It’s actually a scam pushed by Big Water to get you to use more water and line their pockets.

Email is becoming obsolete anyway. I only use it personally to register accounts online. I have an old email address that I got 20 years ago. I haven’t checked it in years. It holds several hundred thousand emails and was constantly full of junk mail. It just became totally useless to me a long time ago.

We use email at work, but not as much as we used to because there are better ways to communicate since everyone has a phone. We don’t even use the computers in our offices much anymore because it’s just easier to use a phone. The execs have tablets that they carry around, then dock at their desks. They don’t even have desktop computers anymore.

Usually the product with the most money behind it wins, unfortunately.

Wait, that’s the government’s stance also.

I heard several news stories stating that they had, but I guess that’s my fault for believing the news. I just assumed they would get something right eventually.

There’s a reason they got rid of that motto.

My mom won’t pick a date for me just because I’m married.

I completely disagree with you. Maybe it’s because I’m old, but I don’t want any damned racist robot doctor telling me what to do. I just want my good old human, racist doctor treating me; like God intended.

It works very well in my brake system.

Obviously you missed the announcement that it is, indeed, the end of the world.

Some people just hate everything. They’re usually the ones that think they could do everything better than the people who are already doing it, but they haven’t done anything themselves except complain.

I don’t think he’s coming back, just like my dad.

I hope that’s true, but I wouldn’t put money on it.

Do you know when that will be?

if this monopoly is broken.

That’s the important part. My point is that the government is like a lion going after toes rather than the jugular. They could easily go for something more significant, but they’ve chosen not to. I think it’s because they care more about the show than the result. Not even Google could take on the federal government if it really wanted to break up the monopoly. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m not holding my breath. I’ve seen these shinanigans too many times

I wasn’t that tech savvy when I got my first desktop in 1994. Until then, I had only had a Commodore 64. I started with AOL because it seemed like the only way to get on the internet. Once I figured out that it was a horrible and expensive product I switched to a flat rate provider, rather than “by the minute” (which was a scam when it took 2 minutes just to download 1 webpage). The instillation disk came bundled with Netscape Navigator for free. I used Netscape from 1995 until it morphed into Firefox, and then continued using Firefox until a few years ago when better FOSS browsers came out.

It was never that hard to switch derault browsers in Win 98, and Netscape was not only free, but very heavily promoted everywhere.

My son uses Windows. He has machines running Windows 1 all the way up to Windows 11. He loves retro computers. He also has a couple Linux machines, but he prefers Windows even though he constantly talks to me about how horrible Windows is and how many things don’t work properly and the surveillance that is embedded in the OS. I know that Microsoft is trying to be as evil as Google. That’s why (as I stated on a different comment reply) I think the government went after the default browser issue because it was the softest target. Also, when they won they just forced Microsoft to make it easier to change the default browser, which gave them a victory in the media, but did nothing to curtail Microsoft’s tactics.

Google as the default search is just the tip of the shitberg of monopolistic bullshit imo.

I agree. That’s why I don’t understand why they are going after the default search when it’s the weakest argument of all of them. I just pointed out one instance where Google is blatantly monopolistic, but there are many more, and there are also many instances where they are breaking other laws. It just seems like the government is sticking to the default search issue because it’s soft and they truly don’t care. If they win, they can force Google to make it easier to set your search engine. Then they claim a victory, while Google just keeps on invading our privacy and amassing our data for their own profit.

I wouldn’t know anything about Windows 11. The last Windows I used personally was XP. We use Windows 7 at work and it’s annoying because we have 3 different browsers and we have to use each of them depending upon which company intranet site were viewing because the sites don’t all work with all browsers. I don’t know why, but I assume that has something to do with Microsoft.

I disagreed with the Microsoft charges back then, and I disagree with the case against Google now. I hate both of them and I think they use monopolistic tactics, but making their own search engine or browser the default in their OS isn’t monopolistic, especially since you can easily change it.

The tactics that should be fought against are things like when Google used its size and money to offer free unlimited cloud photo storage. That put several cloud services out of business because they couldn’t compete with “free unlimited” storage. Then, when all the competition was gone, Google started charging for their service which was no longer unlimited.

When someone tries to compete with Google, Google either uses their power to put them out of business or buys them. That is totally monopolistic and what the government should be defending against.

If you get a message, or see something on a social media platform urging you to buy crypto or NFTs, it’s 100% a scam. It doesn’t take an AI detector to figure that out.