The guys too... It makes sense for some, but most of them are basically ordinary guys in good physical condition, but get drawn like steroid pumping bodybuilders.

The advantage of using Privacy Badger is that it doesn't rely on a constantly maintained list. It looks at how domains are being used, if they are tracking you by pulling the same cookies on different sites, and if they offer anything useful. It then automatically blocks useless/invasive ones, all without any effort on your part.

If you are too lazy to maintain a list or want your non technical friends and relatives to be safe, it's a good solution. Use both, they complement each other.

They don't make much use of SSH servers so there is little point bundling a client. The only thing you would use it for is administering non Microsoft severs.

While I agree with you and the GP, one thing I would say is that most of the world doesn't give a shit about cursive writing and I don't know why it is still taught in the US. Hand writing, joined up, legibly, sure. But cursive just seems like teaching Latin, maybe because of tradition or something.

Other people can post photos of you and tag you in them. You can't easily stop them doing it... Their phone might even do it automatically. Even if you avoid doing anything embarrassing in public it's easy for photos to be taken out of context.

Even if you don't sign up or consent they collect data on you. Those like "like" buttons on every page are spying on you, tracking you.

Install uBlock and Privacy Badger to opt out.

Yep, clearly the police know this is bullshit and are not interested. The 101 number is just to fob people off or report crimes that don't get investigated so you can make an insurance claim. They just like to keep fear levels up by mentioning new threats, that's all.

A year before the iPhone was announced Samsung released a digital photo frame that looks exactly like it. The only difference is that it wasn't a phone. That's how mid 2000s electronics looked.

I'm the same, my fingers don't reach and arthritis makes it hard to stretch. I was not talking about physical limitations though, I meant the mental capacity to understand and master the concepts.

Bingo. You are not the product, your personal information is. You gave that information away for free, so don't get any compensation. Due to the special nature of the information it has some special protections, but that's it.

Next time some company asks for my data I'm going to offer them a subscription service.

The author also vastly underestimates the Iranian navy. They have some fairly advanced subs that would cause major problems for any attacking navy. They also have some of the fastest and deadliest torpedoes in the world, and some effective anti-ship missiles. Dingies would be the least of the US navy's worries.

Yeah, they used them in the past, because they didn't need any more. They were not trying to start a war, and lasers would have been a huge escalation.

So it's a simple ad-hominem attack? Why not make some specific criticisms, instead of just attacking the person? What is the GP's agenda that causes him to act this way?

I think we are going to need some mass consumer legal action to force the issue. In the UK the Sale of Goods Act requires devices to last a "reasonable length of time", which for cheap TVs is usually thought to be about 5 years and for expensive ones maybe 10 years. If the TV breaks down before then the retailer, not the manufacturer, has to sort it out. If it was half way through its expected life they could either fix it or give you a partial refund for lost functionality. A dead TV would get you a 50% refund, one where the smart features are broken would be based on how much you use the feature and decided by a court if needs be.

Some TVs from 2011 are losing YouTube support. I use the YouTube app on my TV every day. Replacement of this lost functionality would require something like an Amazon FireTV stick for £35. I would expect the retailer to offer me that, or at least part of that cost, if my TV broke down before it is 10 years old. It might not be a lot, but the retailer has to pay it and it might force manufacturers to try a bit harder.

Having said that, even if you were screwed, a FireTV stick or similar is so cheap now it's not a massive loss. If you get 3+ years of app use out of the TV that's good, and don't forget the smart features include other useful stuff like recording to USB HDD and streaming via DLNA etc.

I have a Panasonic smart TV. The only place it has ads is in the app store, nowhere else. If it did I would have returned it, or not bought it in the first place. Not all smart devices are maximum evil, ads everywhere all the time etc.

Mine has an OS based on FreeBSD. I use the smart features to watch YouTube pretty much every day. Various electronics and woodworking video blogs mainly. I use the network media player from time to time too. It's a good system from 2012.

Reminds me of the system Capcom created for people who disconnect when they are losing in PvP. Unfortunately that system didn't work well as people with crappy internet connections were penalised.