From my (small) friends circle, I haven’t heard any of them talk about getting one. However, it’s worth noting that these friends of mine are also not the ones who would buy new smartphones every year. They typically hold onto their phones for a few years and only switch when it seems like the phone isn’t performing as expected (e.g. battery draining too quickly; slowness in software actions; to name a few).
One question I do have is, what happens if you clean install an AOSP like GrapheneOS onto these newer Pixels phones? Does that remove the AI features completely?
I’m currently on Arch, but my first distro was Linux Mint. Linux Mint eased my transition into the Linux world, as it looked and behaved almost the same as Windows. You can avoid terminal commands completely thanks to the GUI apps that the Mint team includes for updating, installing, and removing packages.
I switched to Arch because one of the benefits of Arch is that it forces you to become familiar with the various different components that make up a Linux distro. When you install Mint, pretty much everything is included out of the box. You may have to install a few proprietary drivers here and there, depending on your HW config, but overall, you get everything you need to start using your computer. You don’t have to concern yourself with a lot of things. Arch is different. Even with the archinstall command that you can use to simplify the installation process, you still have much to do post-install. Audio drivers, package manager, Bluetooth, productivity apps, customization options, WiFi drivers, to name a few. And even after that, when you start daily driving Arch, you still may encounter issues that would require you to do some troubleshooting via reading the Arch Wiki or looking for similar problems on Arch forums. It can be a headache at times, but I personally feel it’s worth it.
I quite agree. The SNES was a part of my childhood. Some of my favorite games to this day were on that platform. Donkey Kong Country 2, Mega Man X 1-3, Super Mario World, Yoshi’s Island, to name a few.
Now that you mentioned this, I do recall in the early days of mobile games, back when the App Shops were first introduced, there were games that you would pay somewhere between $1 and $5, and you get the whole thing. No in-app purchases, no ads, and no lotteries for special characters or gear. I remember Square Enix had some really good JRPG games that were made specifically for the iPhone and iPad. Chaos Rings and DrakeRider were two games I recall playing, but they were much more expensive compared to the usual games I found. But, when you paid for it, you got the whole game and all.
I think mobile app developers have realized that they could get more engagement and cash from their users if they made games that had a gambling aspect to it. Kinda like the casinos in Vegas, the house always wins, but you keep putting in money on the hopes you get a jackpot.
That being said, there is one freemium game that I do find quite fun, and that is Romancing SaGa Re;univerSe. The thing that makes this freemium game a bit different is that Square Enix is quite generous in their in-game currency. You can actually do quite well without making any in-app purchases.
Do you mean you want a link to the games for Nintendo Switch? If so, here they are:
I think RS3 is on Steam, PlayStation, Switch, and Xbox, while Scarlet Grace is on all those platforms except Xbox.
Might I recommend Romancing SaGa 3 and SaGa Scarlet Grace Ambitions? Both of these games involve non-linear, open world explorations. As for combat, they are turn-based, so I’m not sure if that’s what you would consider a “good” combat system. Also, unlike traditional RPGs, which use a point-based system to level up and gain new skills, SaGa games involve a “Spark” system, where new techniques are learned randomly or through use of an existing technique during battles.
Here are some of mine:
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
I don’t think this should surprise anyone, given the new CEO they got and the announcement that was made immediately afterwards, followed by the layoffs. Fortunately, there are Firefox forks that we can switch to as a form of protest, provided that the forks keep these changes out of their codebases.
One thing I predict happening is that this move by Mozilla could spur more activities for the Firefox Forks. It would be a good opportunity for the developers of Mull, Librewolf, and Waterfox to think of ways to make their respective browsers stand out or be unique. Maybe we can one day see an Android version of Librewolf or a new web engine get developed in response to all this mess. Just a thought, of course.
I have been using Librewolf for several months now, and I am quite happy with it. In terms of user privacy, Librewolf by default has some strict settings enabled, like Resist Fingerprinting. Resist Fingerprinting does cause some minor problems, like incorrect timezones, but there is a workaround, as stated on the Librewolf website.
According to the Librewolf documentation, fingerprinting can be turned off, but they recommend adding the Canvas Blocker extension in its place. That is my current setup, as I didn’t like that websites in Librewolf couldn’t get the correct time and time zone for me.
Here’s the direct quote from the Librewolf documentation:
If you don’t like the downsides of RFP, or you are not concerned about fingerprinting, you can disable RFP in the LibreWolf settings, or in your overrides. In that case consider using an extension like CanvasBlocker to retain at least a minimum amount of fingerprinting protection.
Can they just focus on the browser? I really don’t need the AI stuff.
Yeah…I don’t believe it.
Impressive! This might become a worthy competitor to Valve’s Steam Deck.
I think I’ll just stick with Mastodon and Lemmy.
So…what does this mean for those who have F-Droid or Aurora Store installed on their phones? Will apps from those stores be considered “unverified” by Google’s standards?
How was CalyxOS overall? Are there some things that CalyxOS does better than GrapheneOS?
Yeah, here’s the Mastodon post announcing Android Auto implementation:
