No proof = scaremongering

Yes, Signal is not perfect, but I have no reason to believe that they are in any way compromised.

How private are our supposedly private communications, and who ultimately has the ability to access them?

That’s what open source and encryption are for

tbf, I’m not sure about older Fairphones (I have a FP5 and I needed to do that)

On Fairphone, for every OEM unlock you need a working internet connection, and for the first OEM unlock you need to get an activation code from Fairphone using your phones IMEI/serial number. So I’d say this classification is correct. I also have a Fairphone and everything worked without problems, but it is still 100% controlled by Fairphone even on already sold devices.

Not sure about older Fairphones. I have a FP5.

See https://www.fairphone.com/de/bootloader-unlocking-code-for-fairphone

Kape bought CyberGhost at some point, and Kape itself is, according to Wikipedia, a “British-Israeli company”.

https://www.kape.com/our-brands/ https://cyberinsider.com/kape-technologies-owns-expressvpn-cyberghost-pia-zenmate-vpn-review-sites/

That they don’t mention it on their website is somewhat worrying.

I’m using Cryptostorm for around two years now for seeding and browsing. Some things to know.

• We don’t know who is behind Cryptostorm. It could be a honeypot. I personally think this is unlikely because they basically don’t advertise and their website is way too uninviting for the “casual” criminal user, but who knows.
• PGP-encrypted mail support works well and is (likely) handled by a dev with competence. (Very sure there is no specific “support” person.)
• Server and client code is open source on their GitHub, but they only have an OpenVPN client for Windows. For other systems you need to use the provided WireGuard or OpenVPN configs.
• No PII is required for signup.
• Their blog posts are very good and go into detail about their system and what they are doing.
• IP blocks are somewhat common, and you don’t have streaming servers.
• Speeds are fine (not the best, but good enough) and can vary from server to server.

Generally, I’m quite happy with them. But everyone needs to make sure they are fine with not knowing who exactly is behind the service.

and is part of Kape Technologies an israeli company… Same as PIA, ExpressVPN and some more

What hardware do you run, and do you still need help?

Arch is very different from Debian based Linux, where even the same packages can have different names, so using the Arch Wiki for non Arch based Linux distros is not recommended.

I don’t know which drivers are preinstalled on Ubuntu, and some people also seem to have problems with frame drops (e.g. https://askubuntu.com/questions/1520102/why-do-i-get-so-many-frame-drops-on-wayland-with-youtube-playback), so no idea where to begin to help.

Sad to see you go. Every Linux user is one less person relying on our corporate overlords.

If you would like to give feedback to Brave, you can do so at https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues, where you should include your OS, hardware, and installed drivers.

Going with Arch as a first Linux is certainly a choice, and I’d guess a random library is missing. If you are still interested in Linux and it’s also happening in other browsers, I would recommend trying other distros with more “mainstream” appeal (e.g., installed desktop environments and drivers), such as Fedora, Mint, or CachyOS for rolling releases.

I’m also quite new to all this stuff, so if I’m wrong on something, please tell me.

Well, the second story in the linked article is about the same version of the game sold at different price points and Valve rejected it because the price was “significantly higher” on steam.

Now the problem is, we don’t know what “significantly higher” means because Valve did not specify it. But the base line for “allowed” cheaper prices should be the 30% steam cut, shouldn’t it? So a game can be 30% cheaper somewhere else, which in turn makes the steam version around ~42% more expensive. Which could very well fall in the category of “significantly higher.”

But I guess this is why we have the lawsuit to figure this out. I’m just a bit annoyed at a lot of people here jumping directly to conclusions without even reading the linked article. I guess my main point is, that it is POSSIBLE that steam is guilty in contrast to a lot of people just saying “Steam Keys!!!” and denying the possibility of wrongdoing. If it turns out Steam is not forcing something of a price parity, I too would be very happy.

Thank you very much for discussing in good faith.

But that’s the whole point of this. Why should steam have a say in it, how expensive or cheap different games are sold on different platforms. They basically prevent price competition. To be fair in this case selling the starter pack only on Ubisoft Connect (exclusivity) is also anti competitive and worth investigating, but the point stands. Why should steam have the power to force Gamedevs to have price parity with other stores, if the versions of the other stores don’t have anything to do with steam? Why can’t some games be cheaper in other stores, where the stores take a smaller cut of the profits?

Yes Ubisoft is evil, but that doesn’t make Valve the good ones.

Yes Steam has more and better features, but that doesn’t mean other stores should be prohibited to compete on price.

Yes Steam has the largest Playerbase by far, but how many people would switch if games where just always 20% cheaper on other platforms? This price competition seems to be the exact thing that Valve tries to block.

And this is not about keys at all. Steam has of course the right to set the price for their steam keys, because they provide the servers, interfaces, etc.

Did Rainbow six siege on ubisoft connect include a steam key at any point? In the article it just states that they had a cheaper version of the game and valve threatened to take R6 out of steam. Am I missing something?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but this article (and case?) has nothing to do with keys. It’s just about steam saying: If you want to sell on other platforms, even if the other platforms don’t use any of valve services, they need to have the same price as on steam. Which would be clear monopolistic behaviour imo. (-> does rainbow six siege on ubisoft connect use any valve servers/services? You don’t get a steam key on ubisoft connect afaik)

For those who downvote: please explain where I am wrong. Thank you.

“I think the spirit makes a lot of sense. But of course Signal can’t interoperate with another messaging platform, without them raising their privacy bar significantly,” even ones like WhatsApp that support end-to-end encryption and already partly utilize the protocol. “Because we don’t just encrypt the contents of messages using the Signal protocol. We encrypt metadata, we encrypt your profile name, your profile photo, who’s in your contact list, who you talk to, when you talk to them. That would need to be the level of privacy and security agreed across the board with anyone we interoperated with before we could consent to interoperate.”

-Meredith Whittaker (Signal President)

https://techcrunch.com/2024/03/04/signals-meredith-whittaker-scorns-anti-encryption-efforts-as-parochial-magical-thinking/

So no interoperability in the near future for Signal.

https://www.instagram.com/help/support/privacy and click away the login box with the link at the bottom. I haven’t tried it myself, so I don’t know if it will work.

On the website select “Yes” -> “How can I get support for a privacy issue from the Data Protection Officer?” -> Click the link at the bottom named “Create Ticket” or similar -> fill out the form.

That’s true, but they have a prototype “browser” you can download from their website. And I’m hoping for a fleshed out version in the end, either from them or someone else.

tbh I’m more excited about Servo.org. They’re also developing a fully independent browser engine and are funded by the Linux Foundation. Ladybird has corporate sponsors, so I’m a bit hesitant. But the more the merrier I guess.