Is it ever enforced?

I’ve never heard of driving side ever applying to walking side. What happens in places like France or Sweden where trains run on the left and cars run on the right?

The article could have literally been a beginner’s guide to installing an operating system instead. But for some reason in the last 20 years or so there’s been a complete allergy to teaching anyone even the most elementary computer skills and it’s holding society back. I’m not sure it is worth being spied on by ad agencies for what it’s worth, especially if you’re not going to learn to become any more than a passive consumer.

This is often the pushback I get when making this point but I would argue that especially non tech-savvy users are vulnerable. The alternative is asking a trusted friend to do a clean install, which should be the advice of this article, that or a guide on how to do it. It’s irresponsible to publish an article aimed at a naive user who has received a computer full of bloatware and tell them to “just remove all the bloatware”.

Why would you say that. It’s true that most users take a blase attitude to security these days, and it’s normalised by articles like this. It’s just basic good practice, whether buying a new or used PC, to do a clean install because even if you think you’ve removed the bloatware, you can’t really trust there’s no secret malware. Especially these days when so many companies want to spy on users it really isn’t just paranoia.

Not a fan of AI being used for this but I think that’s pretty fair for a data point, as long as it’s not the only data point.

Never a good idea to use a computer with the preinstalled operating system.

Well they can’t in Germany evidently, at least. But for better or worse trademark laws typically prioritise who got there first in the market, not necessarily who has greater claim to the name.

It’s rebranded in a lot of places due to the trademark dispute (there’s another Budweiser beer from the Czech Republic). Can’t speak specifically for Germany but I don’t think it’s really that popular anywhere in Europe despite a no doubt large advertising budget.

deleted by creator

The point is instances don’t have to federate with them if they’re causing problems for their members but from what I’ve seen I’d say they’re relatively benign, it’s not like they’re fascists.

I just want to add to the discussion that I think it’s perfectly healthy if two instances don’t like each other and/or have different outlooks - it’s the beauty of the fediverse and having decentralisation that they don’t have to agree on everything.

I think even Slop is too benign for what Meta is.