When I rebased all of Waterfox’s changes onto the latest ESR branch, disabling AI features was my top priority. I only kept translations, and even that’s opt-in. I think most Firefox features, especially anything AI-related, should be opt-in by default. This feels like part of a broader shift in software expectations - when applications start acting autonomously, users should know exactly what’s happening and explicitly consent to that behavior.
Readit NewsMrAlex94 commented on Mozilla under fire for Firefox AI "bloat" that blows up CPU and drains battery neowin.net/news/mozilla-u... · Posted by u/bbarnett
MrAlex94 commented on 60% of medal of honor recipients are Irish or Irish-American en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lis... · Posted by u/physarum_salad
Well don’t leave me hanging, what are the numbers for the civil war?
Edit: according to gpt5 1522 were given out with roughly 10% or 150 were given to the Irish.
That figure from GPT-5 seems to be slightly off, according to the Irish Times:
“At least 258 Irish-born soldiers have won the Medal of Honor since its inception. Of those, 148 won them during the civil war – 14 in one day when the Union Navy raided the Confederate port of Mobile, Alabama, in 1864.”
https://web.archive.org/web/20250504103715/https://www.irish...
MrAlex94 commented on Bits 0x02: switching to Orion as a browser andinfinity.eu/post/2025-... · Posted by u/fside
Only browser I know that has zero telemetry by default, great UI, low battery drain and seamless Kagi integration.
To me Chrome and Firefox are like steampunk borg machines with all that valves and plugs fiddling needed to kid yourself they might do the right thing.
Tor has had zero telemetry since its inception and I’ve been disabling telemetry in Waterfox for as long as I can remember - which is almost 15 years.
There were Firefox forks before that as well doing the same thing.
JPEG XL had so much going for it. Kinda sad it was killed off just like that.
As it currently stands there should be over a billion devices that natively support JPEG-XL, as it was introduced in all Apple OSs since September 2023[1].
On the web alone it should be close to a billion users with support for JXL due to Safari’s market share.
[1]: https://cloudinary.com/blog/jpeg-xl-how-it-started-how-its-g...
I used to want to donate to Mozilla Foundation, but I've long lost any hope that the corporation would spend that money in a way that makes sense to me. The pessimist on me would expect donated money to be spent on more built-in "campaigns", "studies" or ads. Or maybe a bonus for their executives.
I just want Firefox to be faster. I'm donating to Floorp (a Firefox fork), at least they seem focused on making the browser better.
I maintain Waterfox, so I recognise this isn’t a great look criticising another fork. But there’s a contradiction in abandoning Mozilla over spending and leadership concerns whilst supporting Floorp, which initially used open source extensions to build up their USP, then switched to a non-open licence to prevent others from doing what they had done.
They only reverted after community backlash (or being “inspired” if I recall correctly). You’re comfortable supporting a project that actively betrayed open source principles, whilst writing off Mozilla for issues like executive compensation.
It doesn’t strike me as more morally consistent than supporting the organisation that actually develops the underlying engine?
And the first screenshot on that website shows Facebook, Netflix, Spotify, Disney+, etc. Real privacy champions.
At the end of the day, before implementing support for streaming services via DRM, this was the most requested feature.
Privacy is a sliding scale and the idea that it's absolute privacy or nothing else isn't helpful IMO. If people want that, they should use Tor as nothing comes close.
In this day and age I dont understand why there isnt a more successful fork of firefox or a new opensource browser thats more succesful with privacy as a concern. My only speculation is collective lazyness and lack of sex appeal as new technologies have emerged. I’m probably biased as I lived through the browser wars. I guess I’m probably projecting combined with curiosity. I know most of the old greybeards have moved on and those of us left are stuck carrying the torch, but man it sure seems the culture has been eroded significantly. Case in point back in my day it seemed like there was a new browser every few months or so. I’m done ranting, I’ve got kids to yell at to get off my lawn.
I’ve been running Waterfox[1] for over 14 years and it’s as popular as ever.
MrAlex94 commented on How to Build a Smartwatch: Picking a Chip ericmigi.com/blog/how-to-... · Posted by u/rcarmo
The Scanwatch Light seems to be very close to what I need. While they're priced reasonably for what they offer, they're crazy expensive for what I would need. I'm really not interested in fitness or sleep tracking these days anymore.
I'm also a bit scared of the many "charging issues" some people seem to have with them after a few months, but I guess every batch has a few bad devices so I could hopefully return it.
Thanks for the recommendation! I might try one soon.
For what it’s worth, after I bought one, around five other people I know got them, varying models from the Steel HR to Nova, and haven’t been made aware of any issues. Of course, personal experience doesn’t apply to the mass of products, and these are all UK SKUs, so who knows if issues vary between countries as well?
Overall everyone has been happy though and I haven’t seen Withings come up on HN which is surprising tbh!
MrAlex94 commented on How to Build a Smartwatch: Picking a Chip ericmigi.com/blog/how-to-... · Posted by u/rcarmo
Glad to finaly see someone in the low-power chip industry going in the open source direction. Thanks for the insight!
When I saw rePebble be announced, I signed up for it right away. Only later I realized I actually don't want a smartwatch, I want a dumb watch with vibration notifications.
I know I'm in the minority, but it's a niche that has a few very interested people in it [0] [1] [2]
After wearing the Casio F105 for the past 2 years, I can't go back to something larger, heavier or thicker than this. I could accept weekly battery charging for the benefit of having some bluetooth functionality.
So nowadays I'm looking for a super small bluetooth chip that can power a small vibration motor, which can receive all notifications from my iPhone. I would like to glue that chip, motor and a small lithium battery between the two straps of my F105, because in my tests it seems I don't notice if I add a small weight there.
I still remember when I first used my first Mi Band 1, a forgotten fitness band that had no display, just 3 RGB LEDs that could even get specific colors based on the app that sent the notification. I could know right away when I got a blue Messenger chat that I needed to answer now, or a yellow Google Keep reminder that I could ignore until I got back to my computer.
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/pebble/comments/9xw2j2/im_looking_f...
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/smartwatch/comments/174hq9x/need_a_...
[2] https://tildes.net/~tech/18nf/smartwatch_primarily_for_notif...
Would Withings[1] watches not fit the bill? I have a ScanWatch and the battery life lasts almost a month.
MrAlex94 commented on · Posted by u/rajivpant
This reads very strangely to me, borderline idolatry if not just outright.
It’s framed as if every single word expelled by Sam is a morsel of genius to be carefully examined before being devoured and savoured.
To me it boils down to how ineffective corporate PR is and how even a little bit more straightforward conversation comes across infinitely better. Corporate speak seems to be ambiguous and actually quite difficult to parse, so anything away from that seems so much more accessible.
But honestly this post is so aggrandising I can’t help but feel the author is hoping Sam might glimpse at it and give him a pat on the back well done.