Month: March 2022

Daily Deals (3-14-2022)

EBay is running a 20% off sale on items from select brands. You’ll need to add at least $25 worth of stuff to your cart and savings top out at $500. But for the most part, if you’re looking to pick up something from Anker, Dyson, DeWalt, Tag Heuer, Adidas, Hanes, New Balance or Reebok, […]

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EBay is running a 20% off sale on items from select brands. You’ll need to add at least $25 worth of stuff to your cart and savings top out at $500. But for the most part, if you’re looking to pick up something from Anker, Dyson, DeWalt, Tag Heuer, Adidas, Hanes, New Balance or Reebok, there are probably worse days to do it.

Save 20% on Anker products with coupon: BIGBRANDS20

Meanwhile today is March 14th, also known by some folks at as Pi Day (because in the United States that’s represented as 3/14), and Microsoft is celebrating the mathematical not-really-a-holiday with discounts on select PCs and accessories.

Here are some of the day’s best deals.

Store sales

Laptops & tablets

Keyboards & mice

Wireless audio

Storage

Media Streamers

Bluetooth trackers

Other

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Google shuts down YouTube Vanced, a popular ad-blocking Android app

YouTube Vanced was a mod of the official YouTube Android app, and now it’s dead.

Google shuts down YouTube Vanced, a popular ad-blocking Android app

Enlarge (credit: Vanced)

YouTube Vanced, a popular mod of the official YouTube Android app, is dead. The project announced its discontinuation over the weekend. The project leaders are being weirdly coy about why the app is shutting down, but The Verge confirmed that a cease-and-desist letter from Google is the reason.

YouTube Vanced, which was created in 2017, is a mod of Google's Android YouTube app. The developers decompiled Google's official YouTube app, added additional features, and distributed the resulting code. The primary appeal of Vanced was the ad-blocking feature (the name is YouTube "AdVanced," but without the "ad"—get it?) and background playback. Along with the copyright infringement of redistributing Google's proprietary code and infringement of the YouTube trademark, you could consider Vanced a form of piracy since it was essentially a cracked version of the YouTube app that enabled most of the $12-per-month YouTube Premium features for free.

Vanced didn't just block ads, though; it also added a bunch of community-requested features like a darker dark theme, SponsorBlock integration, and video quality preferences. In addition, Vanced re-enabled YouTube's removed "Dislike" button and got rid of the YouTube Shorts UI. Team Vanced also released "YouTube Music Vanced," which made similar changes to the YouTube Music app. Vanced was, of course, not allowed in the Play Store, so an open source "Vanced Manager" app could check for updates, install both Vanced apps, and install a modded version of MicroG so you could log in with your Google account.

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Turn Amazon’s First TV Stick into an unofficial Android TV device with LineageOS 18.1

Amazon’s Fire TV devices run a custom version of Google’s Android software called Fire OS that feature Amazon’s app store, Amazon Prime Video, and other Amazon apps and services instead of Google’s. But hackers have found a way to replace Fire OS on Amazon’s 2020 Fire TV Stick and Fire TV Stick Lite with an […]

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Amazon’s Fire TV devices run a custom version of Google’s Android software called Fire OS that feature Amazon’s app store, Amazon Prime Video, and other Amazon apps and services instead of Google’s.

But hackers have found a way to replace Fire OS on Amazon’s 2020 Fire TV Stick and Fire TV Stick Lite with an unofficial build of Android TV… effectively transforming an Amazon media streamer into a Google one.

Before you get too excited, there are a few things to keep in mind. The first, and most important, is that in order to unlock the bootloader and change the operating system, you’ll need a Fire TV Stick running an older version of Fire OS. If your device has already received an over-the-air update to Fire OS 7.2.7.3, then you’re out of luck at it patches the vulnerability that allows you to unlock your device.

If your device is running an older version of Fire OS and you want to install Android 11, you may want to disable the internet connection until you’re ready to upgrade. Of course, that will make the Fire TV Stick a lot less useful in the short term.

The next thing to keep in mind is that the method used to unlock the bootloader and install a custom ROM is only compatible with the 3rd-gen Fire TV Stick and 1st-gen Fire TV Stick Lite, both released in 2020. While these 1080p media streamers are a few years old at this point, they’re still current-gen devices that are still available from Amazon. I just wouldn’t necessarily buy a new one expecting to turn it into an Android TV device, as there’s a good chance that a brand new model will run the latest firmware and therefore won’t be compatible with the latest methods for unlocking the bootloader and installing custom firmware.

Anyway, if you do have a compatible Fire TV Stick running a compatible version of Fire OS, you can find instructions and download links at the xda-developers forum:

That the first link will require a bit of Linux know-how, since you’ll need to run some command line utilities using a Linux distribution. The second link provides an unofficial build of the open source, Android-based LineageOS operating system that can run on Amazon’s 2020 Fire TV Stick devices. You can use the TWRP recovery installed in the first step to flash LineageOS to your device, overwriting Amazon’s operating system with a new Android-based one.

Keep in mind that if you want access to Google apps and services including the Google Play Store, you’ll need to install that separately, but you should be able to do that. Another thing to keep in mind is that this build of LineageOS leaves SELinux in Permissive mode, which may be a bit of a security risk, so proceed with caution.

via xda-developers

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Pornografie: Keine Pornografie ist auch keine Lösung

Jugendschützer wollten xHamster blockieren und scheiterten. Aber Netzsperren lösen kein einziges der Probleme mit Pornos im Internet. Eine Analyse von Daniel Ziegener (Jugendschutz, Steam)

Jugendschützer wollten xHamster blockieren und scheiterten. Aber Netzsperren lösen kein einziges der Probleme mit Pornos im Internet. Eine Analyse von Daniel Ziegener (Jugendschutz, Steam)