But in the vast seas of phones, Lineage OS still supports a very small subset. Major players like Google or Samsung are covered but a LOT are skipped.

If one’s phone supports Lineage OS, well and good but it’s not a fix all

I think even some Chinese OEMs throttle somewhat post 80% (and/or give user the option to limit charging upto that point only). I have a spare entry level Samsung phone. It supports 25 W charging though it gets very slow post 80%. It’s not a big deal because the battery capacity is good and with an efficient chipset and 60Hz display, it does way better than my main Realme phone which I need to charge almost twice daily.

Back in the day, malware makers could only dream of collecting as much data as Gemini does.

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I have Waterfox setup as an alternative browser but it does not have much stuff to differentiate itself from mainstream FF, as you said.

Firefox can do so too with TST or one of the other extensions in the store. Sometimes(atleast for me), they introduce slightly more lag when opening the browser but otherwise, they can do much of the job. I use Tree Style Tabs even though I might not be a power user of it (read:not actively using every nitty gritty of the extension).

I think I remember Opera Mini’s layout though I didn’t much use it. It was a great alternative especially on mobile more than a decade back.

But yes especially after changing ownership, switching browser engines and years down the line; things have changed.

I think I gave their desktop variant a try sometime ago but didn’t find it compelling enough. I haven’t even used their Android fork. I keep using a Firefox fork only :p.

I think 4K is only available on Edge on Windows for Netflix. I never bothered with 4K since that’s above and beyond my device’s native resolution but I didn’t have too positive a experience with Netflix, IMO.

I just want to watch something in full HD without intermittent streaming or buffering. Legal streaming services including Netflix treat one like a criminal by forcing them to watch in a Web browser with constant Internet connectivity forced upon them. I can use keyboard shortcuts to increase playback speed by 0.1x each time in mpv, does Netflix allow me to do the same? No, instead it gives me a dusty experience.

I gave Vivaldi a try way back in its early days when I was on Windows. IIRC, it was bundled with lots of features even then and I think, for some weird reason, had Philips Hue Lighting support integrated (unless I am really confusing it with something other, this is multiple years old experience of mine).

I used it as my main browser for Atleast couple of months then.

I am surprised they abandoned it. It was originally launched as a macOS variant only, correct? And Mac users praised it a lot, on the Web. I thought with that level of traction they will keep going.

In contrast, there are projects that have a much lower user base though vocal (read: Pale Moon) and despite struggling with half of the available modern Web pages, those projects still keep going.

Many sites have become worse. I think stuff like Cnet, PCMag (which still has a digital magazine I think)were much better in the previous era.

I will give Zen browser a try. As for Netflix, I only used it for a one month since it’s quite expensive in my country and it crawled like anything on Firefox for Linux. I was getting consistent 720p video but not sure about full HD. Eventually I canceled it.

Opera also was a good alternative on Symbian phones right or whatever OS Nokia used before they switched to Windows Phone, I think.

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I think the company behind Fairphone makes wireless earbuds as well with replaceable batteries. They are priced in the mid range segment but sadly not available worldwide.

The most egregious example is the Larsen and Toubro India Head who asked for NINETY HOUR work weeks and said that he felt sad that he couldn’t make his workers work that long legally.

Funny thing, not only the company defended him (and his crass remarks associated with it), he also earned, I think, INR 50 Crore whilst a new guy at his company will get ~5 Lakh per annum. Since 100 lakh=1crore (Yes, Indian conversion system are slightly different than million and billions), the CEO nets in 1000x that of its lowest earner. If there ever was a picture of evil, then this person is.

And you can’t even point to any specific political party as such since except for Communist Party Of India(Marxist) perhaps, none take this issue seriously. (India has a gamut of parties from regional to national level). Part of the blame does goes to the voter base as well ultimately since the reason this isn’t a topic in India’s Parliament is because outside of the urban masses (and even then for many it was secondary issue to others), others don’t see this as part and parcel of their future.

I guess I will give it a try someday. I originally had a Google Play Music subscription back in the day when it had a cleaner UI(and then Google killed it). I recently switched back to YT Music since ReVanced would usually play video variants.

I don’t have much love for YT Premium since the official YouTube app is worse than NewPipe, say. Even after paying, you are shown adverts for purchasing say, merchandise from creators (that counts as an ad in my book).

I will probably give RVX a try once my current subscription ends.

RVX Music requires manual compilation, right? Also, does it properly play album version of songs? (YT Music ReVanced plays the video version of songs instead).

Instagram Reels and YT Shorts are very popular in India, especially after the Tiktok ban. Curiously, whilst some Chinese apps are banned, Chinese hardware especially mobile phones are very popular in India.

Since the ban was done after a Sino India border clash, there was little logic as to why Indian users would migrate to other Chinese apps and the void was filled by domestic and international replacements.

May companies like Realme still use Vooc charging and have not switched to USB PD. I think it’s the case with majority of Chinese OEMs.

A similar case is seen in wireless tech where Qi or Qi2(which currently only HMD supports) isn’t the base standard for Chinese OEMs since their propreitary solutions can sometimes wirelessly charge as high as 50W in some cases.