Linked List Archive

Brave Search Launches Independent Image and Video Search ➝

Brave:

After several months of development, Brave Search is releasing its own privacy-preserving image and video search that is independent from Big Tech search engines. Users will no longer need to leave Brave Search for image and video search results. Now any Brave Search query can be served directly from Brave’s own index, enabling users to benefit from a fully independent search engine that protects their privacy and is censorship-resistant. 

Brave’s search results are getting quite good and the addition of image and video makes it even more appealing.

I’m not ready to give up on SearXNG quite yet, but I can imagine moving to Brave in the future if only because I’d no longer have the responsibility of maintaining the SearXNG service.

I wish I could tell all of my friends and family to switch to Brave Search, but most of them use Safari and Apple hasn’t added Brave as a search engine option. Hopefully the folks at Brave will be able to convince Apple to remedy that soon.

➝ Source: brave.com

Brave’s Statement on Web Environment Integrity ➝

As far as I could tell, Mozilla hasn’t made a statement about this at all. Perhaps their reliance on Google for funding has a much larger influence on the direction of Firefox than Brave’s use of Chromium does.

➝ Source: brave.com

No Transfer Fees for Moving Google Domains to WordPress.com ➝

Matt Mullenweg, writing on WordPress.com News:

A domain is your most valuable online asset. A great domain name says something about you—your personality, your work, your creative spark. People understand this intuitively: when coming up with new ideas for a business or website, we don’t start with design or specific content. We start by giving it a name.

But if your domain name is currently with Google Domains, things recently became complicated. You may have heard that your account has been sold to Squarespace. Everything is expected to transfer and close later this year.

Fortunately for you, you’re not locked into that deal. And we think we can do better. For the first million domains that move from Google to WordPress.com, we’ll pay your transfer fee, which also extends your registration for an additional year. 

This is a great deal for anyone that had domains with Google.

➝ Source: wordpress.com

Twitter Rebranded as ‘X’ ➝

I think this is a foolish change. “X” just feels so incredibly generic when compared to “Twitter”. Not to mention the terms “tweet” and “retweet” being tied to the Twitter brand identity.

But it’s interesting to see so many people for whom Twitter is “dead to them” get so riled up about this. Perhaps their nine months of bickering was more of an attempt to convince themselves.

➝ Source: macrumors.com

The App Store Turns 15 ➝

Those early days of the App Store felt so magical. Suddenly, this little pocket computer had access to hundreds of applications to expand its capabilities. No more sweet solutions necessary.

But here we are, fifteen years later, and the App Store feels like more of a hindrance. A limitation on the platform that prevents entire categories of applications from even being developed.

For those of us that want to run these types of apps, we’re stuck relying on other sweet solutions to install and run the code. I would have hoped that Apple was the kind of company that would have opened things up years ago, but it seems they’ll be clinging to the status quo until regulators force their hand.

➝ Source: mjtsai.com

Thunderbird Redesign Now Available ➝

I’m not too fond of the new app icon, but the app itself looks like a massive upgrade. I look forward to getting my hands on it when I log on to my MacBook Air tomorrow.

➝ Source: blog.thunderbird.net

Thread Count ➝

There’s a lot of hype around Threads and they’re piggybacking off of their existing account system, which makes sign up very easy for most people.

But the user numbers we’re seeing right now are irrelevant. There’s no way of knowing how many of these users are actually going to stick around beyond the initial launch timeframe.

I’ll wait six months to see what their monthly active user numbers look like then before coming to any conclusions.

➝ Source: theverge.com

Don’t Join Threads, Make Threads Join You ➝

I logged in to Threads to poke around, but don’t plan to use it for much beyond that. I’ll wait until ActivityPub support is added and then I’ll interact with Threads users from my Mastodon account.

➝ Source: wired.com