So FireFox recently updated their address bar, to go from this:

...to this massive thing:

And I don't like it.

Also notice the Facebook link, displayed here even though I don't use Facebook. I haven't logged in in over two years now, and even when I did it was rarely, for work-related dues only. I don't have it in my bookmarks. I haven't been there recently. I do stumble onto FB profiles and groups occasionally, but not often enough that it should be at the top of my browsing history. I wonder if they're getting paid for this...

The update notes say this about the new bar:

But you know what? I'm not using a laptop. I have a wide screen and precision mouse.

The update also hides https:// and www prefixes from URLs in the dropdown, and as a developer I really like to see those.

So, if you for any similar or other purpose also feel a need to disable this unnecessary new monstrosity, you can do so by typing about:config in the address bar, accepting the risk, and searching for browser.urlbar.​update1, toggling this, and optionally other options related to it, to false.

The https thing is separate apparently. You'll need to toggle browser.urlbar.trimURLs to toggle that.

That's it. All like it should be, though I wonder if the earlier version was really this wide after all...

So YT deleted this video, and then they banned all conspiracy theory videos falsely linking coronavirus symptoms to 5G networks (source). Does that mean it's not false after all? What other reason could they possibly have to hide it. If it was easy to debunk, why not open for debate and do so instead?

Judge for yourself though. I haven't fact-checked, but whether this is true or not it's sickening to see how far our freedom of speech has deteriorated, how much the Internet - once a bastion of free thinking - is being supervised, and how much of a big brother society we're living in already, where opposition for the establishment is silenced, and views that don't favor a sanctioned corporate agenda are called misinformation.

Whatever happened to precautionary practices? If people are scared, then why not spend a few years on rigorous testing of potential biological side-effects first? If some people don't want 5G then why still force it on them? Since when did business take precedence over our happiness and content?

5G or no, our freedoms are being evoked at an alarming pace lately.

Seems we need alternative media sources more than ever now, if not for undeniable truth, then at least for the full spectrum of theories and ideas that are out there. There's no progress if not popular nor unpopular opinions and beliefs are challenged, and more importantly no true freedom if we don't at least have a way to have our say, and chime in on what we disagree with. Speak. Have a debate. And settle things like civilized people.

Stay safe, but stay skeptical.

Went in on NG and the server couldn't be found.

First thought: Trump must've shut down the lines between the US and Sweden. These are surreal times after all. I disregarded local connection issues as my own site seemed to work fine, but realized I hadn't reloaded the tab in a while. Opened Google, since that didn't work either...

Turns out it was local after all. So now, was it my computer, or the modem, or cable, or ISP? Restarted the modem. No deal. Tried troubleshooting. No diagnostics service. Tried opening up the Windows list of services to see if I can possibly enable it there, and it's taking a while to load, so instead of just wasting this time I'm writing this instead, which could potentially also be seen as wasting time, but wasting with a word count at least. And it really is taking forever. I went and did a quick push-up/sit-up session in the other room and it's still loading. I'm running some file transfers in parallel so if this isn't all solved by...

Oh hey. It loaded. Was going to say I might as well reboot the computer.

But I think I'll have to reboot anyway because none of the services in the list had the same name as the one that was apparently disabled, so I assume this isn't how you activate it... I can reach it via the open processes window, but it's one of those processes that only activates when you need it, and otherwise automatically turns off, and thus there's currently no way for me to run it.

Conspiratorial ideas as to Microsoft might be making things more difficult for existing Windows 7 users by slowly breaking down the old OS come to mind, but let's not take it there. I still want to use seven for some time to come, and it'd be best for all of us if Microsoft keep going with the support for some time too...

So I had dinner.

Still not working.

Tried a different computer. No dice.

Finally looked up ISP status via phone, and it turns out they have problems with basically everything today. Their status page is crashing, another site showed 16,000 active problem reports the last day, someone suggested changing DNS servers to Google in the comments...

8.8.8.8.

Changed 'em. It worked. I'm back. That's all.

Missed an auction though. Oh well.

I've been following the newsletter on this STOP 5G THING for a while now, and every once in a while these gems pop into my inbox that make me want to throw my phone in a river and never get one again.

Instead I ordered a new one the other day, since the screen just cracked on my current one... one with lower SAR values at least.

Of course this makes little difference. Not for me; nor for others. I'm making other changes, spreading information when I can, but sometimes the endeavors seem hopeless. When people with the power to make a difference are either naive or in denial, and people in power are fierce and fatalistic, or don't believe these problems apply to them.

But I'll leave an excerpt from that letter below, if maybe it inspires you to change something about your life. Or the world. Or both. You can read the full thing here. Alternatively subscribe yourself via the first link.

I have been entrusted with the International Appeal to Stop 5G on Earth and in Space, but I find myself bewildered -- bewildered by the devastation around me; by the destruction of the cathedral of life into which I was born; by the silencing of the songs of the fifty million other species with whom I was raised; by the failure of my fellow human beings to care or to notice. How can they not miss their brothers and sisters? How can they not miss the magnificent symphony? How is it possible?
 
“The oceans are dying,” wrote Jacques Cousteau in 1970. “Can anyone believe it is possible,” wrote Rachel Carson in 1962, “to lay down such a barrage of poisons on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all life?” “I have seen too much,” said microwave researcher Allan Frey in 1969, explaining why he did research on animals and not humans. “I do not feel that I can take people into these fields and expose them and in all honesty indicate to them that they are going into something safe.”
 
Yet here we are half a century later: there will soon be more plastics than fish in the oceans, the world uses four times more pesticides per year than in 1962, and five billion people are holding open sources of microwave radiation in their hands.
 
The Earth is burning, yet no firefighters come. In the face of certain catastrophe, everyone is going about their business as if everything is fine, as if by magic the synthetic fibers in our clothing and the rubber tires on our automobiles will stop becoming microplastics in the sea; as if the few insects left in the world will magically escape the pesticides that we apply to our lawns and the radiation from the cell phones into which we speak. Everyone is still going about their business as if everything is fine. Isn’t it time that we stop? And since the most immediate threat to life comes from our cell phones, isn’t it time to throw them away?

It is, isn't it? If not to throw them away for good then at least to make a change. Make them better. Chop down some towers. Find a healthier form of transmission than microwaves, that don't just make us tired and weak, but have the potential to destroy both humankind and the world as we know it. Really. STOP 5G.

Sometimes it's appreciatively entertaining to sift through this stuff.

The context as to which posts the comments are posted on are the entertaining part.

I'm ashamed I lost track of the comment count whenever I lost it, and these ceremonial comment numeral commemorating posts were lost to the times! They're back now though. They're here. Have no fear. We may be way past 2020 now (just like the numerals of this year), but post amounts won't die down, nor Congratulations be scarce. Go on show these all to your peers! Tell them to come over here! And celebrate with us and stuff, with a choire of coronary cheers!

Cause this is something. If there was a beat it'd be bumpin'.

Happy 999.