February 2023 - wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Mozilla, Like Google, is Looking Ahead To the End of Apple's WebKit Rule
by Peter Reutemann 08 Feb '23

08 Feb '23

'Mozilla is planning for the day when Apple will no longer require its competitors to use the WebKit browser engine in iOS. From a report: Mozilla conducted similar experiments that never went anywhere years ago but in October 2022 posted an issue in the GitHub repository housing the code for the iOS version of Firefox that includes a reference to GeckoView, a wrapper for Firefox's Gecko rendering engine. Under the current Apple App Store Guidelines, iOS browser apps must use WebKit. So a Firefox build incorporating Gecko rather than WebKit currently cannot be distributed through the iOS App Store. As we reported last week, Mozilla is not alone in anticipating an iOS App Store regime that tolerates browser competition. Google has begun work on a Blink-based version of Chrome for iOS. The major browser makers -- Apple, Google, and Mozilla -- each have their own browser rendering engines. Apple's Safari is based on WebKit; Google's Chrome and its open source Chromium foundation is based on Blink (forked from WebKit a decade ago); and Mozilla's Firefox is based on Gecko. Microsoft developed its own Trident rendering engine in the outdated Internet Explorer and a Trident fork called EdgeHTML in legacy versions of Edge but has relied on Blink since rebasing its Edge browser on Chromium code.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/23/02/07/1733204 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Carbonyl: a New Graphical Web Browser in Your Linux Terminal
by Peter Reutemann 07 Feb '23

07 Feb '23

'Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland writes: Someone made a Chromium fork... for your terminal. The terminal-based browser Carbonyl "adheres to, and is compatible with modern standards," writes MUO, "meaning that pages behave as they should, and you can even watch streaming video, within the Linux terminal!" But best of all, "Pages connect and render in an instant—seemingly quicker than a desktop GUI browser, and every page we visited was rendered correctly." >From the article: There are a bunch of good reasons to browse the internet from the comfort of your terminal. It could be that eschewing the bloat of X.org and Wayland, a terminal is all you have. Maybe you like SSHing into remote machines and browsing the internet from there. Perhaps you, like us, just really, really like terminals. Whatever the reason, your choices of web browsers have, until recently, been limited, and your experience of the world wide web has been a janky, barely-functional one.... We tested Carbonyl in a range of Linux terminals, including the XFCE terminal. GNOME terminal, kitty, and the glorious Cool Retro Terminal. Carbonyl was smooth, fast, and flawless in all of them. We even connected to our Raspberry Pi via SSH in CRT, and ran Carbonyl remotely, watching Taylor Swift music videos on YouTube. No problem. And yes, you can use it to play DOOM.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/23/02/04/0246248 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Microsoft Swears It's Not Coming For Your Data With Scan For Old Office Versions
by Peter Reutemann 07 Feb '23

07 Feb '23

'Microsoft wants everyone to know that it isn't looking to invade their privacy while looking through their Windows PCs to find out-of-date versions of Office software. From a report: In its KB5021751 update last month, Microsoft included a plan to scan Windows systems to smoke out those Office versions that are no longer supported or nearing the end of support. Those include Office 2007 (which saw support end in 2017) and Office 2010 (in 2020) and the 2013 build (this coming April). The company stressed that it would run only one time and would not install anything on the user's Windows system, adding that the file for the update is scanned to ensure it's not infected by malware and is stored on highly secure servers to prevent unauthorized changes to it. The update caused some discussion among users, at least enough to convince Microsoft to make another pitch that it is respecting user privacy and won't access private data despite scanning their systems. The update collects diagnostic and performance data so that it can determine the use of various versions of Office and how to best support and service them, the software maker wrote in an expanded note this week. The update will silently run once to collect the data and no files are left on the user's systems once the scan is completed.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/23/02/06/1753258 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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LINUX OS and Desktop build - Compatibility question
by Michael James 02 Feb '23

02 Feb '23

Kia ora WLUG Participants..... Mike here in Whanganui. A total newbie and not at all a Linux programmer nor very knowledgeable about all things Linux but a very enthusiastic Linux proponent and open source advocate. I am trying to put together a new desktop build and wish to know if it will be compatible with the latest version of Linux, whether this be Ubuntu or whichever iteration is appropriate. The components of the build are as follows, and I would be most grateful if experienced participants can have a look at them to see if everything will work together with an appropriate Linux OS so the computer runs smoothly and without any problems for the longterm. *DESKTOP BUILD COMPONENTS* ASUS PRIME Z790-P WIFI-CSM DDR5 Motherboard Corsair CMH64GX5M2B5600C36 Vengeance RGB 64GB (2x32GB) DDR5-5600 XFX Radeon RX 7900 XT SPEEDSTER MERC310 Gaming 20GB Graphics Card Intel Raptor Lake Core i9-13900F Processor Corsair iCUE H150i ELITE CAPELLIX 360mm Liquid CPU Cooler Corsair RM1000e 1000W 80 Plus Gold Fully Modular Kingston NV2 2TB PCIe Gen 4 NVMe M.2 SSD Corsair 4000D Tempered Glass Mid-Tower Seagate IronWolf Pro ST4000NE001 4TB 128MB Hard Drive With kind thanks to all, All the best, Michael James __________________________________________________________________________________________ MICHAEL JAMES PASTROFF phone: inside New Zealand 021 115 3713 outside New Zealand 64 21 115 3713

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