Firefox and the Chrome engine are open source projects. Anyone can modify the browser to enable ad-blocking in some form if a user is sufficiently determined.
Technically, sure. But, these are extremely complex software products, and it would be one hobbyist vs. an entire software division of a trillion dollar company who are determined to make sure you see ads.
Unfortunately, there are only 3 companies developing browsers right now: Google, Apple and Mozilla.
Apple’s browsers are only available on Apple platforms. In fact, if you’re on iOS you have no choice, you have to use Safari. Even browsers labelled as “Chrome” or “Firefox” are actually Safari under the hood on iOS. But, on any non Apple platform, you can’t use Safari.
Google is an ad company, so they don’t want to allow ad blockers on their browser. So, it’s a matter of time before every kind of ad blocking is disabled for Chrome users.
Firefox is almost entirely funded by Google, so there’s a limit as to what they can do without the funding getting cut off. They seem to be trying to find a way forward without Google, but the result, if anything is as bad as Google if not worse:
“investing in privacy-respecting advertising to grow new revenue in the near term; developing trustworthy, open source AI to ensure technical and product relevance in the mid term;”
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-leadership-growth-planning-updates/
All these other browser people like are basically reskinned versions of Chrome or Firefox. They have a handful of people working on them. To actually develop a modern browser you need a big team. A modern browser basically has to be an OS capable of running everything from a 3d game engine, to a word processor, to a full featured debugger.
It looks like it’s only a matter of time before there will be 0 browsers capable of blocking ads, because the only two companies that make multi-platform browsers depend on ads for their revenue, and both of them will have enormous expenses because they’re obsessed with stupid projects like AI.
All I did was point out your weird parasocial relationship with a CEO of a game store company. It’s very strange how you reacted to that. You must realize just how weird it is, how empty your life is. Get help dude.
Says the guy who’s passionate and on a first name basis with the CEO of a game store chain.
You’re on a first name basis, even a parasocial relationship with the CEO of Gamestop despite never having met him. Who here is intellectually deficient?
Yeah, I love that one.
“Try” is too hopeful. “fuck_around” makes it clear that you know what you’re doing is dangerous but you’re going to do it anyhow. I know that in some languages wrapping a lot of code in exception blocks is the norm, but I don’t like that. I think it should be something you only use rarely, and when you do it’s because you know you’re doing something that’s not safe in some way.
“Catch” has never satisfied me. I mean, I know what it does, but it doesn’t seem to relate to “try”. Really, if “try” doesn’t succeed, the corresponding block should be “fail”. But, then you’d have the confusion of a block named “fail”, which isn’t ideal. But “find_out” pairs perfectly with “fuck_around” and makes it clear that if you got there it’s because something went wrong.
I also like “yeet”. Partly it’s fun for comedic value. But, it’s also good because “throw” feels like a casual game of catch in the park. “Yeet” feels more like it’s out of control, if you hit a “throw” your code isn’t carefully handing off its state, it’s hitting the eject button and hoping for the best. You hope there’s an exception handler higher up the stack that will do the right thing, but it also might just bubble all the way up to the top and spit out a nasty exception for the user.
Is it Loblaws or Metro or another big chain, or is it a smaller store? I’m guessing the big corporate stores will be the slowest to change.
It’s a bad sign that you know the CEO’s name.
Sure, but it makes up for that by having an idiot proof design.
I wonder how things will change in the next few months.
It seems to me it would be such an obvious thing for Canadian companies to change their packaging to prominently feature Canadian flags, but that takes time. Until then, it’s still a bit difficult to know which products are Canadian vs. American vs. made somewhere else.
There’s a small chance that Trump will back down and try to play nice with Canadians. But, I doubt it. So, I don’t think Canadians are going to start changing their mind on buying US products any time soon.
I wonder if retailers will make it easy too. They generally try to stay out of politics and don’t want to alienate anybody. But, if anger about the US continues, people might expect retailers to make it easier to buy Canadian and easier to avoid US products.
You should know that until you do renounce your citizenship, you’ll have to pay taxes in the US even if you live in another country. AFAIK only 2 countries in the world still use citizenship-based taxation: USA and Eritrea.
Also, if you ever do try to renounce your citizenship, it’s much more difficult than you might think. The people I know who have done it had to pay tens of thousands of dollars to complete the process, despite being up to date on their taxes and not being at all rich.
Be concise. If someone misinterprets, apologize. Continue to be concise.
NYC is one of a number of world cities known by acronyms or nicknames:
There’s even a whole country that goes by its initials: UK.
So, stop thinking this is some American thing, it’s just a way that people shorten the names of common cities that have a few too many syllables to be convenient.
I wonder if that’s true. Sewing machines haven’t changed much since they started. Cooking hasn’t either. But, if you’re a computer-using Gen Xer, you can’t still be running Windows 95 or something. You’ve had to keep up with the current tech.
Now, you might be using Windows 11 the same way you used Windows 95, and missing out on some of the newer features. But, I think most people who knew how to debug a networking problem in Windows 95 still can figure out how to do it in the newest Windows releases.
It’s like driving. Yes, older drivers are worse drivers, their eyesight and hearing is worse, their reaction speed is slower, etc. But, cars have changed pretty considerably in the last 50 years, and most older drivers know how to use modern cars. They may not be as good at using some of the gadgets, like the GPS system, as younger people. But, they’ve adapted to keyless entry, push-button starts, push-button windows, backup cameras, traction control, and so-on.
The problem is that too often people interpret tight emails as being rude or angry. But, LLMs aren’t the solution. The solution is to adjust people’s expectations.
Summarizing requires understanding what’s important, and LLMs don’t “understand” anything.
They can reduce word counts, and they have some statistical models that can tell them which words are fillers. But, the hilarious state of Apple Intelligence shows how frequently that breaks.
You’re dreaming if you think NATO minus the US would fight the US if the US invaded Canada. There would be some excuse made, or some technicality found.
As for becoming states, what’s much more likely is that the US would make Canada a territory like American Samoa: no electoral college votes, no senators, no congressional representatives, not even US citizenship.
I wonder if there’s a plan to evacuate the Canadian leadership to some where in the far north. It probably wouldn’t make any difference because of US air superiority. But, taking the 90% of the population that lives within a few hundred km of the border is pretty different from taking the entire country all the way to the pole. It could be that setting up a functional government in Grise Fiord would force the US to actually try to hold more than just the south.
A smarter move would be to be a government in exile from England or something. The monarchy is a bit of a joke these days, but I think an invasion of a country where King Charles is officially still the monarch would force him to do something. If he didn’t, he’d lose what little remains of his power. I don’t know if he could rally the commonwealth to fight a real war against the US, but sanctions and so on would probably be possible.
As for what would happen on the ground if Canada were actually occupied. Imagine the “Troubles” from when there was a dispute over Northern Ireland. Add to that that Canadians and Canadian accents are essentially indistinguishable from American accents. Then add that there’s no way that Canadians could be kept out of the US, because of the longest land border in the world. Next, consider that slightly less than half the US are Trump supporters, and Canadian “terrorists” would have many friends in the US. Also, look at how incredibly easy it is to get weapons in the US. Finally, think about how the US has had almost no war on its own soil since the civil war.
The US is used to sending soldiers to kill and die overseas. But, look at the destruction of Gaza, and compare that to Sept 11th. Two buildings fell and a few thousand people died and the US absolutely freaked out. Just imagine how unprepared the US would be for an actual guerrilla resistance on its own soil.
Terrorist / Terrorism seems to be a magic word in US law and policy.
If a country has organized crime in their country it’s no big deal. If there are close ties between the rulers and the criminals, that’s unfortunate.
But, if the criminals are now labelled as terrorists, then you get to go on the state sponsors of terrorism list, which comes with all kinds of sanctions and restrictions.
If you look at so-called “terrorist” organizations, there’s almost always elements of “terrorist” activities, but also evidence of other random criminal activities, and often legitimate political activities too. Take Sinn Fein, the political arm of the IRA. Some of their funding came from fuel and drug smuggling. So, where you draw the line between a “terrorist” group and a criminal group is pretty arbitrary. I think most people would say that the Mexican cartels are primarily criminals though. While they do kill people in ways that are intended to send a message, the message is generally “don’t mess with our profits” rather than some political ideal.
Every country has some corruption, definitely including the US. So, what happens if a Mexican politician was accepting bribes from Narcos and passing legislation favourable to them? When does that become the state sponsoring terrorism?
Putting the “terrorist” label on Mexican cartels seems like a prelude to doing things that violate Mexico’s sovereignty. If the cartels are merely violent criminal organizations, it’s a problem for Mexico’s government. If they’re “terrorists” then the US can lob missiles into Mexico, because it has a long-standing policy of violating the sovereignty of countries that “harbor” (i.e. contain) terrorists.