That only blocks for the browser. What about your apps? I never see add banners or popups in apps as i use adaway. Further, I can customize with well maintained blocklists that include other categories like malware and harvesting sites.

I left the pc gaming scene about 20 years ago and only came bacj this year. I found my steam credentials from when they were initially seeking players and revived my account (I closed my email on the account back in 2009, so i couldn’t recover).

I’ve mostly been playing vSkyrim, BG 3, and a few emulated Zelda games. I finally ordered a new gaming laptop because Cyberpunk 2077 is hard to rrad on the Deck, even on a 50" tv on hi-res.

All that is just so you all know where I’m coming from, i am both a newb and a veteran!

From a business standpoint, looking ant it form the non-gaming financial point of view, the move to online-only makes very compelling sense.

It fully implements the licensing model, gives them total control over the property, enables them to generate reports that accurately identify trndsvin user populations, pinpoint steady revenue figures, and they can kill the game as soon as it isn’t valuable to them anymore, and they don’t have to worry about losing revenue from sharing, passing the copy to an otherwise paying customer for free, or a significant pirtiin of piracy loss.

Itvis the end state of the “we are mearly licensing it to you until such time as we decide ee want it back” model.

It sucks, and if i can know it is online only before buying, i will pass. All of us should. Revenue is king to them, and if they lose even a little, they will try something else.

Well said… Two weeks before the equivalent i posted moments ago.

I’ll elaborate for him/her: mesh devices sold by untrusted companies with a profit model will almost surely be collecting your data.

The problem is not “mesh”, it is the companies using a new, cool, buzzword to sell their spyware that is the problem.

They are basically enhanced repeaters that don’t require a seperate network access point.

If you get a device that is primarily marketed as basic hardware, like the Asus router, you are more likely to avoid the collection. Bonus points if you can flash FOSS software to it, also like Asus, so yiu know it is clean. Regardless, use a VPN for external communications.

My home is small enough that mesh is unnecessary, but I’d buy another Asus device for mesh if it were necessary.

I’m confused. Authy is just a 2FA client. There’s half a dozen in fdroid. I use FreeOTC myself. Are graphene users unable to use anything else?

Well, i haven’t neen much of a gamer for years (got too adicted to WoW), but just started again this year. I am amazed by Skyrim, and am now modding it up.

I also just got Cyberpunk 2077, and will get into it soon.

It’s configured to run at the native resolution of the device, and looks good, but I’m not sure it is really at 4k.

Skyrim performs flawlessly, but Baldur’s Gate gets sbout 15 fps at this rez, so I have to lower the graphics setting. I’m nesr endgame, so there is a lot of city animation.

I can’t speak on multiplayer experiences, but i have several emulators set up on my OLED deck. GameCube, N64, switch, ps2. They work well, and i have a 3DO pro2 i use while it’s docked to my 4k tv, sound through a surround sound bar with woofer - amazing sound. I mostly run skyrim and Balder’s Gate 3 at the moment, but i enjoyed BotW and my son likes sonic.

I’m late to the comment board, but I had to say something. I was amazed when one day my broken Balders’ Gate III P22 install suddenly not only worked, but worked with Vulkan. Until now, I figured it was an improvement to the Proton-GE or Experimental that came down around that time. Anyway, when I loaded my game (in the underdark) on my OLED, I was shocked at the improvement.

Not only was the framerate closer to 40+ vs 28-30, but it was vibrant. The resolution appeared to be better, too. It was gratifying to see it looked better than on my ancient Lenovo gaming laptop (circa 2016), which, to my surprise, handled it quite well considering the age of the NVidia card.

I don’t know, but there might be pdf viewers that permit editing layers. Try LibreOffice Draw or gscan2pdf. Maybe The Gimp can do it.

No, you aren’t. You just haven’t been conditioned your whole life to accept 100% surveillance.

MicroG installer revived combined with the LSposed signature spoofer module solves this problem, as long as you are willing to root with Magisk.

Since devices that came with Android 10, all devices are expected to adhere to a standard Android interface. The GSI stands for generic system image.

Given a particular Hardware platform and drivers any GSI should run on any matching Hardware.

I know that Andy Yan’s LineageOS GSI works on my sm-t510 (a64 variant) and from user testimonials, it also runs on the sm-x720 (arm variant, TAB S8).

I linked the forum section that contains the thread for his and many other GSIs.

I have the P6. It’s an all around good phone. Don’t forget to look at GSI ROMs. All recent devices handle those. I can and eventually will install LineageOS on my Galaxy Tab S8 and have it on my old Tab low end tablet.

Incidentally, microg is much better now than when he wrote that.

The automatic build server sometimes hangs, and it can be weeks before someone notices and kicks it. Builds, I think, are alphabetic based on device code name. I’ve gone for 2 months without a push on Taimen.

Rooting and using LSposed can make the process simpler. I use Andy yan’s GSI on my sm-t510.

Only if it earns a profit.

At least Chromecast for TV basically does this. I can search for something and it will tell me all the ways I can watch for any installed app even unsubscribed.

Still, the issue of paying multiple monthly fees to see what you want is ludicrous. It’s as if the media companies maliciously complied with consumers’ desire to pick and choose what they watch rather than pay $200 a month for 1000 stations they don’t watch.

Now, you have to pay $200 to get all the services that have what you want to watch - and you still have to sift through the drek.

Much better, that. /s

That is a trust based transaction when parent asks where their child is going as well.

Putting tracking malware and using surveillance all the time is invasion of privacy, teaching the child that surveillance is okay, and completely lacking a trust relationship, which is bad within a family.

Anti-trust lawsuit in 3… 2…