I remember some years ago there was a "malware" going around that would flash OpenWRT onto people's routers, and set them to have more secure default settings.
There should be another thing like that, but one that upgrades Windows into a Linux distro.
As a basic end-user I have not been too happy with my experience with flatpaks. I do appreciate that I can easily setup and start using it regardless of what distro I'm using. But based on standard usage using whatever default gui "app store" frontends that usually come with distros, it tends to be significantly slower than apt, for instance, and there seems to be connection problems to the repos pretty often as well.
It's why I put it in a separate comment. It's been scientifically shown that people often feel threatened and angry at the mere presence of vegans. What it comes down to is that most people want to believe that they're at least mostly pretty good, but veganism challenges those narratives and highlights that the vast majority of people are very much doing things every day that are very wrong, and that they're not living by their own standards.
I've only been vegan for two years, and have been learning very quickly that I need thick skin for it, and that it means every statement I make on the topic will get scrutinized by the highest standards of skepticism while every carnist can just chime in with all the same tired lies about veganism that have already been thoroughly debunked for years now.
What happened with Opera was very predictable. When it comes to companies and corporations, and when their software products are proprietary, the pattern is always the same. They make something that might be good, maybe very good. Good enough to get some level of popularity. That's how they start. Over time though, the profit driven model inherent in corporations pressures them to implement questionable features - things that might generate more revenue, but are things people might tolerate at best. At some point they become more anti-features than questionable. And eventually both the company and their product devolve into garbage and we find out they've been basically an arm of the surveillance state the whole time.
Mozilla is not immune to corruption. The deal people are referring to here is that Mozilla sets the built in default search engine to whoever is the highest bidder. If I recall, there was a brief period where either Microsoft or Yahoo was going to be that company. But generally it's Google. And not everything Mozilla does with Firefox is considered good for privacy. That's why we have smaller projects like Mull - basically somebody takes Firefox, removes all the problematic parts, and adds extra security and privacy features.
But those projects have a tendency to come and go, because maintaining a complex piece of software like a browser is challenging and costly, and those projects do not generate enough revenue to be self-sustaining.
So Mozilla isn't perfect, but they are a nonprofit organization, which does provide them with a revenue model that allows them to strike a decent balance, and on the whole Firefox is a net good, and has always been one of the most important bulwarks for the free and open web. And the fact that Firefox is entirely open-source forces them to stay good.
I made a rebuttal below, but instead of having an emotionally reactionary response, I want you to consider something else instead. Is it more important to win an argument with a stranger online, or would it be better to take a bit of effort to get more deeply informed on this subject matter for your own sake - something that may actually save your life and maybe the lives of others you care about someday? We could argue about covid origins for days - it's something that even the experts in the field have admitted might never truly be pinned down with a full degree of certainty.
But that can of worms has already been opened. H5n1 may still be prevented, as unlikely as it is that the world will embrace plant-based and vegan ways of living, in time for that. Even so, the more you know, the more you can at least protect yourself. Because even now we are on borrowed time.
https://www.surgeactivism.org/notifbutwhenbirdflu
From a purely statistical point of view, do people get bitten by bats more frequently than they come into contact with contaminated animal flesh? Maybe you live in an area plagued by an intractable bat bite infestation, but that sounds far-fetched to me.
The origins of covid-19 aren't entirely clear, but there's a good chance the animal markets played a decisive role. Having a wide variety of animals confined in unsanitary conditions in one place is a very effective method of incubating diseases that can infect multiple species, including humans.
"In the outbreak of SARS-CoV-1, palm civets, raccoon dogs, ferret badgers, red foxes, domestic cats, and rice field rats were possible vectors.[7] Graham and Baric wrote that human and civet infections likely stemmed from an unknown common progenitor.[67] Patrick Berche wrote that the emergences of SARS-CoV-1 and MERS-CoV appeared to be sequential processes involving intermediate hosts, co-infections, and recombination.[68] In contrast with the rapid identification of animal hosts for SARS-CoV-1 and MERS-CoV, no direct animal source for SARS-CoV-2 has been found.[69] Holmes et al. wrote that the lack of intermediate host is likely because the right animal has not been tested so far.[19] Frutos et al. proposed that rather than a discrete spillover event, SARS-CoV-2 arose in accordance with a circulation model, involving repeated horizontal transfer among humans, bats, and other mammals without establishing significant reservoirs in any of them until the pandemic."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoonotic_origins_of_COVID-19
However, the main problem is that you're thinking too narrowly. If covid was caused by a bat bite, that would still be an example of something caused by animal consumption, because animal consumption is inextricably linked with animal domestication, wildlife habitat destruction, and climate change.
"Bats are a significant reservoir species for a diverse range of coronaviruses, and humans have been found with antibodies for them suggesting that direct infection by bats is common. The zoonotic transmission of SARS-CoV-2 virus to humans took place in the context of exacerbating factors that could make such spillovers more likely. Human contact with bats has increased as human population centers encroach on bat habitats. [4][33] Several social and environmental factors including climate change, natural ecosystem destruction and wildlife trade have also increased the likelihood for the emergences of zoonosis.[34][35] One study made with the support of the European Union found climate change increased the likelihood of the pandemic by influencing distribution of bat species."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_COVID-19
Animal agriculture is the single largest driver of wild animal habitat loss, as well as being a significant driver of climate change. Both of these are significant factors in our increasing proximity to the bats who played a role in covid. Food is like cars. To know the environmental harm of cars you also have to take into account the damage caused by all the infrastructure needed to make the car. In the same way, the harms caused by what we eat also have to take into account everything that's necessary to make the food we eat.
And as more of a hot take, people need to reckon with the zoonotic origins of so many of these diseases. If it weren't for humankind's addictions to consuming animal flesh and their secretions - and the animal agriculture, loss of habitat for wildlife, and all the conditions these things create for the incubation of deadly diseases - we might never have had a covid pandemic. Likewise, an h5n1 pandemic may be a matter of when, not if, because the vast majority of people still refuse to let go of their gluttony for consuming animals.
If you think of all the hate there is for antivaccers, and the harms they caused in 2020 - and deservedly so - omnivores deserve every bit as much, if not more, for the roles they play in the outbreaks of these diseases.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52960876-how-to-survive-a-pandemic
I don't know how much of a threat the original strain is at this point, but if anything I would be concerned about H5N1, what's usually known as avian flu. The only thing currently holding it back from being a pandemic is that it's not efficient at infecting humans yet. But it is extremely deadly, killing 50-60% of those who get infected.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus_subtype_H5N1
As an avid bicyclist who tried their best to live car-free: it's easier said than done for anyone living in the US. I used to make 7 mile commutes to work, even in winters that could go below zero some days. It's doable, but it wasn't easy either. I completely sympathize with anyone who wouldn't want to bike in those conditions, even if a whole bunch of people do so in places like Finland.
But the worst part is the infrastructure. Motor vehicles dominate everywhere. Motorists are routinely hostile to bicyclists. Despite my best efforts to be safe, I've had multiple close calls and was once nearly rear-ended by someone who was going about 50 mph. Technically I did get hit - I had veered to the right just in time to feel the side of their car brush on the side of me. Miraculously suffered no injury, and only one of the support bars on the rear rack had been dented in.
Point is, unless the infrastructure changes, I would never expect others to switch to biking. It is dangerous.
An open-source, federated, and privacy-protecting alternative to the dominant advertising services. Something that gives the individual web user full control of which ads they see; from which indies, organizations, companies or any other groups. And where they can also filter ads based on clear categories, values, or tags, rather than everything being dictated by algorithms and "relevancy".
Windows never breaks? Uhhhhh, that's definitely not true. When I have to use Windows, I brace myself every time I have to update.