It's just a patch in the Manager. You may need to download the free version APK from somewhere like APKMirror and patch that though (you can also disable ads so it's like the Pro version), as there don't seem to be any Pro APKs and you can't patch an installed app without root.

It's basically a really well polished app to browse the website on Android. It has a lot of features and also very good customization options since it kept adding features over the years.

Having a Lemmy client that good will make it much easier to use on a phone.

Where were you when NA was kill

But I do wonder what prompted Liquid to get rid of basically their only selling point (majority NA roster)

I'm the type of person who gets tired of a DE after using it for too long, so I'm using Budgie right now and I really like it. However XFCE is pretty nice, too, it's what I used to use.

IIRC there might be a torrent floating around somewhere for those that really want it

That's true, but aren't federated pages at a disadvantage since you can look at them from any instance thus decreasing the number of links to one specific post (which is how PageRank works)? Since then instead of one post on page 1 you'd have 10 from different instances on page 3. I'm thinking this could be fixed if all posts had a link to the post on the original instance, which is where the ranking scores would then be more likely to aggregate.

It's supposed to be -saffee +fallen so that still might happen, especially since the article says they might have to use another academy player as 5th due to high buyouts in the BR scene

I don't think they'll put all of them in the Limited Test though, especially the new maps like Overpass or Italy. They may end up pushing some of the maps which stay mostly the same like Inferno (it's not getting a remake in spite of what some people think) or Office, but I think the rest will only be widely tested at launch. By testing multiple maps, but not all, they can still get a lot of data regarding where to look for bugs in the existing maps (like with the bench crash they fixed recently) so it will still be reasonably polished.

I think the more likely reason why it will take time is they're still working on a lot of features, I mean who knows how far along things like matchmaking and other game modes are.

Yes and no.

I agree with you that Discord is trash if you want to use it like Reddit. It's really only good for free-flowing discussions and things like that.

But when it comes to the basics of link aggregation and commenting, Kbin (and Lemmy) is exactly like Reddit. The only things it's missing is like 15 years' worth of UI and UX polish that Reddit has done and a lot of the content (well, and better moderation tools, but that's not really relevant for me as an end user). Those can be fixed within months or years at most if we keep going at this development speed. So I'll be staying here at least for now, and when my third party Reddit app no longer works, I'll almost stop going there. And I don't think I'm the only one.

The only negatives of Kbin/Lemmy are the whole federation aspect, where you have multiple sites that communicate with each other, which can cause chaos if these decide to defederate (= basically stop sharing content). But the more I think about it, that is where the internet is headed. Big services are and always will be in a cycle of enshittification and the only way to fix that is to build something ourselves. Federation helps a lot with that, since everyone with a server can create a community and the users can join one they like and get content from the entire network.

Their stance on some things is maybe a bit too drastic for some, but they already have one of the largest communities for certain topics like gaming (at least last I checked), so we may lose out on the content that would help people stay long-term, which is sad.

Good. The only way this was ever going to have an effect is if it lasted longer than two days. Even a week might not be enough.

We need to scare advertisers by the lack of content so Reddit starts losing revenue and ends up having to act (which is already starting to happen by the way).

I think the fact that the #1 team is on 965 points and not 1000 showcases the state of the scene nicely.

I wonder why the teams are so close nowadays, maybe everyone is so good that the mental side of things is more important and it's harder to be consistent in that?

CS2 is looking to change things up nicely though.

Well, technically, it is decent at being a currency even by your definition, just not in our society. I do think in something like a post apocalyptic world crypto would be a pretty good payment method, provided the technology worked to an extent where it would be possible to maintain.

I also refuse to believe it was invented to be speculative, I think it was basically a thought exercise to see if you could make a digital currency in a world where you can't trust anyone.

Though the fact that right now it's an unregulated currency that can be exchanged for regulated currency does allow for some pretty spectacular scams.

Yeah, personally I think even something like an August release might not really be realistic.

Maybe Valve will end up releasing it sometime in September during EPL so they have an entire month to fix all the bugs before T1 tournaments move to CS2. Otherwise it will be pretty funny if they play on a build where there's crazy bugs and wallbangs and other things like that.

Nice to see the flashbang throw bug got fixed.

Also the buy menu now looks pretty cool (at least from the screenshots I've seen, still no access personally :'( )

That sounds like SaaS specifically. In any case, I agree with you, it sucks that you don't get to actually own a piece of software, even though I understand the benefit of a constant revenue stream for the developer so they can continue to push updates (and the second reason why they do it is probably preventing piracy, even though it's still a bit hit or miss - with Adobe CC it's still pretty easy, but Office now can't be cracked IIRC).

I think the best middle ground would be to do what Sketch does with their Mac app or what Photoshop used to do, where you pay a flat fee for the app in its current version, get a few free updates on top and then after some time have to pay again to upgrade to a newer version.