Microsoft Edge's switch to Google's Chromium is bad news for privacy

Well it's official Microsoft announced that it seems it will swap out EdgeHTML for Chromium's Blink engine. 

One of the primary reasons is that "Microsoft Edge will now be delivered and updated for all supported versions of Windows and on a more frequent cadence." 

This supports Microsoft Agile objectives but clearly this methodology has not done so well with Microsoft Updates. Microsoft had to pull October 2018 update after many issues plagued it. It's not about speed, it's about quality.

Seems Mozilla is not too happy either, as it erodes the competition and give another advantage to Google-plex. Also, developers might want to just develop to Chrome browser and stop support IE and Edge altogether now. And the the cards will fall, and Microsoft will stop supporting IE and Edge for internal corporate website, where IE still has authentication advantages and uses.

Another huge issue is privacy, Chromium built-in tracking features unavoidable leak private information to Google-plex. Not sure how Microsoft will shore up their privacy policy or prevent this entirely. 

Let's hope Microsoft does the right thing and prevent communication to Google servers entirely. 

How to Play Youtube in Vlc Player to Get Greater Volume to a Max 300%

How to get VLC add-on to play Youtube Playlists and Videos

Official plugin page.   

INSTALLATION

Get the latest version of the "Youtube" script from here:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/videolan/vlc/master/share/lua/playlist/youtube.lua


Download when the file appears click on the menu file > save as... of your browser
put the file in the vlc /lua/playlist folder, by default:

* Windows (all users): %ProgramFiles%\VideoLAN\VLC\lua\playlist\
* Windows (current user): %APPDATA%\vlc\lua\playlist\
/!\ Some browser (Chrome...) may change the file extension for ".txt" instead of ".lua", so make sure you choose "All extensions" in the dialog box when you save the file on your computer.

/!\ Reboot your VLC Player, maybe more than once.

USAGE

Copy the URL of the youtube video or playlist (must contain "list=PL...")

Start VLC, press Ctrl+N, paste the url then click on "Play" (or Alt+P then Enter), the video /playlist should start

Troubleshooting:

Follow this steps if and only if you have already install the script and it doesn't work..
for the actual script see the "download" button (playlist_youtube.lua) below.

If the videos list appears in the Vlc "playlist" view but the videos won't start, follow this steps:

1) delete the file "youtube.luac" in [vlc directory]/lua/playlist directory (ex: c:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\lua\playlist\youtube.luac)

2) get the latest version of thr "youtube" script from here:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/videolan/vlc/master/share/lua/playlist/youtube.lua
3) place the file in the directory [vlc directory]/lua/playlist (where "youtube.luac" was)

UPDATE March 7, 2019 

1. https://gist.github.com/seraku24/db42e0e418b2252f2136d2d7f1656be5Download  to 149909-playlist_youtube-vlc3patch.lua and
   copy to c:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\lua\playlist\
2. Remove old 149909-playlist_youtube.lua, or rename to 149909-playlist_youtube.xxxxlua
3. Mixes (auto generated by Google do not work now this must be a playlist)

GETTING THE RIGHT PLAYLIST LINK 

TIP! If you cannot find the playlist link

Right-click on page and View Page Source and search for the following

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL 

Copy and past resultant URL  into VLC (using Ctrl-N). 

INCREASING MAX VOLUME in VLC Player to 300%

For laptops and headphone users, increase poor audio sources to higher volumes was a savior!

Getting Slammed With Apple Phishing Emails and Apple Denies Reporting of Phishing Emails

In slight twist of fate, I am try to do the right thing by reporting Apple phishing emails to the right place at abuse@apple.com, as recommended by Apple, but I can no longer do so.

I guess recently, and as part of this blog I have submitted to many. I have been able to submit about 1 per month over course of last few years, but recently I phishing attack has reached my inbox almost daily of course of last 3 months. Then suddenly, I got cut off, see notice below. 

I guess this is one way Apple can trim it's responsibility and reported phishing claims, just don't let people report them! Rather discouraging!