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KDE Plasma 6.6 Desktop Environment Officially Released, This Is What’s New

Highlights of KDE Plasma 6.6 include a new “Plasma Login Manager” display manager that could replace existing login managers like SDDM in popular distributions shipping with a KDE Plasma edition, such as the upcoming Fedora Linux 44, but most probably also in CachyOS, EndeavourOS, and other distros. One thing to mention is that Plasma Login Manager is dependent on systemd, so it won’t work on systemd-free distros.

Tor Project blog

New Alpha Release: Tor Browser 16.0a3

This version includes important security updates to Firefox.

news

Today in Techrights

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Jan 18, 2026

North From The Valley

Updated This Past Day

  1. Microsoft Lunduke Keeps Distracting From the Real Problems With Rust
    Microsoft Lunduke is stigmatising critics
  2. Stack Ranking Against IBM/Red Hat Staff and a Signal of Mass Layoffs (RAs) Justified by Red Hat and IBM as Poor Performance/Misconduct/Other
    Working in an atmosphere like this sounds like a nightmare
  3. Microsoft's "valuation depends on infrastructure that does not exist."
    Indeed
  4. The Typical Trajectory: Datamation Began Experimenting With LLM Slop for Fake Articles. Then Datamation Died. (Last Month)
    It's always ending up this way
  5. Avoiding the Spooks (Nobody Watches the Watchers, They're Practically Unaccountable)
    If more people adopt encryption, it'll be easier for us to deal with whistleblowers
  6. Protecting Whistleblowers Requires Technical Knowledge/Skills
    even the highest media judges aren't aware of how to protect sources
  7. Report/Benchmark Says 'Vibe Coding' Results in Security Holes
    There are risks they don't like talking about
  8. Record Traffic in Geminispace or Over Gemini Protocol
    it's never too late to join
  9. The "Alicante Mafia" - Part III - Europe's Second-Largest Organisation on Strike, Protests, Other Industrial Actions to Come Impacting Over 95% of the Workforce
    The EPO's management is highly evasive, weak, and vulnerable

    New

  10. Links 17/01/2026: Internet Blackout Normalised, Russian Attacks Civilians by Causing Massive Blackouts
    Links for the day
  11. Linuxiac Has Become a Slopfarm, Calling Them Out Isn't Fixing That
    What a shame. A once-decent site about "Linux" bites the dust.
  12. Luzern Lion Monument, Albanian Female Whistleblowers: Swiss jurists were cowards
    Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
  13. The Splinternet is Already Here, Owing to the Militarisation of Technology (Slop, Social Control Media, Back Doors, and More)
    you know what's gonna happen next...
  14. Gemini Links 17/01/2026: Slow computing and Environment Leak
    Links for the day
  15. Links 17/01/2026: US Censorship and Violence Crisis, Growing Anger Levels Against Slop Sold as "Intelligence"
    Links for the day
  16. Accounts or Devices (e.g. Phones) That Get 'Burnt' Have Many Pitfalls
    Embassies and consulates habitually fail at this
  17. At Least 5 Women Quit Brett Wilson LLP in Recent Months. It's the Firm That Attacked My Wife and I on Behalf of Americans (One of Them Strangled Women).
    It seems like good news that the women escape this workplace
  18. Slop About Slop and Slop About "Linux"
    In short, avoid slopfarms
  19. EPO Abuses Covered in Spanish
    Knowing what we know (and heard/saw), the sinister silence of the media is perceived by some to be complicity of the lower order.
  20. Richard Stallman Encourages "ICE Out For Good" Protests, His Opponents Do Not (Passive and Uncaring About Human Rights)
    He has done a lot philosophically, politically, and so on
  21. Claim That IBM Marked 15% of its Workforce for Potential Layoffs
    No wonder we keep hearing from Red Hat people who say they hate IBM
  22. Over at Tux Machines...
    GNU/Linux news for the past day
  23. IRC Proceedings: Friday, January 16, 2026
    IRC logs for Friday, January 16, 2026

    The corresponding text-only bulletin for Saturday contains all the text.

    Top-read articles (excluding bot/crawler visits):

    Span from 2026-01-11 to 2026-01-17
    3233 /about.shtml
    2590 /n/2026/01/10/Monday_January_12_Red_Hat_Layoffs_Allegedly_Planned.shtml
    2248 /n/2026/01/14/Canonical_Make_Ubuntu_Bloated_Debian_With_Snaps_Then_Sell_the_D.shtml
    2020 /n/2026/01/13/Not_Journalism_Almost_80_of_the_Articles_We_Saw_About_Torvalds_.shtml
    1834 /index.shtml
    1420 /n/2026/01/10/GAFAM_Wants_War.shtml
    1133 /n/2026/01/13/Bluewashing_Continues_Red_Hat_Onboarding_Interns_in_Low_Paid_Re.shtml
    1129 /n/2026/01/11/IRC_Proceedings_Saturday_January_10_2026.shtml
    1113 /irc.shtml
    1106 /n/2026/01/10/Links_10_01_2026_Iran_Offline_Venezuelans_Decry_Civilian_Casual.shtml
    1026 /n/2026/01/10/Links_10_01_2026_STV_Layoffs_Scottish_TV_CBS_Evening_News_in_Ch.shtml
    1018 /n/2026/01/14/The_Last_Dilberts_or_Some_of_the_Last_Salvaged_Comic_Strips_Whi.shtml
    955 /n/2026/01/10/EPO_People_Power_Part_XXX_New_Year_Starts_Cocainegate_Still_Dis.shtml
    896 /n/2026/01/11/After_the_LLM_Slop_Frenzy.shtml
    872 /n/2026/01/12/2026_Has_Begun_Well_for_GNU_Linux_Users_and_for_Us.shtml
    869 /n/2024/12/08/When_Python_is_Basically_Run_by_a_Microsoft_Friendly_Mole_Who_O.shtml
    861 /browse/latest.shtml
    822 /n/2025/03/24/Days_Ago_yewtu_be_Found_a_Workaround_That_Made_Invidious_Work_A.shtml
    822 /n/2026/01/15/Proton_Mail_compromise_Hannah_Natanson_Washington_Post_police_r.shtml
    809 /n/2026/01/11/Microsoft_s_linkedin_com_is_Shrinking_Expect_LinkedIn_Layoffs_t.shtml
    795 /n/2026/01/13/So_When_Will_British_Politicians_Police_Government_Departments_.shtml
    786 /n/2025/05/24/Free_Software_as_a_Culture_of_Resistance.shtml
    761 /n/2026/01/14/AI_Slop_Demand_Isn_t_Growing_It_s_Fake_It_s_a_Pyramid_Scheme.shtml
    740 /n/2026/01/11/Dr_Andy_Farnell_Explains_Why_He_ll_Stop_Sending_E_mail_to_Micro.shtml
    712 /n/2026/01/12/EPO_People_Power_Part_XXXII_Little_Hope_That_European_Press_Wil.shtml
    692 /n/2026/01/11/IBM_to_Be_Reorganised.shtml
    681 /n/2026/01/11/Links_11_01_2026_Bob_Weir_and_Stewart_Cheifet_Perish.shtml
    660 /n/2026/01/12/Over_at_Tux_Machines.shtml
    646 /n/2026/01/15/Linuxiac_May_Have_Reverted_Back_to_LLM_Slop.shtml
    644 /n/2026/01/11/Over_at_Tux_Machines.shtml
    637 /n/2026/01/11/Gemini_Links_11_01_2026_Scott_Morgan_aad_The_Unix_Way.shtml
    616 /n/2026/01/12/Links_12_01_2026_Brussels_Plotting_Exit_From_GAFAM_US_Carole_Ca.shtml
    615 /n/2026/01/12/Gemini_Links_12_01_2026_Insomniacs_After_School_and_Boycotting_.shtml
    615 /n/2024/10/03/Invidious_Seems_to_be_Nearing_End_of_Life_After_Repeated_Crackd.shtml
    611 /n/2026/01/16/The_Alicante_Mafia_Part_I_An_Introduction_to_the_Mafia_Governin.shtml
    604 /n/2026/01/12/Bracing_for_Microsoft_Layoffs_Tired_of_Microsoft_Lies_Microsoft.shtml
    601 /n/2026/01/14/EPO_People_Power_Part_XXXIV_Bad_Optics_for_the_European_Union_f.shtml
    596 /n/2026/01/14/Over_at_Tux_Machines.shtml
    592 /n/2026/01/13/Ending_the_Status_Quo_at_the_European_Patent_Office_EPO_This_Ye.shtml
    571 /n/2026/01/15/Links_15_01_2026_Internet_Blackouts_Jackboots_Society_in_US.shtml
    569 /n/2026/01/14/Reminder_That_Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux_RHEL_Is_Not_Free_And_It_.shtml
    568 /n/2026/01/15/Coming_Soon_Impact_With_EPO_Cocainegate.shtml
    568 /n/2026/01/11/EPO_People_Power_Part_XXXI_Almost_No_Crime_is_Possible_Without_.shtml
    566 /n/2026/01/14/XBox_s_Major_Nelson_Loses_His_Job_Again_This_Time_in_a_Microsof.shtml
    562 /n/2026/01/12/Oligarchs_and_States_Always_Attempted_to_Obstruct_Efforts_to_Ex.shtml
    561 /n/2026/01/15/Red_Hat_IBM_is_Driving_Away_Remaining_Fedora_Users.shtml
    557 /n/2024/09/15/Very_Few_Invidious_Instances_Still_Work_for_Video_Playback.shtml
    556 /n/2026/01/12/Links_11_01_2026_Data_Breaches_and_Recent_Early_2026_Political_.shtml
    555 /n/2026/01/14/Difficult_Times_at_IBM_and_Microsoft_Ahead_of_Mass_Layoffs_Prob.shtml
    550 /n/2026/01/15/The_Creator_of_Git_Probably_Doesn_t_Know_How_to_Install_and_Dep.shtml
    547 /n/2026/01/14/Hours_Ago_The_Register_MS_Published_Microsoft_Windows_SPAM_Spon.shtml
    545 /n/2026/01/12/GNU_Linux_Exceeding_5_in_Guadeloupe_According_to_statCounter.shtml
    542 /n/2026/01/11/Higher_Adoption_Rates_of_GNU_Linux_in_Cyprus_in_Recent_Years.shtml
    542 /n/2026/01/15/GAFAM_is_a_National_and_International_Threat_to_Everybody.shtml
    539 /n/2026/01/15/EPO_People_Power_Part_XXXVI_In_Conclusion_and_Taking_Things_Up_.shtml
    538 /n/2026/01/13/Dr_Andy_Farnell_on_Marketing_Bad_Things_Like_Slop_Using_FOMO_Fe.shtml
    538 /n/2026/01/11/IBM_SkillsBuild_as_Microsoft_Training_Microsoft_Vendor_Lock_in_.shtml

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