It doesn’t surprise me at all. Deutsche Bahn got so bad in the recent years that Switzerland started turning some German trains around at Basel (border) to protect its own timetable from DB delays.
Thank you for that useful link. I've bookmarked it as I usually go through the similar steps once in a while and I forget each, what needs to be done exactly.
One of my coworkers, a network specialist, compares IP restrictions to a garden fence. They’re enough to stop casual passersby, but anyone determined will find a way over or around it.
I wonder how many will switch to Firefox after this action. But it may be a small number because I assume that not many people use adblockers and most of those who use them already had Firefox, but I may be wrong.
I think, one other side effect of this is the increasing restrictions on VPN usage for accessing big websites, pushing users towards logging in or using (mobile) apps instead. Recent examples include X, Reddit, and more recently, YouTube, which has started blocking VPNs.
I'm also concerned that Free and open APIs might become a thing of the past as more "AI-driven" web scrapers/crawlers begin to overwhelm them.
In my opinion, Telegram is more of a social network than a messenger. There are many useful channels and in many countries, it plays an important role in sharing information. If we look at it from this point of view, e2ee does not seem very important.
We should also not forget that, in the time when all social media (Reddit, X, Instagram etc.) close their APIs, Telegram is one of the only networks that still has a free API.
Moving E-mail is the easiest part on this journey. For me the biggest reason, was the risk of being locked out of my E-mail accounts and reaching no (human) support.
What I found the most difficult was the search engine. Although Google search has become worse, it's still far better than Duckduckgo in my opinion. I've found DDG very inaccurate for non-English queries.
Using technology to improve lives is one thing, but using technology to survive missile attacks is just another level. Sometime I ask myself, will humans ever stop wars once and forever.
It is undoubtedly one of the best media apps out there. What I really like about this project is the attitude of the maintainers towards open software and donations [0].
Kodi is also an alternative that IMO would work better than SMB and VLC, but I personally don't like the Kodi user interface.
The problem is that "maps" in the top bar is also missing. The only way now to search for a map is going to maps.google.com and search there. I find it actually very annoying.
That IT is lagging behind in Germany is something that is known, but it affects more corporations in adopting new innovations. For example, I know many companies couldn't yet make a decision about ChatGPT because of GDPR concerns. As a normal user, I haven't felt much limitations in using new products and technologies in Germany.