The News

Still haven’t done your Christmas shopping? The Sizzle gotchu

It’s here! We’ve tapped into the wisdom of the Sizzler community and come up with something great to help you with those last-minute gifts — you’ve pretty much already finished your Christmas shopping, right? Thanks to everyone who contributed!

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Mozilla thinks its future is with AI, which is not exactly what a lot of its users want to hear

Mozilla is betting its future on putting more AI in its browser — but in a safe, ethical way, it claims. In a Verge interview, Firefox lead-turned-CEO Anthony Enzor-DeMeo says that Mozilla is pushing ahead with an AI mode in Firefox starting next week. The point of differentiation between Mozilla and every other large tech company selling AI is, DeMeo reckons, that they won’t be pushing any one AI product and they will be leaning into “trust”. On top of hosting its own LLM — presumably at a cost — Mozilla will also launch its own VPN service next year as it scrambles to find a way to make money from anywhere other than Google. Wouldn’t say it’s a particularly convincing pitch so far.

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Turns out the freedom of the MAGA messaging app comes at a price…

Do you PATRIOTS want to be able to chat FREELY without worrying about the WOKE LEFT surveilling you?

Well, I have some bad news: Freedom Chat — a new MAGA-friendly messaging app that phoenix-ed from a previous “privacy friendly” app that was revealed to have terrible security (crnkovic) — may not be as free from privacy concerns as they claim. Researcher Eric Daigle found that it was extremely easy to reveal every member’s phone number (via enumeration) and their security pin that is supposed to protect users in case their number leaks. Oopsie!

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Leftovers

Australia:

Rest of the world:

Discuss these links in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Oh, Also

A nice story about the kindness of internet strangers

A Redditor from Yemen called u/maho90 who runs an internet and gaming cafe with pretty shitty gear was gifted a GTX 1080 by another Redditor.

They say they set up the cafe a few years ago to help keep kids off the street, and now use it to run STEM classes which is very sweet. Reminds me of a more innocent time on the internet! (Please don’t be fake).

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Bargains

Electrical & Electronics

Computing

Mobile

The End

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The Sizzle is created on Gadigal land and acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay my respect to them and their cultures and to elders both past and present.