Ads are not only present in the browser. For example, there are Smart (not really lol) TVs that have ads embedded right into the operating system (reddit.com/…/unremovable_ads_on_my_2500_samsung_s…). You can’t install an adblocker there, but a DNS based filter will know how to deal with this. There are other alternatives, some are cloud hosted like NextDNS or ControlD, there are other local alternatives like AdguardHome or PfBlockerNG if you run a PfSense Firewall. There are also simple solutions like AdGuard’s Public DNS or Mullvad’s Adblocking DNS servers. If you use an iPhone or iPad, you can easily download a configuration profile that includes the DNS settings for these services. I think NextDNS offers a similar service. On Android, you can just set up Dns over TLS, I think it’s called Private DNS in the settings. DNS adfiltering can’t get rid of all ads though, e.g. YouTube’s mechanism for displaying ads is resistant to DNS filtering. That’s what uBlock Origin if for though.
Pi-Hole will work on literally every device on your network. It can block ads on smart TVs, cell phones, etc. It can prevent certain forms of tracking on video doorbells, voice assistants, cameras, etc. You can also set up custom DNS to restore online service to old game consoles or to host web services at home.
You also get all the metrics. For example, I can see that my computer reaches out to my printer several times a minute and that the Oculus app for my Quest 2 was reaching out to its servers even when the app was “closed”.
You could also use it as a sort of parental control. It can provide one set of block lists to the parent’s devices and a different one to the kids devices. Or you could do the same with IoT devices so they are only allowed to reach out to the services they need to be able to run.
uBlock is still important though. It’s possible to get around a DNS filter like Pi-Hole by serving ads from the same domain that the core service is served through. uBlock Origin can do things like block YouTube ads for instance.
µBlock Origin is great for browsers that support extensions. But that won’t get most Android TV ads or Apple TV users. And I suspect many of the people with pi hole also use µBlock Origin for redundancy.
Correct, I use both myself. Pihole is also my DHCP server and I created different blocklists for different devices on my network. For example, I have “general”, “media”, “gaming” and “kids”.
Speed and efficiency. Why waste time downloading ad content just for it to be hidden by the browser when you can simply stop them from being downloaded in the first place?
With a pi hole, you’re basically setting up a DNS server that has built in abilities to stop ads.
What that means is, you can point your router (or any device really) at that DNS server (pi hole) to block ads.
Ublock is good.
Due to remote work constraints, a pi hole doesn’t play nicely with their stuff and I can’t be bothered to figure out a work around. Mostly because it’s my wife’s remote work, and their IT is hesitant to talk with me about it - I get it, I wouldn’t do that at work (I’m in IT).
So I use ublock on Firefox on both my desktop and phone, plus I run through a VPN that blocks ads and malware for everything else. The VPN is a separate use case, but that’s just an added benefit.
I’ve wanted to do this for some time, but everyone tells me there’s no way to make it work without constantly updating the blacklist. Is it really such a hassle?
You can start with a DNS blocker in the meantime. It’s just configuring your router to use an ad-blocking DNS server like Mullvad, Control D, or Aha for example. No additional hardware, tools, or setup required. Then when you’re ready, you can try setting up a pihole.
Well, if you use big “aggressive” lists, you’ll find that it blocks a lot including stuff you actually do want to see, then you have to comb through the recently blocked list and whitelist that which you actually need.
OR, you only use the oisd.nl list, which is supposed to keep everything you do wish to use in a working state. I have used it for years now I have yet to whitelist something. Once a year I update the pihole, but otherwise don’t touch it.
I’m not the most Linux savvy but when I ssh onto a work machine I’ll use a terminal editor instead of copying the file onto a local machine, editing the file in a GUI and then overwriting the file on the remote machine
I don’t own a Mac outside of my work laptop. Like OP said in another reply, it’s likely because vendors pre-configure the system to work out of the box on Mac OS.
It’s just my anecdotal experience but writing off my comment as me justifying a purchase (that I haven’t made) is just silly and lazy discussion
It’s just my anecdotal experience but writing off my comment as me justifying a purchase (that I haven’t made) is just silly and lazy discussion
Somebody made that purchase, though. dismissing the cost point for apple products because you didn’t personally fork over is… amusing. Also, most vendors configure for windows, aka the OS with the largest market share of desktop computing devices. Some vendors (like epson), who cater to photography or graphic design will also ensure it works in Mac, but as noted elsewhere, the drivers for the printers in MacOS and linux are the same- CUPS. if printer compatibility is what you were looking for, you got taken for a ride. (this is not to say there aren’t valid reasons for living in Apple’s walled garden…there are… it’s just printer hardware isn’t one of them)
I learned that the CUPS config on Mac, at least as of about a year ago, was set to save a copy of everything ever printed to an obscure directory on the machine. Was discussed in relation to setting up a secure encryption scheme where you print out your keys, wouldn’t want something like that just hanging out for any malware to come gobble up.
It used zeroconf/bonjur out of the box when no one else used it (or had to do some serious configs in order to get it working), that’s why. And, of course, since it’s the second most used OS other than Windows, printer manufacturers configured avahi/zeroconf/bonjur out of the box on their printers.
Has anyone had luck or experience with using IPP for printing from Linux? A standard networking protocol for printing sounds like it should make a lot of these problems mute.
My printer used to integrate perfectly with windows 11. I was using some Ancient driver I found on some internet archive. windows updater found a new drive, now it’s a mess of different UIs to print or scan shit
Honestly Arm and Risc-V are under rated. Not all are libre compatible but there are a few that work well with exclusively free software and have much less power draw.
All even half-way relevant architectures but x86 and z/Architecture are RISC nowadays: ARM, Power, MIPS (The Chinese tried to revitalise it but they seem to be switching to RISC-V), Atmel AVR. Oh speaking of microcontrollers: Z80 (CISC) still lives though arguably it’s genetically an x86. And then of course RISC-V which most of all is an open standard, and a clean slate. Also, the first vector insn set that also runs on hardware that isn’t a supercomputer.
Not only will ARM and Risc-V likely not save Linux it will most likely harm it. I doubt there will be many Linux computers running Arm and Risc-V and the few computers that use those architectures won’t run Linux well. M series Apple computers only run with reverse engineering and even then many basic features don’t work.
Most software doesn’t work on arm and despite many distros supporting arm there aren’t many arm computer manufacturers supporting Linux. There is a small possibility that Qualcomm could announce that their desktop CPUs support Linux but I’m not so sure.
Walk up to a random person and say “yeah recompile this software for a different architecture while having no support as the architecture is unsupported”
Yeah I could personally do that with minimal effort but keep in mind the vast majority of people aren’t willing to. Most new Linux users get scared when they see a terminal, how are we supposed to convince people to give up tons of basic hardware features and tell them recompile software when they can keep using a proprietary operating system?
The proprietary video drivers for ARM SoCs have definitely been a problem for years and we can’t rely on third party alternatives or first party support from linux popularity.
As far as software supporting arm, there are translation layers that can run x86 binaries on it and I am confident with more development and more powerful chipsets that won’t be much of an issue for most applications.
That’s the problem, right now arm development boards for Linux are limited which limits development of arm software on Linux which decreased the incentive to run Linux on an arm device. What computer manufacturer that uses arm processors that are comparable to standard Intel/AMD CPUs also supports Linux?
If you want to talk about underrated look into POWER CPUs.
Motherboards like the tallos 2 are completely open source( except for an nvme storage controller) and they already offer x86_64 levels of performance. The only con right now is software support and the cost.
It’s great for the price, but it’s got plenty of issues.
The gpu is worse than useless most of the time, the cpu is perma throttled on Linux, split battery issues and you can’t choose which one to use or when to stop discharging, the keyboard is worse than on the xx20 models, USBC can’t be replaced
Also, you missed the point of the joke. T480 most certainly does have IME, and it can’t be corebooted.
CUPS is horrible, and also had its share of critical vulnerabilities. It is just better than the LPD mess we had before.
It is not a Linux specific thing - it was developed when there still were a lot of UNIX variants around. Apple was a very early contributor, and had quite a bit of influence in making it successful.
It’s no surprise Apple uses CUPS. They wrote it, after all.
Edit: TIL Apple didn’t write CUPS themselves but they bought the company that did it pretty early in the game. Here’s a LWN article from the time, exposing some of the worries that came with the news of the acquisition: lwn.net/Articles/242020/
At my workplace we have sketchy-looking unsigned Applescripts to install printers on Macs. You have to find the right file for the printer you want to install, and run it, or ask IT to do it for you.
It’s not ideal, but everyone that tries to improve the printing experience ends up ragequitting. Last I heard, someone in IT was looking into some sort of “print anywhere” solution where you just install one virtual printer driver and print to it, then scan your badge at any printer to see all your print jobs and print them. Not sure what the status is with that though - haven’t heard about it for a while.
I thought I saw that Mac has the same CUPS print service/printer manager that Linux uses? In fact it seems like apple developed it. I think that helps enormously with standardizing printer configs. www.cups.org/doc/admin.html
I think it does; it’s just automated installation of new printers that’s an issue as far as I know. Not 100% sure since I’m a software developer rather than an IT support person, so I never deal with stuff like that.
Enterprise grade MFD printers often have a lot of features that don’t get detected/mapped automatically, such as finishing options like staples and folding, as well as color management. I’m not a printer expert, I try to avoid them when possible, but I know that mass deploying those specific configurations in a safe and sane way seems basically impossible.
On the Fedora-based Linux machines, however, all of that seems to just pop in automatically, so I don’t think it’s a CUPS problem.
I’ve heard an argument that a reason why Disney has pushed Steamboat Willie lately (new intro for Disney Animation films, and a lot of merch) is because copyright law works differently from trademark law. They can still claim a trademark even if the copyrighted work is in public domain. I’m not a lawyer, but if that’s not all BS, I don’t think we have to worry about anything like this anytime soon.
AFAIK you can only claim a trademark-violation if someone is (for example) selling stuff (so you couldn’t sell stuffed animals that look like an early Mickey for example).
A trademark just has to be “used in commerce as a mark”. In layman’s terms, that basically means distributing goods or services with it as a logo or a name. A stuffed animal could be infringement, but using something a logo for your software is much closer to the classic infringement fact pattern.
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