Matisyahu's Blog

I’ve decided to give Chrome another go to see how MV3 fares when compared to MV2 in Firefox and the bespoke content blocking API that Apple uses in Safari (they are adding declarative net request but still trails in functionality when compared to the implementation on Chrome or Firefox). I have to prefix this by stating that I don’t expect content blockers to be 100% perfect but as but long as the visual pollution is kept to a minimum then I’m happy to take a win when I get one. What I hope is that we’ll see the declarative net request be developed further – part of that hope is on the basis that Google probably wanted to get the move over and done with so once they’re over that big shift it is possible to make tweaks afterwards to improve things in much the same way that when the ACA (Affordable Care Act) was passed it wasn’t perfect but has improved as tweaks and changes have been made. What I can say in defence of MV3 and the declarative net request – it is very fast, very light weight and you definitely notice the difference when using a MV3 extension on Chrome and I do hope that as they improve the DNR along with other APIs that the performance will remain.

The launch of the Google TV Streamer has gotten me pretty excited about the future of the Android TV platform particularly when one considers it is now a full fledged matter/threads hub for ones myriad of gizmos one has around the house. It is one of the things that has disappointed me is Google convincing themselves that the reason why they had a low uptake of the first Chromecast with Google TV was due to price – lets get one thing straight, US$99.95 is a bargain and it isn’t as though you’re buying a new Google TV Streamer every year so assuming you keep it for 4 years then that works out to be $25 per year or around 45 cents per week. The reason why Chromecast with Google TV sales were underwhelming is that it took you too long to make it available outside of the US and then to add insult to injury you launched something that was woefully under powered – a slow SoC, hardly any memory and anemic storage not to mention the lack of regular software updates when compared to the monthly updates the Pixel phone range received.

I’m having a look at getting some new security cameraes for my place because at the moment I have some Arlo cameras but the problem is that I need to keep an eye on their power and recharging batteries. What I’d prefer to do would be to replace those cameras with ones that can be powered/networked using PoE which avoids having to worry about recharging batteries. I am tempted to get the Google Nest given how it all integrates together – it’s a bit on the pricy side but the benefit is that everything integrates together well not to mention the ability to hook it up to power with 10 metre cables that can be bought from the Google Store online.