This reading list is courtesy of Vivaldi browser, who pay me decent money to fight for a better web and don’t moan at me for reading all this stuff. We’ve just released Vivaldi 7.7 for desktop and mobile, with features requested by users rather than planet-burning plagiarism-filled Generative AI.
- “A.I.” browsers: the price of admission is too high by Yours Truly
- The EU made Apple adopt new Wi-Fi standards, and now Android can support AirDrop – “If I had to guess why neither of Google’s Quick Share posts mentions Wi-Fi interoperability standards or the DMA… it may be that Google doesn’t want to explicitly credit or praise the DMA. …For its part, Apple recently called for the DMA to be repealed entirely”. Interop, drop by (air)drop
- Digital Sovereignty Isn’t Just Talk Anymore: Why European Governments Are Breaking Up With Microsoft
- The EU has let US tech giants run riot. Diluting our data law will only entrench their power – “Europe is hurtling toward digital vassalage… Enforcing Europe’s data rules would not only protect our democracies and children from nasty algorithms, it would also disrupt big tech’s cascading monopolies across Europe. Crucially for Europe’s competitiveness, this is what would create the space for European tech SMEs and startups to scale up everywhere in Europe.”
- FFmpeg to Google: Fund Us or Stop Sending Bugs – A lively discussion about open source, security, and who pays the bills has erupted on Twitler.
- Is it Time to Regulate React?
- Apple Loses Landmark U.K. Lawsuit Over App Store Commissions – Gruber saying extraordinary truths about Apple’s losing strategy of thumbing its nose at regulators over the App Store: “”Apple has approached all this regulatory conflict from a perspective that they’re right, and the regulators are wrong … However Apple thinks all of this should work out is not the way it is working out.”
- What Apple’s UK Strategic Market Status Designation means for Browsers and Web Apps – from your chums at Open Web Advocacy
- Detect fallback positions with anchored container queries from Chrome 143
- “Easy” Default Browser Settings Aren’t Always Easy – “What usability research reveals about default browser settings on iOS and Windows”, by Mozilla’s splendid Gemma Petrie
- Recall for Linux – “Are you forced to work with Linux? Do you miss the convenience of Microsoft spying on you and keeping track of everything? Fear not!”
- I Work For an Evil Company, but Outside Work, I’m Actually a Really Good Person
- Wheel running in the wild – “If wheel running is indeed caused by captive housing, wild mice are not expected to use a running wheel in nature. This however, to our knowledge, has never been tested. Here, we show that when running wheels are placed in nature, they are frequently used by wild mice, also when no extrinsic reward is provided. … Wheel movement not caused by mice was caused by shrews, rats, snails, slugs or frogs”