Table of Contents

1. Welcome From The Chief Editor

2. Charles H. Tankersley (1933 - 2022): In Remembrance

3. PCLinuxOS Recipe Corner: Beef Wellingtons

4. Firefox Translations: Client Side On-Demand Translations

5. GIMP Tutorial: Tool Features You May Not Have Seen

6. Short Topix: GMail Trick Reveals Who Is Selling Your Data

7. VLC Channel Scan For USB TV Tuner ... Simplified

8. Facebook Says Apple Is Too Powerful. They're Right

9. PCLinuxOS Recipe Corner Bonus: Beef Tortilla Casserole

10. Firefox Rolls Out Total Cookie Protection By Default To All Users Worldwide

11. PCLinuxOS Puzzled Partitions

12. Screenshot Showcase

From The Chief Editor's Desk...

A really strange thing happened the other evening.

My wife was saying goodnight to my son, and spent a few minutes snuggling with him in his bed. She told him, "You know, mommy and daddy waited a long time for you to get here. We love you so much! What took you so long?"

Without much hesitation, my son gave her an answer. "Well, I had to get old and die first. And then I was put in your tummy."

As if that wasn't chilling enough, he went on to describe how he was an old man who had made a lot of money, and who was a chicken farmer. Ryan currently shepherds over his small flock of 11 hens. It would certainly go a long way to explain his fascination with his chickens.

I still get chills just writing this all down.

I had no idea of how common this whole "past lives" thing is with children. There was this three year old little boy (YouTube video) who they think might be the reincarnation of Lou Gherig. At three years of age, he played baseball with the ability of an eight year old, despite his parents or other role models not having any real interest in baseball. He knew intimate details of Lou Gherig's life, including Gherig's dislike for Babe Ruth (and the reason why). Then there's the story (YouTube video) of another little boy who seemed to be recalling a previous life as a WWII fighter pilot. Night after night, he'd awaken from a nightmare, screaming "Plane. On fire. Little man can't get out."

Here's another YouTube video summarizing the stories of five children who recall past lives. We could do this all day long. It's not hard or uncommon to find these types of stories, once you start looking for them. Here's an article on the HealthyWay website. There are scientists and doctors who are now exploring not whether or not reincarnation is a reality, but how it might fit into our current understanding of life and death and being.

I'm not one who, for the most part, doesn't believe much of the stuff about reincarnation, ghosts, past lives, the occult, or any other such things I usually consider nonsensical. But, it's a little harder to dismiss when it involves your own child. His answers were rather "matter of fact" in their nature.

Most children who experience these "revelations" experience them between the ages of three and seven. But my son has dealt with some learning delays for all of his life. His speech and language deficits have made it, up until now, difficult to communicate effectively or easily. He's quite smart, and day after day, he amazes his mom and me with just how smart he really is. Math is his favorite subject, and he's good at it. And get him on a topic he really likes … like Transformers and Minecraft … and he can tell you everything you might ever want to know. So the fact that they are just coming to light with him at almost nine years of age makes sense.

For the record, I also think that us being the only intelligent life in the Universe is a statistical impossibility. I'm just more in the camp of the late, great physicist Stephen Hawking. He claims we have much to fear from "meeting" other intelligent beings from across the Universe, since they will obviously be far more technologically superior to us (after all, they had to figure out a way to traverse great distances very quickly to get to us), and thus hold us at a distinct disadvantage. From there, we could be extinguished or enslaved, and there'd be little we could do about it. Hawking saw other "intelligent beings" from across the cosmos coming here as a threat, more like an invasion. It's nice to hope for a more benevolent first meeting (I would even consider something like the alien in the original (and much superior) version of "The Day The Earth Stood Still" movie a benevolent first meeting), but we had better prepare for something more like the depiction of alien beings in Independence Day and the TV series "V", just in case.

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This month's cover was designed by Meemaw, and commemorates the annual Fourth of July Independence Day holiday in the U.S.

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Until next month, I bid you peace, happiness, serenity, prosperity … and continued good health!

Charles H. Tankersley (1933 - 2022): In Remembrance

by David Pardue (kalwisti)

I recently learned of the death of one of our longtime PCLinuxOS forum users. Charles Henry Tankersley passed away on February 16, 2022, at age 88. Mr. Tankersley registered as a PCLinuxOS forum member on May 28, 2007, with the username chtank.

Charles was born on March 30, 1933, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. His father, Benjamin, was a laboratory and radiology technician; his mother, Westlynn, was a registered nurse. He spent his early childhood years in Bethany and Duncan, Oklahoma. He became fascinated with the physical sciences; in his partial memoirs, he writes that "As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to know what made things work."

The most detailed reminiscences and (mis)adventures are found in "Hatched in Oklahoma." Frequently told with self-deprecating humor, these anecdotes give readers a taste of life during the Dust Bowl period. Charles's family moved around a bit; in addition to Oklahoma, they lived for seven years in San Antonio, Texas and Charles spent his adolescence in Kensington, Maryland (a suburb of Washington D.C.).

Mr. Tankersley proudly served his country during the Korean War, in the U.S. Army Medical Corps (1953 - 1955). After his discharge from the military, he attended the University of Central Oklahoma (Enid, OK), majoring in chemistry and physics.

Charles followed the career path of an engineer. He worked in the Petrochemical Division of Parsons Engineering for almost 37 years (1961 - 1998), eventually earning a promotion to Principal Mechanical Designer. This led to his first exposure to AutoCAD design and drafting software, and to personal computers -- at age 62! Mr. Tankersley aptly describes this "transition" in his own words:

I retired from Parsons Engineering Corporation on April Fool's Day in 1998, the significance of which escapes me. Too late, I found that my wife had saved up a lifetime of honey-do's for me. I may need to go back to work just to rest up.

I was trained in the old school of engineering design, that is, I did all my calculations and documentation manually. Several years before I retired, while leading a crew on a client's site, the client supervisor called me to his office. He told me; "Tank, you are a dinosaur! From now on all our documentation and records will be digitized and stored electronically on the computer. We are entering the paperless society." I was promised to be trained. A computer was placed before me and I was told to use it. I was left to do my own "training". What I know of the computer, whether right or wrong, is self-taught. What a monster they created!

Although I am somewhat computer literate, I am not a programmer, nor do I have any desire to learn any more than is necessary to use this machine. I will help other "dinosaurs" who are in my position if I can. Ask -- I will do what I can. I use the computer as a tool, not a toy. The computer is one of the best communication and working tools yet developed by mankind. As such it allows me to use the computer as a THINKTANK where I might "chase the elusive dreams" of my youth. I have been able to complete my move to RootsWeb and the Homestead website is now closed.

So he set about learning Microsoft Windows, AutoCAD and HTML to create his personal websites. At some point, he joined the Houston Area League of PC Users (HAL-PC). Like many of us have experienced, Charles found that the more he used Windows, the more dissatisfied he became with the OS. Tired of the ongoing problems and system bloat, he heard about Linux -- in particular, PCLinuxOS. Texstar and a friend kindly paid a visit to Mr. Tankersley's house in the Spring Branch area of Houston, to install PCLinuxOS release P.94 in a dual-boot setup with his Microsoft PC. Charles discovered that Linux fulfilled all his computing needs; he switched exclusively to PCLinuxOS around 2012.

I admire Mr. Tankersley's tenacity and commitment to lifelong learning. He wrote: "I am retired, and free to know for the sake of knowing. To do those things that I dreamed of as a boy. The flames of curiosity still burn brightly. . . . I am also dedicated to promoting universal education as a God-given human right. It is self-evident that the only purpose for human existence on this earth is to learn." In addition to his interest in computers, Charles devoted time to genealogy and conducted independent research on renewable energy. He enjoyed reading on the Kindle app; he mentioned that his library mainly consisted of physics texts, classic English literature (Chaucer, Shakespeare), Edgar Allan Poe and philosophy (Plato, Aristotle).

Mr. Tankersley is survived by a son, five stepdaughters, numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

R.I.P., chtank. We will miss your presence.

PCLinuxOS Recipe Corner:

Beef Wellingtons

Serves 2

Ingredients:

Wellingtons

2 boneless beef tenderloin steaks, 1 1/2 inches thick (6 oz each)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons finely chopped shallot

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

1 cup finely chopped cremini mushrooms (2 oz)

2 thin slices prosciutto, finely chopped

1/2 teaspoon finely chopped fresh thyme leaves

1 sheet frozen puff pastry (from 1-lb package), thawed

1 egg, beaten

1 tablespoon water

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

Sauce

1 tablespoon butter

2 tablespoons finely chopped shallot

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

3/4 cup beef-flavored broth (from 32-oz carton)

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

2 tablespoons brandy

1 tablespoon chopped fresh Italian (flat-leaf) parsley

Directions:

Season steaks with salt and pepper. In a 10-inch skillet, heat oil over high heat. Add steaks; cook 2 minutes on each side to brown. Remove steaks; refrigerate 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, melt 2 tablespoons butter in the same skillet over medium-high heat. Add 2 tablespoons shallot and 1 clove garlic; cook and stir for about 2 minutes or until softened. Add mushrooms, prosciutto and thyme; cook and stir for 3 to 4 minutes or until mushrooms have softened and any liquid has evaporated. Transfer mushroom mixture to bowl; refrigerate 10 to 15 minutes or until completely cooled.

Line a large rimmed cookie sheet with cooking parchment paper. Roll puff pastry sheet to 20x9 inches; using a sharp knife, cut out two 9-inch rounds. From scraps, cut out leaves or other shapes to use as decoration. Place pastry rounds and decorative cutouts on a cookie sheet. Place in the freezer for 5 minutes.

Heat oven to 400F. In a small bowl, beat egg and water.

Remove pastry from freezer; brush each round with 1 teaspoon mustard. Place a generous tablespoon of the mushroom mixture in the center of each pastry. Place a steak on top of mushroom mixture on each pastry round; top each steak with another generous tablespoon mushroom mixture. Brush edges of each pastry round with egg wash; fold pastry over steak so dough edges slightly overlap and steaks are completely enclosed. Place on cookie sheet, seam side down; brush top and sides with egg wash. Place decorative cutouts on top of each; brush cutouts with more egg wash. Place in the freezer for 5 minutes.

Remove from the freezer; bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until pastry is golden brown and meat thermometer inserted in thickest part of beef reads 135F for medium-rare (temperature will continue to rise to 145F while it stands). Place on rack; let stand for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a 10-inch skillet, heat 1 tablespoon butter over medium heat. Add 2 tablespoons shallot and 1 clove garlic; cook and stir for 1 to 3 minutes or until softened. Stir in 1 teaspoon mustard. Remove from heat; add broth, whipping cream and brandy. Heat to boiling over medium-high heat. Reduce heat; cook for 6 to 8 minutes, stirring occasionally, until slightly thickened. Stir in parsley. Serve sauce with Wellingtons.

Nutrition:

Calories: 1450           Carbs: 65g           Fiber: 5g           Sodium: 1770mg           Protein: 54g

Firefox Translations: Client Side On-Demand Translations

by Paul Arnote (parnote)

Move on over, Google Translate. Step aside, DeepL. There's a new kid in the translation neighborhood.

Meet Firefox Translations. Unlike the other online translators out there (including the two already mentioned), Firefox Translations is a client-side translator. While the others are cloud-based, Firefox Translations translates the data in your browser on your local computer, so no information is ever transmitted to or from your computer during the translation.

With the online, cloud-based translators, data is transferred from/to your computer. That leads to suspicions that, for example, if I translate data in Portuguese about soccer, am I going to start seeing ads for soccer balls and other soccer kit items? We already know that Google is the great Hoover vacuum of the internet, sucking up and storing every little tidbit of data about you that it can possibly suck up, so that they can then turn around and serve up ads to you based on "your interests." It's not a far stretch to believe that they would most likely do so with translation data through Google Translate. In fact, I'd be pretty confident to say that they most likely already do this.

So, there's something to be said about keeping translations on the user's computer, performing them within the browser without ever transmitting any data over the interwebs.

Firefox Translations was developed with The Bergamot Project Consortium, coordinated by the University of Edinburgh with partners Charles University in Prague, the University of Sheffield, University of Tartu, and Mozilla. It has been funded by the E.U. On the Bergamot home page, it lists the goal as such:

"The Bergamot project will add and improve client-side machine translation in a web browser.

Unlike current cloud-based options, running directly on users' machines empowers citizens to preserve their privacy and increases the uptake of language technologies in Europe in various sectors that require confidentiality. Free software integrated with an open-source web browser, such as Mozilla Firefox, will enable bottom-up adoption by non-experts, resulting in cost savings for private and public sector users who would otherwise procure translation or operate monolingually."

Installing & Setting Up Firefox Translations

First, you will need to install Firefox Translations. Go here to install the Firefox browser extension.

When you select to install the extension, select the Add button. The extension will be installed and made available to you.

The settings window will then be shown to you. The settings are minimal, and you are good to just accept the default settings.

Now there is one more setting you need to make for this to work. I got this information off of the extension's GitHub page. Go into Firefox's about:config page, agree that you'll be careful, and search for "extensions.experiments.enabled". Change the value from the default of False to True. At this early stage, the extension is still considered "experimental."

How It Works

I will forewarn you … don't go looking for traces of the extension. You're not going to find it. It really stays out of your way until it's needed. However, once you load a page that is written in one of the supported languages, it springs into action.

Once a page is loaded in one of the supported languages (different from the language used on your computer), you should see the above toolbar in Firefox. Just click on the "Translate" button. If this is the first time you're using the tool for a particular language, it may take a few seconds to download the translation "dictionary" to your computer. It will then work to translate the page into your native language.

Below is a snippet from the Spanish newspaper El País. The top image is in Spanish, and the second image is the English translation:

Below is a snippet from the Sao Paulo newspaper. The top image is in Brazilian Portuguese, and the second image is the translation into English:

Below is a snippet from the newspaper from Frankfurt, Germany. The top image is in German, and the second image is the English translation:

Firefox Translations currently supports the following languages:

Spanish <-> English

Estonian <-> English

English <-> German

Czech <-> English

Bulgarian <-> English

Norwegian Bokmål -> English

Portuguese <-> English

Italian <-> English

Language for the following languages is currently under development:

Russian <-> English

Persian (Farsi) <-> English

Icelandic -> English

Norwegian Nynorsk -> English

The plan is to eventually add support for even more languages, over time.

A Small Caveat

Keep in mind that this extension is in the early stages, so there are bound to be a few niggles here and there. And, there is one.

The addition of the Firefox Translations toolbar causes my tabs to be drawn over the top of my Bookmarks Toolbar. I don't know if this has to do with my custom userChrome.css file that I use to move my tab bar to the bottom of the toolbars, or if this is an all-over general problem. I have, sporadically, had other toolbars added "on the fly" behave this way, too, so it may be due to my use of the custom userChrome.css file. Update: It seems to be directly related to the userChrome.css that I use.

Meemaw also discovered another small niggle. She powers off her computer daily, and relaunches her web browser (Firefox) when she logs back in. My computer (and Firefox) stay logged in for long periods of time, sometimes days and days at a time. So there's a very low probability of me ever discovering this behavior. Upon login to her Google account, Firefox Translations offered to translate the login page from Russian to English, despite the login page clearly being in English. The extension hid itself again just as soon as she logged into her Google account. To help with that, the toolbar also has an Options button towards the right side, where you can choose "Never translate this page". When she chose that, she quit seeing the toolbar.

Also, for giggles and grins, I tried to load up one of the "foreign language" sections of the PCLinuxOS Forum. Firefox Translations did not pick up the foreign language and offer to translate it. I suspect that is because the main part of those pages is still indicating English as the primary language of those pages. But then, lo and behold, it offered to translate some of the posts in the Italian section of the forum. Yet, in the same session, it did not work with some topics in the German section. So, Firefox Translations will most likely be "hit and miss" as to whether or not it works on the "foreign language" sections of the forum. For those pages, you will have to use a different tool. Another extension I have installed, Simple Translate, uses Google Translate (cloud-based) to perform the translations on the PCLinuxOS Forum relatively effortlessly.

Summary

Firefox Translations is certainly a worthy extension that should give users some peace of mind in obtaining translations. While currently limited to 12 languages (Google Translate, which has been around considerably longer, currently supports over 100 different languages), the results I got while using it appeared to be proper and quite readable.

Plus, any time I can perform a task without sending boatloads of data back and forth via the cloud, the better I feel about my privacy. Even though it's in its infancy, I find that it works exceptionally well. The little "niggles" we pointed out above shouldn't deter you from giving it a test drive. I'm betting it will become an extension you'll find yourself using on a regular basis.

GIMP Tutorial: Tool Features You May Not Have Seen

by Meemaw

We use many tools in our graphics journey. In GIMP, we use Bucket Fill, Eraser and Clone tools all the time, but they have some features you might not have seen yet. I look at tutorials a lot, and saw these tips on Davies Media Design's YouTube channel. His tutorial was titled "5 Things You Didn't Know GIMP could do". If you know all these already, that's awesome, but if not, I hope you learn something useful.

Bucket Fill

Did you ever fill an item and then decide you wanted it a different color? When you used Bucket fill again with the new color, did some of the old color remain on the edges? I've done this a few times when I wanted to change the background or color of an object.

Here we see a closeup of a circle that is blue:

Now, you've decided it should be green so you filled it:

Well, darn… there's still some blue there. Undo your fill so it's blue again, then look at the bottom of your bucket fill tool. You'll see the setting for Threshold. The default is 15, I think, but turn it up to about 120, then fill again:

You still have a bit of blue, but it looks lots better. Undo again and set the threshold up a bit more and you can probably get rid of the majority of it.

Eraser

Suppose that in your project with GIMP, you erased some features of your creation, then went on to draw more. As it sometimes happens, you change your mind about erasing the features, but now you've done a lot to your project, and don't want to "Undo" everything back to the eraser. In this picture, I erased some trees in the center, and then I used the paintbrush to write "I love GIMP". I was planning to clone some sky into that blank.

Now I've decided that I want to leave the trees. If you look at the bottom of the eraser tool settings, you will see a line that says "Anti erase (Alt)". Check that checkbox and go back to what you erased, and go over it again. (You can just hold down your Alt key and un-erase too.) Whatever you erased will be back where it belongs. NOTE: If you don't have an alpha channel in your project, none of this will work. Erasing a photo in .jpg format will result in the space filling with white (or whatever your background color is). Right-click the picture in the Layers dialog and choose Add alpha channel.

Clone

You can also use the clone tool to delete something you don't want that is in the middle of your Undo dialog. We're always told that we need to work on a copy of a photo, so we'll have the original if something goes wrong. Davies also suggests doing our drawing on a different layer as well. However, I drew directly on my photo when I wrote "I love GIMP". Maybe I want to remove "love" and put in "Love" with a capital L. I can Undo, undo, undo, undo… until it's all gone, and start again, but I can also do something else. This depends on keeping your project open so the Undo History is still active.

I've written "I love GIMP" on another background, but as I said above, I have decided to replace "love" with "Love". Leaving my original open, I exported it as an image (jpg or png), and opened it as well. Now I'm going to work on the png I created, using the undo history in my original (remember that once you save and close, the undo history is gone). I'll go back in the history until "love" is gone, then use my Clone tool to put the background back into the png (which basically clones it over the text I wrote). IMPORTANT NOTE: Make sure the setting at the bottom of the clone tool "Alignment" is set to "Registered".

Now I can go back and put in "Love". This is just a sample. I can't write very well with a paintbrush!

Unified Transform Tool

Davies also illustrates the versatility of the Unified Transform Tool, which is several tools combined. GIMP makes it easier to really manipulate your object with that one tool rather than having to go from tool to tool.

A few years ago (June 2015), I did a magazine cover that had a large television on the wall. I put a battle scene from Game of Thrones inside the television screen. As I remember, it took more than one tool. With the Unified Transform (which only showed up in GIMP 2.09 or 2.10), I could have done it all with the one tool.

Load your images into GIMP. I have a photo of my TV and an image I want to use. I'm going to put the green background onto the TV screen that right now shows a commercial.

To add the background into the TV screen, copy the background photo, choose the TV photo and paste the image. Click on the Untified Transform tool, then click on the image. Several handles will appear, and also a small window that says Unified Transform.

Just in case your window overlaps your work area, you can click on the up arrow in the top right part of the window. That will change the window so it is moveable. Then you can move it wherever it's more convenient.

Now, look at all the handles. Each set does something different. The square handles resize, the diamonds set in the corners will affect the perspective of the image, and the diamonds on the edges control shear. If you hover your mouse over the handle, you can tell which one you're using (or find the one you want to use). There's also a rotation center tool in the middle, and if you hover your mouse over the image, you'll see the move tool.

If your image is a lot bigger than the TV screen you want to put it in, you should probably resize it a bit first. Then, the next thing you want to do is line up your image with one of the corners of the TV screen, maybe top left, and then you can transform the image from there. Using your perspective handles, move the corners of the image to fit the TV screen. I have one corner left.

Oh, that dotted line across the center? That's the original location for the floating layer you pasted in and have been editing. When you are absolutely finished and anchor the layer to the living room image, it will disappear. Make sure you have everything lined up as you want it before you anchor the layer. I know you can undo all the time, but it's easier to make sure it's right first. If you have everything lined up and change to a different tool, it will appear this way:

If you do that and notice that you don't have things correct after all, choose the Unified Transform again and correct it. I did that and now I'm finished to the point I can anchor the layer.

The good thing about this is that you can use this tool for everything, and not have to switch back & forth between tools.

Transform Lock

So, I'm creating a logo or something, and have items on three layers. In the course of my creation, I decide everything should be bigger, but each layer should be the same percentage bigger to preserve my design. Let's use the transform lock in the layers dialog. I know this sounds like the layer can't be changed after it's locked, but it can.

I have three layers here and I have a shape drawn on each. The transform lock looks like chain links in the layers dialog.

After I click the lock on the bottom layer, I decide to make each layer's shape larger, but I want to preserve the design so far. I'll use the top layer and choose the scale tool to resize the blue square and then re-center it. Notice that the resize tool is acting on the entire layer:

As soon as I click Scale in the Scale window, I get a "timer" because GIMP is acting on the other two layers to scale them the same. When it's finished I get a larger version of my creation.

From here I can put more items and eventually, put the finishing touches on my creation.

I hope that you found these tips helpful. I think it's always nice to find another useful tool setting. Davies has more in that tutorial, and many more tutorials as well.

Short Topix: GMail Trick Reveals Who Is Selling Your Data

by Paul Arnote (parnote)

Monthly Update: Assault On Your Privacy

TechRepublic reports on a new phishing technique, where the scammers use a chat bot to gain the trust of the victim, and then convince them to hand over private data.

The New York Post reported that a new malware that attacks Android users, dubbed ERMAC 2.0, is active. It's set up to steal users' credentials and bank information.

In another TechRepublic article, cybercriminals are using an automated bot to bypass 2FA (two factor authentication) on a large scale. By circumventing 2FA safeguards, cybercriminals can gain access to personal/private/privileged information about the victim.

An article on the Malwarebytes Labs website lists four new vulnerabilities in the Google Chrome web browser (CVE-2022-2007, CVE-2022-2008, CVE-2022-2010, and CVE-2022-2011). If you haven't already done so, the best protection is to update to the latest version of Google Chrome as soon as you can.

A joint Cybersecurity Advisory from the National Security Agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI warns about threat actors exploiting known vulnerabilities to target public and private sector organizations worldwide, including in the United States. This report is built on previous NSA, CISA and FBI reporting about notable cybersecurity trends and persistent tactics, techniques and procedures.

In a PIXM Security blog entry, they detail how a threat actor stole one million credentials over four months using phishing tactics.

From an article on The Register, if you own certain Cisco routers, you might want to use them for target practice, go "Office Space" on them, or otherwise take them out of service. In a pair of vulnerabilities with a CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) score of 9.8 out of 10, Cisco is NOT releasing a fix for them. Four other vulnerabilities of a medium level of concern were also noted with some Cisco routers.

Widely covered by multiple media outlets (here's one from Reuters), Google is being sued by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for misleading users into thinking Google Chrome's "Incognito" private browsing is truly anonymous, when in fact, it collects boatloads of personal data.

Mozilla Works To Bring Manifest V3 Support To Firefox By Late 2022

Anyone who follows web browser development even a little has heard of Google's push for the adoption of Manifest V3 and the havoc it is anticipated to bring to many web browser extensions. Most significantly, Manifest V3 eliminates Web Request API, and replaces it with Declarative Net Request API. This change will seriously cripple many ad blocker extensions, which rely on the Web Request API to effectively block unwanted ads on websites visited by the end user. Currently, no new Chrome extensions are being accepted that are based on Manifest V2, which features the Web Request API.

Starting in June 2023, Google will no longer allow extensions based on Manifest V2 to continue to run, replacing Manifest V2 with Manifest V3. Mozilla, on the other hand, plans to start implementing Manifest V3 in late 2022. But, Mozilla also plans to maintain support for the Web Request API from Manifest V2, allowing ad blocking browser extensions to continue to work.

If you are a Chromium user (or the user of any browser based on it, such as Google Chrome, Opera, Brave, etc.), the implementation of Manifest V3 has already begun. When fully implemented, expect your ad blockers to either cease functioning or to be severely crippled under Chromium-based browsers.

It makes sense that Google would want to cripple ad blockers. Consider that the vast majority of Google's fortunes are made from selling advertising, especially advertising that is targeted at individual users. If an ad is blocked, it's not viewed by the end user, and Google gets no money when you cannot view it. Also, when you can't view it, you can't click through the ad to visit the advertiser's website. Those "click counts" are important, especially if you own the website on the other end, or if you sell advertising based on click counts.

Developers of web browser extensions – especially ad blocker extensions – have been very vocal about the implementation of Manifest V3. None have been more vocal than Raymond Hill, the creator of the uBlock Origin ad and content blocker.

Hang on to your seats, gang. This is going to be one rocky, bumpy, crater-filled ride for the next year or so. If you abhor ads on your web pages (like most people do), prepare for the terrifying reality that you can no longer hide them or prevent them from appearing. But then again, there's always Firefox. It makes me glad to be a Firefox user.

GMail Trick Reveals Who Is Selling Your Data

Let's see a show of hands. Who out there has signed up to a mailing list, but then found their inbox inundated with emails from a large number of "related" senders? Trust me, you're not alone.

Let's say you want to sign up to Polly's Widgets mailing list to get early notifications of Polly's next groundbreaking widget. You sign up, using your regular GMail account. The next thing you know, your inbox is being flooded with offers from many of Polly's Widgets "partners." Yep. They sold your email address (and probably a list of your interests) to their "partners."

What many people don't know is that you can have as many GMail accounts as you want. Simply place a "+" and then a word after the first part of your GMail address, and the GMail server will ignore the "+" and everything after it, but still deliver the email to your email account's inbox. So, my-email@gmail.com might become my-email+pollyswidgets@gmail.com. You have to either set your account up with this email address, or edit your existing email address on your existing accounts. Now, when you start getting emails from Polly's Widgets partners, you will immediately know exactly who sold your email address.

Once you know, it's an easy matter to block those emails from ever coming into your inbox, or to filter them so they immediately go to your spam or trash email boxes, or to a special folder where you can weed through them at a later time.

IPv4 Tweak Could Free Up 100's Of Millions Of IPv4 Addresses

Seth Schoen, a former senior staff technologist at EFF and co-founder of Let's Encrypt, has proposed some changes to IPv4 which, if implemented, could free up hundreds of millions of additional IPv4 addresses that were previously "reserved" for special use, according to an article on The Register.

The thing is, most of those addresses were never used for their intended uses, and sat/sit unused since the adoption of the IPv4 standard. So, even though it has been nearly three years since all the available IPv4 addresses have been officially exhausted, Shoen's proposal would breathe new life into the older addressing scheme, at least for a while.

However, due to the wide proliferation of the IPv4 addressing standard, making the proposed changes could prove to be a much larger undertaking than just forcing users to switch to IPv6, which replaced the IPv4 standard. The current IPv4 standard, agreed upon in the 1980s, is nearly universally used and adopted, so changing the "rules" now may end up creating more confusion and interoperability headaches than the benefits produce from the freeing up of additional address spaces.

New Browser Extension Lets You Remove Specific Sites From Search Results

A new browser extension, named uBlackList, allows users to remove specific sites from appearing in search results from Google, DuckDuckGo, Bing, StartPage, and others. Upon installation, it's set up "out of the box" for blocking Google search results, but users can easily add additional search engines via options for the extension.

While it's easy enough to block certain websites from appearing in certain search pages (I use DuckDuckGo, which uses the "-name_a_site" search tag), results sometimes include those pages anyway. Instead, you can configure uBlackList to exclude those websites from your search results.

When you bring up the options for the extension, you can enter the sites you want to block from your search results. So, let's say you want to eliminate search results from Pinterest from appearing in your search queries. You would enter *//:*.pinterest.com/* to block any sites from Pinterest from appearing in your search results. Similarly, you would enter *//:*.facebook.com/* to block all sites from Facebook from appearing in your search results.

The extension is available for Google Chrome (or Chrome based browsers) and Firefox.

PCLinuxOS Magazine Short Topix Roundup

According to an article on TechRadar, a new Google Chrome update is poised to crackdown on the number of notifications users receive from certain websites. If Chrome identifies a website as being "disruptive," it will block notifications, as well as attempts to ask for permissions in the future.

There may be a new replacement for GIF 3D, according to an article on The Verge. The company, Looking Glass, is hoping to make holographic displays as common as … well, any other graphics file. Specifically called Looking Glass Blocks, you just swipe your mouse across the image and you are presented with a VERY COOL looking 3D holographic image. You can view some samples of it just by visiting the article on The Verge.

Igus, a German company, has developed an urban bike made from 100% recycled plastic, according to an article on GearJunkie. Yes, the bike is made from 100% recycled plastic … even the gears. No part of the bike will rust or corrode. Frank Blase, the CEO of Igus, says "the plastic in dumps worldwide is becoming a valuable resource." Using recycled plastics, Igus keeps mounds of otherwise plastic waste out of landfills. "Lightweight, lubrication-free high-performance plastics are used in all parts of the bicycle, from two-component ball bearings in the wheel bearings to plain bearings in the seat post, brake levers, and pedals," explained Blase. "All of these components have integrated solid lubricants and ensure low-friction dry operation, without a single drop of lubricating oil. [So that] sand, dust, and dirt cannot accumulate."

The James A. Webb Space Telescope suffered a larger-than-expected micrometeorite strike at the end of May, according to an article on The Verge. NASA officials said that the revolutionary, state-of-the-art space telescope is still performing at levels that exceed all mission requirements. NASA officials also say that they can correct for the aberrations in the space telescope's images.

Samples from Ryugu, an asteroid made famous in 2018 when Japan landed a spaceship on it, has revealed the presence of more than 20 amino acids, according to an article on LiveScience.

Australian scientists have discovered that the larvae of Zophobas morio, a species of beetle, can not only eat but thrive by eating a steady diet of polystyrene plastic, according to an article on The Guardian. You are probably more familiar with polystyrene plastic as the lightweight foam carryout containers and drink containers.

Every. Single. Patient. enrolled in a small rectal cancer trial saw their tumors disappear, and required no further treatment via chemotherapy or radiation therapy, according to an article on Science Alert. The trial is still ongoing, as only 12 of a planned 30 patients have completed the treatment and the six month followup. The results are unprecedented in cancer research.

Researchers have succeeded in creating plastic-based CPUs, according to an article on the Hackaday website. They produced 4-bit and 8-bit processors using indium gallium zinc oxide semiconductor technology attached to a plastic substrate. The processors can even be bent around a small radius, and continue to work.

Researchers at Rutgers University and Harvard have created a spray on plant-based coating that could replace plastic wrap, according to an article on Engadget. The new process sprays a biopolymer and saccharide based coating on produce that helps protect from bruising and spoilage, is easily biodegradable, and has antimicrobial properties. As a result, it outperforms the traditional plastic wrap commonly used for packaging. In early tests, it extended the shelf life of avocados by 50 percent, is biodegradable in about three days, and can simply be washed off of the produce under running water. Such an advancement could help keep untold amounts of plastic waste out of landfills.

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LC Channel Scan For USB TV Tuner ... Simplified

by Paul Arnote (parnote)

I have an older (as in, no longer manufactured) USB TV tuner that is capable of receiving ATSC broadcasts. In the U.S., ATSC is the format for the over-the-air (OTA) HD broadcasts. It's a KWorld KW-UB435-Q V3. Ironically, while this specific tuner is no longer made/available, it's a trivial task to find a picture of the item on various retailer websites. The broadcast format will be different for different areas around the world. If I'm not mistaken, most of Europe uses DVB as the broadcast format for their HD broadcasts.

Even if you are in an area that uses a different format, the process will be similar to discover the frequencies necessary to make the USB tuner "spring to life" under VLC. I'll attempt to point out the differences the best that I can. Keep in mind that my "frame of reference" is using the ATSC broadcast standard, since I'm in the U.S., so I'm quite unfamiliar with other broadcast standards.

Most likely due to the explosion of online streaming platforms, computer-based (particularly USB based) TV tuners are a bit harder to find these days. But, there are still users out there who either already have these devices, or who have a need for these devices.

In my particular case, we recently purchased a RV/camping trailer, and I can use the USB TV tuner to tune in the OTA broadcasts on my laptop in the areas we visit with the trailer in tow. This will be perfect for those times when it's rainy or too dark to do the things we want to do, and allow us to help keep ourselves informed of the latest happenings in the world while we're out and about. It also increases our entertainment options considerably to be able to receive OTA TV broadcasts.

To enable VLC to playback OTA broadcasts from a compatible TV tuner card, you first have to tell VLC what broadcast stations are in your area, along with the frequencies for those stations. Your solution is to install w_scan (a simple command line program) from the PCLinuxOS repository.

While I routinely rescan my OTA channels on a regular basis (every month or two), I still have difficulty remembering the exact command line switches to use to perform the channel scan. Every. Single. Time. I have to look up the help information for w_scan to apply the proper/appropriate command line switches.

Plus, when visiting different areas with different broadcaster stations, I also needed a way to keep the channel listings unique for each area. Otherwise, I'd be doing the channel scans more than I need to as they get overwritten by subsequent channel scans. So, I created a bash script to automate the process. That process also ensures that each channel scan is given a unique name, where the location for that set of channel data and the date of the scan is specified in the filename where the channel information is stored. That way, not only can I tell at a glance what area any channel list is for, but I can also tell when that last scan was done. In the latter case, if the list is too old, it serves as a reminder for me to rescan for any new or changed broadcast stations.

The Script

Without further delay, below is the script that I created to handle the issues I spelled out above. Line numbers are included to make it easier to recognize each line of the script.

The script is a short 12 lines (subtracting out the 4 blank lines inserted to aid readability). Line 1, of course, is the bash shebang that starts all bash scripts.

Line 3 sets an integer to the value of "1". We'll use this integer to break out of the while loop later in the script.

Line 5 asks the user for the locale for the channel scan list. Since I live in the Kansas City area, I enter "KC" for my channel list at home. And yes, you can even enter spaces in the locale name, so "Des Moines" and "Los Angeles" are all perfectly acceptable. Just keep in mind that spaces in Linux filenames isn't the best idea in the world. If I had my druthers, I'd just skip the space and run the two words of the name together (e.g., DesMoines or LosAngeles … or even just LA).

Lines 6 through 8 check to see if the end user selected the "Cancel" button, and allows the script to exit gracefully if they did make that selection.

Line 10 sets up the "while" loop to proceed so long as "n" equals "1". Line 11 sets up the command(s) to execute if the conditions in the "while" loop are met (is true). Line 12 executes the w_scan command, applies a unique filename (location and date included), and outputs the information to the VLC *.xspf file.

Line 13 sets "n" to "0" (zero), allowing us to break out of the "while" loop and allow the script to complete.

Line 14 marks the end of the "while" loop, and displays a pulsating progress dialog box. This way, the end user has a visual reminder that something is actually happening "under the hood." Otherwise, it would just be a big guess about when the script actually finishes. As the text in the zenity dialog box states, the dialog box will automatically close when the task is complete. On my computer and in my area, w_scan typically takes about five minutes to run to completion.

Line 16 allows the script to exit cleanly when everything is finished.

To use the script, save the script to your hard drive (I hope you store your custom scripts in a directory that's in your PATH statement). Mark it as executable, and then just enter the script name at a command line prompt. I call the script vlc-channel-scan.sh. You will be prompted for the ONLY data you need to provide, which is the location/locale. If you're in another part of the world, you may need to alter the command line switches used in the script's implementation of w_scan (which we'll cover next). You can also download the script from the magazine website. Save the script to your favored place to store your scripts, remove the ".txt" file extension, and make sure the script is made to be executable.

A Closer Examination Of The w_scan Command

First, let's take a look at the options available for use with the w_scan command.

Below is the w_scan command as I used it in the script. Let's dissect it to gain a better understanding of what's going on, and what you might need to do to tailor the script for use in your part of the world.

w_scan -f a -A 1 -L > "$LOC-Channels-$(date "+%F").vlc.xspf"

The -f a part tells w_scan what type of information I'm seeking. In my case, I want ATSC data, since I'm in the U.S. Users in other parts of the world may want to use "t" instead of "a" as the type.

The -A 1 part tells w_scan what type of ATSC data I'm searching for. The choices are terrestrial (1), cable (2), or both (3).

The -L part tells w_scan to output the channel list as a VLC xspf playlist file. As you can see, there are other options for mplayer, xine, and dvb. Even though the VLC output is listed as "experimental," I've found that it works exceptionally well.

You can also optionally specify the country code for the area you are in. For me, that would be -c US. To see a list of all of the country codes for w_scan, simply enter w_scan -c ? on the command line.

Then, the output is redirected (">") to the file that is named as follows: the location/locale, the words "Channels-", then the date (YYYY-mm-dd), then "vlc" to remind the user that this is formatted specifically for VLC, and finishing up with the xspf file extension that's unique to VLC playlists. The xspf file is placed in the current working directory where you started the script. So, you will need to either cd to the directory you want to store your channel lists in, or move them there later, or just leave them wherever they end up.

VLC Using The Playlist

Below is the channel playlist displayed in the Playlist window of VLC.

And below is the VLC playback window.

(Trust me … it's X-Files, not Buffy The Vampire Slayer (as the VLC title bar says), of which I've never seen a single episode).

As you can see from the playback list, I have 53 OTA channels to choose from. Granted, there are several of them I'd never watch (really? Home Shopping Network?). Honestly, there are a lot more OTA channels than I thought there would be in my area. Of course, I can remember when I was a kid, and there were a grand total of six channels to choose from … ABC, CBS, NBC, two independent stations, and a PBS station.

Depending on your area, you may have more or fewer OTA channels in your playback list.

Equipment

So, you will need a TV tuner card or adapter that is supported by Linux. There are a LOT of Windows-only tuner cards and tuner adapters out there, so not every tuner card/adapter you find will necessarily work under Linux. To get an idea about whether a specific card will work under Linux, check out the Linux TV Wiki. Search for the card/adapter you're thinking of getting (or have found) and see what the reports are on it. Surprisingly, there are way more adapters/cards reported as working with Linux than I originally thought.

You can find some USB TV tuner adapters around, but you will have to dig a bit. Of course, you'll look on sites like Amazon and Newegg, but don't discount Ebay. On the latter, you can find "used" adapters for next to nothing. You can also find "new old stock" for adapters that, even though they aren't manufactured any longer, are "new and in the box." I recently picked up a second KWorld USB TV tuner adapter identical to the one I already possess for just $25. It was "new old stock." I picked up a second one, simply because I know it already works under Linux.

You will also need a HDTV antenna to plug into the card or adapter. While the older style of "rabbit ears" antenna will work, you'll get a far better quality image with a HDTV antenna. You can find these just about anywhere, and can usually be found as inexpensive as $15 (U.S.). Expect to pay more for antennae that have extra features, like signal boosting, signal filtering, and whatnot.

Aside from that, you'll just need VLC and w_scan from the PCLinuxOS repository.

Summary

It can be handy being able to watch OTA broadcasts right on your Linux desktop. On the night of June 7, we had severe thunderstorms roll through town around 1:30 in the morning. Those severe storms were complete with tornadic activity, torrential downpours, and very high winds. Our NOAA weather alert radio woke us with the alerts. Since my wife had to work early in the morning, I got up to monitor the situation. Instead of turning on the TV and risking waking the kids, I watched the live weather coverage on one of the local stations on my PCLinuxOS desktop until the storms had safely passed through my area.

Plus, once we get the RV camper ready to roll (we have a few things we need to do to it), it'll be nice (and fun) to watch OTA broadcasts from the different areas we go to. And, I can do it all on my laptop running PCLinuxOS, if I choose.

In an upcoming article, we'll take a look at how to do something similar in MPlayer. There are pluses and minuses to using the versatile media toolkit to play live OTA TV broadcasts … and lots of caveats, potholes, and pitfalls that might leave "less technical users" convinced that MPlayer is not up to the task. But … more on that in that future article.

Facebook Says Apple Is Too Powerful. They're Right

by Cory Doctorow

Reprint from Electronic Frontier Foundation

Under a Creative Commons Attribution License

In December, 2020, Apple did something insanely great. They changed how iOS, their mobile operating system, handled users' privacy preferences, so that owners of iPhones and other iOS devices could indicate that they don't want to be tracked by any of the apps on their devices. If they did, Apple would block those apps from harvesting users' data.

This made Facebook really, really mad.

It's not hard to see why! Nearly all iOS users opted out of tracking. Without that tracking, Facebook could no longer build the nonconsensual behavioral dossiers that are its stock-in-trade. According to Facebook, empowering Apple's users to opt out of tracking cost the company $10,000,000,000 in the first year, with more losses to come after that.

Facebook really pulled out the stops in its bid to get those billions back. The company bombarded its users with messages begging them to turn tracking back on. It threatened an antitrust suit against Apple. It got small businesses to defend user-tracking, claiming that when a giant corporation spies on billions of people, that's a form of small business development.

For years, Facebook - and the surveillance advertising industry - have insisted that people actually like targeted ads, because all that surveillance produces ads that are "relevant" and "interesting." The basis for this claim? People used Facebook and visited websites that had ads on them, so they must enjoy targeted ads.

Unfortunately, reality has an anti-surveillance bias. Long before Apple offered its users a meaningful choice about whether they wanted to be spied on, hundreds of millions of web-users had installed ad-blockers (and tracker-blockers, like our own Privacy Badger), in what amounts to the largest consumer boycott in history. If those teeming millions value ad-targeting, they've sure got a funny way of showing it.

Time and again, when internet users are given the choice of whether or not to be spied on, they choose not. Apple gave its customers that choice, and for that we should be truly grateful.

And yet…Facebook's got a point.

When "users" are "hostages"

In Facebook's comments to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's "Developing a Report on Competition in the Mobile App Ecosystem" docket, Facebook laments Apple's ability to override its customers' choices about which apps they want to run. iOS devices like the iPhone use technological countermeasures to block "sideloading" (installing an app directly, without downloading it from Apple's App Store) and to prevent third parties from offering alternative app stores.

This is the subject of ongoing legislation on both sides of the Atlantic. In the USA, The Open App Markets Act would force Apple to get out of the way of customers who want to use third party app stores and apps; in the EU, the Digital Markets Act contains similar provisions. Some app makers, upset with the commercial requirements Apple imposes on the companies that sell through its App Store, have sued Apple for abusing its monopoly power.

Fights over what goes in the App Store usually focus on the commissions that Apple extracts from its software vendors - historically, these were 30 percent, though recently some vendors have been moved into a discounted 15 percent tier. That's understandable: lots of businesses operate on margins that make paying a 30 percent (or even 15 percent) commission untenable.

For example, the retail discount for sellers of wholesale audiobooks - which compete with Apple's iBooks platform - is 20 percent. That means that selling audiobooks on Apple's platform is a money-losing proposition unless you're Apple or its preferred partner, the market-dominating Amazon subsidiary Audible. Audiobook stores with iPhone apps have to use bizarre workarounds, like forcing users to login to their websites using a browser to buy their books, then go back to their phones and use their app to download their books.

That means that Apple doesn't just control which apps its mobile customers can use; it also has near-total control over which literary works they can listen to. Apple may have not set out to control its customers' reading habits, but having attained it, it jealously guards that control. When Apple's customers express interest in using rival app stores, Apple goes to extraordinary technical and legal lengths to prevent them from doing so.

The iOS business model is based on selling hardware and collecting commissions on apps. Facebook's charges that these two factors combine to impose high "switching costs" on Apple's customers. "Switching costs" is the economist's term for all the things you have to give up when you change loyalties from one company to another. In the case of iOS, switching to a rival mobile device doesn't just entail the cost of buying a new phone, but also buying new apps:

[F]ee-based apps often require switching consumers to repurchase apps, forfeit in-app purchases or subscriptions, or expend time and effort canceling current subscriptions and establishing new ones.

Facebook is right. Apple's restrictions on third-party browsers, and the limitations it puts on Safari/WebKit (its own browser tools) have hobbled "web apps," which run seamlessly inside a browser. This means that app makers can't deliver a single, browser-based app that works on all tablets and phones - they have to pay to develop separate apps for each mobile platform.

That also means that app users can't just switch from one platform to another and access all their apps by typing a URL into a browser of their choice.

Facebook is very well situated to comment on how high switching costs can lock users into a service they don't like very much, because, as much as they dislike that platform, the costs of using it are outstripped by the costs the company imposes on users who leave.

That's how Facebook operates.

Facebook has devoted substantial engineering effort to keeping its switching costs as high as possible. In internal memos - published by the FTC - the company's executives, project managers and engineers frankly discuss plans to design Facebook's services so that users who leave for a rival pay as high a price as possible. Facebook is fully committed to ensuring that deleting your account means leaving behind the friends, family, communities and customers who stay.

So when Facebook points out that Apple is using switching costs to take its users hostage, they know what they're talking about.

Benevolent Dictators Are Still Dictators

Facebook's argument is that when Apple's users disagree with Apple, user choice should trump corporate preference. If users want to use an app that Apple dislikes, they should be able to choose that app. If users want to leave Apple behind and go to a rival, Apple shouldn't be allowed to lock them in with high switching costs.

Facebook's right.

Apple's App Tracking Transparency program - the company's name for the change to iOS that let you block apps from spying on you - was based on the idea that when you disagree with Facebook (or other surveillance-tech companies), your choice should trump their corporate preferences. If you want to use an app without being spied on, you should be able to choose that. If you want to quit Facebook and go to a rival, Facebook shouldn't be able to lock you in with high switching costs.

It's great when Apple chooses to defend your privacy. Indeed, you should demand nothing less. But if Apple chooses not to defend your privacy, you should have the right to override the company's choice. Facebook spied on iOS users for more than a decade before App Tracking Transparency, after all.

Like Facebook - and Google, and other companies - Apple tolerates a lot of surveillance on its platform. In spring of 2021, Apple and Google kicked some of the worst location-data brokers out of their app stores - but left plenty behind to spy on your movements and sell them to third parties.

The problem with iOS isn't that Apple operates an App Store - it's that Apple prevents others from offering competing app stores. If you like Apple's decisions about which apps you should be able to use, that's great! But that's a system that only works well - and fails badly. No matter how much you trust Apple's judgments today, there's no guarantee that you'll feel that way tomorrow.

After all, Apple's editorial choices are, and always have been driven by a mix of wanting to deliver a quality experience to its users, and wanting to deliver profits to its shareholders. The inability of iOS users to switch to a rival app store means that Apple has more leeway to take down apps its users like without losing customers over it.

The US Congress is wrestling with this issue, as are the courts, and one of the solutions they've proposed is to order Apple to carry apps it doesn't like in its App Store. This isn't how we'd do it. There are lots of ways that forcing Apple to publish software it objects to can go wrong. The US government has an ugly habit of ordering Apple to sabotage the encryption its users depend on.

But Apple also sometimes decides to sabotage its encryption, in ways that expose its customers to terrible risk.

Like Facebook, Apple makes a big deal out of those times where it really does stick up for its users - but like Facebook, Apple insists that when it chooses to sell those users out, they shouldn't be able to help themselves.

As far as Apple -and Facebook, and Google, and other large tech companies - are concerned, we're entitled to just as much privacy as they want to give us, and no more.

That's not enough. Facebook is right that users should be able to choose app stores other than Apple, and Apple is wrong to claim that users who are given this choice will be exposed to predatory and invasive apps. Apple's objections imply that its often fantastic privacy choices can't possibly be improved upon. That's categorically wrong. There's lots of room for improvement, especially in a mass-market product that can't possibly cater to all the specific, individual needs of billions of users.

Apple is right, too. Facebook users shouldn't have to opt into spying to use Facebook.

The rights of users shouldn't be left to the discretion of corporate boardrooms. Rather than waiting for Apple (or even Facebook) to stand up for their users, the public deserves a legally enforceable right to privacy, one that applies to Facebook and Apple…and the small companies that might pop up to offer alternative app stores or user interfaces.

PCLinuxOS Recipe Corner Bonus:

Beef Tortilla Casserole

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb lean (at least 80%) ground beef

1/2 cup chopped onion

1 box (14.2 oz) Old El Paso™ enchilada dinner kit

1/2 cup water

1 can (4.5 oz) chopped green chiles

1 cup sour cream

1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese (4 oz)

DIRECTIONS:

Heat oven to 350F. In a 10-inch skillet, cook beef and onion, stirring occasionally, until beef is thoroughly cooked; drain. Stir in both pouches enchilada sauce (from dinner kit), the seasoning mix (from dinner kit), water and chiles; heat until hot.

In an ungreased 11x7-inch baking dish, spread 1 cup of the beef mixture. Cut tortillas (from the dinner kit) in half. Place 6 tortilla halves on beef; spread with 1/2 cup of the sour cream. Top with 1/2 cup of the cheese, 1 cup of the beef mixture and remaining 6 tortilla halves. Top with remaining sour cream, remaining beef mixture and remaining cheese.

Bake for 30 minutes. If desired, serve with additional sour cream, diced red bell pepper and chopped fresh cilantro.

NUTRITION:

Calories: 284.7           Carbs: 10.7g           Fiber: 0.4g           Sodium: 524.7mg           Protein: 21.4g

Firefox Rolls Out Total Cookie Protection By Default To All Users Worldwide

Reprint from Mozilla Blog

June 14, 2022

Starting today (June 14), Firefox is rolling out Total Cookie Protection by default to all Firefox users worldwide, making Firefox the most private and secure major browser available across Windows, Mac and Linux. Total Cookie Protection is Firefox's strongest privacy protection to date, confining cookies to the site where they were created, thus preventing tracking companies from using these cookies to track your browsing from site to site.

Whether it's applying for a student loan, seeking treatment or advice through a health site, or browsing an online dating app, massive amounts of your personal information is online — and this data is leaking all over the web. The hyper-specific-to-you ads you so often see online are made possible by cookies that are used to track your behavior across sites and build an extremely sophisticated profile of who you are.

Recent stories (including an excellent Last Week Tonight episode) have shown how robust, yet under-the-radar, the data selling economy is and how easy it is for anyone to buy your data, combine it with more data about you and use it for a variety of purposes, even beyond advertising.

It's an alarming reality — the possibility that your every move online is being watched, tracked and shared — and one that's antithetical to the open web we at Mozilla have strived to build. That's why we developed Total Cookie Protection to help keep you safe online.

What is Total Cookie Protection?

Total Cookie Protection offers strong protections against tracking without affecting your browsing experience.

Total Cookie Protection creates a separate cookie jar for each website you visit. (Illustration: Meghan Newell)

Total Cookie Protection works by creating a separate "cookie jar" for each website you visit. Instead of allowing trackers to link up your behavior on multiple sites, they just get to see behavior on individual sites. Any time a website, or third-party content embedded in a website, deposits a cookie in your browser, that cookie is confined to the cookie jar assigned to only that website. No other websites can reach into the cookie jars that don't belong to them and find out what the other websites' cookies know about you — giving you freedom from invasive ads and reducing the amount of information companies gather about you.

This approach strikes the balance between eliminating the worst privacy properties of third-party cookies — in particular the ability to track you — and allowing those cookies to fulfill their less invasive use cases (e.g. to provide accurate analytics). With Total Cookie Protection in Firefox, people can enjoy better privacy and have the great browsing experience they've come to expect.

Total Cookie Protection offers additional privacy protections beyond those provided by our existing anti-tracking features. Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP), which we launched in 2018, works by blocking trackers based on a maintained list. If a party is on that list, they lose the ability to use third-party cookies. ETP was a huge privacy win for Firefox users, but we've known this approach has some shortcomings. If a tracker for some reason isn't on that list, they can still track users and violate their privacy. And if an attacker wants to thwart ETP, they can set up a new tracking domain that isn't on the list. Total Cookie Protection avoids these problems by restricting the functionality for all cookies, not just for those on a defined list.

A Culmination of Years of Anti-Tracking Work

Total Cookie Protection is the culmination of years of work to fight the privacy catastrophe that stems from online trackers. We first began to block tracking in 2015 with the release of Tracking Protection, a feature people could turn on by going into Private Browsing mode. We recognized at that time that browser makers couldn't just sit back and let their users be abused. In 2018, we introduced Enhanced Tracking Protection and turned it on by default for all Firefox users in 2019, reflecting our commitment to actively protect our users rather than expect them to protect themselves. Since then, we have continued to make progress towards blocking trackers and ending cross-site tracking by introducing protections against fingerprinting and supercookies.

Today's release of Total Cookie Protection is the result of experimentation and feature testing, first in ETP Strict Mode and Private Browsing windows, then in Firefox Focus earlier this year. We're now making it a default feature for all Firefox desktop users worldwide.

Our long history of fighting online tracking manifests itself in our advocacy to policy makers and other tech companies to reinforce their own privacy protections. We also push to make privacy an industry priority through our efforts in industry standards bodies when shaping the future of online advertising. Furthermore, we created the Privacy Not Included guide to simplify the very complicated privacy landscape and help consumers shop smarter and safer for products that connect to the internet.

Over more than a decade, Mozilla has proudly been leading the fight to build a more private internet. Bringing Total Cookie Protection to all Firefox users is our next step towards creating a better internet, one where your privacy is not optional.

PCLinuxOS Puzzled Partitions

Sudoku

Download Puzzle Solutions Here!

Scrappler

Download Puzzle Solutions Here!

Crossword

Download Puzzle Solutions Here!

WordFind

Download Puzzle Solutions Here!

Mixed Up meme Scrambler

Download Puzzle Solutions Here!

Screenshot Showcase

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