Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Firefox

Why We Love Firefox, and Why We Hate It 665

Posted by Soulskill from the numbers-at-the-end-of-it dept.
An anonymous reader sends this quote from Conceivably Tech: "Admit it. You are in a love-hate relationship with Firefox. Either Mozilla gets Firefox right and you are jumping up and down, or Mozilla screws up and you threaten to ditch the browser in favor Chrome. Mozilla's passionate user base keeps Firefox dangling between constant ups and downs, which is a good thing, as long as Mozilla is going up. Unfortunately, that is not the case right now. Mozilla's market share has been slipping again at a significant pace. There has been some discussion and finger-pointing, and it seems that the rapid release process has to take the blame this time. Are we right to blame the rapid release process?" What do you find most annoying or gratifying about Firefox these days?
Privacy

Sci-fi Writer Elizabeth Moon Believes Everyone Should Be Chipped 409

Posted by Soulskill from the i'm-sorry-have-you-met-humanity dept.
Bob the Super Hamste writes "The BBC has an opinion piece from science fiction writer Elizabeth Moon who believes that everyone should be chipped or barcoded at birth. Her reasoning is that it would prevent identification mistakes and even allow soldiers to identify combatants from non-combatants. Her comments came as part of a discussion on future wars hosted by the BBC World Service."
Piracy

BSA Claims Half of PC Users Are Pirates 585

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the gnu-is-a-crime dept.
judgecorp writes "Despite continued pressure on business users to buy legitimate software, the Business Software Alliance (BSA) reports that the campaign seems to be failing. Well over half (57%) of users surveyed in a global survey admit to using pirated software. That's a big increase from the same survey last year — when 43% admitted to using pirated software. The BSA surveyed 15,000 people in 33 countries."
Displays

1366x768 Monitors Top 1024x768 For the First Time 394

Posted by timothy from the hope-it's-not-like-the-rocky-movies dept.
mpol writes "Statcounter released new statistics today and 1366x768 is now the most used screen resolution on the internet. These screens are available in most cheap laptops, and therefore probably sold and used very much. With 19.2%, it is beating the old 4:3 resolution, which still has 18.6% usage share. (But as you know, you have lies, damn lies, and statistics.)" The numbers are still close, but it sounds like the tide has turned.
Google

Google Consolidates Privacy Policies Across Services 239

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the targetted-advertising-is-awesome dept.
parallel_prankster writes "The Washington Post reported Tuesday that Google will require users to allow the company to follow their activities across e-mail, search, YouTube, and other services; a radical shift in strategy that is expected to invite greater scrutiny of its privacy and competitive practices. The information will enable Google to develop a fuller picture of how people use its growing empire of Web sites. Consumers will have no choice but to accept the changes. The policy will take effect March 1 and will also impact Android mobile phone users. 'If you're signed in, we may combine information you've provided from one service with information from other services,' Alma Whitten, Google's director of privacy, product, and engineering, wrote in a blog post." The angle of the Washington Post article is a bit negative; Google sees this as consolidating an absurd number of privacy policies for its various services into a single, unified document. Reader McGruber adds: "Donald E. Graham, the Washington Post's chairman and CEO, joined Facebook's Board of Directors in January 2009. Curiously, the Washington Post article neglects to disclose that."
Firefox

Notes On Reducing Firefox's Memory Consumption 297

Posted by timothy from the we-gave-it-post-it-notes dept.
Skuto writes "At yesterdays linux.conf.au Browser miniconference in Ballarat, Australia, Mozilla engineer Nicholas Nethercote gave a detailed presentation about the history of Firefox's memory consumption. The 37 slides-with-notes explain in gritty detail what caused Firefox 4's memory usage to be higher than expected, how many leaks and accidental memory use bugs were tracked down with Valgrind plugins, as well as the pitfalls of common memory allocation strategies. Current work is now focused on reducing the memory usage of popular add-ons such as AdBlock, GreaseMonkey and Firebug. Required reading for people working on large software projects, or those who missed that Firefox is now one of the most memory-efficient browsers in heavy usage."
GNOME

GNOME Shell Hurts Gaming Performance 232

Posted by Soulskill from the frame-job dept.
An anonymous reader writes "According to recent benchmarks by Phoronix, using the GNOME Shell will cause a large performance hit when running OpenGL games on Linux. Using Unity and GNOME Shell are also hitting various bugs in the open-source drivers."

Comment Re:Sounds like a headache (Score 1) 1306

by n0dna (#35615430) Attached to: US Contemplating 'Vehicle Miles Traveled' Tax

Those who use less of it should be rewarded and those who use more of it punished. There definitely needs to be petrol excise taxes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_tax#United_States

Fuel taxes in the United States vary by state. The United States federal excise tax on gasoline, as of February 2011, is 18.4 cents per gallon and 24.4 cents per gallon for diesel fuel. In January 2011, motor gasoline taxes averaged 48.1 cents per gallon and diesel fuel taxes averaged 53.1 cents per gallon.[7] For the first quarter of 2009, the mean state gasoline tax is 27.2 cents per US gallon, plus 18.4 cents per US gallon federal tax making the total 45.6 cents per US gallon (12.0 /L). For diesel, the mean state tax is 26.6 cents per US gallon plus an additional 24.4 cents per US gallon federal tax making the total 50.8 cents US per gallon (13.4 /L).[8] There are also a few states that charge sales tax on top of the excise taxes and the retail price.

Comment Re:Fantasyland (Score 1) 609

by n0dna (#35132252) Attached to: An Open Letter To PC Makers: Ditch Bloatware, Now!

I have purchased several machines from Dell, Toshiba and HP at various price levels. The uninstallers work perfectly fine. Even for things you ought not remove if you want OSD and hot buttons and the like to continue working.

On behalf of those of us who know better, I'd like to offer your 'fuck you' right back to you.

Slashdot Top Deals

Understanding is always the understanding of a smaller problem in relation to a bigger problem. -- P.D. Ouspensky

Close