The way sponsors will be allowed to "gain visibility within a growing targeted audience" is also vague. [1]

[1]: https://products.rubyforum.org/sponsors#:~:text=gain%20visib...

Google knows if you can set this once it's game over for their adverting business. At least with the cookie banners, there's a possibly you won't refuse every banner.

Especially those banners that only have "Accept" or "More options" with all those checkboxes to clear.

Unfortunately the browser extension permissions are not granular enough to warn you when fetch is being used in an extension.

As an example, my password manager extension can read and inject content into any page along with communicating with its server to sync my vault. These are the only permissions Firefox shows me:

  * Access your data for all websites
  * Get data from the clipboard
  * Input data to the clipboard
  * Display notifications to you
  * Access browser tabs
  * Access browser activity during navigation

Feels a bit rough to refocus the whole company and immediately bail out. At least give a new CEO a fighting chance by letting them set their own direction.

I had a service complaining about the root file permissions which changed between Fedora versions [1]. I was never able to figure out what produced the file system image but thanks so this guide I know where to start looking now.

[1]: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2402944#c1

I've given up trusting lifetime anything from the app stores now.

Mobile OSs seem to evolve so much faster, add new layers of security, lock pro features behind app store billing APIs that require the developer's account remains in good standing.

I've been burnt by three apps cutting and running now. One where the developers got their prize jobs at Microsoft and AWS [1], another where they sold the app off to another company that gave up maintaining it [2] and finally EA (enough said) [3]

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46768909

[2]: https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/04/16/beyondpods-first-pu...

[3]: https://web.archive.org/web/20190116224256/https://answers.e...

The value was the multiple CDs of MSDN documentation and code samples which where very handy considering the slim pickings on the internet in 1995.

These weren't included with an IDE perpetual license retail box.

It took me way too long to realise those widgets that show stats quickly counting up are only there hoping you'll wait until they finish counting to see the total number. All to increase your time on the page and make the metrics look good for the designer.

> Reconsider disabled controls. Disabled controls can be hard to use because users literally have to deduce why they are disabled. Disable a control when users expect it to apply and they can easily deduce why the control is disabled. Remove the control when there is no way for users to enable it or they don't expect it to apply, or leave it enabled, but provide an error message when it is used incorrectly.

> Tip: If you aren't sure whether you should disable a control or provide an error message, start by composing the error message that you might provide. If the error message contains helpful information that target users aren't likely to quickly deduce, leave the control enabled and provide the error. Otherwise, disable the control.

Unfortunately, that nuance has been lost in the modern version of the guidelines with no mention of disabled buttons at all [2]

[1]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/uxguide/top-...

[2]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/develop/ui/co...

You could argue in that case it was a gambling site and it will never happen to you because you're not in a high risk category.

The scary thing for me is nowhere in their initial communications did they explain the issue they just demanded $120k upfront (refusing monthly billing).

The CEO who is usually active on HN didn't show up to give their side either, there's no way they couldn't have been aware of a 1044 upvoted post which also went viral elsewhere https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40481979

I'm not expecting something for nothing, we all need to eat. I'm happy to stay within any limits or even have no free tier at all.

I just don't want the fear of waking up to a sales email one morning demanding I suddenly fork out more then I earn in a year off the project for an enterprise plan because I've exceeded their undisclosed thresholds.

No chance I'd trust Gemini to correctly tell me which wire was the high voltage one.

You're absolutely right! I apologize for providing a factually incorrect explanation. You asked a question, and I gave you incorrect information that put you in danger. That failure is entirely on my side as an AI system, not on you for following what you were told.

https://support.google.com/accounts/threads?thread_filter=(c...

How many times do you have to click "View more" to reach a post from last week? It's a problem.

The repeated advice from the "diamond product experts" says it all:

If you can't recover your account using Google's automated recovery process, the account is lost. [1]

Personally I thought I was OK because I had a recovery email set but what Google doesn't tell you is they outright refuse to even send a recovery email if you don't use a device, browser and same wifi they've seen before. [2]. At the time I was all in on Gmail so it was an especially sobering experience.

I accept it's a hard problem to protect that many accounts, but to dismiss it as a "few stories" is understating the problem and diminishes the terrifying experience all these users are having.

[1]: https://support.google.com/accounts/thread/453660883/locked-...

[2]: https://www.reddit.com/r/GoogleSupport/comments/1ps28fn/coul...

Basing your security decisions on "it'll never happen to me" because there are billions of other users who will get burnt first is not a wise strategy either.

Why take the chance when there are so many other alternatives that let you own your vault or at least companies that still have some semblance of a support team.

Losing a decade of my Google Maps Timeline data even with backups enabled made me realise I may not be lucky enough to win the lottery but I am lucky enough for Google to pick little old me, hidden in the billions, to lose my data.

Spotify certainly doesn't like it and it's second only their prohibition on reverse engineering their own software in their User Guidelines.

  The following is not permitted for any reason whatsoever in relation to the Services and the material or content made available through the Services, or any part thereof:
  2. copying, reproducing, redistributing, "ripping," recording, transferring [1]

[1]: https://www.spotify.com/us/legal/user-guidelines/#:~:text=co...

Maybe for a lot of tech people, I don't think the general public understands the risks enough to care.

Considering I'm paying 20 cents per click elsewhere, this could get real expensive, real fast.

[...]

We've proven that FLOSS works, and is in demand.

If "FLOSS works" maintainers shouldn't be "facing severe burnout", I've come across two more in the past week alone:

* Filebrowser (Mar 2026): https://hacdias.com/2026/03/11/filebrowser/

* axum-login / tower-sessions (last week): https://github.com/maxcountryman/axum-login/discussions/330