Got it.

I am prey.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Parties_International

By the way, Markdown also takes escape \, which is why sometimes the shrugging emoticon is missing left arm.

- So this
- also works with space

So you don’t even necessarily have to leave out the space.

I honestly just fear updates at this point. They always seem to break more stuff than fix, the only exception to that for me has been PixelExperience custom ROM (discontinued).

Edit: Android is simply missing proper backups. Bad update on my laptop? Timeshift. Bad update on stock Android? It is what it is.

First Moto G5s Plus which got high battery drain, sluggishness and crashes after Android 8.1 update. This was bad enough I had to fix it with custom ROM. Then Poco X3 Pro which reportedly had issues with performance after MIUI 13 update, so I stayed on older software. Now my Ulefone Armor 24, which only has one update primarily to fix Google pay, but also brings a newer security patch, reportedly causing many crashes that make the phone unreliable and a bad experience.
Also many Samsung phones had an update that removed access to manual band mode selection, and if I recall correctly, that update didn’t even revert them to default.

It’s not the best for security, but I basically now just fear any updates. If everything works, then it can only be broken.

Maybe I should at least somehow start checking known vulnerabilities. As of recently, I should probably stop using applock on my outdated Ulefone

Exposed ”com.pri.applock.LockUI“ activity allows any other malicious application, with no granted Android system permissions, to inject an arbitrary intent with system-level privileges to a protected application. One must know the protecting PIN number (it might be revealed by exploiting CVE-2024-13916)

https://cert.pl/en/posts/2025/05/CVE-2024-13915/

Though my device has AppLock v14, so I am not sure.

This makes me worried about the ultra cheap Chinese manufacturers. I mean the likes of Unihertz, Umidigi, Ulefone, Doogee, Oukitel, etc

Usually these don’t get updates at all.
Even weirder, for example I have Ulefone Armor 24. They used to ship with Android 13. They still advertised it with Android 13 when I bought it. Mine like a few others have said arrived with Android 14, but the earlier ones aren’t offered A14 update.
Someone on Reddit contacted support about this and they replied that they don’t provide cross-level upgrades because Google doesn’t allow them to release those to end users.

Anyway, point is, they save on everything possible, starting with software updates. And I have doubts about them changing this, unless EU is a large market for them.

Duck for cover.

For weeks I’ve been trying to figure out if and how I can manually configure the NetworkManager connectivity check. I’ve probably spent a few hours browsing around the internet.

The answer is in NetworkManager.conf man page, as I found yesterday. Surprising, I know.

Sell you a new motherboard?

We’re the polar opposites. I used email from m.kuku.lu on Lemmy because their app gets me notifications immediately while Gmail and Aol take a while. I also get all email notifications on my MiBand.

OK, based on the comments, it’s AI.

This one isn’t. A sheet of paper from mythbusters.

Cool that Lemmy UI now has “Comment moderation history button”.

Just guessing what the links may have been…

Possibly my post on lemmy.world, removed due to breaking rule 2, “Only tech related news or articles”

I’ll copy paste my comment from there:

In the reply to Patreon they mentioned having some automated and manual ways of removing CSAM, plus “closely working with NCMEC”, but I have no idea what that means.
And these statistics of resolved reports: https://www.missingkids.org/content/dam/missingkids/pdfs/cybertiplinedata2024/2024-notifications-by-ncmec-resulting-content-removal.pdf

Total number of reports of 128 resolved on average in 1.91 days. Less than half the time spent by Amazon, Google and Microsoft (for Bing).

The other link might have been to this comment:

But even then, theoretically, even if not default, could you not just block the first request to HTTPS site causing fallback to HTTP and then redirect elsewhere for the purpose of nice lock icon?

Hard to tell, guesstimate €1,500.

I really only download music, mostly individual songs. I use sites like himovies.to for movies, and then if I like something enough, I buy a DVD, if available.
And some few “mod apks”, which yes, are a bit shady. I don’t know how to do that myself, so I just run them through VirusTotal and hope for the best if it’s all green (false negatives). Stuff like KineMaster because I am procrastinating to learn using Kdenlive, MLUSB Mounter and some games.

I haven’t purchased any media or software (excl. donations) that doesn’t come on a physical medium.

The biggest issue is probably the MediaTek chipsets. Unlike Qualcomm, they don’t provide the source code.

I only went with MTK based device for manual band selection. It can be done with root, but the only app for it I could find is network signal guru, and I am not sure about how trustworthy it is to give root access to.

I’d still be using my 2017 Moto G5s Plus if it weren’t for the dead battery and mostly gone (soldered-on) USB port.

It was fine with PixelExperience ROM, and I am sure I could still get something good onto it. But, it is what it is, an e-waste slab. I’ve run the battery down to 2 hours of standby time and the micro USB only works with very few cables at this point.

I do miss the 16:9 and separate navigation via the front fingerprint scanner.

I wonder where something like Unihertz phones could be. Recently a teardown video of one of those surprised me, and it seems they do quite a few phones that way. They have a bunch of rugged phones, and at least some of them appear to be screwed together rather than glued.

Honestly, I haven’t even considered that was a possibility nowadays. Otherwise I’d probably get one of those over Ulefone. Based on videos I’ve seen, my Armor 24 is virtually irrepairable. You have to enter through the screen which uses very strong glue and is recessed into the body. Disassembly thus basically requires destroying the screen.

I wonder how small manufacturers are going to do the 5 years of updates. I mean the brands that typically get no updates at all.

CF: We defended your website from 69,420 bots today!

The 65,000 users: 👁️L👁️

These shareholders have reportedly used the project’s donation funds for personal expenses, like holiday trips, raising serious concerns about financial transparency.

That thing is definitely a problem though.