You can get a pass till July 2025 by creating/setting a registry key that they made for businesses.

Paste this in a .reg file and double click it.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome]
"ExtensionManifestV2Availability"=dword:00000002

I’m surprised and happy that SUSE is still doing well. I have fond memories of using SUSE in the enterprise especially around their “perfect guest” campaign for using it in virtualized environments. I thought they had very well-baked integration with large Windows networks—things just worked out of the box that didn’t with RHEL. I’m sure a lot has changed in the last decade but I appreciated their cooperative stance in the enterprise.

I use Adguard, vinegar and baking soda, but wasn’t aware of Wipr. I might give it a try as a replacement for Adguard. Glad you mentioned it.

I’m not an Apple apologist, but I feel there are some things Apple does that are privacy focused.

• The ability to E2EE encrypt iCloud is a very simple privacy feature that is accessible to the technical and non-technical alike.
• Private relay provides a double VPN architecture that doesn’t cause constant captcha hell and again just works for non-technical people.
• Hide my email, while not being perfect, is a pretty straightforward method to make throwaway email addresses.

The things I hate about Apple are generally not privacy related.

• They are a mega-corporation that stifles innovation
• They don’t allow other browsers
• They are puritanical about what is allowed in the App store

I really enjoy Apple products, but this is my biggest peeve. It’s not like I cannot manage without a different browser—certainly about half of americans primarily use Safari—but the flexibility and customization of Firefox or chromium would be very welcome.

People with low scores are always saying I’ve got low standards… /s

Most Apple services can be encrypted including iCloud. Basically email and calendaring are not covered.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/102651#advanced

If you set it up as “advanced” then only you hold the recovery keys.

If you have an easy way to make emails on the fly like Apple’s hide my email feature then it really isn’t an issue to setup accounts with unique email addresses. Some sites don’t allow throw away emails from some providers, but I’ve never had that issue with Apples version since a ban on icloud.com emails would eliminate too many customers.

I have Server 2022 with a GUI installed on my laptop because it lets me use all the server features, play Windows games that use DRM and not spend time messing around with getting linux to run on a laptop. I have Linux on the laptop, but running inside VMs.

I still don’t want copilot installed. I can confirm it is installed on my Windows Server 2022 laptop. I don’t see any entry points on the desktop or start menu. I haven’t checked Edge yet.

I wonder if copilot is released to all update channels or if it is only on a subset?

I don’t even see a link. Though I guess I should look inside Microsoft Edge.

Edit: I cannot find anyway to get to it in either the desktop or Edge. I do not have a signed in Microsoft account on this machine, so that may be why I don’t see it. I’m not willing to sign in to see.

I just installed Ubuntu server on my little home server which has faithfully run Windows 10 Pro since it came out. I didn’t want to deal with the ads on Windows 11. I ssh into the Ubuntu install and there is an ad in the terminal!

I thought the government was tracking the serial numbers on larger bills that were dispensed through ATMs? I didn’t hear that from a reliable source, but it seems pretty simple from a number of transactions standpoint.

Honestly my google auto-type keyboard suggests that any time I post.