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Ubuntu's dream of a single Linux platform across all your devices has died, swiftly, following a single gunshot to the head. Holding the revolver: founder of Ubuntu, Mark Shuttleworth.

Shuttleworth has shocked and surprised the open source community, even those who were critics of the Unity effort that was started six years ago.

"I'm writing to let you know that we will end our investment in Unity8, the phone and convergence shell," he wrote on the official Ubuntu blog Wednesday. "We will shift our default Ubuntu desktop back to GNOME for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS."

The decision came during a new-fiscal-year evaluation of Ubuntu's various projects. Unity in its eighth version but without ever having made it to public release didn't make the cut.

Developers are in shock so much so that the Ubuntu blog has been knocked offline by traffic as we write (cache of post) although Reg readers will have suspected something was coming. In an interview with us in February, Shuttleworth admitted that time was running short for the project, which he noted was already a year late.

Calling it his "white whale," Shuttleworth noted both the project's failings and his personal investment in the project. "I feel the team has earned a fair shot and I may take my carrots," he said meaning that he would have do something he didn't want to because it was the healthy choice.

In that interview, he also reflected on the dream that was Unity: "Unity 8 delivers a unified set of experiences across all the kinds of personal computers. I care about developers I need to give them a Linux environment wherever they want to do their developing if that's on a phone it needs to be on their phone. If it's on their goggles it needs to be on their goggles."

Sadly, it won't be on any phones, fondleslabs, goggles or desktops: Canonical is killing development of Ubuntu software for phones and tablets altogether including, presumably, its Mir display server and thus paving the way for a Wayland-powered GNOME experience. The irony of course is that earlier this month, the new Samsung Galaxy S8 phone came with the ability to attach it to a screen and keyboard and use it as a desktop computer Unity's dream.

"I took the view that, if convergence was the future and we could deliver it as free software, that would be widely appreciated both in the free software community and in the technology industry, where there is substantial frustration with the existing, closed alternatives available to manufacturers," Shuttleworth wrote in his post Wednesday. "I was wrong on both counts."

Despite noting that the Unity team had delivered a "beautiful, usable and solid" platform, he said he had to recognize the bigger reality. "I respect that markets, and community, ultimately decide which products grow and which disappear," he noted.

And if there was any doubt that the decision came as a blow to his dream of one Linux to bind them all, Shuttleworth wrote: "This has been, personally, a very difficult decision, because of the force of my conviction in the convergence future, and my personal engagement with the people and the product, both of which are amazing. We feel like a family, but this choice is shaped by commercial constraints, and those two are hard to reconcile."

So, it's back to GNOME and bye-bye Unity.

See more here:
Ubuntu UNITY is GNOME-MORE: 'One Linux' dream of phone, slab, desktop UI axed - The Register

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Shuttleworth said that many members of the free software community are anti-social that love to hate anything in the mainstream.

Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu, has had some strong words to share with some members of the free software community, having labelled some as muppets.

Shuttleworth, who made the comments on his own Google+ post, had originally started out with a thankful tone to say thank you, for all your spirit and intellect and energy in the Unity8 adventure, but after a number of comments about the Mir windowing system his tone changed.

The Ubuntu founder said: The whole Mir hate-fest boggled my mind its free software that does something invisible really well. It became a political topic as irrational as climate change or gun control, where being on one side or the other was a sign of tribal allegiance.

We have a problem in the community when people choose to hate free software instead of loving that someone cares enough to take their lifes work and make it freely available.

Shuttleworth continued by saying that he came to be disgusted with the hate on Mir, and that is changed his opinion on the free software community.

I used to think that it was a privilege to serve people who also loved the idea of service, but now I think many members of the free software community are just deeply anti-social types who love to hate on whatever is mainstream. When Windows was mainstream they hated on it. Rationally, Windows does many things well and deserves respect for those. And when Canonical went mainstream, it became the focus of irrational hatred too.

The very same muppets would write about how terrible it was that IOS/Android had no competition and then how terrible it was that Canonical was investing in (free software!) compositing and convergence. F**k that s**t.

The comments are likely to provoke some heated debate on the subject of Mir, with some in the community responding to the comments by saying: was taken aback by your comments on Mir haters implying theyre not smart and just complaining only because Ubuntu is main stream, while that may have been the case for a number of them Im sure, its just as sad you resort to some of the same petty argumentative attitudes and snappy remarks that started the flame war that ensued :/

Shuttleworth has previously jumped to the defence of Mir and labelled the opponents to the technology as being members of the Open Source Tea Party. The Google+ post and Open Source Tea Party comments can be found here and here.

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Mark Shuttleworth labels some free software users as "anti-social ... - Computer Business Review

The most powerful PDF editors are generally paid for, but you can often get by with a free alternative. We show you how you can edit PDFs for free with these useful tools.

By Roland Waddilove | 05 Apr 17

PDFs should be one of the most straightforward document types in the world, but unfortunately they are not so simple when it comes to editing them. Paid-for PDF editors can do it all, but do you really want to pay for a tool to complete a quick and easy editing job? As we have learned from this round-up of free tools and services, you may not need to.

Adobe invented the PDF (Portable Document Format) to solve a problem that dogged people for years: how to view and print documents without requiring the original software that document was created in or the fonts it uses. It wasn't meant to be a replacement for a word processor -it was a layout format for precise alignment of text and images.

Many programs can save documents in PDF format, but few can edit them directly. But what if you receive a document in PDF form and need to change it? Or you might save a file as a PDF but lose the original (editable) document through a disk or human error? In all of these situations, you need a PDF editor.

However, here's the thing: free PDF editors generally do not allow you to edit text. What they offer is the ability to erase (or 'whiteout') text and replace it with new text. Matching the font, both size and colour, but it's all you'll be able to do if you can't get hold of the original file used to create the PDF.

Some free PDF editors let you annotate PDFs and add or remove pages. The original content cannot be changed, but you can insert notes and comments, use a highlighter pen, strikethrough text, delete pages, fill out forms and so on.

Here are some of your options:

AbleWord is the only free PDF editor we're aware of that can import a PDF and make it completely editable. It's best when importing PDF files that were created in Word, but will attempt to replicate all PDF files. The end result won't look identical to the original but will be close.

Foxit Reader is a lightweight alternative to Adobe Reader and many people prefer it. It's more than just a PDF reader though and it has a wide range of powerful tools. You cannot edit the contents, but text can be struck through with a line and replaced by a pop-up note.

PDF-XChange Viewer offers an almost identical set of features to Foxit Reader and it is useful for annotating in a similar manner.

As long as your editing demands aren't too heavy, PDF Candy may be the quickest solution. It can convert PDFs to other formats, rotate them, split them, protect them and add watermarks.

This new online service has but one limitation: any file you upload must be under 10MB. But that's it: there are no ads or any other restrictions.

LibreOffice, the free Office alternative, is worth considering if you want to edit the text in a PDF file. It loads PDFs and it can cope with very large documents with hundreds of pages. The only snag is that each line of text is text box, which makes it awkward to edit large amounts of text.

PDF Pro is an online tool that lets you upload three PDF files per month and edit them. The latest update includes a facility to convert PDF documents to Word (.doc) format, which not many free products can do.

FormSwift is another online PDF editor. You simply drag and drop files to upload them, and you can then edit them in your browser before downloading and printing or sharing.

You can edit text by deleting and replacing it, add images or signatures. It's relatively basic, but it's free and requires only an internet connection.

PDF to Word does exactly what the name says. You select a file on your PC, upload it to the site and it emails you the Word document a minute or two later. The advantage of this is that you can use Word or another word processor to edit the text and resave the document as a PDF.

See the article here:
How to edit a PDF for free - PC Advisor

Cybersecurity is an issue that never goes away. Hacks are becoming more and more prominent and a growing concern for not just the tech industry, but the world as a whole. With that said, even though the emphasis today is on privacy, data, and the IoT, basic security starts with securing your own systems. If you dont have the correct tools to protect yourself then you could find yourself in dire straits relatively quickly.

Recently Intel Security ran a test on a router to determine current threat levels on unsecure systems. The router in question was left in idle mode and unsecured in order to gauge how quickly the device could be compromised. The test found that the unsecure device was affected by malicious software in just sixty seconds.

In order to protect yourself against these threats, both old and new, antivirus is just as important as ever. The only problem with this is that sometimes antivirus software can get pretty pricey, pretty swiftly. However, CBR has you covered, check out this list of the best free antivirus software to ensure that youre properly protected.

AVG antivirus is one of the most popular protection solutions on the market today. AVG and Avast, after the latter acquired the former, have roughly 400 million users worldwide combined. When tested by independent labs it was found that AVG has an extremely high malware blocking score and a fairly decent malicious URL blocking score.

Unfortunately, asthe system is incredibly thorough this means that a full scan of your computer, particularly the initial scan, can take some time. The software also had a lower than average score when tested for phishing protection, meaning users will have to use a bit more common sense if they go with this option.

However, one of the biggest benefits of using AVG is that you become a part of its enormous sample size, meaning that you are one of the reasons that the software is consistently getting better. Currently AVG utilises machine learning drawing vast wells of data from its usersand continually improving the service offered. If you dont mind a slower scan and you can trust yourself to identify phishing scams, then look no further than AVG.

Avira antivirus is another tried and tested antivirus software, one which has more than stood the test of time. Avira was first launched in 1986 and since then has gone on to acquire hundreds of millions of happy, and more importantly, safe customers. With independent testing labs Avira was found to be excellent when used for blocking malicious URLs and blocking ad trackers within browsers.

Unfortunately, many of these functions are not available to internet explorer users, meaning that to enjoy full protection you may have to change your browser to compensate for that. On top of this, Avira is yet another entry on the list that has a fairly slow scan rate and rated fairly poorly for anti-phishing protection.

If youre not an Internet Explorer user and enjoy the benefits of platforms such as Chrome or Firefox then the protection offered by Avira is almost unparalleled. However, if youre absolutely married to the idea of using IE then this may not be the correct antivirus solution software for you.

Read this article:
Best free antivirus software - Computer Business Review

Whether its due toa virus, hardware failure, or just good old human error, its all too easy to lose vital files. That critical report youve got to deliver tomorrow; the huge end of year paper; your massive music collection; or those precious family photos nightmare! But dont worry, help is at hand! When a file is deleted, it isnt actually erased immediately. Instead, the space it occupies is marked as available to be overwritten, which means it can (in most cases) be restored using recovery software. Phew! So, without further ado, heres our list of the five best free data recovery software titles that might just save the day. And dont forget, you candownload them all now, here on FileHippo.

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As you might guess from the name, one of the great features of EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Free, is its ease of use. Whether you want to find missing photos, music, videos, emails, folders, or archive files, you can easily view your files before beginning the recovery process, and to make life even easier, all fully recovered files are automatically sorted. See, we told you it was easy! Once scanned, if your requested data isnt shown, then you can choose to run a Deep Scan to really get in there and dig deep. If you do locate it, you then have the option to export the rescued file to another storage area. The only downsides wed highlight are the limitation of 2GB total recovery allowance, and that its not the best at recovering files from a reformatted hard drive. Apart from that, EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Free is a top-notch disaster recovery solution.

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Best Free Data Recovery Software - FileHippo News