April 26, 2014
Epic Observations
I've been using the Epic web broswer for 20 days and have gotten
a feel for it.
One of its features is a little pop up window
that tells what trackers it is blocking.
To the right is the NY Daily News. Interestingly
4-chan of all places had only one, and that’s only on certain boards. I probably
need to stay away from those boards anyway...I already wear glasses.
Of course the browser’s extreme focus on privacy
comes with a few quirks, with a lack of
spewlchek being the most keenly felt. Since it carries no cache data it
is a bit slower to load. Occasionally one finds a site that reacts badly to anything
that doesn't let it track its viewers and demands that you its their
cookies like some rabid girl scout. I haven’t been blocked from any site
however.
Aside from the slightly
slower loading, the only functionality quirks I’ve found so far are as
follows. Occasionally embedded videos on some Wordpress blogs do not show up.
There are a few quirks with the Dashboard in Minx (The Mee’n You blog engine) but
said quirks are present in Safari and Opera as well.
On the plus side, it
seems to have the amazing ability to disable only the bad pop-up windows.
Let me explain.
ODU’s website opens
certain features in pop-up windows and pop up blockers (like the ones ion the
ODU learning commons computers…) generally disable that functionality. However,
they work fine in Epic. On the other hand, I have not seen a pop-up AD since I
started using the browser. I have had no issues with Paypal, which surprised
me. I understand that Epic allows people to view HULU from outside the US and
while I cannot confirm that, I can say that I was able to access one Japanese
site that normally blocks US access…and
I was thoroughly scarred by the experience.
One's mileage may vary, but I
think the slightly slow loading is a small price to pay for the added privacy.
This of course is assuming that
the whole thing isn’t an NSA honey pot to snare us paranoids .
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
02:19 AM
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I poked around with Epic, but the lack of any extension support makes me wary. Specifically, you can't run ScriptSafe (the Chrome equivalent to NoScript). Now yes, you can manually white/blacklist sites for javascript natively, but it's kind of a hassle and the lack of temporary whitelists is somewhat annoying. That pushed me to Pale Moon, but I'm also running Epic on the side to see if I can get used to it. Oh, and there's no mouse gestures or tab mix plus in chrome, but that's more icing than anything else.
Posted by: ReallyBored at Sat Apr 26 13:17:23 2014 (n3V1X)
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April 12, 2014
STOP THE PRESSES
I've been working on this post for hours. It is a scandal that exemplifies the terrifying abuses of power many of us have come to fear. The fact that it has not been getting a lot of coverage is in and of itself disturbing.
After considerable digging, here's what we know....
"It originated with an Info-Wars link."
Oh...
Well then...
It has been a beautiful day here in Virginia. I'm going to go back outside and partake of it.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
03:59 PM
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April 09, 2014
Hiatus
Yeah, there hasn't been much going on here lately.
I am swamped, with three tests looming later this week, a dreadful cold that has resulted in a fever of 101, and that kidney stone fragment that was left by last years surgery has started to move.
In lieu of actual content, I was going to post some cheesecake. Regrettably, I could only find crumpets, crackers and fondue.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
12:50 AM
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Posted by: Pete at Wed Apr 9 13:09:52 2014 (RqRa5)
2
I try to, but they tend so be cynical and world weary that they usually remain unimpressed.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Thu Apr 10 17:06:28 2014 (DnAJl)
3
It took me several seconds to parse that.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Thu Apr 10 19:17:50 2014 (PiXy!)
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There was a comma there! The comma!
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Fri Apr 11 20:03:04 2014 (RqRa5)
5
Yes, there was a comma in your comment. There were also two typoes in the space of the 17 words of my comment.
You win this round Pete.
Savor your victory, for I have nearly recovered from my afflictions and shall soon return...with a Harvey's.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sat Apr 12 11:19:16 2014 (DnAJl)
Posted by: Wonderduck at Sat Apr 12 18:59:12 2014 (Npm65)
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April 06, 2014
A Bother
So, the day revolved around trying alternatives to Firefox...I have tentatively settled on
Epic, which is basically Chrome without the Google. It's extreme privacy philosophy adds some annoying quirks (like a lack of spewllchek) but it is otherwise very nice and as a happy coincidence, the dashboard at Mee.nu is slightly more functional with it (I assume that holds true for Chrome, though I've never blogged with Chrome). All in all it's nice and the privacy features, imperfect as they likely are, have a special appeal now.
***
***
While appalled, I had not initially intended to dump Firefox, indeed when the notion first came up I thought it silly. To do so is a rather impotent gesture and giving up an admittedly splendid browser is a contender for the most comically gimp, first-world example of self flagellation there can be. Furthermore, I detest the hyperpolitization of everything and I loathe the purity police of any political stripe even more.
However, those despicable trends of modern life are at the core of the
Firefox scandal where they are intertwined with the moral cowardice that facilitates them.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
02:26 AM
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Yeah, that's about where I am on this, too.
I've been using IE over this weekend, but thanks to your heads-up, I'll give Epic a spin.
Posted by: Clayton Barnett at Sun Apr 6 10:31:30 2014 (b4Q61)
2
Been trying to work with Avant, but it feels clunky, like clicking a button or hitting the Enter key results in levers being thrown and gears clanking.
Posted by: Ben at Sun Apr 6 15:01:39 2014 (Oftf2)
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With Epic, the lack of spellcheck and password amnesia are annoying but I've probably grown too dependent on spellcheck and autofill anyway.
I did note one minor Mee.Nu issue with Epic, the recently instituted "drag with cursor to embugulate/debigulate image widget" does not work in Epic (or Safari). One has to use the file operations menue in the images directory, which will break animated .gifs.
Note for those with PCs, this awesome gift from Pixy works fine in IE, which I have on my netbook.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sun Apr 6 15:35:32 2014 (DnAJl)
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Just in case you're looking for another option, I took Vox Day's advice on this and switched to Pale Moon. Works beautifully and the transfer was seemless, as Pale Moon is basically Firefox without the Mozilla. It's about the most painless switch I can imagine.
Posted by: Tom at Sun Apr 6 22:30:11 2014 (bdCln)
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My desktop is Linux and I insist on actual open source, so Pale Moon may not be an option. I was going to look into Midori. Maybe dab in its development as well.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Mon Apr 7 10:01:36 2014 (RqRa5)
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