Ed Zitron is the CEO of EZPR, a public relations firm based in Las Vegas. He's best known to me as the most entertaining critic when it comes to technology, particularly Silicon Valley technology companies. His newsletter, Where's Your Ed At, and podcast, Better Offline, are both worth subscribing to.

He made 2 memorable podcast appearances this week. The first was as a replacement for Leo Laporte, who is on holidays, on This Week in Google on the TWiT podcast network. The second was as a guest on the Tech Won't Save Us podcast hosted by Paris Marx.

Ed can be too caustic for some people. He can be insulting about people he doesn't like and is more confrontational when products don't meet the hype. There is a danger in this approach that you can be too dismissive of new technology that is not ready for prime time. However, he seems to be right about cryptocurrencies and the metaverse at this point in time. I'm not sure he's wrong about AI yet.

One of the topics covered included an interesting story from The Information about Amazon and Google trying to quietly bring down expectations on generative AI.

I listen to some of the podcasts on the TWiT network and as someone who uses a Windows PC for work, I enjoy both Windows Weekly and Hands-On Windows. They are useful in keeping up to date in the Microsoft ecosystem but, more importantly, they are entertaining. I was familiar with Richard Campbell for .NET Rocks and RunAsRadio but I enjoy Paul Thurrott's rants.

The latest episode of Hands-On Windows goes through how Paul chooses a browser and I found the check he does using the Cover Your Tracks tool provided by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) useful.

It's a quick check that displays whether your browser blocks ads and trackers by default or if it randomizes its fingerprint to prevent tracking across the web.

He also displays which extensions should be added such as Privacy Badger and an adblocker like Adblock Plus. It's worth watching the video to watch him go through the different browsers and what he thinks of each.

Hands-On Windows 49: Choosing Your Web Browser

I disagree with his evaluation of Firefox but I can see his point. The fact that it doesn't support progressive web app (PWA) installs does not make sense. All the other browsers have moved to using the Chromium browser engine but I appreciate Mozilla trying to provide an alternative. I mainly use Firefox and Brave in a personal capacity but I also use almost the other browsers at work.

It's always worth checking your browsers using Cover Your Tracks after moving to a new computer or after installing a new browser to see what the privacy settings are.