I set up windows 11 on a laptop for my dad so he can read emails and browse the web. Came back 3 months later when he told me he couldn't see the PDF files anymore. Turns out he installed THREE different PDF viewers that he randomly found on google, they installed tons of bloatware/spyware, replaced browser toolbars and searches etc. to a point where I decided to just restore from a recovery point. Told him not to download weird stuff (again) and ask me when he needs help.
At that point I questioned myself: I really should have installed linux for him.
This is still a thing? Browsers still have toolbars???
My go to for family is giving them no install rights, and adding a remote desktop app for me to connect to them when they need something to install.
I don't get called very often anymore, and when I do, it's for their work computer or something, to which I say, talk to your IT department, I can't fix that.
Browsers today view and can do limited editing for PDFs. No need for a dedicated reader. One does need a dedicated authoring tool if you need to create PDFs from scratch. Most OSes support print to PDF as well if you only need conversion.
Most of the time it's not about the money VCs send into it but the credibility that this brings. It looks a lot more mature when your idea is backed by a distribution of wealthy people.
I'm mostly the devops guy (kubernetes, CI/CD etc) but I also love typescript (backends + react/nextjs). Available March/April 2026 fulltime, 100% remote.
I have opted out of all cloud services in my windows installation; I use a passphrase, too (it is even before booting the computer). I feel like this is pretty safe
except MS could easily turn something on without you knowing and be uploading your files to their cloud. Yes, I believe they would stoop that low and even lower.
"Code provides features that may automatically execute files in this folder. If you don't trust the authors of these files, we recommend to continue in
restricted mode as the files may be malicious."
If you proceed with "Trust Project" you're at your own fault.
You know what would be better? Telling me explicitly what file/script will run and asking permission for that. A blanket message every time is no better than the cookie popups and doesn’t tell me if the project has 0 files that will run.
The "trust project" feature has been designed to be so extremely intrusive and annoying that the first thing I do is to completely disable it whenever I install VS Code on a new computer. This "solution" was just done to tick some box and put the blame on the user when a security incident happens. It's pretty similar to Windows Vista where it annoyed you with a disruptive popup so many times during the normal course of actions that most people ended up disabling the whole UAC system. Overall security goes down, and Microsoft has a nice excuse.
> It's pretty similar to Windows Vista where it annoyed you with a disruptive popup so many times during the normal course of actions that most people ended up disabling the whole UAC system.
Nothing changed post-Vista. It's exactly the same system in Windows 11 doing exactly the same thing. It did, however, get developers to change how they do things.
To be honest, the solution here is probably more dialogs like this, not less. Having one single "Trust everything here but if you don't then nothing will work" box is hardly a good way to go.
Vista's annoyance had a purpose, to get program developers to change things to run without escalation. They didn't want you disabling UAC, and these days it breaks things to disable UAC.
By only having an upfront project-wide toggle, VS Code is much worse.
Yeah imagine if at boot Windows Vista gives you the UAC "Do you TRUST all the software you are going to run today?" and if you say yes then it just allows any random code to do whatever it wants.
I read tons of comments like "It's not [this], it's [that] instead!" which is also wrong.
The performance bottleneck is whatever resource hits saturation first under the workload you actually run: CPU, memory bandwidth, cache/allocations, disk I/O, network, locks/coordination, or downstream latency.
Measure it, prove it with a profile/trace, change one thing, measure again.
From the FAQ in the "about" section of the website:
- You can try to find Wally (Waldo), as in the well-known game Where's Wally. He is partially visible, but if you click on him, he will appear in full and wave at you.
- Quest #1 - Mafia Treasures. To start the quest, go to the room where the Mafia is holding the annual meeting and click on the suitcase.
- Quest #2 - Subspace Tuner: To start this quest, click on the large advertising screen that says 'Bad Signal' next to the pirate ship.
- Payphone - you can call different subscribers on the 796th floor. Subscriber numbers are constantly being added and can be found in various places on the floor.
- In the Police Station click on the big screen to see the project statistics: current online, visits by country, number on interactions with all elements on the floor, etc.
- One of the arcade machines has a real game - Racer796.
- In the park zone there is Change My Mind guy. Click on him to add your own phrase to the rotation.
- You can compose a 10-second melody and add it to rotation by clicking on the guy in the hospital with the pink synthesizer.
- You can draw small pixel animation and add it to rotation by clicking on the Fun Drawing Screen near the Police Station.
- Click on the Chunk Norris in the park zone.
- Click on the JAWS 19 ad screen in the block with Back to the Future references.
- Click on Naruto near the pirate ship.
- There is Free Ads Board next to the pirate ship. You can draw your own advertising screen and specify which URL it links to.
- There are also many small interactive elements on the floor, clicking on which will show an additional picture, play a sound or cause some action to occur.
At that point I questioned myself: I really should have installed linux for him.
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