I dumped Adobe when I tried to reinstall my Creative Suite on a new PC only to have it tell me it was “too old” and I needed to “upgrade” to Creative Cloud.
That “cloud” word had me nope right the fuck out, and it seems I dodged a bullet, as I was not involved with Adobe when they became screwed all their customers.
I have no issues with Lineage, or Graphene, the enshitification is all Google and the shady “app” shilelrs who are after your data linking everything to Google Play Services which is a fucking plague.
Android is fine, Google has gone form “Don’t be Evil” to “How can we be more evil?” and needs to be purged from all devices.
Heck, I just demanded a data deletion of an account that was a legal adult because they demanded a copy of my driver’s license to watch a music video on YouTube.
Funny that doesn’t happen when I send a bot to scrape the webm file, without the spammy annoying AI generated ads playing constantly, and run ffmpeg on it to give me a proper offline copy of said video.
Nothing Google does is needed, they are a “convenience” that is only popular because it si free and already installed on everything. Kinda like Windows, no?
Well, when I play something that I have to get on Steam I either crack it and run it with Goldberg, or I just grab a pirate copy to begin with. Despite being a “Game Industry Guardian” on my Steam profile I’ve moved to piracy if it’s not available DRM-Free.
I decided after several games were “updated” with DRM or KLAC or anti-tamper or to constantly spam Epic Games servers with EOS requests even in offline play that I require two things to pay for game:
Offline installers so I can back them up and not need to keep everything installed at all times, and no client requirment to install and play.
The ability to stay at the current version if there is an “update” that breaks things, withouth fighting the client constantly and going through hoops enabling release channels hoping it doesn;t reset at some point and change the gmae I have installed without my permission.
Most of my game, now, are from GOG. I’ve bought one DLC on Steam in the last year, but after them ignoring the “Hey, I’ll buy this again if you release on GOG” messages the next DLC (dropping next week) is coming from my favorite pirate site not Steam.
Added bonus, to that, the constant EOS and Google conections sent by the game even when I set it to “offline” mode are flippin’ insane, and they don’t happen when the Steam API is set to redirect to a local emulator.
I mean, I guess it’s good to have more thigns, but isn’t this kinda playing in to the “You will own nothing and be happy” BS?
Synchrony handles the “Google Credit” and the other options are Klarna (which is four payments of just over $100 even for a 128GB Pixel 10a) and PayPal, so no, I can not get a Pixel on credit from Google.
If I could get it on payments like they do Googlified ones I would, can’t afford to drop the cash for a Pixel to flash, or to order one with Graphene on it already.
Already on Lineage for the old tablet, and it mostly works, though they don’t sandbox Play Services like Graphene does so I just don’t have them on there.
Being sick of the expanding surveillence and censorship network that saw dystopian fiction as an instruction manual rather than a warning seems to reach across party lines.
I’m not switching, I’m cutting the phone entierly, no point in spending $100 a month to pay for spyware in my pocket as they keep taking features I want out and shoving more AI I don’t into them all while destroyihng encryption and extending the data collection and sales.
I like the travel, but then I’m old and used to use a typewriter, the little “chicklet” keyboard built into the cover of my tablet drive me absolutely nuts.
I take the Red Dragon with me because it doesn’t have a number pad, easier to stuff a tenkeyless in a bag and drag it around, though I actually use the number pad so I prefer to have the full version at home connected to the dock.
I would prefer to find one that sues blue switches instead of red, I love the klicky-klacky, but they’re well built devices that are more than worth the cost.
Now they need to start making their own X-Box controller since Microslop hasn’t made a good one since the 360.
They also don’t need an “app” installed, you can adjust settings in memory and they save it, I originally got them when I returned the Razer one becauyse their software was so terrible. The only reason I have an ASUS as well is the computer is from them and the “Armoury Crate” was already there for basic stuff like fan control and integrated RGB on the motherboard.
There’s a company called “Red Dragon” that has a very solid build generic mechanical keyboard.
I paid $50 for one, and it’s the same quality as my $150 ASUS, the only reason it’s not my daily driver is that it’s a tenkeyless while the ASUS has a number pad.
Quiter possibly, it’s the same phone app on the tablet, so it does kinda push you toward that.
Never really saw the point of bothering, though, since Session worked perfectly on all devices without trying to figure out how to set the app as a secondary device since it uses the same key per account and putting in the recovery code adds a new device no matter which app or OS you’re on.
Well, I was worried about losing contact with the bots when I cancel my phone service, but maybe I won’t have to ;)
While I don’t use it because of privacy concerns over the number I have it installed, and configured to recieve messages from people who insit on it.
I have it on my phone, and linked to Desktop via the native Linux port, but if I log in to my table it logs me out of my phone.
The opnly confirmed thing I have heard is that they can read signal messages via your notifications, if they are enabled, so always check the app manually and do not use their push service.
Telegram requires a phone number, last I checked, and Desktop needs to be signed in to from mobile. So the same as Signal for “Abuse Prevention” ™
And it’s only good for connecting to bot networks to deliver… Questionable content.
Most of my torrents ceom from Telegram bots, now that sites keep getting taken down who hosted them.
As to actually using it?
Well, the only contacts I have are pirate bots, and that will never change.
Still more than I have on Signal, though ;)
Considering I’ve been sending everyone to Session instead, since I refuse to put a phone number linked to my name, address, and payment information in to a “privacy focused” messenger…
Yeah, once I was gone it’s over, I did Linux before when the whole Windows ME mess. I went back with 7, when it actually worked again, but them doing worse with 11 than they did with ME and then 8 is a “Three Strikes” rule on them.
I don’t think there is any way to convince me to every use their crap again, especially not as it’s all flippin’ cloud subscription SAS scamware slopified surveillence tech now.
Sadly I see Gabe saying something that makes sense, and then Valve ignoring it to do whatever a corporate publisher demands, since it’s a private company and not forced to bow to shareholders I kinda hoped they could take a stand but it seems like the whole recommendation list lately has either been AI slop or a corporate “AAA” shovelware game that demands I run a secondary client on top of Steam to launch.
Steam has done a lot of good things, but I think they need to take a stand against the publishers. Kicking them off Steam would cost them money, but it would cost the publishers far more, and I think they could use their damn-near-monopoly status to make good changes in the insdutry by simply refusing to alow abuse of paying gamers.
It’s pretty sad that I have dozens of games that I can’t play anymore because of an “update” that broke it I was forced to install by Valve because the publisher said so. It’s why my 1500ish game library is all cracked and backed up in zip files to old mechanical hard drives (no need to pay the AI bubble premium on storage, not running the games off the HDD, I extract the archive to my SSD and play from it) now and any games I buy are form GOG with everything not sold there pirated instead.