That still works? I’ll have to look in it. Thanks.

Thanks for the info. I adjusted that section a bit, probably should more effort into the edit. Will read up on it some more in near future.

My point about the simplicity of using the “stock*” messesing app is still relevant for non-tech people. Grandpa doesn’t want 6 different messesging apps. The easy phone number/pre-installed/near-universal/moslty cross-platform nature of them is a huge advanatge. Only downside, it has a pricy subscription called “the phone bill”.

*i say stock in this case to pretty much include any app that uses your phone number and accepts sms/mms from another phone. For most people, thatll be the stock message app their phone comes with.

If your on desktop, here’s some unsolicited advice. If you’re on mobile, good luck…I’ve got nothing.

LPT: use unlock origin’s element picker to block any unwanted sections of youtube mixed into your feed.

“Premium” gone, “Shorts” gone, “Trending” gone, “Pay to watch” gone, “News” gone, “Survay” gone

LPT2: set a YouTube bookmark to go straight to your subscription page. This way you see the new videos you are most likely to care about first. No need to “hit the bell” and rely on notifications. When I’m caught up there, I’ll head over to home feed to see if there’s anything intresting.

LPT3: get the extention “Enhancer for YouTube”. There’s a ton of settings to basically set your playback defaults the way you like. I change the toolbar setting to " showin video playback bar" and auto expand" to get the various buttons to show up like the default ones. (The names of those setting is by memory).

“Unhook” is also good one for clearing out junk.

Lastly “DeArrow”, from the maker of SponsorBlock. This one crowd sources new video titles with the goal of replacing clickbait for an actual description of the video.

The nice thing about SMS is its on everyone’s phone by default.

No apps to download and no accounts to make. Adding someone is a simple 9 digit number.

imessage bridged the gap between bacsic SMS and feature-rich messages. With them both being in one app and handled automatically, it is very convenient to use. While the extra features are limited to apple phones, you can use imessage to universally message any other phone.

Google made a their own thing, RCS, to compete with imessage. They made it an open RCS is a standard and worked that works with carriers to make it so any phone could use it. it took Apple 7 years since release to add support.

Finally, you can text pretty much anyone with a smart phone a message with the “extra features” without hassle.

You can’t schedule RCS messages?

A basic features that has been around since the beginning of time is not included?

This sounds like a neat concept.

It’ll probably end up full of spam, bots and marketed b.s after a year, but it’ll be cool at first.

Price is probably #1.

Bit of speculation here with no real sources ; There was a boom in late 2022 through 2023 when people could finally reliably get parts again. I’m guessing many who wanted to upgrade already did in the past 2 years. Anyone who got a new computer in 2020 onward should be fine for at least a few more years. I think the average is around 7 years.

The market will probably see a surge between 2027-2030 as people begin replacing their “covid era” computers.The market right now is mainly seeing anyone with a pre-covid computer who bought a nice top of line machine for about 1k. They’re looking at current pricing and choosing to go with today’s mid-low teir, which will outclass their old 201x top of the line computer.

Another factor could be AAA gaming hasn’t exactly been pumping out hit new tiles the last 5 years. People who wanted to play cyberpunk or Eldon ring already upgraded by the time Wukon came out.

With less new games requirng the latest and greatest means the need to upgrade is going drop too.

Again all speculation…

Na, that’s a total valid point. In school you could tell anyone who’s note book was a giant yellow soggy mess was not going to adjust well to adult life.

There’s a lot terrible articles with clickbate titles too. A lot of the articles I’m interested reading are either clickbate/ragebait or way out of context or just completely false.

I’m not aware of major downsides to using a different luncher.

The biggest incovience is initial setup and putting your home screen apps back where they belong.

Spend a few hours to escape to some of google bloat and set your search bar to use Firefox (which has ublock support).

You can change it on other launchers.

Personally I like neolauncher.

https://github.com/NeoApplications/Neo-Launcher The search bar can be set to immediately directly open Firefox search, or you can pick form a list of various engines.

There’s a dozen other launchers to try. Lawnchair is a more popular choice, probably better for someone switching from pixel default. There’s a few very specific features it’s missing for me.

If you search Lemmy for “Nova Launcher” you’ll find some threads listing a dozen alternatives due to nova’s downfall.

To clarify for anyone curious about the drama, while it was blown out of proportion, it was absolutly vaild.

1. there was a light nsfw furry easter egg, removed once found. Considering the browser was originally a side project by a young guy (teen/early 20?) it’s not really surprising or a big deal. Once the browser gained a sudden boost in users and it was found, the image was removed (once the guy got back from vacation? hospital?, there was a month or two gap)

2. this one was a larger problem for sure, and again removed. If I reacll right, he was apparently hosting a website for a friend about supporting the end of a certain procedure done to baby males at birth. There were some graphic images, its not technically CP anymore than the infomus Nirvana cover, but still…not okay.

To make matters worse, the link the site was somewhere browsers home or about page, making it pretty easy for anyone to find.

It’s all old news now. Personally I didn’t really care, but some people might.

The oportunity was there, so I took it. What else would I link to? Actual pateron?

Is apple still blocking apps from telling users they can subscribe outside of the app store?

I.e A message on check out that says “You can save 30% if you subscribe directly the website. Apple charges a 30% processing fee for using Apple subscriptions, please just subscribe on the website.”

hide the issues instead of solving them.

And thats really all they care about.

Verify! But what will all the “Cändy Crunch 7 Browser Edition with 12 Free Play Levels” players do?

Ads and crappy installers, all though that seems less common than it used to be. I can’t say if that’s a general trend or tunnel vision due to me not installing crapware.

But Ive had success in the past, just look at these cool scars as proof :)

So, I should invest now for cheap and when they inevitably bounce back, sell?

Its a bit of a stretch, but slavery was legal before too.

Unfortuanlty, if “it was legal before” was a valid argument, a lot bad stuff can come back too.

However, in this situation, it sucks.