I personally like baresearch.org and SearXNG.site and switch hqcobajd forth if either gets temporarily suspended for making too many requests. I also saw a tutorial on YT on how to set up your own instance if you’re not on mobile. I do highly recommend still using ublacklist alongside SearXNG, since that helps block all the SEO spam and listicles.

Have you tried uBlacklist and SearXNG?

(Sure, I don’t mind long replies.)

In that case, what is the line between “simply” hate speech and actual radicalization to terroristic acts and/or conspiracy to terroristic acts and/or incitement to terroristic acts? At what point does it stop being “someone should [violent act] the [slur]s” and become “I bought a gun and several mags and have been practicing for the [dogwhistle mass violence event], let’s [violent act] the [slur]s”? At what point does it stop being 4chan trolling and become all but admitting intention to commit the Christchurch shooting? A Stormfront discussion forum becoming outright planning for and incitement to a Jan 6th riot?

I have Linux Mint installed with the Windows theme and Windows style cursor. It looks almost identical to Windows.

Even Linux Mint?

How about incitements to violence and outright explicit disinformation/misinformation, like:

• [group] should be [violent act]
• [group] are [dehumanizing pejorative] that deserve [violent act]
• [dogwhistle for the actual Nazis, like the 14 words, terminology specifically referencing the Final Solution, etc]
• [hard r] are [extreme dehumanizing pejorative] and don’t deserve [human rights]
• [violent or repulsive act] the [slur]
• “Despite only making up 13%…”
• “Whites create and forget, [slur]s copy and remember…”

How about incitements to violence and outright explicit disinformation/misinformation, like:

• [group] should be [violent act]
• [group] are [dehumanizing pejorative] that deserve [violent act]
• [dogwhistle for the actual Nazis, like the 14 words, terminology specifically referencing the Final Solution, etc]
• [hard r] are [extreme dehumanizing pejorative] and don’t deserve [human rights]
• [violent or repulsive act] the [slur]
• “Despite only making up 13%…”
• “Whites create and forget, [slur]s copy and remember…”

Thing is, human nature has been shaped to make alternatives feel impossible to achieve and any effort in that direction pointless to engage in. This was and is an ongoing project of generations of trauma, imposed norms and rules, hierarchies and conditioning; even if they are later educated to understand the predicament they are in, the conditioning is strong enough to dissuade all but the rare few not to do anything. Remember, feudalism lasted for over a thousand years.

Looks like you needed to actually @ the bot, but here’s your late reminder. Unfortunately Loops got postponed about a week due to Meta being a-holes and naming a different thing Loops, but they should hopefully be up next Sunday.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish

Browser incompatibilities:

The plaintiffs in an antitrust case claimed Microsoft had added support for ActiveX controls in the Internet Explorer Web browser to break compatibility with Netscape Navigator, which used components based on Java and Netscape’s own plugin system.

On CSS, data:, etc.: A decade after the original Netscape-related antitrust suit, the Web browser company Opera Software filed an antitrust complaint against Microsoft with the European Union, saying it “calls on Microsoft to adhere to its own public pronouncements to support these standards, instead of stifling them with its notorious ‘Embrace, Extend and Extinguish’ strategy”.[15]

Office documents: In a memo to the Office product group in 1998, Bill Gates stated: “One thing we have got to change in our strategy – allowing Office documents to be rendered very well by other people’s browsers is one of the most destructive things we could do to the company. We have to stop putting any effort into this and make sure that Office documents very well depends on PROPRIETARY IE capabilities. Anything else is suicide for our platform. This is a case where Office has to avoid doing something to destory [sic] Windows.”[16]

Breaking Java’s portability: The antitrust case’s plaintiffs also accused Microsoft of using an “embrace and extend” strategy with regard to the Java platform, which was designed explicitly with the goal of developing programs that could run on any operating system, be it Windows, Mac, or Linux. They claimed that, by omitting the Java Native Interface (JNI) from its implementation and providing J/Direct for a similar purpose, Microsoft deliberately tied Windows Java programs to its platform, making them unusable on Linux and Mac systems. According to an internal communication, Microsoft sought to downplay Java’s cross-platform capability and make it “just the latest, best way to write Windows applications”.[17] Microsoft paid Sun Microsystems US$20 million in January 2001 (equivalent to $34.41 million in 2023[18]) to settle the resulting legal implications of their breach of contract.[19]

More Java issues: Sun sued Microsoft over Java again in 2002 and Microsoft agreed to settle out of court for US$2 billion[20][21] (equivalent to US$3.23 billion in 2023[18]).

Instant messaging: In 2001, CNET described an instance concerning Microsoft’s instant messaging program.[22] “Embrace” AOL’s IM protocol, the de facto standard of the 1990s and early 2000s. “Extend” the standard with proprietary Microsoft addons which added new features, but broke compatibility with AOL’s software. Gain dominance, since Microsoft had 95% OS share and their MSN Messenger was provided for free. Finally, “extinguish” and lock out AOL’s IM software, since AOL was unable to use the modified MS-patented protocol.

Email protocols: Microsoft supported POP3, IMAP, and SMTP email protocols in their Microsoft Outlook email client. At the same time, they developed their own email protocol, MAPI, which has since been documented but is largely unused by third parties. Microsoft has announced that they would end support for the less secure basic authentication, which lacks support for multi-factor authentication, access to Exchange Online APIs for Office 365 customers, which disables most use of IMAP or POP3 and requires significant upgrades to support the more secure OAuth2 based authentication in applications in order to continue to use those protocols;[23] some customers have responded by simply shutting off older protocols.[24]

It stands for “embrace, extend, extinguish”, a strategy used by Microsoft in the past to take over formerly open source projects.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish

Many people speculated that the creation of Threads and one-way federation was a similar tactic, and now with the Loops thing.

Have you tried Linux Mint Cinnamon? It’s about as beginner-friendly as it gets, has help forums, a dedicated chat built-in for getting help, a welcome screen that walks you through how to do updates/backups/firewall/etc, and works out of the box. I’m an ex-Windows user and I’ve been using Mint for almost a year now with practically no issue.

Very possible. It’s not like Loops was a secret, and it would be a direct competitor to Instagram Reels. Plus, E/E/E and all that.

Postponed 11 days unfortunately due to Meta shenanigans

Loops got postponed unfortunately

Thanks!

Unfortunately they postponed it 11 days because Meta, of course, also announced an unrelated program named “Loops”, and now the FOSS project manager doesn’t want to release something that would seem like an afterthought in comparison. 11 days is apparently enough time to do last-minute ultra-polishing to get it ready to tell Threads to go f itself. We’ll see what happens.

It’s probably uBlacklist, available on both Chromium-based and Firefox-based browsers. Filters websites and results for search.

You’re what’s wrong with the world.