norenh (u/norenh) - Readit News

norenh commented on Mozilla Firefox's extension store being flooded with malware theregister.com/2025/08/0... · Posted by u/lknik

Workaccount2 · 7 months ago

Firefox is down bad right now. I have used it steadily for 20 something years now, and the cracks are really apparent now. It's also likely that Google will be forced to stop giving Mozilla money for Firefox, leaving little hope for continued development.

This might actually be the end of FF.

norenh · 7 months ago

Could you name another browser with enough backing to be able to keep up?

Besides Google Chrome (controlled and backed by the surveillance overlords) and Safari (Kept alive by Apple cultists) I see very few free alternatives that can stand on their own. The other options are various niche browsers that leech on one of these three that might have a few changes here and there but lacks the real capability to stand on their own legs.

What I mean with capacity to stand on their own legs is that the group behind it should;

  * Be able to be a part in development of web-standards

  * Be able to keep up with ever changing web-standards

  * Be able to suggest and develop new web-standards if needed

  * Be able to maintain a modern web-browser

This needs a relevant user-base, active developers and standard-committee members as well as infrastructure and cash-flow to maintain it for expected stuff like add-ons and various other bits needed (on-line checks, certificate handling, etc) that is expected from a modern browser.

I am worried about Mozilla but I see no reason to declare that the end is nigh just yet.

Firefox is still very much relevant to me, although I use mainly linux-distros and do not normally use webpages as applications (I browse with javascript disabled, unless there are specific needs). I would love to see some more options out there, but alternatives to Firefox are currently not on the horizon for me.

norenh commented on Sony Is Killing the Blu-ray, but Physical Media Isn't Dead Yet kotaku.com.au/2024/07/son... · Posted by u/austinallegro

PlaneSploit · 2 years ago

24-bit audio is obviously a noticeable improvement even on $150 headphones. I don't know why you think that. Similarly, 4k Blu-ray is obviously vastly superior to crappy compressed streams from Netflix or YouTube.

norenh · 2 years ago

> 24-bit audio is obviously a noticeable improvement even on $150 headphones

Not going to question your subjective experience, but I do not think most people will hear any difference between 16 and 24 bit playbacks under normal conditions, even with fancy headphones.

"120dB is greater than the difference between a mosquito somewhere in the same room and a jackhammer a foot away.... or the difference between a deserted 'soundproof' room and a sound loud enough to cause hearing damage in seconds.

16 bits is enough to store all we can hear, and will be enough forever." [1]

[1] https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

norenh commented on Most 16-year-olds don't have servers in their rooms varun.ch/server... · Posted by u/varun_ch

crazygringo · 2 years ago

I don't understand -- you can purchase your own router instead of renting one from your ISP, which usually works out cheaper in the end too, and port forward.

NAT was a necessity when it was being introduced, so I don't understand the complaints. Sure it's annoying, but what was the alternative?

I don't think anyone was dissuaded from IT because of NAT. Heck, if anything, learning how to configure it might have been some people's first step into learning about networking and then getting into it as a career!

And let's not forget that NAT served as a default firewall that did more than any anti-virus to protect PC's from malware.

norenh · 2 years ago

> NAT was a necessity when it was being introduced, so I don't understand the complaints. Sure it's annoying, but what was the alternative?

IPv6

norenh commented on Web Browser Telemetry sizeof.cat/post/web-brows... · Posted by u/freediver

norenh · 2 years ago

Thanks! This info is always nice to have when setting up firewalls. Every application should come with a list of connections made, what the purpose is and what the consequences are if you disallow it.

norenh commented on Swedish Tesla strike goes international as Norwegian and Danish unions join in theregister.com/2023/12/0... · Posted by u/rntn

legitster · 2 years ago

I'm coming from a US perspective and trying to understand what is actually happening

https://www.ifmetall.se/aktuellt/tesla/

Does IF Metall already represent all of Tesla's employees? Does that mean there are no active Tesla services in Sweden during the strike?

If union membership is really the way of life in Sweden, is there anything preventing the government from a legislative solution? Just mandate collective agreements?

norenh · 2 years ago

> Does IF Metall already represent all of Tesla's employees?

No, but Sweden has mainly unions based on industries (like IF Metall represents workers in industrial and metal-sector, you have Transport that represents workers in transport industry, Unionen of white-collar trade workers, etc). There might even be no workers in the specific union at the specific workplace and they might still go on strike since they are the union you are supposed to negotiate with. There are requirements of negotiation but no requirements of results from that, which is the cause of the current situation at Tesla. Tesla "negotiated" but flatly refused any outcome involving the union so they fulfilled the lawful requirements. Now the Union uses the tools they have in place when the negotiations ends badly so everything is going as expected.

>Does that mean there are no active Tesla services in Sweden during the strike?

Like I wrote above, Tesla might have all services running if they have workers doing it, but chances are at least some are members of IF Metall. There is also the effect of sympthy strikes from various other unions: https://www.ifmetall.se/aktuellt/tesla/darfor-tvingas-if-met... This includes transport (loading/unloading in harbors, transport of goods, etc), Electricians (yep, you can guess it, practically everything involving electricity), Builders (maintenance and construction of buildings), service and communication (This is postal workers refusing delivery of post/goods to/from Tesla), etc. The effect goes beyond Teslas services and will extend to all kinds of infrastructure and other parts of society unless Tesla manage to get their own self-sufficient (and probably totally isolated) mini-society without any needs from other parties.

So the more Tesla refuses to find a deal, the more the unions can escalate and it will get quite tricky to find laborers who want to deal with you. Other companies might refuse to deal with you with risk having the strike extend to you to if this goes far enough.

> If union membership is really the way of life in Sweden, is there anything preventing the government from a legislative solution?

It is really complicated, but the main thing preventing government going in with a legislative solution is that no-one (neither the industry or the laborers) wants it. It has been a solution that the union(s) and industry can solve this by themself and as long as they can, the government will stay out of it. This is kind of unique relaxed solution that puts a lot of responsibility on both the industry and the unions to sort things out and has worked well so far. Playing hard-ball like Elon will probably not end well for Tesla in Sweden (possibly Europe) if this continues since the system is kinda built on being mature and able to negotiate. My way or the highway attitudes are not well regarded.

>Just mandate collective agreements?

But what collective agreement? The system in Sweden is built on negotiation between the involved parties and finding some kind of common and sensible ground. There is really no easy top-down fix for that if one party refuses to play ball. Either the other party need to fight back or the whole system collapses and we risk ending up with government moving in, which neither party wants.

norenh commented on How are zlib, gzip and zip related? stackoverflow.com/questio... · Posted by u/damagednoob

dcow · 2 years ago

GPT info tools will fully replace SO in most dev workflows if it hasn’t already.

norenh · 2 years ago

And what will GPT info tools learn from, once the public curated sources are gone?

norenh commented on Tuta (formerly Tutanota) denies claim it has intelligence ties cp24.com/news/encrypted-e... · Posted by u/ipcress_file

PrimeMcFly · 2 years ago

It's such a bad service, I don't know why anyone uses it. ProtonMail is superior in every way.

Tuta has all kind of weird restrictions, like not being able to search back more than a month.

norenh · 2 years ago

One reason is that tuta does not require you to have any other connection to create and account. Protonmail require a second mail, phone or possibly some kind of payment if I recall correctly (for verification?) that could be linked from your account in theory.

Without having a good anonymous starting point, protonmail does not let you get that starting point, at least the last time I tired (maybe a year ago).

norenh commented on Spotify looked to ban white noise podcasts to become more profitable bloomberg.com/news/newsle... · Posted by u/cududa

forrestthewoods · 3 years ago

The payment model of “streams per play” has always felt wrong to me. Wouldn’t a more rational be “how does this user’s monthly fee get divided”?

Let’s say someone pays $10/month for Spotify. First Spotify takes their cut, let’s call that $3 but whatever it is. There’s $7 left. If someone ONLY listens to Taylor Swift that month then she deserves the full $7. If someone listens to 50 artists for 20 hours then those 50 artists can divide the $7.

You can set the pool size and divide the pool a few ways. I’ve got ideas for how I think that should be done. But in any case I’ve always thought the division should be on a per-user basis rather than entire ecosystem.

norenh · 3 years ago

100% this. As a consumer that tries to do active choices the current model breaks any kind of active choices to support or not support an artist, except nudging it somewhere in the margins. If your pot is only going to work you interact with, you can suddenly make an impact for smaller artists.

The counterargument I see is that subscribers who listen to lots of different artists will have a smaller share of the pot for each artist than someone who listen to just one artist. But I see the inequality here is not as bad as the other option where almost all my subscriber fee now goes to a few mainstream artists I probably never listened to. I also bet a lot of smaller artists would benefit more with a per-user pot, instead of always getting a minuscule share from the global pot.

norenh commented on Do we need copyright? (2012) lemire.me/blog/2012/03/22... · Posted by u/ibobev

norenh · 3 years ago

I see only issues abandoning copyright (for example it is the protection that makes Open Source Licenses work), but we should definitely discuss the length of it. The current trend of longer and longer periods of copyright protection can be questioned and I wonder if society would not benefit with a severely cut copyright period. Berne convention and other international treaties makes it hard to change below Life + 50 years, but I see no reason all the right incentives for individuals and companies would be there if you cut it to just 20-30 years after publication. The benefits of new derivative works, access and sharing knowledge and other areas would be great for society as a whole.

The moral right of claiming ownership to a work should still be protected forever.