I wonder how this calculus changes with the dawn of AI built into the OS... will a Linux system that avoids all that nonsense end up being more energy efficient?

I am so old

I think the key part here is that it’s a guess on your part whether using Firefox is the cause. Do you get any specific error when using the website? Or does something just “not work”, such as you click a button and it does nothing?

Also, I’ve run into stuff like this before, and my best bet has been to be flexible about using other browsers to work around issues. I would suggest testing the banking website with Chromium (or even Chrome). If it works, file a bug with Mozilla (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/file-bug-report-or-feature-request-mozilla) and just use Chromium/Chrome for only that website until the bug is fixed.

This will allow you to still do business, while still participating in open source via a helpful bug report that could end up benefitting others as well.

Archive.org is essential. I donate regularly, they are a key part of the infrastructure of the internet now…

So, basically shitposting poisons AI training. Good to know 👍

Fairly simple explanation by arstechnica: “The malicious versions [of xz], researchers said, intentionally interfere with authentication performed by SSH, a commonly used protocol for connecting remotely to systems. SSH provides robust encryption to ensure that only authorized parties connect to a remote system. The backdoor is designed to allow a malicious actor to break the authentication and, from there, gain unauthorized access to the entire system. The backdoor works by injecting code during a key phase of the login process.”

Also from the article, you should check if your distro is offering a downgrade from the affected 5.6.x packages. Right now the exploit is not fully understood. For example, openSUSE recommends a full reinstall of Tumbleweed if an SSH server was enabled, just to mitigate risk.

https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/03/backdoor-found-in-widely-used-linux-utility-breaks-encrypted-ssh-connections/

https://news.opensuse.org/2024/03/29/xz-backdoor/

TL;DR It uses the Matrix protocol to make every post E2E encrypted in the same way a Matrix chat is. Except they added more separation between people in the “Circles” functionality. Instead of everyone seeing all content like in a chat room, you have to invite people to follow your timeline. And only those people who have been invited can see your posts, and vice versa. I’m not sure he said it specifically, but it was implied that unless people have invited each other to see their posts, they can’t interact with each other in the same circles (he used an example of two people not liking each other and both being able to see a 3rd person’s timeline, but not each others timeline/posts). So essentially it offers encryption and social media like usage but with a sane privacy stance…aka nobody can find you via stalking your mutuals and nobody can just google and DM you out of the blue. Basic photo and sharing is available, apparently improving those features is what is planned for this year. You can also self host it if you wanted, as it just runs off a Matrix server (although they currently provide a US and Europe matrix server run by the FUTO company that funds the app development). Looks like they plan on charging for storage space (1.99$/month for 10GB is what it says in the app right now), and I’m not sure how much storage you get for free.

inhales

My current tower started out on Windows, and for some reason after a year or so it started crashing out randomly. Load didn’t matter, it would pass benchmark tests and then crash randomly 5mins after boot. However there was not a single useful error I could find. Installed Fedora, and looked at journalctl after a crash. Immediately I see “GPU has fallen on the bus”. Apparently it is relatively common, but I also found a thread that said it actually can be caused by loose connection. Did a complete reinstall on my GPU, haven’t had the problem again (~6mo now, had both 535 and 545 drivers). Sometimes it really might be a descriptive error message 😆

Some of these detect when they are run in a VM

Gooby pls

This is why instance blocking as a native client feature is needed. I am aware some apps such as Memmy, which I use, implement it in a 3rd party way. However it’s clearly not easily done for everyone in all situations. Defederation is going too much toward an echo chamber; inability to have enough control over the content you see is also an issue.

Personally I see value in having access to misinformation via lemm.ee; it is useful to know all perspectives when that is helpful. However, I don’t wanna see that shit everyday.

Long story short: I think for now, block accounts and communities or use an app with instance blocking. Wait for instance blocking to be native. That’s my 2 cents.