safe to use. Like many versions of Linux, it's easy to install on a wide range of hardware.
If this sounds good to you, here's how you go about making the switch.
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What Google Can Do to Boost the Sales of Chromebooks
Google introduced Chromebooks back in 2011 as an alternative to traditional laptops. However, Chromebooks have only managed to capture 2.22 percent of the worldwide PC market in over a decade.
These laptops by Google use Chrome OS as their default operating system, which is Linux-based. The OS has a great deal of potential and is extremely user-friendly. To be fair, if Google tweaks its strategies, these machines could potentially dominate the market.
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Top 15 Best Google Drive Clients for Linux System in 2022
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Sunday 29th of May 2022 07:11:52 PMGoogle Drive is one of the best Cloud Storage options in the market. It offers sufficient storage for free to fulfill our primary requirements, including storing photos, Gmail, or various documents. The popularity of Google drive increasing day by day, and we can assume that cloud storage will take the throne from physical storage shortly. So it’s always better to adapt ourselves to changing technology. But Google doesn’t offer any official Google Drive client for Linux.
You must be aware of the importance of a Google Drive client if you are a Linux user. And so, you must be looking for one to use. If so, I am sure you are on the right track because this content will lead you to the best 15 Google Drive clients for Linux users.
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Mozilla Firefox Languishing, Chrome amd Chromium Latest
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Friday 27th of May 2022 04:29:02 PM-
Firefox is on the verge of extinction. What can they do about it? - Invidious
The web without Firefox is a web not worth having.
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Google Chrome V102 Now Rolling Out For Windows, Mac And Linux Devices; Details Inside
It is important to highlight that the Google Chrome 102 update comes with 32 security fixes. Most of the errors belong to the 'use-after-free' category.
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Chromium 102 (regular and ungoogled) for 64bit Slackware
Google has released the sources for Chromium 102.0.5005.61. The release notes mention 32 security fixes. One of those (CVE-2022-1853) is listed as ‘critical’ and supposedly an attacker can craft a website in such a way that if you visit that URL, the attacker can compromise or take over your local computer. No clicking required.
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Firefox for Android no longer gives the user control over the browsing experience. Privacy Browser turns off JavaScript by default.
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Friday 20th of May 2022 06:21:37 AMFirefox/Fennec for Android no longer give the user significant control over the browsing experience.
The browser that said it was on a mission to enable users to “take back the Web” has been falling from grace for years, starting with Digital Restrictions Malware module, Widevine, and then quickly moving to remove a lot of features and then relegating them to extensions, which were then neutered in order to make them easier to port over from Chrome.
But nothing has made me more upset than what has happened to Firefox (or Fennec, the Free and Open Source version) for Android.
Mozilla’s move to GeckoView rendered over 99% of all Firefox extensions incompatible with the mobile browser, including bypass paywalls, and there is no longer any way that I’m aware of to turn off JavaScript.
Major news Web sites like the New York Times are now unreadable in Firefox for Android because I can’t simply block their paywall like I can in my desktop browser, so I decided to try out Privacy Browser for Android, which is in the F-Droid store.
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Proprietary leftovers
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Sunday 15th of May 2022 12:49:01 PM-
Google Docs crashed when fed 'And. And. And. And. And.'
Google Docs, the search giant's web-based word processing app, has been resuscitated after it was found choking on a series of conjunctions and other parts of speech.
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Microsoft to nudge more users toward Azure Active Directory [Ed: How to fake "Azure" so-called 'market share' while worsening security]
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Microsoft tests ‘Suggested Actions’ in Windows 11. Insiders: Can we turn it off? [Ed: Microsoft continues to rip off KDE]
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Outlook bombards Safari users with endless downloads
Attention, Mac users who access Outlook with Safari: something's broken, and it's causing an empty TokenFactoryIFrame file to be downloaded every few seconds for as long as you remain there.
Microsoft hasn't said what's causing the problem, though it did acknowledge the ongoing blunder in this support message-board thread on Microsoft Answers. We understand this flood of downloads affects Safari on desktop Macs; it may also affect browsers on iOS using Safari's WebKit engine, such as Microsoft Edge on iPads.
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Proprietary Debacles
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Wednesday 11th of May 2022 05:37:29 PM-
Google Releases Security Updates for Chrome
Google has released Chrome version 101.0.4951.64 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. This version addresses vulnerabilities that an attacker could exploit to take control of an affected system.
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CISA Adds One Known Exploited Vulnerability to Catalog [Ed: A correct headline would have said CISA Adds Microsoft Windows Known Exploited Vulnerability to Catalog]
CISA has added one new vulnerability to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog, based on evidence of active exploitation. These types of vulnerabilities are a frequent attack vector for malicious cyber actors and pose significant risk to the federal enterprise. Note: to view the newly added vulnerability in the catalog, click on the arrow on the of the "Date Added to Catalog" column, which will sort by descending dates.
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Critical F5 BIG-IP vulnerability exploited to wipe devices
A recently disclosed F5 BIG-IP vulnerability has been used in destructive attacks, attempting to erase a device's file system and make the server unusable.
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10 iPod Competitors That Didn’t Make It
Some say it was overdue, some lament that it remains a missed opportunity, but the truth of the matter is, the iPod has left us, after years of neglect. The final iPod Touch was released in 2019, four years after the previous model, and essentially as a legacy model for a niche audience of people who don’t want modems in their phone-like devices—think hackers and the parents of young children. It was not what it was upon the device’s general release. But I want to take a step back with today’s Tedium to consider the many, many competitors to the digital music throne that Apple’s legacy device vanquished. There were many. And as the latest entry in my series of obscure things that “didn’t make it” or fell into modern-day obscurity, I’m covering 10.
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Peergos: An Open-Source Google Drive Alternative Cloud Storage
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Wednesday 11th of May 2022 02:45:40 PMAs Peergos allows the users to organize the tasks, mark calendars, and share files, you would find a bit of similarity with NextCloud. Based on the user experience, security, and UI, the design of this open-source google drive alternative tool is top-notch, I must say. In the entire post, I have described the important features of the Peergos open source Google drive alternative tool and how you can get started with it.
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digiKam 7.7.0 is released
After three months of active maintenance and another bug triage, the digiKam team is proud to present version 7.7.0 of its open source digital photo manager. See below the list of most important features coming with this release.
| Dilution and Misuse of the "Linux" Brand
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Samsung, Red Hat to Work on Linux Drivers for Future Tech
The metaverse is expected to uproot system design as we know it, and Samsung is one of many hardware vendors re-imagining data center infrastructure in preparation for a parallel 3D world.
Samsung is working on new memory technologies that provide faster bandwidth inside hardware for data to travel between CPUs, storage and other computing resources. The company also announced it was partnering with Red Hat to ensure these technologies have Linux compatibility.
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