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Latest 30 Comments

News - Firefox v149 is getting a free built-in VPN and other new features
By LoudTechie, 17 Apr 2026 at 1:09 pm UTC

Quoting: Pikolo50 GB is plenty for anything that's not video. My mobile data plan is 2GB and non-video calling and streaming applications don't use more than ~500 Mb a month.

But I can't see how they can possibly keep it free
Google money.
Google pays most of their income for having google chrome as their default search, since it lost a anti-trust lawsuit in the USA.
Also upsells.
Mozilla sells(actually pretty valuable) premium services including more VPN access.

News - Mozilla announced "Thunderbolt", their open-source and self-hostable AI client
By Samsai, 17 Apr 2026 at 12:51 pm UTC

Clearly in terms of AI and especially AI sovereignty, AI client #99992087 was clearly the best use of resources. Utilizing OpenAI compatible providers and MCP? How daring.

News - Proton 11 Beta arrives to bring enhanced gaming compatibility to Linux / SteamOS
By hardpenguin, 17 Apr 2026 at 11:56 am UTC

Gothic 1 Classic
Glad to see classics getting improvements alongside new releases

News - Linux Mint confirm longer release cycles, the next release is planned for Christmas 2026
By LoudTechie, 17 Apr 2026 at 11:21 am UTC

I just realized this is good news for me.
I maintain a Mint system for somebody else from a large distance.
The more stability, the better.

News - SDL (Simple DirectMedia Layer) ban AI / LLM code contributions
By LoudTechie, 17 Apr 2026 at 11:14 am UTC

Quoting: lilovent
Quoting: elmapul"AI-generated code is based upon sources of unknown origins and may not be compatible with the Zlib license, or may introduce conflicting license terms if they include code from other projects."
finally someone quoted the licence issue
So, what license is then, when humans copy paste from StackOverflow?
Stackoverflow has an official licensing policy.

[CC BY-SA 4.0 for posted content](https://stackoverflow.com/help/licensing)

News - Linux Mint confirm longer release cycles, the next release is planned for Christmas 2026
By Myne, 17 Apr 2026 at 10:49 am UTC

Mint is reliable and easy. If they need time, give them time.

And if you are impatient you can use another distribution with bleeding edge Cinnamon or use XanMod kernel, distrobox and flatpaks to have a reliable system and some bleeding edge packages.

Hope they can deliver one of the best LTS ever. 😀

News - SDL (Simple DirectMedia Layer) ban AI / LLM code contributions
By lilovent, 17 Apr 2026 at 10:47 am UTC

Quoting: elmapul"AI-generated code is based upon sources of unknown origins and may not be compatible with the Zlib license, or may introduce conflicting license terms if they include code from other projects."
finally someone quoted the licence issue
So, what license is then, when humans copy paste from StackOverflow?

News - Proton 11 Beta arrives to bring enhanced gaming compatibility to Linux / SteamOS
By WMan22, 17 Apr 2026 at 10:22 am UTC

Deadly Premonition, if it works out of the box, is a very significant change.
That means it's a game that now runs better on Linux than Windows.
Hopefully it still works after DPFix tweaks too.

News - After years in development v8 of the factory management RTS Mindustry is out
By LoudTechie, 17 Apr 2026 at 9:43 am UTC

Eyy mindustry.
Always good to see development on the games I play.

News - Linux Mint confirm longer release cycles, the next release is planned for Christmas 2026
By LoudTechie, 17 Apr 2026 at 9:20 am UTC

Quoting: WanderdueneI really enjoy using Mint because it's stable and very user-friendly, and I also welcome the fact that planning and stability are being prioritised by the developers. Will Mint's extended release cycles have an impact on me as a gamer?
Probably not, but I can't be certain.
If you've a bunch a games on your wishlist that currently are badly supported by Linux gaming.
Then it might slow down your timeline when you might be comfortably able to play these games.

News - US operating system age verification bill "Parents Decide Act" gets published
By LoudTechie, 17 Apr 2026 at 9:06 am UTC

Quoting: PlayingOnLinuxphone
Quoting: spacemonkeyonly the minimal required information is passed on to the app or website.
Which is already the maximum amount of information passed to the app or website. If you are under 18 you will switch that date once you become mature, so they know exactly your birth. For us adults no issue so far, but for all upcoming generations it means a fully transparent birthday.

Can't we just begin to teach our kids first? Where is the talk about improving schools? They could learn stuff that is also useful as adult, not just as child.
That's the current design and is only hampered by the fact that not everybody celebrates their 18th birthday by doing online 18th birthday specific things.

That's not the only possible design though.
One can use rate limits and artificially induced latency to fight that.

A great way to limit the damage would for example be to make certain that age checks can only happen on a certain time interval.
Say for 1 day every month.

Also this assumes one can form a trustworthy pseudonymous profile of the target.

Edit:
[It's open source, so adding this feature is feasable and legal.](https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet/av-app-android-wallet-ui).

News - Linux Mint confirm longer release cycles, the next release is planned for Christmas 2026
By vic-bay, 17 Apr 2026 at 8:55 am UTC

In the context of gaming, I think Linux matured enough, so you don't desperately need all the latest goodies as soon as possible anymore. Although I personally prefer a rolling distribution, I don't see leap distros as outdated on arrival anymore (I mean only for gaming). So slower releases are fine.

News - X.Org X server and Xwayland security advisory released for multiple issues
By LoudTechie, 17 Apr 2026 at 8:37 am UTC

Quoting: Phlebiac
Quoting: LoudTechieYou don't report backdoors to reviewers.
They already approved them and thus presumably stand behind them.
You publish them on social media(as demonstrated by the xz-backdoor)
What it can result in is dumb social media discussions about when something is a backdoor.
Ah, you meant intentional back doors; sorry, I misunderstood. Dumb social media discussions are easily ignored, so that's ok.
Semi.
When there's a weakness in the code that was added by mistake. I consider it a security bug.
When there's a weakness in the code that was intentionally added by people who in some way managed to impersonate the figure which approves code for that project; I consider it an unintentional backdoor.
When there's a weakness in the code that was intentionally added by the person who approves code for that project; I consider it an intentional backdoor.

News - US operating system age verification bill "Parents Decide Act" gets published
By LoudTechie, 17 Apr 2026 at 8:33 am UTC

Quoting: spacemonkeyThe EU actually just released an app that enabled users to proof their age to an apps or website. This enables the user to stay completely anonymous, only the minimal required information is passed on to the app or website.

https://commission.europa.eu/news-and-media/news/european-age-verification-app-keep-children-safe-online-2026-04-15_en

US take not please. We don't need your BS.
But a lot of trust is still placed in the company that manages the national digital id system of your nation and your nation(they suddenly know which 18+ sites you visit by who requests it).
It's 10 times better than the 10 most common ways to do age verification, but it's still scary. Although you won't hear me arguing it's impossible to avoid this porblem. It's still a problem..

News - Linux Mint confirm longer release cycles, the next release is planned for Christmas 2026
By Wanderduene, 17 Apr 2026 at 8:31 am UTC

I really enjoy using Mint because it's stable and very user-friendly, and I also welcome the fact that planning and stability are being prioritised by the developers. Will Mint's extended release cycles have an impact on me as a gamer?

News - New US Congress bill proposal requires all operating system providers to verify ages
By LoudTechie, 17 Apr 2026 at 8:29 am UTC

Quoting: Ehvis
Quoting: LoudTechieAlso the big maintainers(Linus, KDE, FSF, RHEL, etc) will face pressure to add the feature.
In the end it will become a build option to add and not add this.
That would be the easy thing. But that ultimately means nothing as it is removed quicker than it can be added. It is fundamentally impossible add this sort of thing into an open source system and have it "work". And what comes then is the scary part. If anyone can remove said protection, then maybe a "smart" government official will decide that only "approved" systems should be bootable on computers. Bring in "SecureBoot NG-STC", a mandatory security system that makes sure that only lawful systems can be booted on computers! Problem solved!
A. As a Linux user you're vastly underestimating the amount of technical skill required to flash a new version of the OS and/or alter read only marked user values. Defaults matter the vast majority of people will use the code provided by the manufacturer and stick to it.
B. It's a lot easier as a parent to check this one trick than monitor a kid's entire online presence. One could even provide an external media check a parent/teacher/adult could use to check for unauthorized modifications.

Still I find it realistic, but than coming from police forces which just always want more government mandated spyware on your device.

News - US operating system age verification bill "Parents Decide Act" gets published
By LoudTechie, 17 Apr 2026 at 8:28 am UTC

Quoting: grigi
Quoting: LoudTechieIt's not attached to the computer it's attached to the user account(poor FreeBSD doesn't have accounts)
They don't have their own accounts either. How many home PC's actually have separate accounts? I mean houses where chaos rules?

Virtually zero, that's what.

That's my point.
A. From that point it's the parents decision, since it costs nothing to make extra accounts. Making this a "parents decide" thing.
B. We might be encountering my privileged upbringing here. My parents had the tendency to maintain separate account for the device owner and the rest of the family, so I assumed this to be common practice. Help with account setup could be included with the maternity care.

News - Immersive sim boomer shooter Fortune's Run back in development as the developer is out of jail
By LoudTechie, 17 Apr 2026 at 8:04 am UTC

Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: LoudTechiecriminal dev: Most potential partners avoid me, because I've been proven to be violent in court
Assuming it was a violent crime. Even today, people do still sometimes go to jail for embezzlement as long as it wasn't a big enough amount to make you a new-minted oligarch . . .
According to our favorite mediaoutlet.
He claimed he was jailed, because he was "a very violent person."

News - New US Congress bill proposal requires all operating system providers to verify ages
By mahagr, 17 Apr 2026 at 7:25 am UTC

I don't know how this is going to work. From all the people with kids, I'm the only one who has separate accounts for every member of the family -- everyone else has a single account in their computer, which is used by everyone in the family. People will not start using accounts in their computers as it's too hard for most people I know of. And if nobody uses accounts, there's no way to enforce the law. Heck, many people share their accounts also with their kids phones...

It used to be hard to create email address for a kid because of age restrictions, but it looks like that has changed since I tried it last time... So at least you can now create an email account in Google (and some others I tried) for a newborn child.

Most people aren't good with computers, heck, I know many families which have no computers (just phones and maybe a tablet) in their house. I just don't think that this law will work in practice.

That said, I do like the idea that it's going to be mandatory to have parent controls in the devices, especially if all service providers need to obey the rules to moderate their content for kids. But in the end, it should be the parents who control the age limitations for their kids, not the government or some company.

Also there's always a way to get around limitations and kids are very good on doing that.

News - Immersive sim boomer shooter Fortune's Run back in development as the developer is out of jail
By Purple Library Guy, 17 Apr 2026 at 6:56 am UTC

Quoting: LoudTechiecriminal dev: Most potential partners avoid me, because I've been proven to be violent in court
Assuming it was a violent crime. Even today, people do still sometimes go to jail for embezzlement as long as it wasn't a big enough amount to make you a new-minted oligarch . . .

News - Book of Travels from Might and Delight goes offline in July but you'll still be able to play alone
By Purple Library Guy, 17 Apr 2026 at 6:10 am UTC

To me, this is threatening me with a good time at one sixth the price. I'm not into playing games online in the first place, so restricting it to offline solo play is just restricting it to what I would have wanted to do anyway.

News - X.Org X server and Xwayland security advisory released for multiple issues
By Phlebiac, 17 Apr 2026 at 5:51 am UTC

Quoting: LoudTechieYou don't report backdoors to reviewers.
They already approved them and thus presumably stand behind them.
You publish them on social media(as demonstrated by the xz-backdoor)
What it can result in is dumb social media discussions about when something is a backdoor.
Ah, you meant intentional back doors; sorry, I misunderstood. Dumb social media discussions are easily ignored, so that's ok.

News - Only 2 years after release Star Trek: Resurgence is being delisted
By ToddL, 17 Apr 2026 at 5:36 am UTC

Quoting: Linux_RocksParamount's new owners are even worse than the old ones too. So I'm not expecting anything to get any better either.
Once the merger between Paramount and Warner Brothers Discovery is complete, the new owner is going to be David Ellison, son of Larry Ellison. His dad put money into Trump's campaign and is friends with him, which should make it easy to approve once it goes through the usual merger routine.

After the merger, it's going to get worse with the amount of debt they'll be carrying to the tune of about $80 billion. Before you know it, a lot of heads are going to roll just like any other merger because they'll need to find ways to pay that back.

News - Book of Travels from Might and Delight goes offline in July but you'll still be able to play alone
By ToddL, 17 Apr 2026 at 5:25 am UTC

Quoting: nullzeroUnrelated, will this be the same fate as Nightingale? (see some recurring patterns here)
I don't think so because Nightingale just got an update two months ago and seems to be ongoing.

News - Mozilla announced "Thunderbolt", their open-source and self-hostable AI client
By Johnologue, 17 Apr 2026 at 4:55 am UTC

If I was doing AI stuff, trying to be local, open-source, maintaining control, and all that stuff, why would I choose Mozilla?

Everyone in this space is some degree of untrustworthy, but even if this software/service turned out to be great and useful, that would just mean Mozilla would shut it down.
I'm not trying to be funny, I think there's a pattern of behavior and earned distrust here.

Mozilla is a deeply-confused organization with more executives than sense.
Maybe this will work for enterprise or whatever, and I would credit it entirely to the Berlin company they're working with getting Mozilla's name recognition if it does.

News - SDL (Simple DirectMedia Layer) ban AI / LLM code contributions
By elmapul, 17 Apr 2026 at 4:09 am UTC

"AI-generated code is based upon sources of unknown origins and may not be compatible with the Zlib license, or may introduce conflicting license terms if they include code from other projects."
finally someone quoted the licence issue

News - New US Congress bill proposal requires all operating system providers to verify ages
By Aaron Sparks, 17 Apr 2026 at 12:08 am UTC

Completely illogical. We don’t force age verification of people entering a convenience store that sells alcohol and tobacco- but we’re going to force everyone to verify their age on a computer just because of the possibility of being able to get to adult content or other adult platforms. This responsibility should be on websites, content providers and individual platforms not on the operating systems. We’re really trying to be as stupid as possible here. All the tech companies should just refuse to comply and tell the government “if you pass this law us we will revoke your software licenses”
Let’s see how far the government is willing to go without Microsoft office and Adobe lol.🤣

News - Mozilla announced "Thunderbolt", their open-source and self-hostable AI client
By Arten, 16 Apr 2026 at 10:16 pm UTC

When will I be able to set my Ollama endpoint in Firefox? Mozilla knows about Ollama - this tool can connect to it and run local models. So why can’t Firefox use it instead of relying on cloud solutions like Anthropic, OpenAI, or Mistral?