• ghostBones@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Also sounds like you’re describing a Chromebook. Which, incidentally, schools seem to be abandoning because of the fact that they become useless on a predetermined date.

        • ghostBones@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          EOL. End of life. All Chromebooks have an EOL date after which they will no longer receive updates and can no longer be considered secure. All the software on them, including Chrome which is the core application, become unviable. When you find an unbelievably cheap Chromebook on sale, it’s because it’s EOL is close.

            • ghostBones@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              There are mod projects documented on YouTube videos and elsewhere that describe how to do just that. If I remember right, it depends a lot on the specific chromebook and the manufacturer. If I were to buy a Chromebook, I would first find out whether or not it could be wiped and have linux loaded on it effectively. I would probably opt for a lightweight flavor of Linux so as to keep the device running smoothly.

              • Tangent5280@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                Yeah that makes sense. Further, you could just get a Chromebook past it’s update cycle for cheap and then just wipe it making the update cycle pointless in the first place. Seems like a way to get reasonable performance at cheap prices.

                I wonder why chromebooks were built with this expiration - was Google hoping that schools would just throw away the old ones and buy new ones once laptop were past it’s update cycle?

                • ghostBones@lemmy.world
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                  11 months ago

                  That totally sounds like something I would do for fun when I was younger and had less money. In those days, all my computers were hand built by me, often using spare parts from computers people didn’t want. I didn’t work much with laptops though. It’s a bit trickier, but with the right tools and with plenty of time watching YouTube videos, you can do almost anything nowadays, and save a bundle. Also, eBay is a good source of parts, tools and expired equipment. Chromebooks are creating huge amounts of e-waste because of expiration, so reclaiming and renewing them is something I consider very ethical.

  • duckCityComplex@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Maybe the thing to do here, when web sites start enforcing this, is to swamp them with support requests. Don’t write a screed or manifesto with ethical or technical reasons why this is wrong. Pretend to be a non-technically-inclined user and tell them you’ve spent hours trying to get it to work and your browser keeps throwing up errors you don’t understand. They will ignore the principles, but if they think the technology is “too hard” for their “dumb users,” that might carry more weight.

  • tr35y7@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Not overly worried - the EU anticompetition laws will swat this down on this side of the atlantic - but not sure about the US

  • daniskarma@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    I can’t wait to have to download a crack for my browser so a website thinks that my browser is using wei and no-adblock.