cjcoops

Maybe this comparison needs to be updated with this information about privacy:-
I use an Apple TV 4k with my Sony A8 tv wifi turned off. I only turned it on to update the TV firmware - which also updated the Google TV software to include ads on your home screen.... lovely. Another reason not to use the built in TV 'smart' software, on top of its poor performance (the newer Sony OLEDs even have less RAM than the poorly reviewed A8g smart software).


https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1571722074

""Over-the-Top streaming devices such as Roku and Amazon Fire TV, which currently sell between for $30 to $100, are cheap alternatives to smart TVs for cord-cutters. Instead of charging more for the hardware or the membership, Roku and Amazon Fire TV monetize their platforms through advertisements, which rely on tracking users’ viewing habits," said Hooman Mohajeri Moghaddam, one of the authors of the study by Princeton University."

"Google's tracker appeared on 975 of the top 1000 Roku apps, while Amazon's tracker appeared on 687 of the top 1000 Amazon Fire TV apps. However, many others trackers also ranked prominently across apps.

- "Out of 100 randomly selected channels on Roku and Amazon, we found 9 channels on Roku (e.g., “CBS News” and “News 5 Cleveland WEWS”)  and 14 channels on the Fire TV (e.g., “NBC News” and “Travel Channel”) that leaked the title of the video to a tracking domain. On Roku, all video titles were leaked over unencrypted connections, exposing user video history to eavesdroppers. On Fire TV, only two channels (NBC News and WRAL) used an unencrypted connection when sending the title to tracking domains.""

oh, and by the way:-

" "OTT platforms provide privacy options that purport to limit tracking on their devices: “Limit Ad Tracking” on Roku and ”Disable Interest-based Ads” on Amazon Fire TV. Our measurements show that these privacy options fall short of preventing tracking. 
Turning on these options did not change the number of trackers contacted."

winston2010 said:

It was under powered, keyboard sucks, requires a dongle for everything. But it was so thin and light and it actually fits in my Travelon passport bag when I travel and I don't need to reach my carry-on to put it away.

Love my macbook - work offshore so light and small yet powerful enough is what i need and want. 

One dongle - has 2x usb-a, hdmi, ethernet, sd card and usb-c power pass thru for when i occasionally need it.

Learnt to code Swift and wrote an app for my Directional Drilling work on it (obviously if i was a full time developer i wouldn't be using a macbook... but then I wouldn't use a laptop at all Big screen iMac or so would be lovely).

Was hoping they'd keep the body size but later update to include faceid and almost borderless screen to squeeze pretty close to 13” screen in it...

ps I!ll disclose at one point I used a Sony laptop that was so small the screen was essentially half the normal height - many years ago, Japanese special. ..

Jessee Michael said:

Personally, I couldn't use a Mac without TotalFinder.

Well.. I could but I wouldn't want to   

TotalFinder is excellent - dual panes, the visor thingy so you can bring finder up with a double press of the option key, it had Command-x and paste of files and folders yonks ago, before Apple decided Adults could be trusted to wield such awesome power      and best of all it works with Finder, so much preferred to Pathfinder and the others.

Better Touch Tool too if you want to get the most out of your trackpad and/or your touch bar etc.

"Right now they're working on an effort to reduce that number even more by only counting things we have currently in our data warehouse."

  
  
  


So.... working on an effort to massage the numbers to make them look less bad, but not trying to actually find out how many have truly been affected.
Brilliant /s

chasm said:

 a better use of my money would be an inexpensive but good-quality (think Anker for example) Qi charging pad large enough that it has two coils -- one for my iPhone 8, the other for my future purchase of the new AirPods w/wireless charging case. I'll cope (somehow) with having to place them in the right spots to charge.

take a look at an Ikea Triple Pad - three wireless coils PLUS a USB-A port for an iPad etc. Available in birch too - i've got one some time ago and it works great, has some 'crosshairs' so easy to see where to place your phone etc.
Around $60 i think in US

https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/10308315/

You can get it on amazon too i think if suffering a visit to Ikea is too much ;-)