For me, this has been the case for years, at least on Windows and Linux. It happens mostly on Maps, but also on Docs/Sheets, and to a lesser extent on GMail.
I use Firefox, but I have never had the same experience with it as those who claim it's just as fast as Chrome.
Yeah, having the option is not a bad thing. Nothing changes for those who use the apps or want them there, but it lets people remove them if that's what they want.
Thank you for sharing this story. I've recently watched this video on MLMs and it describes exactly the kind of situations your mom found herself in. I thought these MLM schemes were bad before, but I had no idea just how horrible they actually are...
Do you find DDG to be slower than Bing or Google? A few years ago I thought there was a noticeable delay with DDG, but not with Google.
Just keep in mind that sd cards can also stop working. I would encourage you to keep at least two separate copies, ideally one on a different medium than an SD card, and check regularly that you can still access the codes. A backup is only as useful as it is easy to restore.
The author does a pretty good job of explaining the potential problems this technology could cause. Scroll down to Why Attestation Is Bad.
We're gonna need a bigger drive...
Here is a thread with 4th July deals. On that forum you can often find deals for cheap, low-spec VPS.
live plex transcoding
If you need this, the most cost-efficient way is probably to get an Intel CPU with an integrated GPU that supports QuickSync (all recent ones do) and pay for the lifetime Plex Pass. In the long run, it's cheaper than getting a beefier CPU, let alone a dedicated GPU, just for transcoding.
I’ve heard that Bing is a good alternate
Google is just a ranked ad delivery service based on an abused and gamed SEO system, it’s fucking awful for delivering useful links.
For what it's worth, Bing is similarly full of ads, but with a more cluttered page design and a lot of video previews. Often times I find its suggestions for related searches get in the way of actually reading the search results for the current search...
Cloudflare works really well and has a good UI. Namecheap also works well, but it takes more clicks to adjust DNS records.