Let me guess – you have to pay a subscription fee to turn them off?
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I cannot believe there are consumers that put up with this shit. Doing something like this should instantly sink a company, not just because they don’t sell that particular model, but because people refuse to do business with them on principle. Seems like nobody has any backbone whatsoever any more, whether it’s obeying Trump in advance or taking whatever enshittification corporations roll out and meekly embracing it instead of looking for alternatives. They keep pushing things further and further, seeing what they can get away with, and people just keep letting them.
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Today Gurgle Maps intentionally released a misleading and incorrect change for the purpose of confusing elementary school geography students. However, it is not only affecting their widely-used Maps app but also the famous Gurgle search engine, which people all over the world use to look up facts.
So the message is clear, Gurgle can no longer be trusted. If you use Gurgle for anything, today’s the day to find a replacement.
I suggest https://duckduckgo.com/ for search (or https://kagi.com/ if you don’t mind paying).
For maps, https://www.openstreetmap.org, Bing Maps - Directions, trip planning, traffic cameras & more, and https://www.mapquest.com/ are a few options.
In any case, if you care about accurate information, you clearly do not want to rely on Gurgle.
[Editor’s Note: The company’s name might not actually be Gurgle, but they don’t care about using the correct names, so, eh, whatever.]
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Hang on… i thought “if you’re not paying for the product then you are the product”?
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A couple years ago, Amazon stopped direct transmission to older Kindles. We’re supposed to download and transfer. Now they stop download and transfer. We’re supposed to use direct.
There are a couple Mobileread threads on this. If you use Firefox, there’s a Tampermonkey script to automate the downloads, and if you use Calibre, there is an unofficial DeDrm plugin to make sure you can read your books.
Even so, a lt of books are only available from Amazon, or either from Amazon or Google, which has worse accessibility problems.
Where possible, I should buy from Smashwords, or occasionally direct from publishers, but that isn’t always possible, especially for research.
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Main Mobileread thread:
Tampermonkey script:
greasemonkey-scripts/download-all-kindle-books.js at main · chrishol/greasemonkey-scripts · GitHub
DeDrm plugin:
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I habitually clicked Not Now even though its an image.
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If you want to really debloat Windows, see
and the follow-up
It uses scripts that run on install and skip/disable all the junk, or gives you a menu to enable just the junk you want. And if you’re a little techy, you can edit those scripts.
Might save a bit of time vs finding all the settings that you’ll want to change and undoing stuff after installing.
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Lewis Black’s tale of customer “service” and tech “support” enshittification (18 min.), and how it relates to folks who wanted government run like a business/current DOGE actions:
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I don’t want to connect my coffee machine to the wifi network.
I don’t want to share the file with OneDrive.
I don’t want to download an app to check my car’s fluid levels.
I don’t want to scan a QR code to view the restaurant menu.
I don’t want to let Google know my location before showing me the search results.
I don’t want to include a Teams link on the calendar invite.
I don’t want to pay 50 different monthly subscription fees for all my software.
I don’t want to upgrade to TurboTax platinum plus audit protection.
I don’t want to install the Webex plugin to join the meeting.
I don’t want to share my car’s braking data with the actuaries at State Farm.
I don’t want to text with your AI chatbot.
I don’t want to download the Instagram app to look at your picture.
I don’t want to type in my email address to view the content on your company’s website.
I don’t want text messages with promo codes.
I don’t want to leave your company a five-star Google review in exchange for the chance to win a $20 Starbucks gift card.
I don’t want to join your exclusive community in the metaverse.
I don’t want AI to help me write my comments on LinkedIn.
I don’t even want to be on LinkedIn in the first place.
I just want to pay for a product one time (and only one time), know that it’s going to work flawlessly, press 0 to speak to an operator if I need help, and otherwise be left alone and treated with some small measure of human dignity, if that’s not too much to ask anymore.
- Robert M. Sterling
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A few items on this list make me clutch the manual of my old car and wonder how much longer I’ll be able to keep it running without caving in to Big Data. Of course, that’s only possible if my insurance company (which offered reduced rates for installing an aftermarket black box 
) doesn’t dump me. Also my state (which started focusing on plates for vehicles over ten years old*) might someday prevent registration or ban it for other reasons.
*Gotta make sure all those stealth toll collection points on the highway get a clear image, right? 
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Tech can be a wonderful thing, but there are limits (or there should be, IMHO.)
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