What can we do to keep the web open?

@asklemmy

  • unknowing8343@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 year ago

    DRM is already applied for certain content in websites such as Netflix, etc, and it makes it waaaay harder to bypass.

    For example, Netflix (and the others) use DRM to block Linux computers from higher quality content. Why? I guess “hackers” and “think of the children”. Truth is… content is already pirated from the second it gets released on any of these platforms… so they are not really fixing anything… I guess they really want you to use a tracking OS.

    Imagine this kind of system but for an entire website. Big companies imposing their devices and software as the only way to access a website… which is really just HTML and Javascript files, entirely platform agnostic… but who cares? They are struggling for money so they are squeezing every little possibility.

    • Link.wav [he/him]@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      Another example is Microsoft’s Bing AI, which will only work in Edge. I tried it in Firefox and just changing the user agent header made it fully functional, thus showing that it was deliberately nerfed for other browsers. It wouldn’t be too hard to convince people to use an extension to spoof chrome to access non-functional web sites, though in practice any site that accepts Google’s DRM is dead to me.

      Obligatory fuck Google and Microsoft. I wish I were smart enough to switch to Linux.

      • MDKAOD@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        You don’t need to “be smart” to switch to Linux. Linux for the most part ‘just works’ these days of you choose the ‘right’ distro.

        • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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          1 year ago

          Agreed but you do need to be willing to tinker a bit. Even ubuntu required a lot of tinkering to get working on my system. I’m all for getting people to switch, and it’s much easier than it was 15 years ago when I started, but for most people they’re not going to just install linux. We definitely are in the <1% of users.

          • MDKAOD@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            If you have bleeding edge hardware, that can be a problem from time to time, but if I’m being honest, I haven’t seen any real issues since the early 00’s needed tweaking to work. To suggest that Windows is tweak free is disingenuous, and Apple is a walled garden that is designed to ‘just work’ but Apple expects their users to just buy a new device when something becomes mildly inconvenient to them.

            • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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              1 year ago

              Yeah, but you can’t tell me that the levels of tweaking are the same.

              For example. I have never had to go in and modify conf files for nvidia drivers on Windows to be able to run basic games. My ubuntu install? Definitely had to.

          • TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            You need to mention that NVIDIA GPU is the problem for Linux usage, and even then, just install Nobara (made by Steam’s Proton creator) or Garuda which takes care of everything related to NVIDIA GPU better than Ubuntu/Debian non-free firmware would. There is NO issue with Intel/AMD CPU and AMD GPU machines with installing any mainstream Linux distribution. No tinkering needed.

          • MDKAOD@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            I was trying to convey that there is no right or wrong answer to which distro to choose, but some distros are more advances than others, so if the most applicable distro is selected it should be fine. But I get what you’re saying.

        • Link.wav [he/him]@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          Do you know which is a good starter version?

          I’m really tired of Windows and Microsoft’s intrusive bullshit. I’ll probably keep Windows 10 on my current PC, but I really think it’s time to move on whenever I’m ready for a new rig in the future.

          I think there’s even a way to run it along with Windows, isn’t it? Like you can boot into it instead of Windows? Just thinking I could start learning how to use it.

          • Kory@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Well, it all comes down to tastes and preferences, but Linux Mint is made to be a very easy transition for (ex-)Windows users. It works out of the box, looks intuitive and has great support on their forums. Give it a try and if you feel like you want to try out other distros later, it all gets easier once you are familiar with Linux overall.

            And yes, what you mean is dual booting and Mint asks you on install if you want to choose that option and sets everything up for you.

          • mim@lemmy.sdf.org
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            1 year ago

            Ubuntu or Linux mint are good options. There are other newbie friendly distros out there, but I only tried these 2.

            Yes you can dual-boot. When you start your computer, it will show you a menu where you can choose between Linux or Windows.

    • Dubious_Fart@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Amazon too, Went freaking nuts trying to figure out why I couldnt watch any of my shit above like 180p quality on amazon. until I found out they intentionally and maliciously degrade the quality on non-windows machines.