* Posts by MrWibble

288 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Feb 2011

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Confirmation dialog Groundhog Day: I click OK and it keeps coming back

MrWibble

How can we be talking effect / affect, and no-one's posted the relevent XKCD yet?

https://xkcd.com/326/

Microsoft promises big things for Edge... and they'll be ready for folks some time before universe's heat death

MrWibble

"the integration, when enabled, produces Pinterest suggestions at the bottom of a collection."

Ads, then. Doe anyone, ever want to see anything from Pinterest?

UK Information Commissioner OKs use of phone data to track coronavirus spread

MrWibble

Re: Not sure how it can be anonymised

7 days from when you start to show symptoms.

14 days from when anyone (else) in your household shows symptoms.

Quite straight forward, I thought.

That's what makes you hackable: Please, baby. Stop using 'onedirection' as a password

MrWibble

Re: Uncomplicated

Looking at the website, it's a local vault - quote:

"Privacy matters.

We do not store any of your data on our servers. Live carefree!"

Chrome suddenly using Bing after installing Office 365 Pro Plus... Yeah, that might have been us, mumbles Microsoft

MrWibble

Re: “support for the Firefox web browser is planned for a later date"

i thought firefox had blocked this kind of shit already, but I only found this where they will "try" to stop it:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/what-search-hijacking#w_firefox-anti-hijacking

I suspect Microsoft will be allowed, though...

A challenger appears: Taiwanese devs' answer to Gemini PDA wraps a Raspberry Pi in a tablet

MrWibble

CutiePi using QT on a Pi? I suppose it's easier to google that than QTPi.

Apple puts bullet through 'Do Not Track', FaceTime snooping bug and iOS vulnerabilities

MrWibble

If only Do Not Track worked - then we can do away with all other "we track you" cookie pop-ups, and everyone's happy. But no, that's too simple...

Expired cert... Really? #O2down meltdown shows we should fear bungles and bugs more than hackers

MrWibble

The article explains why this is a bad idea - sudden influx of customers onto another network might bring that network down too, causing a cascade effect.

Total Inability To Support User Phones: O2 fries, burning data for 32 million Brits

MrWibble
Coffee/keyboard

Re: Not just O2

Love Nigel's work!

"Hi Harry, Big fan!

We are trying our upmost to sort this and understand as a professional footballer you need to keep in contact with your many fans! Ludicrous display last night in the game!"

Problem with Arsenal is that they always try to walk it in...

Chap asks Facebook for data on his web activity, Facebook says no, now watchdog's on the case

MrWibble

Wait... A database which is designed to track individuals and serve them specific ads, cannot return the information that it is tracking?

It's either broken, or someone's telling porkies.

Android data slurping measured and monitored

MrWibble

"Overall, the study discovered that Apple retrieves much less data than Google.

"The total number of calls to Apple servers from an iOS device was much lower, just 19 per cent the number of calls to Google servers from an Android device."

no shit - comparing Apples to Oranges. An Android connects to Google for "Androidy" things, and for Ads (in apps / webpages, etc). An Apple connects to Apple for "Apply" things, and Google for Ads (in apps / webpages, etc). So therefore the Android connects to Google more than the iOS thingie connects to Apple.

How many calls to Google from an Apple device were there? less than Android, for the same reason as above, but surely combining the two datasets gives a better indicator of the "badness" of Android's data slurp?

'Dear Mr F*ckingjoking': UK PM Theresa May's mass marketing missive misses mark

MrWibble

Re: Dear valued donor...

Surely it's nothing to do with the developer, just someone has signed up on the website (probably to get access to something mundane hidden behind a data slurping "login" screen) using false details.

Although, it's very unlikely there's a Feckoff Street, in Cocksville getting my spam.

Gmail is secure. Netflix is secure. Together they're a phishing threat

MrWibble

Re: "Google, however, has promoted it as a useful feature"

spam filtering.

You have multiple email addresses, which can all be filtered. For example, johndoe@gmail.com can be my main account, but I use john.doe@gmail.com for online forms, and therefore filter any incoming emails with that name to "spam". Then on top of that I could use joh.ndoe@gmail.com to filter to a different folder, etc.

Add in their ignoring of anything after the "+" sign (so johndoe+spammytwats@gmail.com is still delivered to me), and it's quite a powerful tool for inbox management.

Firefox to emit ‘occasional sponsored story’ in ads test

MrWibble

Since El Reg won't link to the source, I will:

https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2018/01/24/update-on-pocket-and-firefox-integration/

which then links off to:

https://help.getpocket.com/article/1142-firefox-new-tab-recommendations

And this states:

Important Note: Neither Mozilla nor Pocket receives a copy of your browser history. The entire process of sorting and filtering which stories you should see happens locally in your copy of Firefox.

So, apparently, no processing outside of the browser. Doesn't answer the other ingestion tho.

Apple iPhone X: Two weeks in the life of an anxious user

MrWibble

Re: New???

That's odd - I definitely don't have to unlock - just turn the screen on.

I wonder if that's changed recently?

Yahooooo! says! its! email! is! scrahoooo-ed!

MrWibble
Windows

Another "unimportant people get angry on twitter about inconsequential stuff" story.

Please stop reporting people whinging as news - I don't care if some random, somewhere, tweeted yahoo to shout at them. It's almost as bad as me spending effort to type this.

Google Chrome ad-blocking to begin in February – but what is it going to block?

MrWibble
Devil

Re: Let's hope...

"At present it is a soul destroying exercise"

Isn't that always the case for that team?

Kill Google AMP before it kills the web

MrWibble

Is this meant to be ironic, since I was served this as an AMP version, without requesting it?

https://www.theregister.co.uk/AMP/2017/05/19/open_source_insider_google_amp_bad_bad_bad/

Bye bye MP3: You sucked the life out of music. But vinyl is just as warped

MrWibble

Re: "... some key MP3 patents have been allowed to expire ..."

Exactly, it's not dead, it's been freed - Now it's patent free, surely it's more likely to be used in more and more odd / random IoT stuff?

Google mistakes the entire NHS for massive cyber-attacking botnet

MrWibble

Maybe that's their USP with Google Assistant - hands free access to surgery how-to guides.

Free smart fridges! App stores in fountains! Plus more from Canonical man

MrWibble

Oh, do fuck off

and take your internet connected fridges with you.

No-one wants these things.

Oi! Linux users! Want some really insecure closed-source software?

MrWibble

Opt in for iPlayer

http://www.bbc.co.uk/html5

Doesn't work on the news pages though.

Adblock again beats publishers' Adblock-blocking attempts

MrWibble

Re: Things other than ads

"to block things like fixed-position navigation headers & footers"

Also dumbass images that take up the entire page before you actually get to the text of the article. *El Reg cough cough*

Blu Vivo 6: Top value trendsetter marred by Chino-English mangle

MrWibble

"The task switch and back buttons are reversed for no apparent reason (although you can revert to the Android convention in settings)."

Which way is it? The stock-Android way (back, home, recent) or the Samsung way (recent, home, back)?

Google's home tat falls flat as a soufflé – but look out Android makers

MrWibble

Re: El Reg has a touch of multiple personality disorder it seems

This is an Orlowski piece. Pretty much everything he writes is anti-Google (although to be fair, he seems anti-everything, not just Google!)

Is Apple's software getting worse or what?

MrWibble
Stop

"Let us know what you think – comment below or drop us an email."

Just stop it. You're better than that, El Reg.

OK Google, Alexa, why can't I choose my own safe, er, wake word?

MrWibble

The other problem is if more than one person in a venue hs a google phone, then "OK Google" will trigger all of them:

https://twitter.com/MKBHD/status/783352036825759744?lang=en-gb

Quote: "You can't hear live, but every time the guy on stage says "Ok Google" it triggers the phone of someone in the front row and it's hilarious"

The server's down. At 3AM. On Christmas. You're drunk. So you put a disk in the freezer

MrWibble

Re: ending his elbow

I assumed he was pleasuring himself, until I read a little further on.

Cafe killer remote code execution affects 140 million MIUI Androids

MrWibble

"A further flaw was found in stock ROM app com.cleanmaster.miui"

Clean Master? dear god! I'd consider the whole app flawed and destroy if possible.

Obi Worldphone MV1: It's striking, it's solid. Aaaand... we've run out of nice things to say

MrWibble

CyanogenOS not CyanogenMod.

Surprised I'm not the first to mention it, to be honest.

Plusnet speeds up, slows down

MrWibble

"Speeds down, slows up", surely?

Cash-strapped English and Welsh cops prepare to centralise all 43 forces' websites

MrWibble

Re: In theory a nice idea...

Looking at the (lack of) quotation marks on that sentence, I suspect it's El Reg being a little mischievous...

Ubuntu plugs code exec, DoS Linux kernel holes

MrWibble

"This is kind of a big deal because the mess is in 14.04 LTS, expiry date 2019"

not really - the "S" stands for "support" - people use this version because they know they're going to get security updates for a long time.

But a headline of "Long Term Support Ubuntu continues to update security holes" isn't particularly interesting.

Go nuts, brother: Ubuntu 16.04 beta – no more auto data-spaffing

MrWibble

Re: Lefties

I'm not sure how your handedness works/doesn't work with Unity's left panel (I'm a lefty, and never cared / thought about it!)

MrWibble

"The Software Center was once a best-of-breed app..."

And yet it still sucked donkey balls - slow, prone to crashing, lack of information about exactly what was being installed (dependencies), etc.

Met police commissioner: Fraud victims should not be refunded by banks

MrWibble

"propriety"

You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.

Your unpatchable, insecure Android mobe will feel right at home in the Internet of Stuff era

MrWibble

Re: CyanogenMod

http://www.cyanogenmod.org/blog/cm-13-0-release-1

mako is on the list, so CM13 is available, and "stable" (ha!)

Hardcoded god-mode code found in RSA 2016 badge-scanning app

MrWibble
Devil

Maybe it was a test to ensure the "right" people were at the conference?

JavaScript daddy's Brave ad-blocker hits Android, Apple stores

MrWibble

You forgot to mention that it's not a "new" browser, but an upgrade / rename of an existing one:

http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/02/24/link-bubble-is-now-officially-brave-browser-ad-blocking-and-tracking-protection-are-live/

Google goes over the top with RCS

MrWibble

Re: Where is the users carrot?

I think the article is badly worded... It seems that it's meant to be SMSv2 (hence working with carriers to implement) - so it doesn't matter whose handset you use, it'll work. If all carriers can support it, it'll be "richer" SMS (think MMS, but without the current complexity of configurations)

That's assuming all carriers support it. Otherwise, we're back to asking what services / apps people have before trying to send stuff, then giving up...

Intel shows budget Android phone powering big-screen Linux

MrWibble

Re: "The concept is broadly similar to Microsoft's Continuum for Windows 10 Mobile..."

Keep up! Netbooks were declared officially dead years ago, because tablets were the saviour of the universe. Apparently.

FCC clicks off the safety, fires at America's great cable TV box rip-off

MrWibble

Re: $150 a month?

Without wishing to derail too much £59 + £18 = £77, not £97

But you can easily add more into that by adding sky sports / movies (I've got it up to £115, without adding some of the more obscure stuff)

Virgin gives blessing to O2/Three merger

MrWibble
Thumb Down

"With the right remedies, this deal could stimulate, not curb, competition"

Don't believe you.

'Here are 400,000 smut sites. Block them' says Pakistani telco regulator

MrWibble

Comparisons

How big is the UK block-list?

BOFH: I want no memory of this pointless conversation. Alcohol please

MrWibble

""Meaning someone will rock in here and say something like they want us to 'make the website better'," said the PFY."

AS someone with a list of 20+ improvement suggestions from Operations, most along the lines of "make it better", this rings true a rather large bell for me at the moment...

The Register's entirely serious New Year's resolutions for 2016

MrWibble

"Expect less SHOUTINESS"

Woohoo, about time - it always seemed a bit gutter press seeing all those random words capitalised.

Edit: and if "We'll revisit the site's design on all devices" includes scrapping the "hero" image, I'll be your happiest reader. For at least a week.

UK ISP Sky to make smut an opt-in service from 2016

MrWibble

Hope the filter lists are better than Virgin Mobile

I don't care about porn, but being blocked from viewing the lottery results, or the El Reg forums, meant I had to have it turned off (this was a few years ago, mind - it may be better now)

When I phoned up to get it switched off, I was asked "what are the URLs of the sites you're trying to view"!

Pandora pleased with 15% rate hike for streaming music

MrWibble

I suspect the 17 cents is going to the record company, with maybe 2 or 3 cents going to the artist.

Mozilla looses Firefox 43, including Windows 64-bit variant

MrWibble

MSE

A good bit of the upgrade was that Youtube automatically uses HTML5 now, rather than flash (on Ubuntu). It's been a long time having to manually switch to the HTML5 player whenever cookies get deleted.

Windows XP spotted on Royal Navy's spanking new aircraft carrier

MrWibble

On the other hand

At least they didn't have any passwords on display in the news item

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