No idea with whom your arguing as I mentioned both.

If a kid is smart enough to set up a VM like that they are smart enough to deceive adults.

That’s my point of Internet Archive software and emulation section : no need to be smart, open a Web page that provides a VM and voila. You don’t have to do anything hard, only understand the concept and know where to find a VM.

Also if it’s properly all in the browser (no backend setup, no tailscale, which I’m not sure it can be done due to networking, but maybe) then any static host can have it, heck even download a .html and open it would do. In such a situation I can’t imagine it can be blocked/limited at all.

Yes I also would much prefer everything to be done locally and have no 3rd party that ultimately I won’t trust (one just has to look at leaks from large companies to understand why) still “it’s their responsibility” when I tried to demonstrate it’s fundamentally impossible when emulation exists is a fundamental problem.

PS: FWIW https://ktock.github.io/qemu-demo/

In theory yes.

What’s bad though is that it’s meaningless. Sure the OS can say you are 10 years old or 100 years old and you can’t change it… but then you open a page in your browser which runs a virtual machine and that VM now says you are, arbitrarily 50 years old. The VM is just another piece of software but put it in fullscreen (if you want) and voila, you are back to declaring whatever age you want to any application or Web page within that VM. If that’s feasible (and I fail to see how it wouldn’t, see countless examples in https://archive.org/details/software or https://docs.linuxserver.io/images/docker-webtop/ even though that’s running on another machine, so imagine that was a SaaS) then only people who aren’t aware of this might provide a meaningful information on the actual age but that’s temporary, the same way more and more people now learn to use a VPN.

now only few do

That’s the one you buy then if that’s what matters to you.

To be clear I’m not saying it’s “easy” or that the situation is “good”, only that there are choices and if we as consumers can support them, and as voted can support politicians that do make legislation to protect them (or at least not make others mandatory) then we are still going in the right direction, even if most people don’t care.

i dont like linux nor use it

What is this? Arguing with a 5yo? No offense but do you genuinely believe “I don’t like X” without even explaining why could lead to interesting conversations? Do better. At least provider argument on why you like Windows (there are actually some good reasons, even for people who don’t like Microsoft) and why you don’t like Linux (there also are good reason).

You’re not actually “intersed” otherwise you’d have at least bothered to link to couple articles, videos, etc arguing either way and would have at least taken the time to write 2 sentences properly.

Blocked as I have to assume it’s either engagement bait or just the laziest person on Earth.

Don’t buy computers with locked parts. Buy computers with non locked parts. Problem solved.

Doesn’t matter, Microsoft already sell computers, i.e. Surface. One can still buy computers from other manufacturers. They can buy an instance of the entire stack (pretty much as Apple did) and there would still be alternatives.

Official link https://motorolanews.com/motorola-three-new-b2b-solutions-at-mwc-2026/

Sure but that’s about 8 years too late https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GitHub#Acquisition_by_Microsoft

I have genuinely no idea how that could work.

I believe I get the genuine intent (protecting children) but I have so far never encountered any device or software or both that didn’t relatively easily bypass user authentication.

The closest I’ve tried are (expensive) XR headsets like the Apple Vision Pro or the Microsoft HoloLens both thanks to eye tracking. Basically for these you have to validate you are who you claim to be when you put the headset on. If you remove it, put it back (or on someone else head) you have to do it again. Nobody else (unless you explicitly share) can then see what you are looking it.

Every other devices I’ve seen, including mobile phones with banking apps, typically ask you to authenticate then assume than you are the one who keeps using the device. Meanwhile anybody else can grab the device from your hand and be “you”. Typically specific action (e.g. password change) do require to authenticate again but “normal” usage does not.

In Belgium (and quite a few other European countries) you can do payments via QR-codes on the phone in addition to NFC with phone, watches, or with credit cards and debit cards. This works with face-to-face points of sales, private and professionals other mobile phones and online Websites (which can also use a link to open the banking app itself). There are no more cheques in Belgium.

They pretty much all do and the Web apps typically can do everything, from account status to transfers, etc.

Unfortunately… most of those require the native app for login. Also more and more online websites, even on desktop, do mobile payment (e.g. QRcode scanning) as an efficient way.

So without the native app, no convenient login (if any, some still have physical card + card reader as fallback) nor convenient payments.

Tinkered with PinePhone/PinePhonePro and IMHO what’s missing (beside slightly more performant thus more expensive hardware) is a convenient way to run few, very few (basically just banking…) Android apps. Everything else has very rough UI-wise equivalents. Somehow WayDroid or equivalent might be the stopgap.

Edit: makes me wonder, is there a WayDroid equivalent to https://www.protondb.com/ or https://appdb.winehq.org/ in order to actually track what’s currently supported and why?

the pocket machine spies on you too, but that’s fine

I bet that most people who are interested in this kind of projects are the same who asked questions like https://lemmy.ml/post/43696523 and thus are relatively invested into making sure what’s in their own pocket doesn’t spy that much on them.

I have no doubt. In fact I bet that as soon as you have done it once, it’s entirely obviously. I’m mostly taking the perspective here of somebody who needs a phone and doesn’t even properly understand what an OS even is.

• picks up plushy
• asks plushy “Are you aware? Do you have consciousness?”
• make plushy nod and whisper “Yes… I am!”
• shouts “OMG, it’s alive!”

shocked Pikachu face

Also self-hosting is not trivial but it got way easier over the years IMHO thanks to Docker/Podman. Also I’d recommend investing time in it because… it will still be worth it in a decade!

If you are up for it I could write few “challenges” for you and see where it leads.

Check my post history if you want as I did post quite a few times about my journey there but basically :

• used Android a long time ago
• switched to iOS due to discussions with security experts at Mozilla
• bought and used sporadically Linux proper phones (PinePhone and PinePhone Pro) with different distributions
• tired of iOS restrictions as a developer, switched to /e/OS last year

The main appeal of /e/OS for me wasn’t security or privacy but rather being able to purchase a phone with the OS installed. I wanted to buy a phone, put the SIM in and be pretty much done with it. I also wanted banking apps to keep on working. I bought the cheapest /e/OS phone namely https://murena.com/shop/smartphones/brand-new/murena-cmf-phone-1/ then and basically I’ve been using daily since.

Few clarifications that I believe are misunderstandings :

• on security, yes /e/OS lags behind GrapheneOS for Android updates. If you are worried of 0-days because you are a political dissident you should probably NOT use /e/OS but get your setup reviewed by experts. You should definitely not trust randoms strangers on the Internet on that topic. It’s important to put an emphasis on the fact that even with the latest Android updates, a phone is still not entirely secure, does not matter if it’s with Googled Android, GrapheneOS, iOS or whatever other OS. It’s only the least worst known state, in theory. It’s better to follow best practices but without being either naive or paranoid.
• on privacy, /e/OS has some defaults you might not like but they are JUST that, namely default settings. If you do not want to use a Murena account, simply do not create one. That’s it. You won’t have any call to any API, even proxied one like OpenAI. AFAICT this is also only for paid accounts so it can’t happen by mistake. Feel free to check my post/comment history on that. Again if your threat model is any information leak, might be better to use GrapheneOS but if you are fine with just avoiding the downside of surveillance capitalism, IMHO /e/OS is good enough, namely you don’t share usage data to Google, even with default settings.

Another alternative https://framaforms.org/

Marketing BS. Just bother to pull the strings for a short while and you’ll find an artist, genuine or con artist, with their own needs, fame, wealth, humor, etc to potentially fulfill via the process who invested time to start the process, sometimes going through the hoops of buying the domain from NameCheap.