Good catch. Never used Remote Assistance, so I don't know how different it is, and if it actually requires telemetry.

Although the broader issue isn't the why, it's that it does those things at all without clearly communicating them to the user. Even their documentation has severe lack of any kind of explanation.

I thought so as well for a time, but that tool in particular is what finally made me lose faith that there might be any good debloat tool out there.

Basically, someone mentioned that it does a weird thing, so I've decided to take a look closer, and stumbled about a whole lot of dumb choices. To exemplify, I'll just repost that part of my comment from back then:

Oh yeah, I've just skimmed what else the "Disable Telemetry" script does to the registry, and I honestly can't classify it as anything other than batshit insane.

A few highlights:

• The popup delay of nested context menus and mouse hover popups
• Disables the prompt when there are open programs when shutting down
• Switches the explorer from the default view to This PC
• Enables long file paths
• Expands the file copy dialog by default
• Straight up disables RDP?????

And this is only one script out of a few dozen this "tool" has. Not to mention this is listed under "Essential Tweaks" that are, according to the documentation "Essential Tweaks are modifications and optimizations that are generally safe for most users to implement."

Yup. This is basically aimed at the people who only know that integrated GPUs are bad and they need a dedicated card, so system manufacturers can create a pre built that technically checks that box for as little money as possible.

Problem is, there are no good debloat scripts. It's all written by amateurs who don't know what they're doing, messing up the system in subtle ways that then take ages to figure out.

Less packages really doesn't mean much in terms of how easy the system will be to manage. If anything, I'd say a distro with more, but pre installed packages is easier to manage because the maintainers will make sure that those packages will be as easy to work with and upgrade as possible.

That said, I'm definitely not going to stop you from trying Arch though. You can even get similar (or better) optimizations by using the ALHP repos and a kernel like linux-tkg or linux-cachyos for example, although the difference really is negligible in most cases.

Quickly checking if you're an actual human or just a bot I came across this comment of yours:

I have blocked 264 users, 9 communities and 4 instances and it's made Lemmy much better for me toxicity wise. Whenever a debate gets toxic or someone starts just insulting or discussing in bad faith or I just get a bad vibe from them - I block.

Guess I'll take your advice then.

Personally I use KeePassXC + Syncthing, but Bitwarden/Vaultwarden is also a great.

What's somewhat amusing, for lack of a better word, is that even that advice doesn't fully resolve the issue, as Troy himself recently was the victim of a phising attack, where one part of the issue was that even legitimate sites changes their sign-in domains frequently enough that you kind of become numb to when the auto-fill stops working and just "correct" the issue without the necessary due diligence.

The problem with domains is that regular people would need to know what a domain is and what verified ownership says about the account in question.

Even then, reading domains is quite difficult, even for people who know about the topic: Humans are Bad at URLs and Fonts Don’t Matter

Agree. Personally I like having something portable, so I've always complemented my PC with a Nintendo handheld. Thankfully, PCs can now be handhelds too, even including an open operating system.

The only time I even booted my Switch after getting the Steam Deck was to rip all my games and saves from there.

For basic gaming the experience should be at the very least about equal for all GPU vendors right now. If you want anything fancy beyond that, like HDR or properly paced and multi-monitor VRR then Wayland is the only way to even have a chance of it working.

Yup. If anything, they should add a second USB-C connector. Much more versatile and you can still charge your phone if one of them dies.

These flaky, but simultaneously bulky headphone connectors need to die. They're inferior in pretty much every way imaginable.

Yeah, I don't think I make that many that wrong purchases, although that doesn't mean that a lot of games I enjoy end up unfinished due to limited time. When it comes to testing games, one thing that's neat is that demos got a huge revival in the last few years, particularly due to Steam Next Fest.

Looking at the current line-up, I'll say that right I'd probably come to a different conclusion, seeing as Blue Prince, South of Midnight and the new DOOM are all included. Then again, I use Linux, so I wouldn't be able to use Game Pass even if I wanted to.

A bit tangential, but I also feel a lot of people make the same mistake with GamePass. I buy a lot of gameson release day (mostly indies, but also some AAA), so theoretically I should be the target audience for GamePass, but I did the math once for a three-month period and came out at a loss if I had bought GamePass.

Based on nothing but anecdotal evidence, the type of person to get GamePass also typically enjoys a lesser variety of games on average, making the cost/benefit ratio even worse.

Eh, while I agree that some recommendations are dodgy at best, I'll argue that Wireguard is not only adding to security, it also makes Fail2Ban obsolete. Due to the way it works, you'll completely hide the fact that you're even running a SSH server at all, and this includes even Wireguard itself. More importantly though, it's pretty much impossible to set up Wireguard in an insecure way, whereas SSH provides you with plenty of footguns. You're not risking locking yourself out either.

Also, security comes in layers.

Exactly. No root login and no password login will do just fine as basic measures, but after that Wireguard is perfect tool for this, no weird rituals required and also quite useful for any other services you don't want and/or need to expose to the internet as well.

Probably not the Steam Deck successor alone, but the PC handheld ecosystem as a whole might be able to get there at some point (preferably mostly running Linux).

Though it's kind of insane how much progress was already made over one generation: It went from a Kickstarter grift (Smach-Z), to the Steam Deck, to multiple competitors already.

Physical media, digital media, it doesn't matter. They don't help the preservation of games. What really matters is DRM-free media.

Considering that this mutation seems to be caused by a chunk of missing DNA, as the article suggests, that's actually quite fitting.

Yup. Those 64 GB SSDs many retailers put into cheap laptops already come dangerously close to violating the Geneva Convention. 8GB is just stupid, even for a Linux system.

I'd be wary of that fork. It's run by a former Thunderbird dev that got banned for his toxic attitude and hasn't really improved since. Just take a look at the projects website. Being so unrespectful towards your upstream project should have no place in open-source.