Windows users have recently begun mass-reporting that Microsoft's Defender antivirus program, which is integrated into Windows 10 and 11 by default, is
Sometimes people use Tor just to get around ‘This site is blocked in your country’
But hey, I hear ya! I’ve been running Linux as my daily driver since 2015, and the more they enshittify Windows, the more I recommend others make the switch.
Agreed. I thought of ISP restrictions too, but I would say if where you live places a level of censorship due to political reasons or otherwise and you need to access it for whatever reasons so you need Tor then by all means Microsoft is not your friend since they’re a privacy nightmare.
There are also VPNs for banned media, I typically wouldn’t want to use Tor for anything more than textual content as it puts too much load on the Tor network.
I typically wouldn’t want to use Tor for anything more than textual content as it puts too much load on the Tor network.
While I agree that the Tor network is slow, it also depends on excess traffic to “bury” the more sensitive stuff. Part of why Tor works is because the actual sensitive stuff gets buried under all of the noise of regular users. Without all of that excess traffic, it’d be much easier to track what is happening.
As an extreme example, imagine how insecure the Tor network would be if there were only two users. It’d be blatantly obvious that those two users are communicating. By adding more users and more traffic, those two users can more easily hide in the sea of traffic. In short, more use does slow things down, but it’s also better for privacy overall.
Now that POW DDOS protection has started to roll i am actually finding tor to not be much worse than regular browsing. The markets are quick, dread is quick, tor times is quick, and pitch is quick. Where i find it slow is going back to the clearnet. If it ends with .onion though it loads pretty damn quick
Me too. I noped out of Win10 after fighting with Win7 too much. Most people tell me I’m just unusual however I think more people than will admit just browse the web and can’t handle Win95 levels of customization and lack of making decisions for you. People are generally overwhelmed with the mere idea that they could customize their computer to work in different ways… Heck, on Windows it’s varied if you can even reasonably change to a different default browser without being “techie” (stupid low bar considered techie by many)…
I really need to bite the bullet and wipe windows off my new laptop. I’ve had an arch based distro downloaded and ready to go since mid August. Just don’t want to have to download my steam library again. My shitty Internet is painful sometimes.
Only if you have another place to hold it temporarily.
You can’t really install linux onto an NTFS drive. So you have to wipe the NTFS partition and start over with something like EXT4… that will kill the games.
At the best of times, moving steam games is a mess as more and more games use third party download systems.
But also? Going from Windows to Linux is an extra mess.
What I ended up doing to migrate from windows to linux for gaming without taking a poo on my data cap was:
Enable LAN transfers of games in Steam
Install/login to Steam on my linux laptop. If you don’t have a spare PC, this can largely be replaced with a raspberry pi with a big ass external drive attached.
Install the games I want to preserve. Steam is smart enough to realize it is the same files between windows and linux in this case
When that was done, reformat my desktop
Basically do the opposite direction and have my desktop stream the game files from my laptop.
Stuff like warframe was still a full redownload. But helped a lot.
Oof, I hear ya there. At least in my case I pretty much only play older games from GOG, usually in a virtual machine, so no Steam for me.
I did however go out of my way to download and compile the source code for Descent 1 and 2 directly on Linux, that was fun figuring out how to compile LOL!
Good luck with your Steam library though. If it was me, I’d test Linux out in a virtual machine first so you can test out copying your games over without outright wiping Windows first.
Sometimes people use Tor just to get around ‘This site is blocked in your country’
But hey, I hear ya! I’ve been running Linux as my daily driver since 2015, and the more they enshittify Windows, the more I recommend others make the switch.
Agreed. I thought of ISP restrictions too, but I would say if where you live places a level of censorship due to political reasons or otherwise and you need to access it for whatever reasons so you need Tor then by all means Microsoft is not your friend since they’re a privacy nightmare.
There are also VPNs for banned media, I typically wouldn’t want to use Tor for anything more than textual content as it puts too much load on the Tor network.
While I agree that the Tor network is slow, it also depends on excess traffic to “bury” the more sensitive stuff. Part of why Tor works is because the actual sensitive stuff gets buried under all of the noise of regular users. Without all of that excess traffic, it’d be much easier to track what is happening.
As an extreme example, imagine how insecure the Tor network would be if there were only two users. It’d be blatantly obvious that those two users are communicating. By adding more users and more traffic, those two users can more easily hide in the sea of traffic. In short, more use does slow things down, but it’s also better for privacy overall.
Now that POW DDOS protection has started to roll i am actually finding tor to not be much worse than regular browsing. The markets are quick, dread is quick, tor times is quick, and pitch is quick. Where i find it slow is going back to the clearnet. If it ends with .onion though it loads pretty damn quick
Me too. I noped out of Win10 after fighting with Win7 too much. Most people tell me I’m just unusual however I think more people than will admit just browse the web and can’t handle Win95 levels of customization and lack of making decisions for you. People are generally overwhelmed with the mere idea that they could customize their computer to work in different ways… Heck, on Windows it’s varied if you can even reasonably change to a different default browser without being “techie” (stupid low bar considered techie by many)…
I really need to bite the bullet and wipe windows off my new laptop. I’ve had an arch based distro downloaded and ready to go since mid August. Just don’t want to have to download my steam library again. My shitty Internet is painful sometimes.
Can’t you just move it?
Can confirm you can just move the game files to your Linux steam library to avoid redownloading
That might help. Sadly I don’t have enough raw space worth of thumb drives. And I’d do a full install of Linux, no dual booting.
Buy a second drive, they are cheap these days. Then you can keep the OEM Windows around, for a just in case.
Only if you have another place to hold it temporarily.
You can’t really install linux onto an NTFS drive. So you have to wipe the NTFS partition and start over with something like EXT4… that will kill the games.
Is there no way to save your stream library to an external hard drive?
At the best of times, moving steam games is a mess as more and more games use third party download systems.
But also? Going from Windows to Linux is an extra mess.
What I ended up doing to migrate from windows to linux for gaming without taking a poo on my data cap was:
Stuff like warframe was still a full redownload. But helped a lot.
I’ve got a bunch of large games. And not as much space worth of thumb drives.
The other concerns, I have two programs that would be a pain to get running with wine.
Oof, I hear ya there. At least in my case I pretty much only play older games from GOG, usually in a virtual machine, so no Steam for me.
I did however go out of my way to download and compile the source code for Descent 1 and 2 directly on Linux, that was fun figuring out how to compile LOL!
Good luck with your Steam library though. If it was me, I’d test Linux out in a virtual machine first so you can test out copying your games over without outright wiping Windows first.