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12 hours agoThis is huge. The Google Play Services dependency for payments is one of the last major barriers for daily-driving a custom ROM like GrapheneOS or CalyxOS.
Currently if you want NFC payments without Google, your options are basically:
- Your bank’s website (clunky)
- Physical cards (works but defeats the purpose)
An open standard for payments would also benefit Linux phones (PinePhone, Librem) where Google services aren’t even an option.
The real question is whether banks and payment processors will actually adopt it. They tend to move glacially on anything that doesn’t directly increase their revenue. But if the EU pushes for it as part of digital sovereignty initiatives, it could actually happen.
The fact that pressing spacebar during boot can accidentally upgrade your OS tells you everything about Microsoft’s current priorities.
I accidentally “upgraded” a test machine by hitting Enter during a BIOS update prompt. The machine rebooted into Windows 11 setup, which then took 45 minutes and required a Microsoft account (or knowledge of the OOBE\BYPASSNRO trick).
If you want to block the upgrade permanently:
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate" /v TargetReleaseVersion /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate" /v TargetReleaseVersionInfo /t REG_SZ /d "22H2" /fOr just install Linux and never worry about it again.