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Lilbits: Google acquires company that lets you turn Windows PCs into Chromebooks (and other recent tech news)

A company called Neverware has been offering software called CloudReady that lets you turn old computers into pseudo Chromebooks since 2015. But in order to do that, the company has been using software based on Chromium OS, the open source version of Chrome OS. Now Google has acquired the company and, among other things, that […]

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Ubuntu Web Remix is a Linux distro that puts Firefox front and center (Chrome OS alternative)

Global Chromebook shipments are on the rise as folks around the world are stuck working, studying, and binge watching from home. They tend to be affordable, reasonably responsive, and fairly simple to learn to use. But a key selling point for some is a turnoff for others – Chromebooks put Google’s Chrome browser front and […]

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Firefox picks up HTTPS-only mode and pinch-to-zoom, will lose Adobe Flash support soon

Firefox 83 is now available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Among other things, the latest version of the open source web browser should bring a 15-percent boost in page load performance, and an 8-percent cut in memory usage. There’s also support for an HTTPS-only model that will alert you if you try to visit a […]

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Lilbits: Google’s antitrust woes, new Intel and AMD chips, and MS Edge for Linux (for some reason)

The US Department of Justice has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google, claiming the company abuses its dominance in the search and advertising spaces to… stay on top of the search and advertising spaces. Xda-developers has a pretty good write up of the allegations. The case is likely to play out in years rather than […]

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Lilbits: PinePhone unboxing, Purism launches an MVNO, and more Pixel and Chromecast details

The PinePhone is one of the first smartphones designed specifically for open source software enthusiasts. It’s an affordable phone with a starting price of $150 that ships with a GNU/Linux distribution pre-installed, but which can also boot from a microSD card if you want to try a different operating system (or 13) before deciding whether […]

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Lilbits: Google Nest Audio, Xiaomi Mi 10T, Amazon Fire TV Stick Lite, and more

Google announced two new phones, a new media streamer, and a bunch of new software features today. But the company also finally released an update to the Google Home smart speaker that launched almost four years ago. The new Google Nest Audio is a $100 smart speaker that the company says offers louder sound, deeper […]

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Lilbits: Atari VCS is ready to ship, iPhone 12 is coming soon, and more

I know, I’m surprised too. But it looks like three years after it was first announced, two years after its name was changed, and more than a year after it was first supposed to ship, the Atari VCS is actually a real thing that’s about to ship to backers of a crowdfunding campaign. Designed to […]

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Lilbits: Leak season (Pixel 5, Amazon Fire TV Stick Lite)

Amazon is holding a hardware event on September 24, when the company will most likely introduce new Echo smart speakers, new eero mesh WiFi routers, and a new entry-level Amazon Fire TV Stick. WinFuture obtained some marketing documents for the previously unannounced device, and it looks like the new model adds a live TV button, […]

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Firefox sends Firefox Send and Notes to the graveyard (in response to abuse)

About 18 months after launching Firefox Send as a free service for sending large, encrypted files over the internet, Mozilla has announced it’s shutting down the service. The move comes after Mozilla discovered that some people were using Firefox Send for phishing and distributing malware. The company took Firefox Send offline this summer in response, and […]