March 1, 2026
Keeping tech free
The results of our latest poll have been tallied and FOSS Force readers evidently think that Mozilla should keep Thunderbird instead of helping the project find a new home. Mozilla executive chairperson, Mitchell Baker, announced on November 30 that the foundation intended to eventually separate itself from the popular desktop email client it first released in 2004.
Mozilla has announced that it’s dropping a program everyone but Mozilla seemed to realize was a bad idea from the start. In a blog posting on Friday, the organization’s vice president of content services, Darren Herman, wrote that Mozilla has “made the decision to stop advertising in Firefox through the Tiles experiment in order to focus on content discovery.” The much disliked sponsored tiles won’t immediately disappear from users’ browsers, however. “Naturally, we will fulfill our current commitments as we wind down this experiment over the next few months.”
These are the ten most read articles on FOSS Force for the month of November, 2015.
1. The Devil & BSD: Leaving Linux Behind by Larry Cafiero. Published November 23, 2015. Mr. Cafiero takes a stand and makes a statement by wiping Linux from his go-to laptop in favor of PC-BSD.
2. System Requirements: When Is ‘Enough’ Enough? by Ken Starks. Published November 10, 2015. Do you have a computer that still runs great, but you can’t install anything on it because it doesn’t meet modern “system requirements”? Well, our Mr. Starks says that enough might be enough.
The popular website Tux Machines has evidently fallen victim to a DDOS attack that made the site unavailable for part of the day on Friday. The announcement of the attack was initially made in a blog notice posted on the site late Friday morning GMT which opened with the line “Tux Machines has been mostly offline this morning.”
These are the ten most read articles on FOSS Force for the month of October, 2015.
1. A Miracle Comes to Linux by Ken Starks. Published October 27, 2015. This story is so fantastic that it had many of you convinced that it was a work of fiction. Not so. To paraphrase Mary McCarthy: Every word is the truth, including “and” and “the.”
2. Is Oracle Abandoning Java? by Christine Hall. Published October 6, 2015. A report on news from “a former high-ranking Java official” that Oracle might no longer be interested in continuing development of Java.
3. Microsoft Infects Windows Computers With Malvertising by Christine Hall. Published October 15, 2015. It appears that our friends in Redmond have seen it necessary to upgrade their malicious software removal tool to include the ransomware TelsaCrypt. As well they might, since the MSN website was downloading the program through malicious ads for a while.
These are the ten most read articles on FOSS Force for the month of September, 2015.
!. Real Linux Coming to Tablets by Christine Hall. Published September 7, 2015. This month saw the announcement of two impressive tablets, both running versions of Linux. One’s running Sailfish OS from Jolla. The other will run the much anticipated Ubuntu Touch.
2. Booting Windows 10…Out the Door by Ken Starks. Published September 15, 2015. Our irrepressible Mr. Starks finds out a few things that make him angry about Windows 10 and goes on a rant. He’s mad. Really, really mad. We can’t imagine how angry he’d be if he actually used Windows.
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These are the ten most read articles on FOSS Force for the month of August, 2015. 1. More Surprises for Windows 10 Users by Christine…
These are the ten most read articles on FOSS Force for the month of July, 2015.
1. Yet Another Reason to Avoid Windows 10 by Christine Hall. Published July 20, 2015. Microsoft’s EULA for Windows 10 not only forces its users to accept all updates. it allows Redmond to install software at will.
2. Using the New iproute2 Suite by Don Parris. Published July 14, 2015. A look at the basics on getting the most out of iproute2 utilities.
3. How I Discovered Linux & Changed the World by Ken Starks. Published July 7, 2015. In which the question is asked: How is your involvement with FOSS making a difference in this world of ours?
These are the ten most read articles on FOSS Force for the month of June, 2015.
1. SourceForge Not Making A Graceful Exit by Christine Hall. Published June 11, 2015. We look at why many well known FOSS projects are fleeing a once popular code repository, and what this means for its future.
2. A Look at Mageia 5’s Magic by Christine Hall. Published June 22, 2015. A first look at Mageia latest and greatest release, and putting this release in historical context.
