I usually use only Firefox, but when I need to launch Chrome to test something, this reporter tool creates a very significant load one the system in terms of SSD and CPU usage. For the last few times I have simply killed the process, but will see if any of permanent ways to disable this reporter tool really work.
Deleting it doesn't work since it is recreated on startup of chrome.
I modified the folder acl '\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\SwReporter' to not be able to run the executable. That seems to stick (at least when run as a limited user).
Does that also happen if Firefox is closed when you launch Chrome ?
I ask because for a long while I had a bug where launching Chromium while Firefox is running would show similar symptoms, on top of freezing Firefox. This didn't happen if I closed Firefox before launching Chromium.
"- WSL 2 is not stable and it is only available for the Windows Insider program. And it does not have X." WSL 2 is not perfect, but its pretty stable. And it's available for everyone on 1903 update. No need to be in Insider program. Yes, no X, that's true.
I understand why stablecoin's are useful to the end user. I also understand how Bitfinex is cashing in on Tether. However how is Coinbase making money with USDC? They clearly will have considerable expenses (keeping reserve, legal team, development etc. etc.). But if I give them 1USD and get back 1USDC, which later can be exchanged back to 1 USD, where are they making money?
>But if I give them 1USD and get back 1USDC, which later can be exchanged back to 1 USD, where are they making money?
Historically that's basically how banks have made money. Issuing bank notes while earning interest on the capital they hold. Typically they juice the rate via fractional reserve lending, ie they lend out more money than they have. However if they aren't able to do that, they still get to keep the interest from the deposits (say by buying Treasuries).
My guess is that the stable coins will continue to be more and more common, but then cryptocurrencies will rediscover fractional reserve lending, and new ideas like pegging a coin to the S & P. The pegger will charge a small service fee, the holders will be able to rapidly move money they spend, almost instantly between S&P (or other basket) pegged coins and stable coins.
There will be enough competition over being the holder of stable coins and enough competition in that system they I would expect them to offer rebates on transactions, and not have to charge merchant fees. And since they will be centrally cleared and not have to deal with mining and so on, the transactions ought to clear instantaneously.
Presumably they'll charge you a fee to buy, sell and trade it just like any other asset. If coinbase is involved in keeping the reserve, they can invest it various assets and keep the earnings - think money market fund, but you don't earn any interest - coinbase/circle keep the interest.
> If coinbase is involved in keeping the reserve, they can invest it various assets and keep the earnings
If that's the case I wish they were up front about that fact. I think its completely reasonable that they would keep any earned interest as compensation for managing the coin, so just be honest about it.
Basically interests: they are certainly targeting billions of dollars (or at least several hundred millions) of assets in custody. Assuming the US Federal Funds Effective Rate (currently at 2.19%) it can add up quickly.
If i did my math correctly, then in my situation 0$ converted to ~400$. Google gave 500$ free credit, which will run out in 1 month. Simplest way to optimize things will be to replace dynamic maps with static and remove StreetView. Then i should be ~200$ monthly limit. Which is not safe place to be.
Edit: Actually 500$ will last for 3 months. As each month there are 200$ free. Thus if bill is 400$, then half if covered by the free tier and second half from credit.
Revolut will not accept. But you will be able to exchange USD, EUR and other currencies to Bitcoin (and vice versa). But you will not be able to transfer Bitcoin to Revolut or transfer Bitcoin out of Revolut. At least not at the first iteration of crypto currency support.
I was big fan of original Flattr, that's why i was excited for 2.0 too. However that "extension" setup is something that still keeps me in evaluation phase, rather than 100% in. I inspected extension (not 100% of it, but a bit of code, storage, xhr calls). Some findings:
* They use whitelist (visible in source) of sites, thus they do not record activity on all sites, but just the ones in whitelist.
* You can individually block sites from being tracked even if they are in whitelist (by click on the icon). This gets respected.
* They store a lot of data "locally". Things like timestamps, cursor activity, time spent on the page etc. This does not get sent to flattr, but sits in local storage.
* Once "site/page" qualifies for a flattr, path with title is sent to flattr. No other information (i.e. - no query string, no mouse activity etc.).
* They record things, that they should blacklist. For example - common cms paths (wp-admin/) is reported, but should not be. In some sites they report paths that should be blacklisted (like in twitter they report /settings/ ).
* In youtube.com icon for extension looks disabled (like nothing is being recorded), however they still store data in local db (browsing history, videos viewed). Nothing is sent to flattr though. This should be updated. Either show in icon that you record data, or do not record anything.
All in all extension does not look malicious at the moment. But it's not perfect either. And i'm not sure that there will be a point where i will feel 100% confident with it. Most likely i will try to use it, but will continue to inspect regularly to see if its still solid.
We have tried to be as thorough as we could with what data the extension saves in local storage, even with the first release. There are always improvements that can be done and will be done.
We are going to add to the blacklist to not send things like twitter settings or wp dashboards etc.
Youtube is a bug that sneaked in just before release, in reality the UI does not reflect that youtube is supported and used. It's being addressed right now.
As Flattr 1.0 did not get any traction, my guess is that they went with AdBlock Plus creators (Eyeo) just because Flattr run out of cash and Eyeo was the one who offered to invest and later on to buy out. Simple math. Even though I'm not fan of what Eyeo have done in the past, fact that old team was able to continue to work on this, makes me hopeful, that this will not turn out to be some sort of malicious or grey area project. But time will tell.
Even though it's scary topic, currently they are still in good standing. At least in my eyes. Even though they collect data (how else can you evaluate who to flattr), its stored locally and they do not send it off. If there will ever be a situation where they send something more than they should, this project is dead and there will be no way back.
In reality it's the opposite and that is why we join their boat. There is no company that tries to fix the internet in the profound way eyeo does. They care about all the things most internet companies does not. The reputation they got are based on stories created by the ad industry, and yes, obviously they hate eyeo.
> There is no company that tries to fix the internet in the profound way eyeo does
Which issue is fixed by "acceptable ads" in a better way than a plain ad blocker that has no exceptions?
The former tries to "mediate" between ad providers and users, while the latter is an actual "user agent" in every sense of the word.
Maybe it is just me, but I don't see any shortage of the former. And I'm missing the latter one in many aspects of the internet. NoScript, uBlock origin and miniwebproxy[1] all are just first steps to fix issues which browsers (in the sense of real "user agents") shouldn't have in the first place.
> The reputation they got are based on stories created by the ad industry, and yes, obviously they hate eyeo
Not sure which stories you allude to. I'm not aware of any such stories, being placed by the ad industry or any other entity.
However, I am aware of much criticism that is based purely on their business model, by well-known people far away from the ad industry, without involvement of any additional stories.
> and yes, obviously they hate eyeo
Almost nobody feels sorry for the ad industry, but it is quite a far stretch to argue that we (i.e. the ad targets) should like Eyeo because they are the enemy of the enemy.
Maybe my perception is wrong, but all people I know don't care, because they just see different flavors of shady businesses that happen to step on each other's feet.
To view whitelist you can go to "background page" of extension and check out source for /lib/background/index.js . Whitelist starts from line 12440 and ends on 50262.
I wanted to touch this part: "And then you can keep your desktop mail client." . Actually you can use your desktop mail client with ProtonMail too. All you need to do, is install ProtonMail Bridge. It's in closed Beta right now, but it works pretty well (i'm using with Thunderbird).
This 6min video does a great job on explaining the differences between Concorde and Tu-144 and why Tu-144 was so bad at many things. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFWbuKr5-I8
This idea was good. But in reality what happened in Latvia was very simple and expected move by telcos - all three of them raised prices for all subscriptions by about 3€-4€ monthly (which is ~30% increase). Yes, now you can feel better while traveling, however everyone now pays extra every single month. For some situation now is better, while others pay for it even if they do not need such freedom. Those who are in first category are happy, others not so much.
Edited: It's interesting to see how comment which states facts, can get upvoted and downvoted this much. Sometimes voting in HN does not make any sense (to me). I understand that upvote is "thanks for letting us know those facts". What are downvotes representing? That I should not write at all, that price increase for all 3 telcos is fine, that everyone should be happy? Rhetorical question.
That kind of thing used to happen in Israel too. Every time the government introduced a new regulation aiming to reduce mobile costs, the three companies would respond by simultaneously raising prices. And then the government used the nuclear option--They licensed two new mobile operators. And the prices plummeted.
More importantly, they forced the old operators to play nice: they can't try too hard to retain customers, they can't lower their prices too much, etc. Absolute control is a strong component of Israeli regulation (transports, broadband, cellular, gas...)
However, it's not as bad. You can't practically build another set of power or water distribution grid, but you can assign new frequencies to new operators. There's a limit on how many you can have, but you can have way more than with those services where there is a physical pipe or line to each point of consumption.
Generally speaking, the problem with the "just stating facts" argument is that it's impossible to list all relevant facts and by picking which facts to list and which facts not to list, you are editorializing and making subjective judgements, which means it's far from being an objective thing.
Your comment also seems like a fallacy. How do you really know it's impossible to list all the relevant facts? I don't think you've addressed anything, just made some imaginary goal line that you can keep pushing back forever.
Latvia and Lithuania have literally the cheapest telco services in Europe. It's no surprise that we have to pay a bit more now. Yes, we lose this time, but for the rest of the Europe it's a huge win.
How much is it exactly? I thought you can't beat Free's prices in France with 2€/mo for 1h phone and unlimited text, and 20€/mo for everything unlimited : phone/text/4G.
Since they showed up all other telcos in France had to adjust and offer around the same, around 25€ max instead of the usual 60€ to 80€ they'd offer before Free.
Lithuania: Phone plans aren't that cheap, I assume because there are only three main operators and they don't really make much money. People here don't have money for the latest iPhone which you would pay €60+/mo for, so their main source of income is service plans. Typically contracts are sold without a phone, and I'd say people would spend on average, under €10/mo. That would get you unlimited calls and texts and a few GB of data. Prepaid plans are usually a bit cheaper, I currently (a special offer for a few months) pay €3.99/mo for unlimited calls and texts and 1.5GB data.
I also have a portable 4G hotspot with unlimited data (I've used around 50GB this month) for €4.90/mo, including rental of the device. It's limited at 6 Mbit but that's fine for my needs (you can pay more for up to 25 Mbit). However the main reason why it's so cheap is because it's from a smaller operator, so you only really get coverage in big cities and even then it can be patchy (like Three when they first launched in Europe).
Home internet is a different story though. I pay €9.90/mo for unlimited 100/100 FTTH, and I can get up to 1000/1000 for €19.90/mo - downloading a 6GB Steam game in under 10 minutes seems fast enough though. In 2015 home broadband coverage (>= 30 Mbit) was 99%, with 62% of subscribers on fibre [0].
Germany I'm paying 19 EUR/month with a phone included. No limits on phone calls within Germany (fixed and mobile), but I pay for each SMS sent and only get 2Gb of data.
Oops, just saw this question now. I've registered with https://www.otelo.de/ after seeing their publicity on TV two years ago and they still seem to have available these promotions.
They have several phone models to choose. You pay 1 EUR for most models from Samsung or Sony, a bit more for the deluxe editions (iphone and sorts). Now they even offer more because SMS are free and I still pay extra for each one, but doesn't matter because I simply use other messaging apps.
The Sony Xperia models are good, they're waterproof by default and resistant to shocks, albeit camera is crappy (compared to normal Samsung models)
I pay 12 Eur for unlimited calls/sms within Germany; 3 GB data; w/o phone; w/o contract term (it can be canceled any time); 100min and 100MB free in other EU countries.
They exist. Even prepaid options are getting cheaper. Take a look at discounter offers (Aldi, Lidl etc). Though don't expect great network coverage on the countryside...
It was costing less, now it is a bit more than you say. I think this law forced cheaper operators to make deals with all the other country operators, no one was going to decrease prices, so in the end we got the maxed out price.
You win in the aggregate, because Latvian and Lithuanian exporters and importers now have less friction when traveling. Likely a rise in trade, leading to more company and tax revenue, leading to higher employment.
My telco cancelled roaming on data-only plans altogether in reaction. Such a huge win.
Virtual operators, who don't get any roaming income, still have to pay high roaming fees to other telcos and now can't even charge their expenses to customers are basically screwed and have to increase prices. Such a huge win.
Yeah, Lithuania and Latvia receive a lot of cash from the EU to upgrade their infrastructure. It's not all black or white, but this doesn't seem like a big issue when you see the support the country received.
That "support" (I.e. Donations) goes to politically well connected companies, burns some 20% on well-connected middlemen and has to be co-funded. Some first hand experience with how harmful and ineffective the donations are would do you good.
Same thing happening in Sweden as well. Many people in the comments here are saying that their bills haven't been raised, but at least here in Sweden the price are only raised for new contracts.
There is also (AFAIK) some limits on this. I.e, you cannot get a contract in a cheap neighbouring country and use it all the time roaming from you home country. To unify all EU telco markets and increase competition between carriers might be a long term goal of the legislator, but as far as I can tell, right now it's only really applicable for travel.
The standard monthly contract price, 150kr/month or whatever, is the big number that customers look at when signing a contract. It's where the companies compete, so they can't increase the prices beyond a reasonable amount.
There's no longer the hidden cost of being caught with a bill for 500kr after returning from a European holiday.
That's true, and I agree that the high bill is nice to avoid. But also, I think it's classic pro-regulation-people to be surprised by companies levying the fee on the end customers. I guess also, that for most consumers, they would rather have some other system (reasonable way to buy cheap roaming-data?) for those European holidays instead of paying 10-30 SEK extra per month, for ever. I would guess most people don't roam even once per year.
There wasn't a good, reasonable way to buy cheap roaming-data, at least not with my German contract. 150MB of roaming in the EU was 5€ with the purchase process (via SMS) being bugged and failing 50% of the time, sometimes charging my credit card instantly while delivering the "You can use your roaming data now" message days later when I was back home, customer support could not help because they "do not suggest that the data is available instantly". n=1, obviously.
I'm sure there are lots of people who roam a lot; people travel on business all the time, truck drivers cross borders all the time, anyone living along the border to Norway or Finland goes across a lot, anybody in Skåne is an hour or two away from Denmark, and let's not forget the thousands who take the ferries over to Finland and Åland.
And who is going to buy a roaming package when you're gone for at most 24 hours? A week in Greece or Mallorca and it makes sense with something like that.
However the situation is much better now. It was very common for us French people to discover a huge roaming bill after a trip in another European country. At least roaming cost are becoming predictable
All GSM and later digital phones, starting with Nokia 2110 and its contemporaries, had an option to refuse roaming - just to avoid accidental phone bills like this.
(I think the 1st generation NMT network in Nordic countries also had the same, though I am not sure as I never owned one.)
And the French are subsidising Latvian agriculture, universities, roads, and infrastructure. I don't think it's fair to evaluate this policy isolated from the rest of EU policies.
It's possible that visitors to Lithuania were paying high termination fees to the local telco and subsidizing the native subscribers.
Assuming the telco profits remained static (which may or may not be true) presumably someone was paying these costs before and if it wasn't Lithuanians then who was it?
But the grandparent post was someone from Latvia saying 'this is terrible our prices have gone up' which was followed by someone from France saying 'no this is great our prices have gone down'.
Someone's paying for it, and I doubt it's the Telcos who are losing out.
Oh, telcos absolutely lose, because there were a few companies present in most EU countries and somehow most of them charged for roaming anyway only because they could - it cost them nothing extra.
As I stated also above - this raise is not only observed in Latvia, Lithuania, but across eastern countries in EU as well.
You ask about the reason - how about "let's try to compensate the loses", or "let's try as a preventive action", etc.
Now - I believe they are not going to keep this long down the road. You said "if people are willing to pay", but that should really be the question - are they? We'll see. I personally will downgrade my plan, as a reaction to theirs. What is important and strange, that even with less national data, there is a lot more in roaming.
This is probably not true in this case, but in markets with lots of competition, raising the costs raises prices because companies are already providing services close to cost.
Even in less competitive markets, raising the cost of providing a service will shift the supply curve, which can result in increased prices.
I can only upvote this. Exactly the same in Bulgaria. Now telcos don't include the mobile internet as they did previously. If you're to to retain the same amount of data, you have to pay more more expensive plan. The paradox here is there're plans with say 400MB national megabytes, but 1200MB in roaming! Due to the weird formula implied for calculating the limit of data in roaming - related only to the cost of monthly bill you have.
Those who are in first category are happy, others not so much.
The difficulty here is gauging how happy or unhappy people are. People who don't travel so much may feel unhappy at subsidizing those who do, but it's like insurance. If you have to travel unexpectedly, suddenly that inconvenience seems well worth it compared to the unpleasant experience of receiving a large bill for traveling. This is even more true if your travel is involuntary (visiting a sick relative instead of taking a holiday, for example).
There was similar short-term dissatisfaction in the US as landline carriers moved towards offering free long-distance calling within the USA some years ago. Some people objected that they shouldn't have to pay more for phone service since they rarely made calls outside their own town town/county. But the market as a whole preferred the simplicity of a one-size fits all plan, and arguably some of the savings in reduced billing complexity found their way back to consumers, as landline pricing gradually fell to an even lower equilibrium in the following years. This was before mobile telephony really took off. I don't have links offhand, but I do remember being pleased by my low monthly telephony bills.
It's a good idea to consider the second-order effects as well as the first-order effects.
I think it's a small price to pay to have the freedom as a country to talk to anyone in Europe cheaply. The effects won't be felt right away, but just as cheaper flights across Europe have made Europeans much more interconnected, so will cheap roaming fees (even though for the sub-30 generation, WhatsApp calls and such are already the norm).
But the regulation only applies to roaming so it doesn't really affect calls made from your home country to another EU country, which can still be much more than a typical local call.
If roaming is free, can't you just use another countries cellphone provider? And if so, it's likely the cheapest country needed to raise rates should people from more expensive areas do so.
No. There are various limits. One of which is you have a limited amount of time you can roam for per year before you have to start paying. It's not too bad though. The real shit loophole is that they don't give you your full data allowance when roaming. It's needlessly complicated of course. Very rough idea: if you get 10gb for €10 a month you can roam for free for 2gb of that.
Indeed, but still at prices which are well above current prices for my domestic rate. By 2022 one would imaging domestic rates will be still lower making that maximum rate much worse than it looks now. A true end to roaming would mean I can use everything I pay for exactly the same over the whole EU. Long way to go yet before we have a true single market.
The amount of roaming you get depends on your carrier and contract. We get up to 20 GB of roaming or your contract data cap, whichever is lowest. E.g. me and my wife can roam for 20 GB because our contract is for 24 GB, but if we had a 12 or 6 GB plan we could only get 12 or 6 respectively.
That is much harder now; they now have to warn you when you reach your limit. See question 17 on https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/faq/frequently...: "Therefore, as long as your operator has not contacted you while abroad, you can roam like at home without any worries."
So, they still can charge lots to those who, getting warned, don't immediately stop using their phone.
It is complicated because this is a political compromise. Everybody knows where the EU wants to end up (the frequent use of 'may' in that answer is a nice indicator), but that means shifting income of operators around (in general, operators in popular holiday countries lose a substantial source of income), so it can't happen in a Big Bang operation.
It's not free, it's just included in your existing contract.
You're paying for 300 minutes at home? When you're abroad and phoning to a EU number, you're using those 300 minutes. Before, you either had to get a special package, or pay roaming charges.
Telecom services are pretty cheap in Latvia if we compare to other countries in EU. However we cant forget, that Latvia is also one of poorest EU countries. While for some that 3€-4€ increase is nothing, others do feel it and are not happy.
>Those who are in first category are happy, others not so much.
Here's a thought: the people in society with the lowest income have to pay for this just like everyone else, yet they are the ones least likely to benefit from it.
It is unfortunately a pattern that you'll find widespread in what the EU does. It benefits the the people with already higher income in the member countries way more than those with a low income. Sometimes it even makes the bottom of society subsidize those with higher incomes than they have - as is the case here.
This is not what happened in the Netherlands. I just renewed my contract, and it is a lot cheaper now. I pay 12,50 euro per month for 200 min/sms and 5 gb of data, whereas the same plan used to be around 16,50. They are advertising this plan everywhere.
in your case, you're the top comment thread on a front page article. it probably represents "I would like to see a different thread at the top", and you shouldn't take it personally, it might even be because they don't like the discussion happening as reply below your posts.
Same thing happened in Denmark. Several operators advertised a rise in prices with the exact reasoning: To pay for the loss of roaming charges. They actually advertised that the price rise was to pay for their lost income, as if to somehow try to gather sympathy from the average customer.
Fortunately, some telcos didn't. My wife made the switch from Telmore to Oister due to being annoyed with Telmore's price hike. It was the proverbial straw I guess ..
Comparing, in Lithuania, nothing much has changed in regards to local prices but for EU, they actually still provide separate additional packages. The best one for internet seems to be 3eur/1GB.
That's right, however check the terms of each package, you probably will find that those are under "alternative terms" which are allowed in the new regulation, and if you accept, they take precedence.
Local antitrust agency recently told that they will look into this "synchronized pricing rise". However I really doubt that they will do anything about it.
