Interesting Links - May 2013, Batch 2

notfoss

Here's the second batch of Interesting Links for the month of May.

Things concerning Linux:

Tails 0.18 released with more persistence related additions.
Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 released. Did you know that the kernel is named GNU Mach while Hurd refers to a collection of servers that run atop the Mach kernel? I used to think that Hurd was the kernel ...
Ubuntu planning a new package format, initially for the Ubuntu Phone and Tablet.
Tired of long freeze periods for Debian? Who isn't? Well, these guys have a proposal to fix that.
Here's why I feel that systemd is overkill.

Internet and Browsers:

Firefox 21 released with more useless additions to Do Not Track (DNT). An interesting addition is the Firefox Health Report feature. Hopefully, it won't have a negative effect on Firefox's performance because of the constant collection of data.

Talking of Firefox, here's a list of all the "About protocol links" with their explanations.
Yet another Firefox news: Ubuntu is planning to replace Firefox with Chromium. With Ubuntu on a massive replacing spree, I wonder if they plan to replace Mark Shuttleworth :P
Demonoids's spiritual successor springs up out of the blue, in the form of d2.vu. It goes down the same day, but gets back up the next day. Question is, will it stay?
Want to dig deeper into the technicalities of BitTorrent? Here's a very informative wiki article about the subject.
Move over BitTorrent, now you can encode and share data using a video.
Google Code is removing the "Downloads" feature citing misuse. What will happen to pentadactyl?!!
An insightful article by the EFF concerning the deprecation of Google Chat in favour of the walled garden known as Hangouts.
PyPI (The Python Package Index) starts using a CDN. Finally, you will be able to download packages faster!

Fun stuff: