I’ve only seen one of them up close in person and it was pretty cool, I do admit. But I still don’t want one for myself. Something about the whole thing just feels weird and off. I’d be constantly feeling like it was going to split apart from plastic fatigue if I had one.

“Dogs and cats sleeping together!”

Interesting read.

Now can somebody please fix the horrible volume sliders on everything.

https://youtu.be/_ZBKX-6Gz6A

I hated it in the early days because I wanted to own physical media for my games, etc., and I just didn’t trust an online games library that could vanish in a business deal or bankruptcy. Little did I know that CDs and DVDs have a shelf life. I learned to love Steam over the years.

Now I hate subscriptions-for-everything and love Steam even more for only charging me once to buy a game.

The 12 year old video below explains the root cause of economic misery. Technology is a tool that can be used for good or evil. But the ruling class wants ALL the money. So technology is often used for more efficient oppression.

Meanwhile, we working class folks are too busy working and/or distracted (often fighting with each other) to mount any real resistance.

https://youtu.be/QPKKQnijnsM

Fortunately I work in a small shop and am a domain admin. Using a combo of Powershell and ShutUp10, I cut out as much of the stupid bloat and spyware as I can. The OS still sucks, but it’s much more tolerable with that crap turned off.

One of these days I’m going to get off my lazy butt and create a custom Windows 11 installation ISO with the nonsense pre-removed.

(And yes, I also use Linux, and prefer it.)

They make use it at my job. I hate it.

I totally get that.

Check out Textpad. You might like it. The only nuisance with it is the default config settings are a little oddball (things like keyboard shortcuts, etc). But it’s highly configurable so you can set it up the way you like and then it’s good. It has more features than Notepad, but it’s still pretty simple and can do cool things like search files / folders for strings, has regex support, etc. But the extras stay out of your way and it’s pretty clean and simple for “notepad-like” usage.

https://notepad-plus-plus.org/

or

https://www.textpad.com/home

The Facebook bots are probably trying to make every lesser site feel bad about itself by comparing them to the much cooler and popular sites.

I checked my “content library” and I still have the option to download. Which is good, as I back everything up in Calibre. Maybe there are some regional factors here, or it may depend on which Kindle device(s) you own?

Thank you for the update! I would like to keep using it. I’ve been very happy with Bitwarden both as a password manager and a TOTP authenticator. I have even recommended it to my boss as an enterprise solution for us to use at work, and so far we are planning on replacing our current password database solution with Bitwarden.

Unfortunately, with “enshittification” being so common these days, it was very easy to believe they were also going to the dark side. I will remain cautiously optimistic after learning it was a packaging bug.

Here’s a link to the post on X (yes, I hate X, too) in case anyone else is doubtful:

https://x.com/Bitwarden/status/1848135725663076446

Yup, thanks. Was thinking along these same lines.

Goddammit. It’s getting to the point I’m going to have to figure out how to write my own app for this.

I’m not against passkeys. They have some real advantages. And I understand more than you think.

My comment is primarily about the preferred ecosystems that tend to come along with these newer solutions (like Apple’s iCloud or Google’s Password Manager) and how the corporations take advantage of user laziness and bandwagon jumping.

They may not force you to be exclusive with them, but they definitely want you to be. And over time they will likely make it more and more inconvenient not to be locked in with them.

For contrast, I use BitWarden for password management and Bitwarden Authenticator for TOTP (and I keep safe copies of TOTP secret keys elsewhere). This is a generic open-standards-first approach to things, with relatively easy recovery should you lose something. You can export your passwords. You have copies of your secret keys. You are in no way locked in to BitWarden forever.

Passkeys can also work within that type of operational framework! Like TOTP which normally uses RFC6238, Passkeys tend to use CTAP or WebAuthn. All of the above are open standards. And this is a good thing!

But do you really think Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc, want to play nice long term? Hopefully they will. But I have also run into evil nonsense like LastPass, which even though they also used open standards, their software would not allow you to do simple things like recover your own secret keys, export your data, etc. (Not to mention the embarrassing security breach they had and the wretched response, the main reasons to dump them).

While I am not directly comparing an idiot company like GoTo Tech with Apple et al, they all have the same types of big brain MBA types working for them who love to constantly brainstorm new ideas on how to screw the users over by taking features away and calling it a “software upgrade”.

So, passkeys as a security mechanism: sure, this gets my vote. But trusting the big corporations not to change the rules on us later…come on, get real. They love limiting or removing portability and recovery options whenever they can.

Bottom line: don’t assume passkeys are inherently good or bad. It’s simply a security standard that can work well if implemented correctly. Passkeys make logging in easier. But will they also make recovery / export / migration easier…? Because if it’s not easy, people won’t do it.

Whenever I read an article about security (and read the comments, even here on Lemmy) I’m constantly frustrated and depressed by a couple of things.

1. Corporations making things shittier with the intention of locking customers in to their stupid proprietary ecosystem. And of course, they are always seeking more data harvesting. Security itself is way down the list of their priories, if it’s even there at all.

2. Users being lazy trend-followers who quickly sacrifice their security on the altar of convenience and whatever shiny new FOMO thing is offered up for “better security”.

It’s a very bad combination. Doing security right is a bit inconvenient (which users hate) and expensive (which corporations hate).

Good catch, I forgot that one! And the other classic is having waste excreting plumbing and reproductive plumbing all bunched together.

So many poor “design choices” in human anatomy. (Note, I know there’s no intelligent design).

The optic nerve. External testicles. Lack of decent fur. The way some nerves and blood vessels are routed make zero sense. An immune system that often wants to kill you. The list goes on. I’m sure a biologist or medical person could add plenty more. Many animals have some of these traits, too. If some trait or process is just barely good enough, nature will chug along with it for millions of years. Nature is all about some redneck engineering.

I remember reading a very long (but fascinating) 11 part series of posts a couple of years ago on reddit about scummy stupid Blizzard. Here it is, if anyone still cares.

https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/riq4fq/games_world_of_warcraft_part_1_beta_and_vanilla/