Dumb downed? They’ve taken a simple error and made it into something that does scare users. The “Repair application?” was far more alarming to my visiting friend than a “No Internet connection” would have been. It is astounding that any company would put out such complete shit.

What kind of idiots create a program that says, “Outlook failed to load. Repair application?” when the only problem is the wifi is disconnected?

Don’t Be Evil.

Google: “Based on this feedback and our ongoing conversations with the community, we are building a new advanced flow that allows experienced users to accept the risks of installing software that isn’t verified.

I’ve been side loading apks since I bought my first Android phones and am much more concerned about malware “safe” apps from Google’s Play store. Google’s quality control is shit.

Many in the FFmpeg community argue, with reason, that it is unreasonable for a trillion-dollar corporation like Google, which heavily relies on FFmpeg in its products, to shift the workload of fixing vulnerabilities to unpaid volunteers.

Google may once have felt an obligation to support the open source software they rely on, but that day’s long gone. They have become nothing more than a skeleton of distilled capitalism, shedding any pretense of being of benefit to society along with their “Don’t be evil” motto.

Google’s behavior makes perfect sense with the understanding that every single move, no matter how small, is only about generating more revenue.

Reflect Orbit 2.0 Hacker Edition:

Move corporate HQ to Russia, place mirrors in orbit to block sunlight, then charge big $$$ to unblocked it. Profit.

OpenWRT is a permanent solution for older TP-Link routers. Their newer routers are locked down and not supported by OpenWRT.

Thanks for that write-up. I’ll continue to ignore the electric company’s marketing efforts and remain blissfully disconnected.

Samsung did something similar with one of their tablets when they remotely removed an app that provided an IR remote function - a primary reason for my purchase. Samsung’s support not so politely told me, “Too fucking bad.” when I objected.

There was something I could do about it though. Even though a replacement 3rd party app was less than $5 I haven’t purchased another Samsung consumer product or service in almost a decade.

If you live in the U.S., you can also help by letting your representatives know about this. Here’s an ActionNetwork page that Fulu set up so that you can easily do so: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/right-to-repair-reform-section-1201-of-the-dmca

Do you still have a representative government where you live? I have a Republican House rep and trying to get him to do anything even remotely consumer friendly is just masochism.

That “Smart Energy” discount has shown up in mailings for the last few years and I’ve considered signing up despite my general dislike of allowing any company more control of my life than they already have.

Why do you say they’re a trap? Did they change your thermostat settings far more than they claim or pull other BS you didn’t expect?

Z-wave thermostats don’t require Internet connectivity to function or control remotely. They do require something like Home Assistant for that remote control.

With Google’s track record of jumping into a market and after they have millions of users shutting it down, I’m surprised they didn’t do this years ago.

How long before Honeywell does the same? The company spun off their residential services division (including thermostats) about 7 years ago and at first things were fine, but in the last couple of years the service has become increasingly unreliable. Their servers have gone down quite a few times and settings changes are sometimes delayed even when the servers are up.

Their Z-Wave thermostat is a nice upgrade without concerns about someone sitting in a corporate America e-suite deciding to pull the plug.

As do smart thermostats that don’t rely on the continued goodwill of any corporation to function.

Just switched to a Honeywell T6 Zwave (model TH6320ZW2003) thermostat and really like it. It’s a big step up from my old wifi thermostat. There are some nice features like a humidity sensor and adjustable backlight, but the feature we like best is the Circulation fan mode that runs the furnace fan a certain percentage of the time even if the system isn’t heating or cooling. This has made a significant different in our comfort level and we notice when the fan isn’t set to Circulation.

Since it’s locally controlled, settings changes take effect immediately without the delay we regularly had with our old wifi Honeywell. Programming was more involved than a regular smart thermostat, but not overwhelming. It can be powered by a C wire or by batteries. Ebay has open box, like new models.

What model did you buy/return?

I’m using multiple Tapo cameras and although I had to set up an account initially for configuration, that account is only used when I want to actually change camera configuration. Unless I need to do that the cameras are completely blocked from the Internet.

They work fairly well with RSTP on Frigate & Home Assistant although they do lock up once in a while, but they were only $15. If I remember correctly not all TP-Link’s cameras support RSTP and the company is terrible at documentation, so making sure you buy a camera that supports the protocol isn’t all that easy.

I also have Foscam and Dahua cameras and they have been bulletproof.

Google Safe Browsing looks to be have been built without consideration for open-source or self-hosted software.

IMO Google Save Browsing was built with consideration for open-source and self-hosted software, but it has nothing to do with user safety, just like blocking Android apps from 3rd party sites has nothing to do with user safety. The harder they make it to move away from their products by making using alternatives difficult, the more money they make and money is now the only objective. Even if this only adds a fraction of a fraction of a percent to their profit it’s something Google will implement.

The old social contract of businesses being of benefit to the community as a whole in addition to making a profit is long gone.

I’ve slowly removed all cloud dependency from things in my home including cameras, appliances, and thermostat, and didn’t even notice the outage. After this year’s tsunami of dumpster fires it’s nice to watch one pass us by.

The vast majority of people have already activated Windows with an email address. I have several friends who have done so and for them this cost nothing.

Not something I’m willing to do, but it’s not a problem for most users who entered their email address long ago.