@niggy Ah yes, another one who just believes what the proprietary masters say.

>supporting installing coreboot etc on consumer hardware is bad
It being possible for users to install the software they want to install is bad?

>just exposes users to persistent firmware implants for a feature they'll never use
I'm not sure what "persistent firmware implants" is meant to mean, could you clarify?

Firmware is microprocessor instructions burned into a external ROM chip that can technically be cut out and thus replaced (therefore, not as hard as hardware, but not as soft as software, so firmware).

Of course manufacturers have taken to calling their proprietary software "firmware" to trick the users into thinking that what controls the hardware isn't software and how only the manufacturer can update such is normal.

I've heard of plenty of UEFI level malware that bypasses the signing, as such proprietary software developers seem to only be competent enough to implement signing that blocks free software, but not malware (or could it be that their only intention is to block free software and they don't care that their software is full of vulnerabilities that are exploited by malware).

>signed firmware protections are the best thing to happen to hardware in decades
Hardware that refuses to boot up unless authorized proprietary software (full of vulnerabilities) is present is a good thing?

>maybe could be some niche hardware options for those special enthusiasts, but can't really blame vendors when that market is so minuscule
The market for decent hardware is huge, it's just that few seems to want to sell to such market.

It'll be trivial to allow the user to upload their own signing keys, or add a setting to disable signature checking (just like what "secureboot" does), or even to add 2 solder pads to the board that need to be shorted to disable signature checking, but of course no manufacturer does that.