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1. Embed this notice
   Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Jan-2025 19:59:30 JST Charlie Stross

   Fuck off. Then fuck off some more. And when you've finished fucking off? Continue to fuck off indefinitely.
   https://orbitbymozilla.com/

   • Infoseepage repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Nick Taylor (tienelle@mendeddrum.org)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Jan-2025 20:32:37 JST Nick Taylor

     in reply to

     @cstross For a moment I dared to hope it was working locally, but no, it's "privacy preserving" in that they promise they won't keep and train on your questions and data. i.e. not privacy preserving at all.

   • Embed this notice
     Sandra Bond (klepsydra@wandering.shop)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Jan-2025 20:40:29 JST Sandra Bond

     in reply to

     @cstross it *is* safe to click on this and find out why you're so vexed... right?

   • Embed this notice
     Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Jan-2025 20:43:03 JST Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     • Sandra Bond

     @klepsydra Yeah, it's just a corporate bullshit press release. The content, however, may set hair on fire ...

   • Embed this notice
     Sandra Bond (klepsydra@wandering.shop)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Jan-2025 20:56:15 JST Sandra Bond

     in reply to

     @cstross The four words of the headline alone were quite sufficient to make me shudder and for my right hand, unbidden, to click away.

   • Embed this notice
     Jen 🏳️‍⚧️🪕📓📖🤓 (jvw@wandering.shop)'s status on Thursday, 02-Jan-2025 00:13:18 JST Jen 🏳️‍⚧️🪕📓📖🤓

     in reply to

     @cstross
     ...is THAT why Firefox has been eating CPU for the past month or so...

   • Embed this notice
     Tom Bortels (tbortels@infosec.exchange)'s status on Thursday, 02-Jan-2025 01:42:16 JST Tom Bortels

     in reply to

     @cstross

     Counterpoint: this is an add-on, not installed by default. You have to actively opt-in to use it. If you're going to dabble in AI, there are far worse ways to introduce it as an option.

     AI is like a box of matches, or a forklift - it's just a tool. It can be used for a few very specific tasks, or misused, and if misused you can do a lot of damage with it. Being ignorant of how to use it safely isn't a great long-term strategy to be safe. This may just be a way for the layman to try it safely and grok what it can do, and more importantly what its failure modes are.

     I'd say at some point once people have a firm grasp on what it can and can't do we can make intelligent decisions on how it should fit into society - but we didn't bother to research first with fire or the wheel or electricity or computers, so we won't do that here either. That just means it's more important than ever for individuals to educate themselves.

     Hint: for certain very narrow cases, AI can add utility when used by a skillful operator - some computer code tasks come to mind. Its output seems awfully human at times, and that's where the danger lies, as it doesn't actually think or reason. Never trust the output - you need to verify.

     It's also an energy hog, but that's a different failure mode. It also is poisoning the infosphere, but that problem is sadly self-correcting. Books are good - they don't change after the fact.

     Would I recommend using this? Probably not, but learning somewhere is good - I may try it on an isolated VM. If you're savvy you can download the model and mess with it locally, which is a security win. For many, this may be an ok choice.

   • Embed this notice
     Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Thursday, 02-Jan-2025 01:42:16 JST Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     • Tom Bortels

     @tbortels I'm unhappy about what it says about the direction Mozilla is traveling in, following the layoffs and opt-out advertising and sponsorship deals and other bullshit.

   • Embed this notice
     Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Thursday, 02-Jan-2025 03:46:32 JST Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     • KB Sez
     • Trojan Duck

     @todwest @kbsez Brave's owner is a cryptocurrency grifter, isn't he?

   • Embed this notice
     KB Sez (kbsez@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 02-Jan-2025 03:46:33 JST KB Sez

     in reply to

     • Trojan Duck

     @todwest @cstross

     I just looked it up on https://privacytests.org/ and it looks like it's doing a damn good job.

     It comes with uBlock Origin installed by default and I added Privacy Badger too.

     So far it's smooth.

   • Embed this notice
     Trojan Duck (todwest@beige.party)'s status on Thursday, 02-Jan-2025 03:46:33 JST Trojan Duck

     in reply to

     • KB Sez

     @kbsez @cstross Thanks for the helpful link. Brave is looking better than I thought it would. Giving it a try as well. I just discovered that I can stream a lot more easily than FF. LW is a bit tricky, I'm finding. Still can't figure out how to stream anything to my chromecast from LW. Brave actually casts the browser window so I can watch with my adblocker enabled. Nice.

   • Embed this notice
     KB Sez (kbsez@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 02-Jan-2025 03:46:35 JST KB Sez

     in reply to

     • Trojan Duck

     @todwest @cstross

     yeah, me too. I’m a big supporter of Libre Office

   • Embed this notice
     Trojan Duck (todwest@beige.party)'s status on Thursday, 02-Jan-2025 03:46:35 JST Trojan Duck

     in reply to

     • KB Sez

     @kbsez @cstross There are a few annoyances with LW I'm experiencing, but I think it's down to the learning curve.

   • Embed this notice
     KB Sez (kbsez@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 02-Jan-2025 03:46:36 JST KB Sez

     in reply to

     @cstross

     I moved on from #Firefox already to #Vivaldi but I’d love to hear what security and #Privacy oriented users are using as well

   • Embed this notice
     Trojan Duck (todwest@beige.party)'s status on Thursday, 02-Jan-2025 03:46:36 JST Trojan Duck

     in reply to

     • KB Sez

     @kbsez @cstross Isn't Vivaldi Chromium-based? I am looking at switching to LibreWolf.

   • Embed this notice
     j@mastodon (jcast@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 03-Jan-2025 08:19:35 JST j@mastodon

     in reply to

     • Justin du Coeur
     • My name is nobody
     • KB Sez

     @jducoeur @nomad2035 @kbsez @cstross

     I'm slowly testing GNOME Web / Epiphany. WebKit based.

   • Embed this notice
     My name is nobody (nomad2035@infosec.exchange)'s status on Friday, 03-Jan-2025 08:19:36 JST My name is nobody

     in reply to

     • KB Sez

     @kbsez @cstross https://privacytests.org/

   • Embed this notice
     Justin du Coeur (jducoeur@social.coop)'s status on Friday, 03-Jan-2025 08:19:36 JST Justin du Coeur

     in reply to

     • My name is nobody
     • KB Sez

     @nomad2035 @kbsez @cstross I'm a little disappointed that they don't have Orion in that listing yet -- still beta, but I *think* it would score pretty well. (It's been eye-opening using it this past year, and seeing how many sites it blocks by default.)