This is a bad thing?

There's no such thing as an 'essential cookie'.

I ditched (k)Ubuntu when they started forcing snaps on users - apart from the slow cold start time for Firefox, it broke Firefox's Plasma desktop integration. Now using Manjaro with Plasma on Wayland and very happy with it.

Any sign that a big tech company recognises that denying options and choice to users is a bad thing, is to be welcomed.

Or the Dad could stay home. But the social stigma against stay at home dads is even greater.

Lambourghini successfully went from tractors to sports cars...

In that case I imagine in might need to provide subscriber data to justify continued funding by the Saudi Arabian Oil Company.

If that magazine sells advertising (and I guess it does) then getting you to subscribe, even for free, means they have certified circulation figures to base ad sales on.

A while ago I got sick of my Fire Stick's crowded, ad-flinging UI and thought I'd build myself a little celeron-powered Linux media player launching streaming services in full screen browser sessions. It turns out that all major streaming services limit the resolution of browser-based streaming (even with widevine) to SD or 1080P HD if you're lucky, with 4K out of the question. This forces people to use apps from app stores or accept a restricted service. Maybe time to think again?

"I was informed in the course of my official duties of a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering program to which I was denied access" Yep - that's how control of highly classified material is managed.....

If there was a "nuclear apocalypse" then the resulting nuclear winter should restore the various ice sheets and glaciers, and sea levels would start falling....

It does come with an app store based on Aurora that also pulls in F-Droid packages. I run it on the previous generation Fairphone 3+ and all the apps you need are probably available.

So if something is "publicly available" on the internet, I can use to "build products" provided my privacy policy that you haven't agreed to says I can? Like songs and TV episodes on YouTube? Cool...

I have tinnitus which masks higher frequencies, particularly affecting my ability to understand higher-pitches voices. Couple that with TV programming with lower frequency background sounds or music, and that pretty much makes it impossible for me to understand the dialogue even when using a decent sound bar instead of crappy built in speakers. Sci-fi movies and TV series are the worst, since someone decided back in the 60s that spaceship engines universally sound like a continuous low rumble....

In my case I switched from kubuntu to Manjaro because the Firefox snap not only had annoyingly long cold-start times, but also broke the browser integration plug-in for the Plasma desktop. So the integration between my default desktop and default browser was broken by a Canonical policy decision. I know I could have removed snaps installed a native Firefox via a PPA, but decided I didn't want to waste time fighting my distro. I assume other desktop apps will get the snap treatment soon eg libreoffice, thunderbird, VLC etc and the user experience will be like wading through molasses.