You’re right, I can confirm the feature does indeed work on Firefox by changing the useragent string. However, this introduces other issues such as input devices not being detected which makes normal use of Meet difficult. For now, there seems to be nothing else to do other than waiting for Google to enable this on Firefox.
Awesome, I’ll have a look again. Last time I tried changing the useragent (it was a while ago), the whole Google Meet website had some issues and it didn’t work. Maybe the specific useragent you use also has an impact.
Are you using a useragent changer?
I am still getting this:
This extension blurs the entire camera feed instead of only the background, so it’s not really a solution unfortunately.
I’ve also tried a simple useragent change in Firefox, but the feature still didn’t work. That leads me to think they’re using browser features that are not available on Firefox.
Another thing I’ve noticed is that Google’s background blur implementation has better edge detection than apps like Zoom, and it handles things like curly hairstyles more gracefully.
My university forced us to switch from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365 and from BigBlueButton to Teams for online classes probably because Microsoft offered them an irresistible deal. It was a really annoying and user-hostile process for everyone.
I can’t believe they named their browser “Comodo Dragon” lol
Microsoft has been on a shameless crusade recently to make people adopt Edge. Upon launch, thier Bing AI had a rather absurd requirement to use Edge to access it.
Google Meet’s background blur and visual filters do not work on Firefox. MS Teams straight up says that Firefox is not a supported browser. These decisions might be intentional on the part of Google and Microsoft, but to the average user of these popular products, it looks like a Firefox problem.
It’s a good UX improvement imo. Previously it just didn’t show unavailable apps, leading people to install fake clones.
This is a great YSK and a great website. Ever since learning about the granny knot, I’ve noticed that many people around me do it unknowingly.
First it’s the number of sign ups, then it’s the posts and likes, then it’s the number of eyeballs grabbed and the ad revenue. This kind of metric chasing that these platforms encourage is one of the reasons why they become so toxic.
From what I understand, those shadow profiles are based on information that Meta gets about you from other users, or through things like cookies and tracking pixels.
Suppose that Meta builds a shadow profile for each fedi user, then how would they link it back to you? They cannot get your IP address from just being federated with your home server, and they cannot inject a tracking pixel to your server’s website. Is there another way that they could use your fedi activity to serve you targeted ads?
I’m interested in seeing how the enshittification of Threads will unfold. It’s all super neat and cozy right now with a clean UI, no ads, not many sign up nags, and such. When they build up their userbase, we’ll see how the platform devolves.
I don’t fully understand—would Meta be able to serve you targeted ads based on your non-Threads fediverse activities? Where would these ads appear? How do they know it’s you just from your fediverse accounts?
Strange, I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s just a bug? If you open the reviews section on the Play Store page for the game, and check the “Show reviews for: This device model” checkbox, do you see any reviews from other Pixel 5 users there?
Shadowmatic is a great little puzzle game. It’s paid but the graphics and attention to detail are incredible.
I turned off my activity history, and I’ve noticed a needlessly degraded experience on some Google apps, like in Maps where it no longer labels your home location as “Home”, but it’s a saved location anyway.
Indeed. I opened the Signal app after a really long time last week and found that they had added a useless Stories feature like WhatsApp. I uninstalled the app since I never used it anyways.
Edit: Looks like Signal stories can be turned off unlike WhatsApp stories. That’s a win I guess.
+1 for F-Droid. I always prefer open-source alternatives from there over ad-infested bloatware which the Play Store has a lot of.
Same, I am yet to find a website notification that is actually useful to me.