1
Brave and Firefox to intercept links that force-open in Microsoft Edge
Brave and Firefox implement support for the microsoft-edge: URL scheme. Brave to hijack Bing search links. Plus, the history of all this anti-competitive crap.
Daniel Aleksandersen
A personal blog mostly on everyday tech.
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Visit ctrl.blog → RSS feedOn Hacker News Dec 2017 – Sep 2023
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2
The 0.5 MB of nothing in all Apple Music files (2020)
Six percentage of each music files you’ve bought from Apple Music (iTunes Store) contain, literally, nothing. Why is Apple padding their music with zero-bytes?
3
Your online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)
Your email provider owns your online identity by controlling your email address. You can’t port your email address to another provider as with phone numbers.
4
Yahoo, AOL results biased in favor of parent company Verizon’s websites
Verizon Media’s search engines promises “unbiased” search results, but serves results clearly favoring the company’s media websites over competitors.
5
You can no longer bypass microsoft-edge:// links using apps like EdgeDeflector
Microsoft doubles-down on its user-choice hostile web browser behavior; blocks competitors from opening links from many Windows apps and web experiences.
6
Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?
Google Maps is incredibly detailed and useful. But Google uses it for tracking and deliver ads. Should you contribute for free to build its monopoly?
7
Don’t record your social life on an append-only social network (2022)
The tech behind peer-to-peer (P2P) social networks such as Secure Scuttlebutt enforces permanency. Absolute permanency isn’t what you want in a social network.
8
Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions
I asked 124 services to delete my user account. The results were mixed. 21 never responded, and 16 responded by created even more accounts. Some outright lied.
9
Flattr now deletes your web browsing history within 3 months
Flattr improves customer privacy protections by automatically deleting collected data when its no longer needed for its core service.