Can anyone recommend a post that introduces these kind of issues for Android outsiders?

I assumed Android ROMs carry a fully fledged distribution, including the kernel and firmware. Sure, the latter might be out of date.

When I tried digging into the question "where does this so-called open source come from", I stumbled upon Kernels that basically have one commit adding the whole blob.

Is the ROM merely the application software built for a target kernel (which is persistent on the device)?

I've hacked around with Kernel modules on Android before, but miss the big picture in that regard.

Edit: especially the new update infrastructure (treble?), Does it change anything here?

The ROM is kinda an inaccurate term for the whole "blob" of binaries that gets copied to eMMC (or similar) storage. This can include multiple partitions, firmware updates (including for your baseband) etc.

The device kernel is a fork of https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin... or more accurately https://source.android.com/devices/architecture/kernel/andro... at the end of the day. The "whole thing as one commit" is just people not caring enough to maintain source history.

Treble seems to mean that the software can be updated separately from the drivers and the firmware - https://www.androidauthority.com/project-treble-818225/, it could actually make things worse in terms of out of date drivers and firmware.

Same here. The URL bar matches quite good most of the time, so it's more an omni-bar. If I need something, I type it in and it suggests me the page. Having the tab open will suggest me that tab.

But having so many tabs open makes the tab UI useless, so I prefer to close them.

Since you seem to store everything on various Google services, what is your backup strategy in case you loose access to your account?

1. Keep backup codes [1]

2. Download your data [2]

[1] https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/1187538

[2] https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3024190

I think the GP meant what if Google erroneously block access to your account for a supposed T&C violation or what have you.

Option 2. You can download all you data.

We're talking about marketing here, and if something leaves you with an odd feeling, it's no good marketing.

I must say as a non-native, I didn't knew gimp before and was not offended. Googling in incognito mode, I can absolutely see why people might want to avoid that.

We're taking about freely sharing things by name, if there's a chance my boss is going to fire me just for mentioning the name of your product then I'm going to just avoid recommending it.

I've actually, conversationally, shared "gimp" with a couple of people in the past but I don't any more because I don't want to make them feel uncomfortable or think I'm making a joke at their expense. In a workplace I'm not sharing something that could get me facing a sexual harassment suit (it's not likely, but why risk it), or fired for offensive language (ditto).

This thread _is_ about marketing.