Totally off topic, but:

All the US media cares about is ratings because of your stupid setup that has news programs included in channel ratings and because that's how you sell papers. As a result, news organisations only care about covering stories that they think people will want to read about.

Nobody wants to read insightful, factual stories about actual things, especially if they involve other countries somehow, they want to have their views reinforced about how the government is trying to turn the country into a communist superstate, that mexican islamist jihadis are queuing at your southern boarder waiting to blow you all up, that some people are christian and this somehow oppresses those who aren't while those who aren't are similarly oppressing the christians and that 'murica is the greatest country on God's green earth (when it's not being turned into a communist superstate or being flooded with mexican muslims).

This isn't who to trust, this is who is the least worst when it comes to handing over your information to the government or various corporate interests using the government as their proxy (RIAA, etc.).

Nothing in this report accounts for how the companies themselves treat your private data, just how they respond to requests from law enforcement.

Then let us all be glad they didn't read that first and cook up a batch of dioxygen difluoride to use.

They haven't. You still have to fake UA strings to use most browsers with their online banking site.

Sort of

No

Yes

No

It depends

I'm pretty sure that if you or I came to an agreement with a court based on a crime we'd committed and then "accidentally overlooked" adhering to that agreement, we'd be nailed for it, so I don't see why Microsoft should get off just because they're a corporation rather than a person (which is still the case outside the US as far as I'm aware).

The fine is not for the crime, it's for breaching the agreement.

I'm not sure why you're incapable of or unwilling to grasp this, but the fine in question has nothing to do (at least directly) with Microsoft breaking any laws; it is specifically due to them signing an agreement with the EU to include the Browser Choice software will all new installs of Windows sold in Europe and then *not doing it* while claiming that they were.

This is essentially a fine for breach of contract and nothing to do with whatever irrational government-hating fantasy you've concocted in your mind.

Except then the carriers just wouldn't bother with the drivers so any updates from Google would break the phone.

What do you mean? I love having a full-screen blocking pop-up on my 2012 servers every time there's a windows update to install.

It's like living in the future.

PowerShell has kind of rendered the CLI argument obsolete; sure, you can argue it's just a clone of Bash et al, but it's a damn good clone and I really struggle to manage without it these days.

They are in Europe and have been since 2007. Not that it stops them acting like dicks, of course, they are just (in principle) well-regulated dicks over here.

You obviously never read The Grauniad.

Or you could read it in the reasonable, non-inflammatory way, which is to say that most of the people who commit these mass shootings do not have previous criminal records for violent acts and therefore applying the logic that "they're criminals, they'll ignore the law anyway" is disingenuous at best.

But isn't that part of the problem, that people with no understanding of the safe handling of firearms, with no training or respect for the damage they're capable of doing can walk in off the street and buy them?

Yes, that's entirely down to the metric system. Do you read what you type?