It is but creeping privatisation may change that, as does legislation becoming more hostile to unionisation since the 1980s.

The broader point is that individuals can try all they want to preserve their privacy, but then friends, family and organisations spy on them, often unwittingly, eg when we share with them calendar events or email messages. The only way forward is collective resistance, building alliances and influencing public policy. But it's always been like that with systemic issues.

And resistance can only be collective. Another reason unionisation is as important as it's ever been.

The one thing holding me back from switching from Windows to Linux was the very poor PDF support in Linux. Every time I raised this several people told me I use PDF wrong. Others would tell me to use Inkscape, Draw, Okular etc.

Office workers, publishers, academics and many more are expected to edit several PDFs every day. It may be simply crossing things out in a draft, adding/deleting/extracting/converting pages, OCRing or dewarping images. Telling colleagues, clients and line managers they shouldn't do it is not an option. Adobe does all this and more very well. This workflow is so common and important in so many contexts, I am surprised it's not a separate application in the LibreOffice suite. What is more surprising is some of the attitudes.

I have now switched to Linux anyway, but I had to create scripts to do things with Ghostscript. Not very user-friendly and I wouldn't recommend Linux to people who rely heavily on PDF handling.

Same situation here. For heavier editing I now use local Stirling PDF and BentoPDF. As I say above, both run in docker, but Stirling PDF also comes as Appimage. They are powerful but don't feel like integrated applications.

But there is a surprising gap in Linux for PDF editing. Available tools are like toys for the task or geared towards techies. I would expect a PDF reader/editor to be a separate application in the LibreOffice suite. (No, Draw or Inkscape won't cut it, sorry)

I stopped recommending Master PDF Editor when I realised they were trying to lock me in with letting me know after the event that watermarks would be added.

PDF4QT is aekward in many ways but the latest version has the best compression, even allowing you to select one-by-one which images will be compressed and how.

Other options for editing are local Stirling PDF and BentoPDF. Both run in docker, but Stirling PDF also comes as Appimage. They are powerful but don't feel like integrated applications.

I agree it's great but I had issues running it under Wine. An alternative is Xodo for Linux which apparently is Qoppa PDF Studio revamped. These three look strangely very similar. But Xodo has other issues, including crashes.

I thought it was Autonomy. You installed a program, instructed puppies agents, logged out, and while you were offline the puppies searched through several engines. Next time you logged in the findings waited for you. That was the time of 56k modems and metered connections.

EEA and UK apparently.