From the fediverse: saving the news from Big Tech, and why you shouldn’t use Brave browser

Excellent links by way of the fediverse today. First up, Cory Doctorow about saving the news from Big Tech, with sentiments that aren’t far off my own, many of which have been recorded on this blog. His post is from June 2023. Highlights include this on contextual advertising: In studies, these contextual ads perform slightly […]

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The next lot to be removed: Disqus

  Years ago, we removed the Facebook widgets from Lucire’s pages. Last year, there were Instagram’s and Twitter’s turns, after each of those platforms locked us out (though later we regained access, and in Twitter’s case we issued a veiled threat to their lawyers). Last night, it was Disqus’s turn as we removed the commenting […]

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Pirate sites, content mills and splogs exist because of Google

In chatting to Alexandra Wolfe on Mastodon about the previous post, I had to draw a sombre conclusion. If it weren’t for Google, there’d be no incentive to do content mills or splogs. I replied: ‘People really are that stupid, and itʼs all thanks to Google. Google doesn’t care about ad fraud, and anyone can […]

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The newer the Instagram, the buggier; and why no one should use Google Drive

I’ve discovered that the newer the Instagram, the buggier it is. We’ve already seen that it can’t cope with video if you use Android 7 (a great way to reduce video bandwidth), and, earlier this year, filters do not work.    I downgraded to version 59 till, last week, Instagram began deleting direct messages as […]

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In line with what I discovered in 2011: Google tracks your location even after opting out

The Associated Press had an exclusive this week: Google does not obey your opt-out preferences.    I could have told you that in 2011. Oh wait, I did. And I pointed out other instances where Google ignored your request to pause your history, continuing to track you either through its main site or its properties […]

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