Usually the purpose of the free tier is to make the site popular enough to be attractive to the paid tiers. I'm not sure how that would work with Spotify though. Who the hell cares what other Spotify users are listing to?

MS still hasn't figured out their own MFA - it's fairly often I see accounts 'protected' by Microsoft Authenticator suddenly have new, mysterious rules re-rerouting inbound mail to various mailbox folders and have a sudden increase in outbound mail flow.

You'd think eastern Europe or China or something but wherever the attackers actually are physically, they usually register in the 365 logs as coming from within the US. I suspect this is to make geoblocking less effective.

I'm guessing it's not terribly difficult to intercept session tokens over insecure WiFi or something, since 'hotel WiFi' seems to be pretty common across incidents.

I am unconcerned about default search settings - that can be changed to DDG.

I am far more concerned about things where there is no option at all to disable. Windows 11 doesn't allow turning off telemetry, for example, only turning it down. Actually, Microsoft in general is far more of a threat than Google/Alphabet is to privacy. All of Windows 11 is spyware. They bought Github and trained their LLMs on GPLed code and use it to produce derivative works without having the resultant code be GPLed. They bundle their products together, taking advantage of their monopoly status in the OS area to push dominance in other areas. Why does Windows 11 need a key shortcut to launch LinkedIn? Oh, Microsoft does. Why is it near impossible to remove OneDrive? Why does Office increasingly push all of your documents into the cloud, where they can violate your privacy? We know the answers to these questions, but I guess the DoJ is happier now with 2024 Microsoft than they were with 90s Microsoft, even though what they are doing is much worse, now that Microsoft is doing what they were supposed to do all along - bribe politicians with campaign donations.

> That's why I only have two Zigbee devices - the PG&E SmartMeter, and the Rainforest Eagle 3 that connects to it.

Interesting. So far as I know, smart meters where I live broadcast in the clear on 433MHz and can be picked up with a standard SDR dongle.

Sadly, the smart meters have only been deployed randomly and mine isn't one of them (nor anyone near enough for me to pick up), so I couldn't tap that for home energy monitoring. Of course, if I could I'd be complaining that my home energy use was being broadcast in the clear - it seems like a great way for thieves to monitor who might be on vacation.

How sad that you're so incurious.

Depending on where practical concerns require you to put the hub, and depending on what might block or interfere, even a modest house can be large enough to have areas outside the reach of zigbee without carefully placed repeater nodes.

Whenever I have to do anything with Google, I create a fresh junk gmail account and forget about it shortly thereafter.

If I have to remember gmail credentials to use something... I find another option that doesn't have that restriction.

That was a lot of ignorant crap spouted out there. Let's sort the shit into different piles and identify it:

1) Virtually all "smart home" devices are not "dependent" on the internet, this one included which will continue to function as a thermostat going forward.

Err... except that it IS dependent on both the Internet and the vendor to be anything more than a dumb thermostat, and those extra features are why it was purchased in the first place.

2) Without an external server manage a session for you your device instantly is not suitable for 99.9% of the population who don't have external routable IPs,

If you don't have a routable IP, you don't have an Internet connection.

3) or any idea how to configure port forwarding on a router,

There are services available to broker the connection between your home server and your mobile device through a secure tunnel. And they're pretty much 'click here' to get up and running. And yes, you pay for that, monthly. And if they shut down, because they're an add-on and not part of either server or client... you can find a replacement service to handle it.

It's really dumb to just make dumb posts on subjects where you clearly don't have a deep enough understanding to discuss them intelligently.

I can't recall why I chose zigbee over Z-Wave initially, it might have been price or ease of Home Assistant integration at the time.

My understanding is the Z-Wave has better range, so for some that might be an important factor.

If you want to build a 'smart home', never ever but anything that requires the vendor's server to operate. First, it's immediately dumb to have your local home automation dependent on the Internet. Second, it is dumb to have your local home automation dependent on the continuous support of a company not getting a monthly fee out of you.

No matter how attractive those devices seem, do not purchase them. Just don't.

A big indicator of potential issues is that the devices use WiFi.
That typically means they want routable IP connections and will need to call home to set up and call home to function. Get zigbee or Z-Wave devices and they'll work until they have a local hardware failure.

If you want to control things over the Internet, get Home Assistant set up and let it be your portal. The software is free.

Of course there is a technological solution... Battery shells that are too big for a human mouth.

That TV remote's going to get unwieldy, though.

A car manufacturer can fit this https://www.amazon.ca/Portable... AM radio into the car's glove compartment or its trunk or a seat pocket, this should be sufficient, no?

That, plus the likelihood that said Indian workers are pretty unlikely to show up to occupy the corporate offices with purple hair and some bullshit entitled complaint.

Why would you lie when that's so easily fact-checked, and do so without at least posting as AC while you're trolling?

Google's pay rate for a level 4 engineer in India is about 6.7m rupees which is roughly 80k USD. In California the same category averages around 280k USD.

Wow, you're an abrasive jackass, aren't you?

I've never had a problem with cheap bread lasting a week. Fresh made, no preservatives? Gone in a day or two.

Maybe you're just too fucking stupid to know the difference.