David and I were extremely conscious of the rise of Facebook in Tumblr's early days, and specifically designed it NOT to want or display your real name anywhere.
It was in direct response to that trend.
We wanted Tumblr to be a place where you could write as whoever you wanted to be, with no forced associations with people you knew in "real life" and no discoverable links to your “real" identity.
Anonymity isn't without its issues, but people need outlets like that.
https://mastodon.social/@tofugolem/112763842723365044
RPG Maker / Pixel Game Maker devs move to Godot for Action Game Maker https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2024/07/rpg-maker-pixel-game-maker-devs-move-to-godot-for-action-game-maker/
@mcc Google Chrome, or even degoogled Chromium, is NOT "a more privacy-conscious browser". It's 1000x worse. Yes this is (yet another) betrayal by Mozilla management clowns, but in browsers like in politics, "X betrayed us" doesn't justify "so we should turn to Y who was 1000x worse to begin with".
Here’s how much Valve pays its staff — and how few people it employs https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/13/24197477/valve-employs-few-hundred-people-payroll-redacted
Chances are that you might have heard about #Firefox "Privacy Preserving Attribution for Advertising". I've been working for Mozilla for 12 years and I've learned about it here on the fediverse, not only because I haven't been paying much attention, but because internal comms have been occupied with other stuff. So let's talk about something I feel Mozilla desperately needs: transparency. 🧵 1/11
So this, from Firefox, is fucking toxic: https://mstdn.social/@Lokjo/112772496939724214
You might be aware Chrome— a browser made by an ad company— has been trying to claw back the limitations recently placed on ad networks by the death of third-party cookies, and added new features that gather and report data directly to ad networks. You'd know this because Chrome displayed a popup.
If you're a Firefox user, what you probably don't know is Firefox added this feature and *has already turned it on without asking you*
There's hope tho.
In Mozilla's earlier days, they jettisoned a totally new web browser project called Servo. It's sort of a ground-up effort to build a browser using the latest safety tech, like the Rust programming language.
And the best part is, Servo is totally independent from Mozilla now and they have * independent funding * !
Meaning, Google isn't bankrolling Servo as anti-trust insurance (*cough* Firefox *cough*), so there's a chance it might actually take a real stance against adtech on the web.
Servo is faaaar from ready for general use yet, but it's picking up development speed. Definitely an option to keep an eye on for the future.
Yup, it's true. Firefox 128 includes new adtech features that are opt-in by default and announced with very little fanfare, so most people might not even know they're there.
Well, this is me telling you they're there. You might want to go ahead and take a minute to opt out.
Here's the little helpful explainer from Mozilla about how it all works:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/privacy-preserving-attribution
My read seems to be: Mozilla says website surveillance is generally bad and should be defended against. Cool. No notes. Firefox actually has a lot of nice anti-tracking and privacy features there and that's the main reason why I like Firefox.
But, and I swear I'm not even joking a little bit here, Mozilla goes on to say that advertisers might be happier if Firefox itself just tracked you directly and sent activity reports back to them.
Doesn't that sound great?
Now, to Mozilla's credit, they claim to anonymize the activity reports. And you can still meaningfully opt out of the whole system.
But WTF, mate?! I use Firefox *because* it fights against adtech. Or at least it used to. Now, Mozilla just lets adtech right in the front door and hopes you won't notice?
Well, we noticed. Mozilla is damage and we need to route around it.
LGBT and Marginalized Voices Are Not Welcome on Threads https://www.macstories.net/stories/lgbt-and-marginalized-voices-are-not-welcome-on-threads/
Here’s a story that I wish I didn’t have to write. But it’s high time that we make this a central point anytime, anywhere Threads is pictured as a decent alternative to Twitter and Mastodon. It is only that if you’re a straight, white male.