I didn’t suggest F-Droid for inclusion though. I merely used its applicable terminology. Still, with Google Play, you trust Google to ensure that the apk is from the actual source, and with F-Droid, that’s delegated to F-Droid. I don’t see that as being less secure.

I don’t think giving into Google seizing more power is the way. People doing that is what enables the corporation to continue and have more control over their lives, including their privacy.

Why is being on the Google Play store a feature worth highlighting? To use an F-Droid expression, that would be an anti-feature.

I think Halo the MCC is 75% off for the first time, so I got that and Mortician’s Tale. Sons of the Forest also seems to be at its highest discount for the first time, so I might get that.

I had a love-hate relationship with the game. Yes, it’s cute and charming, but also extremely hard and unforgiving. Reaching certain remote areas to collect items by having to wrap around pipes to then extend and not fall was painful. Honestly one of the hardest games I’ve played.

PrivacyGuides being among those bros.

The fash who’ve been trying to cancel Disney for being woke are probably envious of this energy.

He left it performatively. Since then, he’s secretly visited Russia, one time just around its unblocking in Russia, while pretending to be a fugitive.

Edit: Here’s an article on that.

Going by your logic though, what would stop a Five Eyes country like the UK from pressuring the developer of SimpleX into creating a backdoor? Besides, as discussed, even if it were bulletproof, it’s improbable that the victim would have no other apps on their device, one of which could be exploited by the likes of NSO Group. The creators of Android and iOS are also obviously US-based, so your point would have to apply to them as well. From there, if someone remotely gains full access to the device, it won’t matter if you use Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp, SimpleX, or that new Russian thing. However, having e2ee is still better than nothing in that it protects from other attack vectors, like the ISP analyzing the traffic and reporting to the government.

Likewise, you can pretend to be sure it’s a backdoor without any proof and then also believe there’s more that’s not been exposed. Signal is also US-based, by the way. What software do you trust not to have vulnerabilities that could be abused by the likes of NSO Group and why?

A vulnerability allowing to exploit an app is not the same thing as a backdoor. Moreover, being able to gain full access to someone’s device does not prove that an app’s end-to-end encryption is faulty. The same kind of exploit most likely could be used to read messages from Signal and definitely other apps.

Has there been any evidence of that? Intercepting the traffic or disassembling the app would show some signs if true.

WhatsApp uses the Signal protocol for end-to-end encryption, so Meta only collects the metadata. Still enough to convict, but better than anything from Putin.

Why would it need to blur it? If you were passing by, I assume you’d see it, so you might as well take a pic and use it for your own corporate needs. That’s the logic we’re talking about here, though it’s not my logic.

Why do people sue Google and win for it taking pictures of their houses from the streets? It’s all public access, right?

Not necessarily. Valve says they haven’t heard from Mastercard directly. Is there evidence of Itch.io having been approached at all? It seems to me that they just made the move to delist and investigate to be safe in the wake of Valve’s rule changes.

it’s not great for consumers.

Not in the short term, but having an alternative to Steam (or anything with a lot of market share) is great for the long run. Moreover, at least everyone knows that the majority of the contracts would expire in 6 to 12 months. For all intents and purposes, Steam exclusives are a lot worse because there are many times more of them, and you can’t mark a date on your calendar when you can buy them if you can’t or don’t want to buy from Steam.

Keep in mind that, as an example, just recently Steam just decided to no longer support the local currencies of Argentina and Turkey, resulting in no regional prices for the regions on Steam. If Epic didn’t exist and didn’t support regional prices for those regions, all those users would have for third-party titles is GOG, which has a much smaller catalog and seems to support fewer regions. Microsoft Store is also an alternative now, but I’d argue its rise was spearheaded by Game Pass, which relies on the “paid deal” model pioneered in the PC space by Epic.

No, it was created so they could keep all the money from Fortnite.

I think you’re confusing the launcher with the store. The origin of the store itself can be traced back to Sweeney arguing about Valve’s “junk fee” of 30%.

they merely want their game engine and anti-cheat to sell.

How is targeting niche operating systems helping the anti-cheat sell?

Yes, I’m not implying Epic is forcing game devs into anything

Whether a business partner wants to be exclusive should be 100% their decision

This reads as mutually exclusive to me. How can it not be 100% their decision if it’s their decision? Moreover, it’s very common for a publishing agreement to also be legally binding, so everyone in this and other industries is used to that (or guilty of it if you view it as negative).

that’s textbook anti-competitiveness.

Not if it’s done by an underdog. Much of the US antitrust law for example revolves around monopolizing. Challenging what is argued to be a monopoly in a currently ongoing court case ripe with evidence isn’t monopolizing.

Would they retain that policy if they or GOG became #1?

The reason the Epic store was created is Valve’s unwillingness to lower their store fee that was way above the operating cost (7% still being profitable in Epic’s internal calculations made public by a lawsuit).

Epic has a lot more power in the anti-cheat and game engine spaces, but still keeps their software open, whether it’s by keeping the source code available or making the software compatible with Linux.

An exclusivity deal is signed by both parties, so it’s just as much of a choice developers make. By the way, like Valve, Epic seems to favor Wine over native ports, given their donation to Lutris. Unlike Valve though, Epic isn’t iffy about others not using their launcher, so there’s an official GOG Galaxy plugin for Epic endorsed by Sweeney.

Steam is full of de-facto exclusives that cannot be purchased and played elsewhere, meaning that you have to accept the Steam price, policies, practices, and their launcher in order to play those. Borderlands 2 was de-facto exclusive to Steam from 2012 to 2020, when Epic effectively rescued it from the exclusivity by paying 2K to give it away and add to the Epic store. If anything, Epic rewarding developers for doing what they’ve been doing on Steam is better than them not getting paid.