Microsoft Defender.

I convinced my work to let me use linux on their laptop. They sent me instructions for setup. One of them was to install Microsoft Defender, had a link to the Ubuntu package and everything. Blew my mind.

Cloud-based. If a product won't work if my internet dies, or I can't access my data without internet or a subscription, I won't buy it.

Just checked my wife's laptop. Local account, secure boot off, windows 10. It had a message telling me to setup a microsoft account to 'finish encrypting the device'. I clicked turn off, and it's currently decrypting the hard drive. Blech.

I would happily dedicate a corner of my garage for a big sodium ion battery.

Also, fun fact they can charge and discharge faster than lithium ion. Also, their chemistry doesn't lead to spontaneous combustion. Perfect for a house backup.

I'm no plumber, but I've done a lot of DIY around the house. I wouldn't be concerned with the ptrap, probably. I'd be concerned with brand new plumbing with nonstandard adapters hanging over a bunch of exposed electrical.

I want to see a seamless roaming standard so a grandma can buy a random brand's wifi extender, plug it in, connect it to her ISP router's wifi and have the same ssid through the house. No needing to jump to NANA-SWIFI-EXT.

Think of it like a protest. Most protests don't DO anything, but he forced the entire senate to sit and listen to him for 25 hrs rant about how bad things have gotten. I'm sure there was work and stuff they were supposed to vote on that he effectively delayed. But that's all it really was, a record breaking protest.

Tldr: different countries wanna do 6g differently. Actually a big problem is the big beautiful bill that just passed in the US. Wifi6e/7 6ghz spectrum that was reserved for wifi got approved to get auctioned off. But it's already a global standard. If us cell cariers buy it up and use it to make faster 6g cell speeds (short distance very high speed). That's going to fragment standards globally.

Cell carriers don't currently use anywhere near all their spectrum they already own.

Not sure there was anything you could have done differently, but there is plenty that you learned. Don't give up, think of it like an extended interview process that you got further in, but didn't work out. If you got one, you can get another. Next time ask for a setup with wifi, preferably a laptop. Most companies do laptops in my experience anyway. The fact that this last company insisted on wired AND blocked your travel router goes to show how incompetent they were. You might have dodged a bullet. If the next company insists on wired, now you can choose to explain your situation or jump straight to the private room for work.

• Tech company gets acquired by massive company for a ridiculous sum of money
• Site never really generated much revenue
• Parent company demands cuts
• lays off workers, ahem sorry, removes redundant positions
• re-org
• gets rid of physical assets by moving to the cloud claiming savings despite it almost always being more expensive and worse than running your own.
• lay off more employees claiming move to the cloud behind schedule and over budget
• blame the economy
• probably something with AI
• hire a more 'global workforce'
• re-org
• RTO mandate to make the highest paid employees leave after they trained their replacements overseas
• voluntary severance package
• another round of layoffs
• re-org
• quarterly report showing highest profits in company history
• worst compensation bumps in company history

Ventoy? Linux live iso files aren't too big less than 5Gb each. You could toss on a handful of utilities like memcheck, clonezilla, and a hdd eraser. Then a few isos of distros you want to try. Adding and removing isos is a breeze with ventoy.

Careful, I've seen an uptick in malicious files being uploaded for popular tv shows. Including murderbot. You likely downloaded one of those. There shouldn't be any DRM in pirated media. I've noticed it mostly in episodes before they are released. So the day after murderbot episode 2 came out my sonarr started trying to download episode 3. They were all malicious files, on all my trackers except for my private one. Carefully look at the file, if it isn't legit, since you got it from a private tracker, flag it and boot the user uploading crap.

If not, could be a transcoding issue. Try watching it directly with VLC.

I recommend having two. Otherwise your home internet goes down everytime you update or reboot or it crashes.

Right?! Most affordable 10G switches are SFP+ which requires a lot more research to make sure you get the right modules and cabling.

Google. Been trying to de-google for over a decade. Many of my random asks for alternatives have been answered with "just use google, it's free".

Biggest problem is phones because I hate Apple more than Google. Every 6 months or so I look into linux phones, but walk away unimpressed.

Bought my house a few years back when pickings were slim. Managed to get one that wasn't in an HOA and fit the needs of the family, but no fiber internet. I have cable with 1G/40mbps, and that upload speed bothers me. I do a lot of ofsite backups and I work from home. My upload bandwith is almost completely saturated 24/7.

The local fiber company offers service one street over. I've called and begged and pleaded, but they won't expand. Talked to the city, crickets, talked to competitors, nothing.

I set up a playwright script that runs every day. It goes to their website, enters my address, gets the message that my address is a part of a future build, clicks on the register button, receives the message that they can't build here due to reasons. And then texts me to tell me that there has been no change to their website.

It keeps me from constantly checking and obsessing over something that'll likely not happen for a good long while. I set up a ssh command to trigger the script in home assistant. So when I'm frustrated I can spam click it half a dozen times.

I'm waiting to eacalate things. I'm an automation test engineer by trade. I'm proficient in load tests. I'm perfectly capable of breaking their website, but I have a feeling that won't convince them to expand and finish servicing the neighborhood. I might safely crank up the # of requests, but if they aren't noticing me now, they probably aren't going to notice a 10-100x increase.

Back in college we had a project that was this. Most of us used Linux From Scratch, a few of us used gentoo, having played with arch since, you could use that too.

https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

Not NEW, but, check out local auctions. Local universities and govt offices are frequently selling lots of newish laptops (5ish yrs old) for $10-$50 apiece.

Yup! Here's a helpful link in case you feel like spreading the joy.

https://www.maketecheasier.com/install-use-microsoft-defender-linux/

Eh, kinda pointless article rant. OK, Firefox is dead to you due to some recent bad decisions they've made. I don't disagree.

But that's it, end of opinion. Chrome is way worse. Grabbing a firefox fork doesn't fix all your complaints. Might fix their T&C issue, but not the dropping of features.

Chromium? Puh-leeze. You're trusting google to behave in an un-google fashion. It's still going to phone home and upload all your data. Downstream fork that claims privacy and security? I have doubts.

At this point it's all a browser garbage fire. Just because one is getting more rancid doesn't make the alternatives any more appealing.