Here in Europe, GOG support pretty much all the local payment systems (they’ll make available as selection the ones for your country on checkout) most of which are pretty straightforward to use nowadays an even come integrated with the banking phone apps.

Personally I switched from Paypal to one of those on my GOG purchases due to the whole censorship debacle.

PS: Steam is the same, by the way.

The position “I don’t care about factions, group, tribes or whatever other fucked up up of reducing humans to labels, what I care about is innocent people being made to suffer” is surprisingly badly taken at times even around here.

I’ve had my posts swamped by downvotes at least once by saying “I not pro-Palestine, I’m pro-People” as if I have to favor factions rather than, you know, being against the victimization of people who did nothing to deserve it quite independently of whatever label they’re tagged with.

Even people whose heart is in the right place nowadays seem to come at it from a “chose a faction” angle rather than from a Principled Humanist one.

It’s way easier to manipulate people who support factions (just look at how the Zionists weaponized the support for the Jewish People) than it is to manipulate people who see things based on principles like “people who do no harm to others shouldn’t be harmed” as the latter will judge actions based on their merits alone, not on the labels of the people involved.

I lived in the UK for over a decade and read The Guardian for most of it, as well as for a few years after leaving.

For starters, they see themselves as Opinion Makers, not Journalists.

Then almost all of their journalists and columnists are scions of the British upper middle class people who frequented expensive private schools as kids (which, curiously, in the UK are called “public schools”) something which only about 11% of children in Britain do. This gets reflected in the takes they have, some of which are ridiculous - like the regular columnist Identity Warrior Feminist who wrote an article about the evils of “men who use sex dolls” (I! Kid! You! Not!) with not even the least bit of awareness that it was the same kind of thing and in the same style as decades ago was written against the “perversion” of homosexuality - a fashionable rich girl “Identity Politics” take rather than the “people should be free to do what they want with with their bodies” principled take, hence we get moralist articles in the same style as used to be done against homosexuals but since they’re against targets which are not part of the “groups it looks bad to criticize nowadays” they get written and published there as if they’re Progressive when in fact being Regressive.

The Guardian are mainly the voice of the British Upper Middle Class, so strongly Neoliberal and not at all concerned with things like Equality or Social Mobility unless it’s for the upper middle class (for example, they do care about the “glass ceiling” stopping upper middle class women with a priviledged “public school” education from becoming extremelly well paid CEOs, but they don’t care about the rest of society not having a chance in hell of getting anywhere near that).

It’s thus not suprising that they spent more than a year spreading pro-Israel messaging during the Gaza Genocide, which means things like quoting what the IDF said as fact, and still today use differently charged language depending on the side (for example Palestinians “die”, Israelis “are killed”).

They also gleefully participated in the slander campaign against the last leader of the Labour party some years ago to get him out - to be replaced by the guy that’s currently getting old ladies arrested as “terrorists” for demonstrating against the Genocide - which was done in cooperation with Israel-aligned Jewish groups in Britain and involved accusing him and the party under his leadership of anti-semitism, which was so extreme that at one point a Jewish Holocausts Survivor was deemed an anti-semite to try and get to that Labour Party leader by association (they sat together in a panel in a conference for Palestine).

Even further back, I remember how they strongly supported British participation in Bush’s (Junior) invasion of Iraq “because WMDs”.

Oh, and they also do the same shit as in America (but not done in most of Europe) of explicitly chosing and supporting a political side in elections.

They’re basically a Neoliberal propaganda outlet, out to convince people to side with certain ideologies and certain political and economic interests, only “good” if in comparation to the rest of the British Press because the Press environment over there is trully horrible (the least trusted in Europe, according to a poll some years ago).

Then of course, like almost all of the British press they have this heavy nationalistic Great Britain is Great and Wise, Foreigners Are Not - basically, Brits always know better than anybody else, foreigners are inept an incompetent and everybody looks up to Brits or should - take on pretty much everything international.

In summary, they’re not there to inform, they’re there to convince, don’t actually have Journalistic Integrity and pretty much always take sides, especially when it comes to British internal politics.

That said, IMHO they have exactly two columnists who are honest and left of center: George Monbiot and Owen Jones, plus Ben Jenning’s cartoons don’t pull any punches.

Also their coverage of the US is in general sorta independent (still slanted on the neoliberal side) mainly because except for the one or two columnists who do live in the US, they’re basically outsiders looking in and don’t really have a stake on certain outcomes or supporting certain factions there so are far less likely to pussyfoot around criticizing one political side or the other.

You should have pretty much everything on your router disabled for access from machines on the external network side of the router.

The typical example is the web admin interface, which should never be enabled for access from outside, only for access from machines on your internal network. The same applies to all other sorts of control interface, be they human interfaces or machine interfaces.

For any machines reaching it from the outside network interface the router should look the same as the most basic, dumbest router there is with no way to configure or control it.

So, yeah, enabling uPnP for external use is asking to be hacked, probably worse even that enabling the web admin interface for external access since the latter usually has username:password authentication, which although pretty crap (most people don’t even know its there and leave it at default and when not it often has character limitations that make it guessable or possible to brute force) it’s still way better than NO AUTHENTICATION WHATSOEVER which is what uPnP has.

In a VPN your own machine sits behind a Router from the VPN provider in a NAT configuration (meaning that during VPN tunnel initialization that router gives your machine an IP address from one of the so-called “internal” IP address range - most commonly one in the 192.168.x.x range - which are NOT valid to have visible in the Internet) and which multiple machines all over the world sitting behind other routers can use at the same time (for example: even though it only has 254 valid addresses, there are probably millions of machines running right now with an IP address in the 192.168.1.x range, which is by far the most popular range of internal IP addresses).

The IP address which is visible on the actual Internet has to be one which is not from an internal range or other kinds of special ones, and that’s the one that the VPN provider Router shows to the outside. (There are a few “tell me my IP address” websites out there which will let you know what that address is).

This is also how home routers work in providing multiple machines in your home access to the internet even though its on a single ISP connection which has only one IP address valid for the Internet.

To make all this work, such routers do something called NAT-Translation: connection requests from the INSIDE to the OUTSIDE go to the router, which changes ip:port information of those requests from the internal ip and a port in that machine to be the router external ip and a port the router has available, and then forwards the request the outside. The router also records this association between the external machine, the port the router used for it and the internal machine and the port on it the connection came from, on an internal table so that when the OUTSIDE machine connects to the router on that specific port, the router treats that inbound connection request as associated to the earlier outbound request and does the reverse translation - it forwards that inbound request to the internal machine and port of the original outbound connection.

However - all this only works when your machine first connects from the inside to an machine on the outside, because that’s when the router translates the IP address and Port and memorizes that association. If however you gave the IP address in some other way to that remote machine other than connecting to it via the router (for example, you have registered a Domain Name pointing to it, or you just gave the IP address and port number to a friend and told them “this is my Jellyfin machine”), any connection coming from the outside will not be routed by the router to your machine, because the router never had an original outbound connection to make the association for any return inbound connections: from its point of view some random machine is trying to connect to one if its ports and it simply doesn’t know which internal machine and on which port on it is supposed to get this connection from that unknown external machine.

Also all this is dynamic - after a while of one such association not being used, the router will remove it from memory.

Port Forwarding is a static way to explicitly configure in a router that all connections arriving at a specific port of the router are ALWAYS to be forwarded to a specific internal machine and a specific port on that machine.

Given that the association is static, you can give the outside world in any way you like without involving the router (for example, listing in some kind of shared list, which is what the Torrent protocol does), the IP of the router + the forwarded router port, as the address for a “service” that’s running on your internal machine, and any request coming from the outside on that port even if your machine never connected to that remote machine, ever gets forwarded to the internal machine and the port you configured there.

With port forwarding you can for example host your own website behind a VPN or in a home machine that’s not directly connected to the internet because any requests coming into a specific port on the router that does have a direct connection to the internet always get forward to that machine and the port on it you configured.

In the old days Port Forwarding had to be manually configured on the Router (for example, via a web-interface), but nowadays there is a protocol called uPNP that lets programs running on your machine automatically request that the router sets up a Port Forwarding for them so this is often done transparently, which how most networked applications sitting on a machine at home behind a home routers, work just fine since those routers always support port forwarding.

PS: All this shit is actually one enormous hack, that only exists because IPv4 doesn’t have sufficient IP addresses for all Internet connected machines in the World. The newer IPv6 does have more than enough, so it’s theoretically possible that all your machines get a valid Internet IPv6 address and are thus directly reachable without any NAT on the router and associated problems. However I’m not sure if VPN provides which do support IPv6 actually have things set-up to just give client machines a direct, valid on the Internet IP address, plus a lot of protocols and applications out there still only work with IPv4 (byte . byte . byte . byte) addresses.

Coitus interruptus

One of the few latin expression I memorized, because that’s how the Catholic Church calls it since that’s their recommended “contraception” method, all of which I find hilarious.

Unfortunately my VPN provider doesn’t support Port Forwarding (they’re great in everything else, but suck on this) so if I just start seeding from scratch no peers will ever manage to connect to my machine. The only way I can contribute back to the community is when a Download session ends and starts seeding (basically all those peers that my machine checked during the download stage get recorded in the VPN’s Router NAT as associated with my machine so if they try to connect to my machine later, for example to download a block, they get through), so my torrents are just left to seed after downloading (if I stop it and start seeding later, it might not work anymore depending on how long has passed).

Fortunatelly I have a fast internet connection and torrenting is done in a server machine, so I just leave it setup to a 2:1 seeding ratio for as long as it takes to get there and pretty much all torrents I download reach that seeding ratio (it pretty much only fails to reach that on really obscure torrents with very small swarms).

I’ve been sailing the high seas for over 3 decades and long ago saw the importance of doing my bit to keep the whole ecosystem alive.

So I might not be seeding everything I have (and as it’s been 3 decades, I do have some stuff which is now very obscure), but everything I get from the community I seed 2x as much so that others can get it too.

Of course Russia and China are trying to interfere like crazy - they too want to get their desired outcomes and their governments are as sociopathic as the rest.

Yet, judging by the outcomes they’re getting, they’re minions at this next to insiders and even “allied” foreign powers like Israel.

Knowing that, ask yourself the question “why so much focus on messages that it’s China and Russia damaging America when those countries aren’t getting much from America compared to the likes of Israel or even more compare to very wealthy insiders?”

As I see it, it serves the dominating Propaganda forces to get the riff-raff distracted with the “usual suspects” (which have a long history as antagonists of America) and it’s a very easy thing to do because it dovetails with the usual nationalistic tribalism (“Americans” v “foreignes”) and America is insanelly big on Nationalism compared to all other countries but the overty Authoritarian ones.

So the Fascists in America are fed the “immigrants want your jobs” variant of “foreigners bad”, whilst Liberals get fed the “foreign powers are making our country worse” version - it keeps both groups looking away from those actually pillaging their country and undermining whatever little Democracy the country still has.

You’re find plenty on very wealthy and well connected insiders who gain from having the plebes - both those aligned with the Fascist Party and those aligned with the Neoliberal Party - focused on the “evil foreigners” rather than looking for blame in their own house.

There are several people in America with Means, Motive and Opportunity to push “foreigners are fucking up our country” narratives, both a Fascist-appealing version and a Liberal-appealing one.

And yet the Republic Of Ireland isn’t at all aligned with Britain in this.

Not that I disagree with you, more that I think that there’s more than just that.

I lived in a couple of places in Europe, Southern, Northern and also over a decade in Britain.

IMHO, Britain has is very own cultural twists that make a certain kind of posh authoritarianism much more likely there: an incredibly entrenched dynastic elite (Britain has, I believe, the lowest social mobility in Europe) with a ton of structures to make sure it will always be so (the “public” schools -> Oxbridge -> daddy’s friend’s company “internship” path that makes sure the scions of the elites remain in that class, the Judiciary being almost entirelly in the hands of “public” school graduates even though they’re only 11% of population which gets reflected in quite different legal outcomes depending on one’s class, the The “Honors” System, the Lords with its inherited positions, and more).

This elite has its own sub-culture (even including its own accent) which amongst other things is big on fakeness and very anti-empathy (I’ve personally known a handful of people from that section of society) and meanwhile the other end of society is also quirky as fuck, in a different way (amongst other things more violent and prejudiced than in other countries I lived in, hence things like the Hooliganism phenomenon).

Then there are weird cultural postures than transverse society such as how people’s approach to their position in the social ladder is to focus on keeping those below them where the are, rather than try and climb it themselves, plus there is a general tendency to worry too much (IMHO) about keeping up appearences (to “look right” rather than “be good”) though it’s worse the higher up the social ladder one is (working class are the most genuine, middle class tend to be pretty fake, upper class live their entire lives behind a façade - hence the whole “posh” thing).

Mind you, in my experience this mostly applies to the English and those from other nations are less like that, especially the Scotts.

(I fully support the idea of an Independent Scotland in the EU)

Anyways, my point is that Britain has it’s own set of wierd quirks, which mixed with the shit imported from the US (IMHO, Brits seem to in the last couple of decades somehow have combined the worst of both cultures rather than the best) yields this “Rocketship to Posh Fascism” effect.

LOL!

Keep up batting for the ultra-rich!

This is the Liberal’s version of “blame the foreigners” similar to how the Fascists blame immigrants.

It couldn’t possible the fault of insiders, many incredibly wealthy including some who actually own most of the fucking Press, plus yet others in positions of power and influence.

Of course not, those are “our” people. The country couldn’t possible be fucked up because of “our” people. The only explanation is those filthy foreigners.

It’s the exact same tribalist bollocks being deploye to protect the real monsters which are very much inside the walls, it’s just that one group of right wingers blame immigrants and the other blames foreign states - one arse, two cheeks, same shit.

Even more funny when this bollocks is used for America as done here is that thr one single country which American politicians support unwaveringly even when it’s against the very interests of America - Israel - ain’t one of the “filthy foreigners intervening in our nation”. I would looove to hear an explanation of how Russia or even China influence America more than Israel.

Whatever those nations are trying to do to manipulate America and Americans, it’s nothing compared with what some specific Americans are doing to the rest, especially the ones which own parts of the Press - China and Russia have very little influence in the country compared with those extremely wealthy people towards whom the Liberals point no fingers.

I am really, really happy that Britain left the EU.

Sorry to any sane Brits, but the “ever more nuttier” European country not having any voting power in the EU, much less a veto, is a great thing.

Mind you, lots of countries over here might end up like that, but Britain seems to be a decade ahead of the rest in that specific kind of shit show and it and the US might very well serve as a warning for the locals on this side of the Channel not to go down that route (just like the example of Brexit itself crushed any ideas about Leave Referendums in the rest of the EU).

Zero surprise.

This is the guy who is having old ladies arrested as terrorists for demonstrating against a mass murdering of children which he himself actively supports.

People who are so strongly in favor of child mass murder aren’t going to care about children getting raped.

Starmer seems to actually be beating Boris Johnson is the “how low will you go”-scale, which is incredible given that Boris is extraordinarily amoral and a complete total hypocrite wanker.

Translation: “We vote for you to stop resisting and Israel letting you have a land piece of land with a size and location of their choosing which we will call ‘Palestine’ and also decide when you’ll get it, and by the way we’re doing nothing at all to force them to even do that so after you stop resisting you have no guarantees they won’t just exterminate you all”

Small country, big hearth?!

It’s only ever the European far-right, it’s not even all of them and most of the ones which are influenced by America are pretty selective about what they take in because most of that shit in Europe is seen as seriously retarded shit even amongst the far-right here (for example, religiousity doesn’t land well nowadays unless you’re talking about really backwards places like Hungary, outside maybe the UK, nobody gives a shit about the ideas of the transphobes and there is zero support for the kind of gun ownership laws the US has).

Sure, some shit does leak, but the fully packaged message from people like Charlie Kirk would just not work anywhere around here.

My bet it that it was a handful of total unknowns amongst the European Far-Right who maybe get money from American sources (some European Far-Right parties were created with the money Bannon brought some years ago very openly to “create far-right parties in Europe” and I would be surprised if certain American interests had stopped buying such politicians in Europe) that suggested this and the others just went along with it.

When it, naturally, failed miserably to gain traction beyond that handful of obscure politicians, the newspaper owned by Germany’s very own Murdoch-clone then described the reaction to that refusal by the overwhelming majority of the EU parliament to do it, as an “Uproar”

Proton is integrated with the Steam app in Linux, so usually you just install the game and then run it from Steam and it just works in Linux even though it’s a Windows game, without you having to know anything about Proton.

Similarly you can use something like Lutris or Heroic which does the same for Wine and game stores like GOG (it’s even integrated with the store and downloads the game for you, same as the Steam app does for the Steam store).

For some games you might have to learn enough to tweak settings, though for Steam and Proton that’s often just changing the Proton version you’re using for a game in its game launch settings in Steam, which is hardly complicated.

The need to really understand what’s under the hood is generally only when leaving these standard paths: for example if you’re trying to run a pirated version of a game (which might even be for perfectly legit reasons: for example one of my Steam games won’t run in Linux no matter what I do, but the pirated version works fine, probably because of the DRM in the official version) or some old obscure game CD you have around, as the scripts in Steam, Lutris or Heroic that silently configure Proton/Wine correctly for a game might not at all exist for those unofficial or older installers.

It’s almost as if they shamelessly lie…

It’s actually a general rule for humans:

“I’m beautiful”

“I’m confident”

“I’m strong”

“I’m intelligent”

“No you’re not, if you were you wouldn’t feel the need to tell it to others because they would find it out themselves.”

When people or organisations unprompted harp about some qualities they have, it’s safer to assume until proven otherwise that they lack those qualities.

It’s funny that what looks like a whole Hasbara team has descended on this, including an account used to moderate a very large lemmy.world forum.

Really shows that this kind of thing really worries the Genociders.

It makes sense - evildoers are fine if they can hide behind Country or Organisation because it lets them evade personal consequences for their actions, but when they personally, as individiuals, with no hidding behind some responsibility diffusing entity, suffer consequences for their own participation in the evildoing, it’s a whole different story.

You actually see their fear of their collective cloak being torn down in some of the very “arguments” they’re using here, such as how Israelis should not be held accountable for the actions of Israel (even those who refuse to simply say “I do not support the Genocide in Gaza”), which is exactly about maintaining the nation working as a responsability diffusing cover.

This tells me we need many more actions like this one in Belgium - make accountable the individuals mass murdering Palestinians or supporting that mass murder.