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KDE Connect / GSConnect: How To Lock/Unlock Your Linux Desktop Using An Android Device
by Peter Reutemann 11 Nov '19

11 Nov '19

'KDE Connect and GSConnect support running commands from an Android device to your Linux desktop. This article explains how to lock and unlock your Linux desktop using a single tap on your Android device, via the KDE Connect Android app. You'll also find a workaround for GNOME 3.34 which has its session managed by systemd, and complicates this a bit.' -- source: https://www.linuxuprising.com/2019/11/kde-connect-gsconnect-how-to-lockunlo… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Budget-friendly Linux Smartphone PinePhone Will be Available to Pre-order Next Week
by Peter Reutemann 11 Nov '19

11 Nov '19

'Do you remember when It’s FOSS first broke the story that Pine64 was working on a Linux-based smartphone running KDE Plasma (among other distributions) in 2017? It’s been some time since then but the good news is that PinePhone will be available for pre-order from 15th November. Let me provide you more details on the PinePhone like its specification, pricing and release date. PinePhone: Linux-based budget smartphone The PinePhone developer kit is already being tested by some devs and more such kits will be shipped by 15th November. You can check out some of these images by clicking the photo gallery below: The developer kit is a combo kit of PINE A64 baseboard + SOPine module + 7″ Touch Screen Display + Camera + Wifi/BT + Playbox enclosure + Lithium-Ion battery case + LTE cat 4 USB dongle. These combo kits allow developers to jump start PinePhone development. The PINE A64 platform already has mainline Linux OS build thanks to the PINE64 community and the support by KDE neon.' -- source: https://itsfoss.com/pinephone/ Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Reactions To the News That Microsoft's Edge Browser Is Coming to Linux
by Peter Reutemann 11 Nov '19

11 Nov '19

'"Microsoft is bringing Edge to Linux, for all the Microsoft fans running Linux," jokes the headline at the Inquirer. ("We can just imagine the amount of bunting and party poppers that the Linux community has just ordered. After all, why wouldn't you want a browser from the company that you joined Linux to get away from?") And the headline at Liliputting quips that the Edge browser "is coming to Linux (whether you want it or not)," calling the move "the latest evidence that Microsoft's relationship to Linux has changed a lot in recent years. But TechRadar had an even more sardonic headline. "Hell freezes over as Microsoft Edge comes to Linux." One other thing to consider is that the introduction of Edge to Linux is something of a thorny subject in that the folks who choose a Linux distro often do so to break away from the chains of Microsoft and Windows (or indeed Apple). So certainly some of the more fervent open source types out there may not welcome a Microsoft browser with open arms, and doubtless it will be regarded with suspicion in some quarters. No matter how much Microsoft has been banging the open source drum in many different ways in recent times. That said, there will doubtless be Linux users who are curious, and may want to pick up a mainstream alternative to Firefox on Linux which, when compared to Chrome -- with its famous memory hogging antics -- makes a far preferable choice in some respects. Edge will also do streaming better (by default Chrome limits you to 720p when you're trying to watch a spot of Netflix). All the testing feedback about Edge has been pretty positive in the main thus far, too, so maybe that will persuade even doubters to at least consider it. One thing's for sure: it will certainly be interesting to see the reaction Microsoft's browser gets when it is deployed to Linux. Edge may face a rocky reception. "I am not feeling a tingling all over at the thought of Edge coming to Linux," posted one commenter on Beta News. "It's not really necessary to bring Linux down to the level of Windows 10."' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/19/11/11/0249222 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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uBlock on Firefox 70.0.1 - memory hungry?
by Peter Reutemann 11 Nov '19

11 Nov '19

Hi everyone Since the last Firefox update to 70.0.1, I noticed that my Firefox was getting sluggish, sometimes taking several seconds before finishing rendering a page and allowing me to click on links. After looking in the processes, turns out that WebExtensions was gobbling up nearly 21GB, not to mention several other processes for rendering the tabs! It was probably swapping memory all the time... After turning off my uBlock addon (and restarting the browser, of course), Firefox is now as responsive as I was used to and WebExtensions is now ~2.5GB. Not sure whether this is due to the newly introduced privacy protection facility within core Firefox, that uBlock ballooned/slowed down like that. Anyway, still got my NoScript and PrivacyBadger addons active. Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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'Microsoft Defender ATP' Antivirus is Coming to Linux
by Peter Reutemann 11 Nov '19

11 Nov '19

'Microsoft is planning to bring its Defender antivirus to Linux systems next year, reports ZDNet: Microsoft announced the brand change from Windows Defender to Microsoft Defender in March after giving security analysts the tools to inspect enterprise Mac computers for malware via the Microsoft Defender console. Rob Lefferts, corporate vice president for Microsoft's M365 Security, told ZDNet that Microsoft Defender for Linux systems will be available for customers in 2020. In October TechSpot reported that Defender placed in the top 10 among all major antivirus programs, narrowly beating established software like Bitdefender, Kaspersky, and Mcafee with an online protection rate of 99.96%, according to testing by independent lab AV-Comparative' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/19/11/10/0352237 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Are Forced Subscriptions Driving 3D Users To Open Source Tools?
by Peter Reutemann 11 Nov '19

11 Nov '19

'Slashdot reader dryriver writes: More and more professional 3D software like 3DMax, Maya, AutoCAD (Autodesk) and Substance Painter (Adobe) is now only available on a monthly or yearly subscription basis — you cannot buy any kind of perpetual license for these industry standard 3D tools anymore, cannot offline install or activate the tools, and the tools also phone home every few days over the internet to see whether you have "paid your rent". Stop paying your rent, and the software shuts down, leaving you unable to even look at any 3D project files you may have created with software. This has caused so much frustration, concern and anxiety among 3D content creators that, increasingly, everybody is trying to replace their commercial 3D software with Open Source 3D tools. Thankfully, open source 3D tools have grown up nicely in recent years. Some of the most popular FOSS 3D tools are the complete 3D suite Blender, polygon modeling tool Wings 3D, polygon modeling tool Dust3D, CAD modeling tool FreeCAD, PBR texturing tool ArmorPaint, procedural materials generator Material Maker, image editing tool GIMP, painting tool Krita, vector illustration tool Inkscape and the 2D/3D game engine Godot Engine. Along with these tools comes a beguiling possibility — while working with commercial 3D tools pretty much forced you to use Windows X in terms of OS choice in the past, all of the FOSS 3D tool alternatives have Linux versions. This means that for the first time, professional 3D users can give Windows a miss and work with Linux as their OS instead. In a comment on the original submission, dryriver offers some anecdotal evidence: Go on any major 3D software forum on the Internet and it is filled with enraged 3D users revolting against forced software subscriptions and threatening to switch to FOSS Blender as soon as possible. Some major 3D animation studios are also working Blender into their CGI pipeline. Companies like EPIC and Nvidia have begun donating to the Blender foundation. Its happening. The move away from commercial closed source tools - which are expensive, stagnant and don't offer you permanent licenses anymore - is in full swing. The fact that Blender has an innovative GPU accelerated realtime render engine called EEVEE that none of the commercial software has has only accelerated this trend. Blender is widely believed to have 2 - 3 million active users already, and the fact that V 2.80 comes with a much more usable UI is only accelerating things.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/11/09/064248 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Scammers Are Actively Exploiting A Firefox Bug
by Peter Reutemann 10 Nov '19

10 Nov '19

'Scammers are actively exploiting a bug in Firefox that causes the browser to lock up after displaying a message warning the computer is running a pirated version of Windows that has been hacked... The message then advises the person to call a toll-free number in the next five minutes or face having the computer disabled... Jérôme Segura, head of threat intelligence at security provider Malwarebytes, said the Firefox bug is being exploited by several sites... On Monday, Segura reported the bug to the Bugzilla forum. He said he has since received word Mozilla is actively working on a fix. In a statement sent seven hours after this post went live, a Mozilla representative wrote: "We are working on a fix to the authentication prompt bug that we expect to land in the next couple of releases (either in Firefox 71 or 72).' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/11/09/0358237 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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DNS-over-HTTPS Will Eventually Roll Out in All Major Browsers, Despite ISP Opposition
by Peter Reutemann 09 Nov '19

09 Nov '19

' All major browsers -- including Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Microsoft Edge, Vivaldi, Brave -- have plans to support DNS-over-HTTPS (or DoH), a protocol that encrypts DNS traffic and helps improve a user's privacy on the web. From a report: The DoH protocol has been one of the year's hot topics. It's a protocol that, when deployed inside a browser, it allows the browser to hide DNS requests and responses inside regular-looking HTTPS traffic. Doing this makes a user's DNS traffic invisible to third-party network observers, such as ISPs. But while users love DoH and have deemed it a privacy boon, ISPs, networking operators, and cyber-security vendors hate it. A UK ISP called Mozilla an "internet villain" for its plans to roll out DoH, and a Comcast-backed lobby group has been caught preparing a misleading document about DoH that they were planning to present to US lawmakers in the hopes of preventing DoH's broader rollout. However, this may be a little too late. ZDNet has spent the week reaching out to major web browser providers to gauge their future plans regarding DoH, and all vendors plan to ship it, in one form or another.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/19/11/08/189243 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Firefox Turns 15
by Peter Reutemann 09 Nov '19

09 Nov '19

'On November 9 2004, a new version of Mozilla's browser called Firefox shipped. It was taking on one of the most daunting monopolies in tech: Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which had more than 90 percent market share. But Firefox was really good, and it became an instant hit, ending Microsoft's dominance of the web. Over at Fast Company, Sean Captain took a look at the browser's original rise, the challenges it faced after Google's Chrome arrived on the scene, and the moves it's currently making to put user privacy first.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/11/08/162243 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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GitLab Director Resigns, Says It's Engaging In 'Retaliatory Behavior'
by Peter Reutemann 09 Nov '19

09 Nov '19

'Candice Ciresi, GitLab's director of risk and global compliance, has resigned after less than six months on the job, apparently saying that the $2.75 billion startup is "engaging in discriminatory and retaliatory behavior." Business Insider reports: Notably, Ciresi resigned in public: GitLab espouses a culture of transparency, whereby all major product and corporate policy decisions are announced and discussed where anybody can see. She posted her resignation in response to one such discussion -- an active debate over a proposed GitLab policy, in which it would ban the hiring of people who live in China or Russia for any role that would require access to customer data. At the time of writing, Ciresi's post announcing her resignation had been reviewed and then "redacted" by GitLab, citing concerns that it would "further inflame this situation." However, Ciresi's comment went out via email to GitLab users who had subscribed to this particular discussion. Per a screenshot posted to Reddit, Ciresi wrote: "As I believe GitLab is engaging in discriminatory and retaliatory behavior, I have tendered my resignation." "We did decide to moderate this post for review, as there have already been credible personal and physical threats against GitLab employees in this issue thread," GitLab says, in part, in place of Ciresi's comment. "While this particular post did not contain a personal threat to anyone, we were concerned it would further inflame this situation." GitLab confirmed Ciresi's departure but didn't comment any further' -- source: https://developers.slashdot.org/story/19/11/08/2216219 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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