Quoting: Philadelphus

Quoting: slaapliedjeHere's something I find hilarious about this... everyone uses Discord for gaming voice chat...

I'm not sure this is actually correct, or at least, entirely correct. I mean, sure, lots of people do use Discord for gaming voice chat, don't get me wrong, but it's also much more than that: it's basically a place for lots of communities to hang out and asynchronously communicate.

Quoting: Philadelphus

Quoting: slaapliedjeHere's something I find hilarious about this... everyone uses Discord for gaming voice chat...

If Discord were just voice chat then yes, it'd be relatively simple to replace with any of the other alternatives out there (other than the whole "network effect" and getting everyone to settle on an alternative), but it's really a lot more than that for some people and I don't know, off the top of my head, of a replacement that exactly covers all its use cases. That's the real issue for people looking for alternatives.

Well that's the thing - those of us that have been around (online) for a while will remember the days of ICQ / AIM / IRC / MSN Chat / Yahoo! Chat / whatever, when everyone used such services heavily... Then almost overnight, they died (largely the big companies got all worried about their legal liabilities, due to idiots hitting-up kids in chat).

Granted some of these services are still around, but they're ghost towns and the few users they still have are almost always bots, scammers or people who simply refuse to give in to changing trends. The same can be said of the "alternatives" to these early chat services, that have popped-up over the years.

I always thought that closing all these chat services en-masse was a dumb idea and I think a great big void was left... In my opinion, Discord has gone some way to filling that void for many people.

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Quoting: slaapliedjeHere's something I find hilarious about this... everyone uses Discord for gaming voice chat... Steam actually has built in voice chat... Is there any reason why people don't use it? (Granted I know not everyone here uses Steam, but it's a good chance that if you are a gamer, you have Steam installed).

Doesn't Steam hold the biggest marketshare for PC gaming? That makes the fact that it's so under-used even more ludicrous...

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Quoting: tomaszgWell, time to look for alternatives.

I'll be doing the same, though I will wait until any such takeover has been confirmed through an official source... Admitedly, I don't use Discord all that much; but I'm still not about to continue using it under Microsoft's stewardship - I value my privacy.

Quoting: tomaszgBTW. I'm surprised so few projects decided to move away from Github...

This.

Microsoft shamelessly makes no secret of the fact that it places absolutely no value on privacy whatsoever... Yet all of these Open Source projects - many of which claim to value privacy - continue to indirectly support Microsoft and its culture.

Quoting: Whitewolfe80Why microsoft didnt change it they just pumped funding into the backend and increased bandwidth. So far they havent changed anything really its still github

That may be so... Except that it is now owned by one of the biggest anti-privacy (tech) companies in the world.

Some people - disappointingly, a (very small) minority in the world - place value on privacy.

Quoting: GuestAnother account to delete... What's next? Will they buy my country too?

Well they basically "bought" mine (Australia)... Open Source is a dirty word in my country, and everybody - from the smallest business you can find, right up to just about every educational and Government body - is obsessed with Microsoft products; in many cases, they even go as far as officially prohibiting the use of Open Source software (in policy, not legislation / law).

Even in the midst of all this "hoo ha" over Google "pulling out of Australia" just recently... The default answer was automatically "Microsoft"; "Open Source" didn't even enter the conversation, despite the fact that such a change would (rather obviously!) be trading one dictatorship for another.

Quoting: RoosterFortunately there are more than enough good alternatives for Discord, in case they screw it up.

Any particular suggestions?

Admittedly, I don't use Discord very much - but it does have quite a following, and it seems to be pretty polished.

Quoting: The_AquabatI bet this will come with a new EULA, "all your rights belong to us".

☝ Don't forget your first-born, too!

Quoting: Loftyit's capitalism 101. Be the shark that eats / hoards (acquires) all the growing smaller fish until there is no other fish left in the ocean but just one giant shark, eventually and inevitably a crisis occurs, there is not enough food for the rest of the fish to eat. The shark gets to swim to the government boat and ask for a free food bail out. whilst all the everyday mino fish get nothing when they have nothing left to eat because the big shark consolidated and consumed it all and there is nowhere else to find food (work)

the little fish are told to pull themselves up by their boot straps but they don't even wear shoes.

So basically... A "typical" day in Australia, then?

Quoting: Guestits amazing that their love for linux so far has been one sided. sided to microsofts best interest of course. everything has been centered around making linux things run smoother, and better on windows. to attract linux developers, to windows, to develop their linux things, on windows. none of it has actually benefited linux at all.

if microsoft truly loved linux like they claim, they would start opening up some important stuff. like directx. contribute to wine, etc. if they actively contributed to wine, i would feel far more comfortable with their work on WSL for example.

This says it all... Sure, Microsoft have contributed things "here and there" - but it's only ever been the bare minimum, so they or their supporters can dust their hands and say "See? Microsoft contributes back to the Open Source Community!"

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Quoting: Philadelphus

Quoting: Cyba.CowboyFYI, the "In-Dome Buildings Pack" is already available (the article above implies it's coming soon)

I believe it wasn't available at the time the article was written (I looked), but released a scant day or two later.

I figured that, but I posed the links in hope they would update the article with the direct links, now that it is actually available...

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FYI, the "In-Dome Buildings Pack" is already available (the article above implies it's coming soon), and you can get it over here:
https://www.gog.com/game/surviving_mars_indome_buildings_pack [External Link]

Or if you're more of a "Steam" kinda guy / girl:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1497160/Surviving_Mars_InDome_Buildings_Pack/ [External Link]

If you're a "First Colony Edition" owner, you will need to pay extra for this one (all the DLC is usually free for "First Colony Edition" owners), though... At least on GOG.com you do; I'm assuming it's the same for Steam.

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Quoting: CreakEDIT: looking at Flatpak's wikipedia page, the support out-of-the-box seems as important if not more than for Snap:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatpak#Support [External Link]

Quoting: slaapliedjeWhere flatpaks and AppImages are open.

Well I have repeatedly stated above that this is the reason I think FlatPak is the superior "next-generation" package manager... I find that Snaps have noticeably better performance and they have certain technical advantages over FlatPak; but at the end of the day, being more "open" is more usually more important in the Grand Scheme of Things (at least in my opinion, anyway).

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Quoting: CreakWell there is at least a huge difference between AppImage and the others (AppImage being merely a huge dump of files that are uncompressed at a specific location and run there).

Meh.

I meant similar in the sense that AppImage loosely has similar goals... There are of course, some obvious differences (such as the fact that it doesn't usually provide libraries, it's not isolated, etc...); but the general idea is the same.

It is quite clearly the "most" different of the three, though...

Quoting: CreakBut overall I don't think the fragmentation is that bad because:
* Snap is basically Ubuntu-only

Not really.

According to Wikipedia [External Link], Snaps are supported "out of the box" by at least:
* Ubuntu (plus most of its deviations)
* Gallium OS
* Manjaro
* Zorin OS
* KDE Neon
* Solus
* Li-f-e

I'm not familiar with some of those operating systems, but Manjaro are KDE Neon are certainly big names, and Snaps can be optionally added to a MUCH bigger list of operating systems... In theory, it can run under almost any Linux-based operating system.

So no, not Ubuntu-only.

Quoting: CreakBut overall I don't think the fragmentation is that bad because:
* Flatpak is cross-distributions

Snap is too, so I don't understand your point.

As I wrote above, FlatPak is slightly more "open" - which is the primary reason why I think it is the superior of the two (though I find the performance much better under Snap); but it is certainly not the only one of the two that has cross-distribution support.

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Quoting: fagnerlnIt's surprisingly that they are using flatpak, they should release Steam officially on flatpak or create a sandbox solution with their Steam Runtime, most of the users of rolling distros are having problems on CSGO because of the new glibc, which not happens with the flatpak version.

Ignoring all of the people in the "I Hate Canonical" camp, a decision by Valve to officially release Steam as a Flatpak could start to sway developers towards Flatpak; given how fragmented the "next-generation package manager" field is at the moment, this would be a good thing.

There's not really all that much difference between most of the "next-generation package managers" (Snap / Flatpak / AppImage / etc...), but there is an awful lot of fragmentation and it is incredibly annoying to either be stuck using many "unofficial" ports if you stick to one particular package manager (e.g. Snap); or maintain a Frankenstein-like system, if you stick to the "official" ports via the bazillion different package managers (i.e. some apps as Snaps, others as Flatpaks, etc).

You're never going to get everyone using the same package manager "officially" - but you could sway most developers towards Flatpak, with a major company like Valve behind it... That in turn would likely lead to less fragmentation, which is a good thing.

Quoting: 3zekielGood new is, they did not use snap package, so everyone can have access to it already, and without all snap issues.

Here we go... And what issues are you talking about? Snap seems to work fine for me.

Stop spreading FUD - Snap and Flatpak are almost on par with each other in most areas, with the only significant difference being that the latter is slightly more "open" (which is a good thing and in my opinion, makes Flatpak the superior option).

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Quoting: TheSHEEEPVideo-wise I try to get into a habit to look at odysee.com first before I have to go to YouTube since most people I follow are unfortunately not on both.

LBRY / Odysee.com are slowly getting better... I've been looking for alternatives to YouTube for several years, and LBRY / Odysee.com is the first time I can put my hand on my heart and say I have found something comparable to YouTube.

Sure, YouTube still has a lot of advantages over LBRY / Odysee.com - but the latter is quickly catching up and every day, the content is getting better.

By the way, have you seen the "Watch on LBRY [External Link]" extension for Firefox? It seems to work pretty well, and with more and more content coming over to LBRY / Odysee.com, it's certainly handy to have installed (it only supports LBRY at this stage though).

Quoting: DrMcCoy

Quoting: TheSHEEEPE-mail wise, I thankfully host my own (or, well, pay a provider to host it for me)

Yes, and then Google just randomly throws half the mails you send to people with gmail accounts into their spam folder, where the recipients never see them...

I have two domains (my surname is different to the rest of my family) and whilst that the domain I use for myself (a ".id.au" domain) has this happen from time-to-time, it never happens with my other domain (a ".com.au" domain that the rest of my family uses).

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyI can imagine a downside to that kind of effort to retain your privacy: Somewhere in an NSA database, your record has a flag saying "One of THOSE people who want privacy--keep an eye on". :tongue:

That's pretty funny, and I'll pay that...

All joking aside, I find that certain ISPs / telcos have restricted performance for or actively block VPN connections (or at least what they think are VPN connections)... Though depending on which particular access point I happen to be using, this doesn't always work.

Then there's the geo-blocking thing... Some online stores and payment systems actively block certain IP addresses (which occasionally includes that of my VPN), a small number of websites are not available unless I'm using an Australian access point, etc.

Content which is available online seems to vary slightly depending on what VPN access point I'm actively using, too - and no, I'm not just talking about "that" stuff (though "that" stuff is probably the best example here!)... Sometimes stuff that you or I would consider fairly innocent will be seemingly blocked in a certain country - I've seen this on occasion recently, whilst using certain access points in Europe to look-up content as innocent as news articles.

Aside from using "that" stuff as an example here, content relating to privacy and / or freedom-of-speech is one of the best examples on different content being available via different VPN connections... Quite often, the differences between two countries can be "like night and day" (I'm not just talking about the obvious countries, such as Russia, either).

The upside is that most of these issues can be easily worked around, usually by doing something as simple as changing the access point to something else (e.g. I usually change my access point to one in Australia when I want to make a purchase online).

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