120,000 x 4 = 480,000

This is easy to do with a calculator.

A bot could put 100 AI generated tracks on Spotify per hour. 50 bots doing the same is 120,000 tracks per day.

AI slop can be made and distributed in ginourmous numbers. I wouldn’t be suprised if at least 3/4 of uploads from the past 2 years are AI.

I hate them both. Librewolf and Ungoogled Chromium are the true private and non-profit browsers. Firefox and Brave are full of bloat like Firefox’s ads and tracking and Brave’s Wallet, News, Talk, VPN etc

Make sure to use “disable phase inversion” for Opus if you want good quality in mono. I’m suprised this isn’t set by default.

I think the best choice is to get a non-gaming Windows laptop and install Linux on it.

If you don’t need something super powerful then get a refurbished Thinkpad T14 or Elitebook 840 G7 from eBay or Amazon.

Or if you need more CPU, a better screen, etc get a new Omnibook (7 or above) or Ideapad (5 or above) for a Macbook like feel or a Thinkpad for repairability.

Thinkpads are what you want to look for. You can get a refurbished one from eBay or Amazon Renewed for $300 and they almost all have upgradable storage and RAM, as well as having the rest of the parts being easier to replace than a consumer laptop.

The T14 series is the one to look at.

Onn/Thompson sticks. They also use the stick form factor but they run Google TV so they shouldn’t be affected.

Maybe try the Apple one when Android 16 comes out (in GrapheneOS form) which fixes the volume issues.

Which brand of adpater did you get? If you got a generic one then a bad DAC and durability aren’t surprises.

That’s why you don’t just buy the cheapest one you see on Amazon. Google/DDG around to know which ones are good.

Re-read the article. All this feature does is give you the ability to say ‘set a timer for 10 minutes’ or ‘start a phone call to John’.

If you have ‘Gemini apps activity’ off then they won’t use anything you say to train their models.

You can get a USB-C splitter adapter.

You can get good Bluetooth earbuds for under $50 and a USB-C to AUX dongle for under $15.

The average person is fine with Bluetooth earbuds or an adapter, and audiophiles would not find the inbuilt DAC/amp on a phone to be adequate.

I love the idea but the price is too high for the chip given that this is designed to be a longevity phone. A chip like the 7s Gen 3 would make the phone sluggish after a couple of years with how unoptimised todays apps are.

The Gorilla Glass 7i and IP55 water resistance are also concerning given that budget Samsung, Xiaomi, etc phones beat this.

However having components of the phone being easily replacable is a great thing.

You can turn it off by going to Settings > apps > default apps > digital assistant > Google > none.

You should disable the Google app entirely while you’re at it.

Gemini can be disabled. Uninstall/disable the Gemini app if your phone has it then go to Settings > Apps > Default apps > digital assistant > Google > none.

You can buy any TV. Just turn off the tracking in the settings and plug in a streaming stick.

The built-in OS on smart TVs almost always sucks. The built-in OS on our LG is slower, has less apps, and has less support for HDR and higher resolutions than our Fire stick.

Just don’t use it and instead plug in a Fire stick, turn off its tracking, then sideload apps like BeeTV and HDO Box.

I know Amazon has a bad rep from a privacy standpoint but the Fire stick is super cheap compared to its competition and lets you turn off the tracking in one page of the settings menu.