The way AdGuard does it, is it has you install a certificate on your phone, which then allows you to block ads and trackers within HTTPS pipelines. If you don’t do that, then it can only block HTTP requests, which tends to be pretty low quality filtering. In addition, I also enable DNS blocking through AdGuard DNS service, so it’s kind of like blanket coverage.

I haven’t honestly found anything that does the same thing, or at least not at the same level of quality. So I’m always curious to see if something new has come out that can reach this level of filtering performance.

Can anyone tell me if this filters HTTPS requests?

That’s one feature that keeps me using Adguard, and it makes a huge difference to the filtering ability/quality.

Very cool. Thanks for the recommendation.

tp link routers tend to run openwrt pretty well.

Of course, I have the TP-Link router that isn’t well-supported 😖

I kind of miss my old Linksys routers, which officially supported third-party firmware.

Fucking legend! I’m going to spend the weekend exploring these apps and see what changes I can make on my phone. 👍

Are those green mini icons an indication of a PWA shortcut?

I use the app Hermit to run isolated websites, usually as PWAs. It’s replaced quite a few apps, but I’ve noticed that many companies are intentionally making their web experience shit so they force you to use invasive apps.

Anyway, it can create home icons for those sites, and they run separately (i.e. in your task switcher), so it works better than browser shortcuts.

Enforces privacy laws

I mean, there didn’t seem to be any consequences. No fines or anything like that. They were basically told that they can’t use facial recognition for what they were using it for, but there are others ways they could still use it (outlined in the article).

They were given a free-pass, it seems.

Life has been so good with Linux.

LTT is probably the reason why I started using Sponsorblock 😂

Anyone here youtube creators? Are you seeing the same thing, a general downturn in viewership?

I have a channel with over 20k subs, nearly all evergreen content. Haven’t uploaded a video in many years, so it’s slowly getting fewer views. Fun fact, the pandemic saw the highest view counts, and I also didn’t add content back then.

Every enhancement YouTube brings is specifically to improve monetization, and since I disable ads on my channel and don’t have any sponsored content, I’m not getting any benefits. I also refuse to do shorts, so I’m losing a ton of exposure there, too.

If an active channel isn’t doing well, they should call it quits, TBH. They’ll either have to compromise the quality of their content “for the algorithm”, or their content isn’t actually useful outside of a single view.

I stopped watching LTT videos when they just became long-form ads. Or when everyone five minutes was a sponsored segment.

Because stores use a high quality feed

Yes, obviously, and consumers who are buying such high-end displays should do their best to provide the highest quality source to play back on those displays.

Distance from the display is important, too. On a small TV, you’ll be close to it, but resolution won’t matter as much.

But from across the room, you want a higher resolution display up to a certain point, or else you’ll see large pixels, and that looks terrible.

Personally, going with a 4k TV was a big leap, but the addition of HDR and an OLED display (for black blacks) had the most impact.

I find that it really depends on the content on the size of the display.

The larger the display, the more you’d benefit from having a higher resolution.

For instance, a good quality 1080p stream vs a highly compressed 4k stream probably won’t look much different. But a “raw” 4k stream looks incredible… think of the demos you see in stores showing off 4k TVs… that quality is noticeable.

Put the same content on a 50"+ screen, and you’ll see the difference.

When I had Netflix, watching in 4k was great, but to me, having HDR is “better”.

On a computer monitor, there’s a case for high-resolution displays because they allow you to fit more on the screen without making the content look blurry. But on a TV, 4k + HDR is pretty much peak viewing for most people.

That’s not to say that if you create content, 8k is useless. It can be really handy when cropping or re-framing if needed, assuming the desired output is less than 8k.

The difference between 1080 and 4K is pretty visible, but the difference between 4K and 8K, especially from across a room, is so negligible that it might as well be placebo.

Also the fact that 8K content takes up a fuckload more storage space. So, there’s that, too.

I think you’ve missed the point. At a certain pixel per inch, your eye cannot see more detail or discern any difference, so it’s completely useless to have more if you’re not able to pick up on it.

Only a matter of time before megacorps put ads and a subscription service on bird calls, now. 😫

I use the firewall feature to actually stop Photos from accessing the internet, so it doesn’t touch YouTube.

I use third party YouTube apps to block ads and other crap from YouTube videos.

On desktop, I believe adguard will block ads on YouTube.com, but I also use third party apps to play videos.

I use Adguard and block Google photos from connecting to the internet.

Features like edit video still work, so I’m good. If editing didn’t work, I’d disable it.

Funny, now you’ll have the cops arresting you for prompts like “how to survive being homeless?”, rather than social services when you prompt “how to avoid being homeless?”.

And will authorities be called when someone prompts “how to shoot wild animals?” when asking about wildlife photography? 😆

Read the contracts you sign when you buy your phone

Contracts? Unless I’m buying a subsidized phone where a mobile phone plan is required, I’m not sure what other contract I’d be signing. I never got one from Samsung, OnePlus, Google, any used marketplace, or Amazon.

They get paid, and I get hardware to do what I like with it. If I can’t do what I want with it, then I’m renting, and I should be paying a rental fee, not a “full price”.