What confuses me is that android has the exact same walled garden approach by default. You have to manually allow "untrusted source" installs. Apple, of course, doesn't allow this because then they wont get their 30% cut (it has nothing to do with security - sorry folks).

If you want to do this on ios, you jailbreak , and make your device more functional, but arguably less secure if you don't know what you're doing, or you're some sort of chimp.

Talking about security used to mean how free from vulnerabilities and exploits a platform was. It would seem things have devolved into a conversation about which platform more readily allows the town dullard to shoot himself in the foot. It's a political conversation indeed.

I didn't check if anyone recommended this yet, but pbs made a documentary "Tesla - The Master of Lightening". I thought it was amazing, and it's available on US Netflix.

Arch, good guess. You're obviously using something debian based, probably Ubuntu. I haven't used Ubuntu in some years, but I don't remember them actively supporting the use of a ports-like system. It would certainly be possible in Ubuntu, but without community involvement, rather pointless.

Give Arch a try in a VM. I've yet to encounter a piece of software that hasn't had the source converted to a make package by someone in the AUR. Using the AUR is as simple as downloading the tarball, extracting, running makepkg, resolving dependencies, then pacman -S .

Oh, and don't use the base arch installer unless you have a lot of time on your hands. Go with something like ArchBang.

Living without [a google account] is certainly possible. I've been doing it for years. I would agree that "app" developers seem obsessed with publishing their offerings through a single medium, that takes 30%, and requires their users to buy into the google/apple ecosystem. However, I blame this on the typical "app" developer being a mindless dullard, addicted to the status quo. The entire IT spectrum has been infested with these types of late. It's been frustrating.

While the Android core operating system is free, the Android branding and "Google Apps" are not. In order to use either of these on your version of Android you need a license from an authorized testing facility that ensures the GApps suite functions properly. This is Google's one catch to providing the world with a free mobile operating system, and I think that's probably fair.

Regardless, I think many people wouldn't be happy if cm automatically included GApps, since the lack of that proprietary spyware is the main reason to use it.

make uninstall Also compiling from source should rarely be necessary. Most modern distributions will include a ports like system that will allow you to compile source into a fake root, use the information gathered to build a package, and then install the package with your package manager. This ensures everything is cleaned up properly upon package removal. Of course even building a package for the software is probably unnecessary as it's very likely someone has already done it for you. Linux' package management is vastly superior to both Windows and osx (don't you just drag a folder into the garbage can? Give me a break). You just have to know what you're doing.

Much cheaper than VPN too. I use one, and have been for the last year or two. I've always been curious how it works though. My current theory is that it must exploit a function of the netflix protocol that uses a separate domain to authenticate the stream than it does to stream the content. Thus your dns provider can detect dns lookups to this address (lets say authenticate.netflix.com), proxy the authentication for you, and then let the stream between you and netflix's servers commence directly once youre authenticated.

Could anyone elaborate and provide a complete low level understanding of how this works?

Laws that prohibit you from being on your phone while driving are doing nothing but further spiraling the nanny-state out of control.

Here in Alberta Canada we have the province now wasting even more money on this silly regulation with advertisements that beg people not to "crotch watch". Of course this is referring to the fact that everyone just tries to hide their texting-while-driving behavior which, ironically, makes the practice even more dangerous then when you could do it in the open.

But who am I to fight the prevailing mentality that we need to regulate away every single issue with society, no matter how minor? The actual people making the decisions have to be smarter than me right? I guess that's why a third of my income goes to pay their salary along with the monstrous bureaucracy created by all this regulatory nonsense.

I was going to post this but you beat me to it. I already use this method, somewhat, for anything that supports 2-factor auth. Weak and/or easy to remember password accompanied by a code generated from my private key.

Anyone looking to change the paradigm needs to remember there's only 3 ways to secure things: something you know, something you are, and something you have. With that in mind what you've suggested is the most user friendly and secure way to go about it.

The only other suggestion I would have is a paradigm shift to passphrases instead of short passwords. But I can hardly take credit for that idea.

No true revolution can be held up by a single man. We'd all have to be leaders.

That being said, privacy violations will never spawn a revolution. The average person is motivated by short term conveniences, not long term ideals. Keep the population fed, busy, and entertained and you should be able to get away with anything.

While it suits your irrational argument to argue the law in black and white terms, you have to know that the law is far from that.

If a criminal breaks into your house, assaults you, you shoot him, and he happens to die, we don't call that murder and give you a more lenient sentence because you were defending yourself. We call that self defence.

Equally so, technically what Snowden did "broke the law". But that's a pretty obtuse way to look at it considering the greater good he achieved by demonstrating that our own government is, and has been, breaking the law.

What he did was in defence of our nation. He has more courage and character in his nail clippings than you have in your whole body. Now turn off Fox news and develop your own opinion.

future features include "single sign on" via retina scan using your Facebook account. This will help us strategically align corporate offerings right into your eyeball based on our patented technology that tracks each and every movement, interest, and desire of you and your friends.

Seriously, the Facebook acquisition already ruined any potential this product might have had.

Even though a lot of those things you listed aren't free (Chrome data mining, IE requires a windows license), I will submit that it's not entirely accurate that nothing is free. Charity is certainly free.

Regardless, I was making a generalization. And every person should live day-to-day based on the assumption that nothing is free. Then we can go back to having an informed, intelligent, and responsible society that doesn't require babysitting via regulation in every aspect of their lives. I don't really appreciate the prevailing mentality that whenever there's even a minor issue in society, we regulate it away. Regulation creates bureaucracy, and trust me, in the long run you don't want more government bureaucracy.

Nothing is free. If Google has to explain that to you, you might have a hard time with the rest of your life.

The sky is blue.