It varies. I started using Mozilla in 2000 because I felt it was important - not because it was good, 'cos it wasn't, it was shit. Though at some point it crashed less than IE, and started looking a bit useful.

http://i.imgur.com/IZDxmzb.jpg

I appreciate the ads that get in people's faces pay more. Until they're blocked.

Financial Times != Times. FT is owned by Pearson, who publish The Economist.

Thanks for the correction. Conclusion still applies though. App Store doesn't allow shared libraries and has mandatory license terms incompatible with the LGPL.

Jitsi is GPL, and Apple's mandatory license terms are incompatible with GPL software.

Although I have not installed CyanogenMod on my Nexus 4, as I have on my Asus Transformer Infinity tf700, the option is available and I will probably eventually do so. I am installing nightlies every other day on the Transformer. I have the option not to use Google's services since I have control over the OS. IMO Google is selling the unit at parts cost, that's why it's from the Play store rather than another retailer. Obviously, not being locked in is always considered in my choice of hardware.

I bought an LG / Google Nexus 4 a while back. They're less than half the price of other top-end smartphones, unlocked and with no contract. I put a Platinumtel SIM in it with the $10 for 60 days GSM plan, and set it to restrict background data. The network is T-Mobile. After a month I'm still on the first $10, having of course made extensive use of wifi.

As far as I can tell, I have all of the smartphone benefits without much of the cost.

Are you getting lots of ERR_NETWORK_CHANGED errors? There's a Chromium ticket about that...

Android 4.1 has full emoji support.

I switched to Ruby from Perl back when Perl 6 was in the early stages of development. I haven't regretted it at all. There are more Ruby Gems than CPAN packages now, the regexps are just as good, and the language syntax is so much cleaner.

Back on Ruby 1.8, Perl was about twice as fast, but these days Ruby has improved a lot, and there are also options like JRuby and Rubinius.

The publisher is upset that someone called them Scientologists. Well, they're absolutely not Scientologists. They're Moonies. Yes, really.

The purpose of the patent system in the 21st century is for big businesses to keep small competitors out of the field. If the inventor gets anywhere from it, that's nice to advertise, but it's nothing to do with what it's for.

It's like copyright. If it benefits the actual artists, that looks good in the advertising, but if it ever does happen it's strictly a side-effect - it exists to benefit the publishers.

COURT ROAD, Tottenham, Friday (NTN) — Internet advertising agency Google is opening its first retail store, selling the Internet-only Chromebook.

"We've put a lot of effort into making it feel welcoming, homely and, dare I say it, 'Googley'," said Arvind Desikan, head of consumer marketing. The revolutionary shopping experience leverages Google's famous abilities in customer service, having no staff. Customers seeking advice on a product can simply log in with their Google account to the in-store forum, where they and other customers can assist each other.

"People will be able to go in and have a play with the devices, so they can get a feel for what it's about and we can monitor their reaction." Persons seeking entry to the store must give their bank account name and glue an RFID tag to their forehead, so as to create a suitably decorous shopping environment, "just like in real life." Should they be discovered to be using a name the Google Identity algorithm considers unlikely, they will be ejected mid-purchase and their GMail and Android phone disabled, for their comfort and convenience.

The store is in Tottenham Court Road, occupying a corner of the Church of Scientology, so as to select for the valuable demographic of people who want shiny things and are willing to pay a hundred quid more than they would for an ordinary netbook that does more. A second store will be opened in Lakeside for customers of similar discernment.

The Google store still anticipates more customers than the Microsoft stores. Rumours of the purchase of a Windows phone somewhere in Britain are as yet unconfirmed, despite investigations by sceptics' organisations.

Actually, if you look at Fox over the past few weeks, they've run a series of anti-solar articles. I guess somebody wants to sell more oil.

UA string change extensions aplenty.

For the bludgeon method: Windows Firefox running in Wine. It thinks it's on Windows, the site thinks it's on Windows, luvverly.