Everyone has different threat models, vulnerable people don't need to use such a feature, assuming that it's all local and implemented perfectly.
It should also be opt out by default for Microsoft.
I personally see a lot of use for this if it was running entirely local. I always find myself in a position where there's things which I've browsed or come across but it's difficult retrieving it from my history.
>vulnerable people don't need to use such a feature
Vulnerable people often do not have a choice in the matter. Pre-installed, widely-advertised features are significantly more dangerous because somebody who is controlling isn't necessarily thinking of new ways to monitor, but they'll sure take advantage of any they know about.
It's the same problem as Apple's AirTags: GPS trackers existed long before them (and are harder to detect), but you can get a 4-pack of AirTags at the store and they're super easy to use.
I can see the guys at System76 filling in this gap. They have excellent hardware and their own PopOS is really user friendly for newcomers. Gaming support is also pretty decent paired with Steams Proton.
The problem with onboarding people to use Linux is like trying to convince an iPhone user to use an Android device. Many people are stuck in their respective ecosystem and are used to familiarity, they're not going to switch to linux unless you can get over the burden of switching.
In my anecdotal experience, I installed Linux for a teacher of mine and he had some issues with getting used to it but his kids quickly figured it out and weren't used to Windows or MacOS which made it significantly easier. Putting Linux computers in students hands is honestly the best way to increase adoption and Chromebooks are a perfect example of this.
Has System76's hardware improved in the last few years? I bought a Gazelle 15 during the pandemic, and it has been the worst computer I've ever had. Display issues, overheating, keyboard dies at random, monitor has an increasing number of dead pixels (had several on arrival from manufacturer), had to have an entire motherboard replacement because the power port stopped being able to hold the power cable after just a couple of months and it refused to fully boot without being plugged in (despite having a battery), the battery life is a joke (less than two hours even on low performance mode), the whole case is cheap plastic, the video card will occasionally just not be recognized by the firmware and will only allow me to use the integrated graphics, and so on.
I spent weeks working with System76 support and they tried their best, but the laptop is just a piece of junk, especially for the two grand price point. My next purchase will probably be an ASUS laptop that I'll load either Popos or Linux Mint on.
I have a Lemur and it's the best laptop I've had- great battery life, everything feels snappy and I haven't had a single issue. Bought it during lockdown as well though, so not much of an argument for their hardware improving.
They actually reverse engineered Apple's iMessage and released a POC. At the time it worked and demonstrated on device bridges being a possibility. The runs locally and then encrypts it client side before it reaches beeper services. This can be enabled for Signal under experimental settings already.
As easy as downloading an app from the store and telling it which directory to work with.
If you need the AI features those require separate apps and depending on your deployment it might need some effort. I'm running a docker image and had to ensure I have some of the required libraries for the AI things to work. It isn't too hard to misconfigure though and I believe there's a decent amount of resources for this.
As for mobile app, there isn't an explicit one but the webapp interface is mobile friendly and works pretty well. I also use NC photos and it still works with the tags and face recognition things. That app doesn't require "Memories" as far as I know.
The main thing to me was that since this runs on Nextcloud its more extensible as the photos are just stored under the files and you can use various other apps to do what your heart desires. The other aspect is you get your own Gdrive alternative. You may or may not want this.
For mobile compatibility Nextcloud is better since you can choose which folder photos go to and you can essentially automatically backup albums whereas with Immich you can't automatically specify which album photos from a directory should go [1].
In addition to this, Immich isn't too stable yet and each time you update the server all clients have to be on the latest version, at least since the last time I used Immich.
> This is moot. Immich fully supports external libraries.
You're correct, Immich does support external libraries. To be more elaborate with my original comment, I meant inbuilt apps of Nextcloud which integrate well and complement the memories app. An example app would be the Face recognition one or Recognize if you fancy a different implementation. Nextcloud is after all an ecosystem so using memories gains you the other benefits of such an ecosystem. This might be overkill for some so it's upto your usecases.
Versions breaking is an issue since both mobile and server clients have to be on the same version. Compared to Nextcloud Memories this is not an issue. This was an issue when I've last used Immich so this may have changed since then.
External libraries? What do you mean by that? External storage?
The last time I looked, Immich can’t work with a existing file and folder structure without importing (copy) everything in his own structure (database). That’s a big no go for me.
In Memories, the file structure of your photos is preserved as-is. And you can run it alongside with other solutions that respect your folder structure.
EDIT: looks like Immich can work with external folders. But: Does it put pictures from my phone in that external folder or in its own folder?
Immich on mobile doesn't give you much flexibility with where each local folder gets uploaded to yet so it doesn't preserve folder structure. If you're using the CLI you can program the structure and tell it which album a folder can map to.
You can add any folder to immich as external library. No need to use cli.
So if you want custom structure, synchronize files from mobile to server in any way you prefer (Syncthing, PhotoSync, etc.) and add that folder as an external library.
This is quite a basic feature which should be inbuilt to the Immich mobile app. It's a common use case to want your screenshots, WhatsApp media album to not be displayed on the main timeline.
If you're running an instance for less technical users it's more hiccups to setup syncthing etc and have to explain why another app is needed.
If you're on a Pixel 7 and upwards or the latest Samsung phones there's also circle to search by holding the home button down. The OCR works quite well including English, Russian, Arabic, Japanese and I'm sure it works on other languages too.
If you're on Android 14 you can also copy text through the recents/overview menu simply by highlighting the text. And finally there's Google Photos if you don't have any of these features.
There's also Google lens if you're trying to copy text that isn't on your screen.
Pixel Camera works fine. It doesn't require Google Play, but the functionality dependent on Google Play and AR Services does work fine on GrapheneOS via sandboxed Google Play.
You can install it via the sandboxed Play Store. Trying to install it via Aurora Store won't work properly unless you set the proper device model.
Google Pay doesn't allow NFC payments on an OS that's not certified by Google. It checks via Play Integrity. You can use a Pixel Watch with GrapheneOS to work around this since the Pixel Watch with the stock OS can make NFC payments itself without the OS on the phone needing to be Google certified. This is not a technical issue but rather a regulation issue. Play Integrity is absolutely not a real security feature but rather part of enforcing Google's licensing system which is presented as a way to defend against tampering with apps. In reality, it's very easy to bypass the device integrity mode via spoofing but not in a way that's suitable for a production quality OS which needs to keep working. It serves the purpose of stopping people using Google Pay and a subset of banking apps with a more secure OS but doesn't stop people using it with a much less secure OS where they're using one of the implementations of spoofing the checks. It's unfortunate. We support for Android's more meaningful hardware-based attestation but app developers need to whitelist GrapheneOS. It's covered at https://grapheneos.org/articles/attestation-compatibility-gu... for app developers, but we haven't yet made a big push to get some of them to do this. It's highly unlikely that Google Pay would do it without the EU saying they must.
Some banks have their own contactless payment app, which can be set as default in GrapheneOS (or any Android). Most banking apps work, as long as they use AOSP's hardware attestation feature instead of Google's SafetyNet, which requires the same Google device certification as GPay.
The Google Camera app can be made to work fairly easily. Google Pay's NFC payment will not work in a useful way because the environment signature differs.
While your point is understandable there are various types of people. An important aspect about user experience is aesthetic and ease of use. Some people care purely about functionality and others have mixed opinions on this. It's not fair to call it petty when you guys are just two different customers and users with different needs.
People sometimes forget the importance of user experience and it's why some amazing software barely gets used.
Personally I care about aesthetic and consistency but willing to sacrifice depending on what I'm doing.
