I've been throwing around the idea of being doing a deep dive on Z1P as it stands now, but because the chatter is often around Z1P in comparison to APT I thought it was better to frame up a legit discussion surrounding the key differences between the two companies as an investigation into whether or not there is actually a significant discrepancy between how the market is valuing them.
(Note: this is a pretty top level outline and my first time doing anything like this so sorry if I missed/misinterpreted anything. Obviously DYOR)
Z1P quarterly report key highlights for last quarter:

• Revenue of $102.0m (up 88% YoY)
• December revenue of $40.2m (up 94% YoY)
• Transaction volume of $1.6B (up 103% YoY)
• Customer numbers up almost 100% YoY
• Equity raise of $176.7m to fuel US growth
• Info regarding upcoming updates about ZIP Business - including Trade and Trade+, and a partnership with Facebook (it appears as though just in Australia to start with)

Z1P US subsidiary Quadpay key highlights:

• 915k customers joined the platform with the app downloaded 1.8m times
• Chrome Extension launched in November (INDUSTRY FIRST) enabling customers to pay on any website - essentially uses a virtual Visa card, super clever application
• Among their new merchants is Newegg for all my fellow computer nerd autists

ZIP Net Bad Debts and arrears:
The report goes in to this more, but just to highlight it briefly comparing 31st of Dec 2020 to 2019 - Arrears is down by .63%, but bad debt is up slightly by .25%. Not a massive change in either figure, but an important highlight considering revenue has grown, so the dollar value of these numbers has grown. As money is essentially the raw material used by BNPL firms it's essential to consider these figures when comparing to APT.
APT gross loss at end of FY20 was 0.9%, which translated to $94.5m - a change of -0.2%, but due to increased revenue an increase of 61% from 58.7m in 2019.
Comparison of Market Cap (all values accurate at time of writing):
Top Level Value - Z1P:

• Shares Issued - 552,322,326
• Market Cap - $4,026,429,902
• Share price - $7.29

Top Level Value - APT:

• Shares Issued - 285,155,191
• Market Cap - $41,099,417,679
• Share price - $144.13

If your sole metric for valuing a stock price is market cap and shares issued, then sure, Z1P should be trading somewhere in the $70-80 range... but we all know that is a ridiculous statement.
We all saw the recent AFR article about ZIP allegedly being "significantly undervalued" when compared to APT. The main points of the article were that APT has 2.6 times total transaction volume when compared to ZIP, but APTs market cap is 11 times bigger than ZIP. Again, it's weird to take a single metric and use it as the defining factor for comparison. In my view, there's three key metrics that are important (but again not definitive) when talking about an BNPL company - they are revenue, total transaction volume, gross margin.
In a sentence, this is why I think these three metrics are the top line key numbers to look at:
Revenue - obvious key indicator of underlying performance.
Total transaction volume - In my mind, this is a useful metric to assist in judging market penetration and brand recognition when comparing to other BNPL companies.
Gross margin - How much money a company is accumulating
Gross Margin:

• Z1P - Approximately 33%
• APT - Approximately 74%

Revenue (FY20 reports)

• Z1P - $157m
• APT - $519m

Total Transaction Volume (FY20 reports)

• Z1P - $3.2b
• APT - $11.1b

TLDR: APT significantly outperforms Z1P with higher revenue at a higher gross margin allowing them to drive more capital in back in to the business to facilitate growth. When comparing the two companies it is reasonable to see that APT should be trading at a significant multiple when compared to Z1P. The real question should be is Z1P undervalued as an individual company, sans comparison to other BNPL firms.
In my opinion, the fundamental growth in revenue and transactions that Z1P has seen, with the additional resources from the cap raise to fund growth in the US market, as well as the launch of the Quadpay Chrome extension are all key reasons why the Z1P share price should be higher than it currently is. How much higher is hard to say and the above statements are excluding the obvious fact that the two companies have different offerings in the BNPL space.
What range do you think Z1P should be trading in?
Also there is a rumour that Z1P is going to make an announcement about something in February - my guess is probably about Z1P business, or UK growth, but what do you think? (Source for some of above information was a YouTube video by David Quan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQwj1Gx265Q)

Brevity is not my strong suit. No one is going to read this whole thing, but as long as one person reads at least one section of this, I'll be happy. Feel free to skip ahead to a section you specifically want to read a comparison about, if you don't want to read the whole thing. I recommend the Performance and Gaming sections.
Firstly, here is a Dropbox folder of photos, screenshots, gameplay footage, (no camera videos yet) for the things I will be referring to.
Secondly, I am no phone reviewer. I buy phones once every 3-4 years, until this time where I jumped the gun to switch to a Pixel, so I have only used 5 phones in my life (mostly midrange) and don't have too much to compare to.
Thirdly, this is long enough to have an outline, so feel free to jump to read something that interests you if you don't want to read the whole thing:

1. Introduction
2. Dimensions
3. Haptics
4. Display
5. Fingerprint sensor
6. Speakers
7. Microphone
8. Battery
9. General software and features
10. Default Launcher
11. Always On Display
12. Performance
13. Gaming
14. Camera
15. Dual Screen
16. Conclusion
17. tl;dr

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Introduction

Hi /GooglePixel I picked up a LG G8X as about 4 months ago when my Moto Z Play died on me, and the LG G8X seemed to have everything I wanted in a phone at the great price of $500 CAD (at the time – the phone’s even cheaper now!). Snapdragon 855, 4000 mAh battery with positive battery reviews, AMOLED display, wide angle camera, 128gb storage + expandable, headphone jack, front-facing fingerprint scanner (in this case, in-screen). I also could have bought a separate dual screen if I wanted.
Unfortunately, after having used it for 4 months, I started feeling wary of the phone. I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it or not, but I felt the performance felt faster than the MZP definitely, but not… remarkably faster than this 4 year old midrange phone with a Snapdragon 625? The phone was heavier than I’d like and was actually straining my wrist with prolonged usage (weak wrists I guess), the standby time at my home was draining about 2%/hour, recently opened apps and websites seemed to require refreshes frequently, and most frustratingly of all, the “previous app” gesture was completely busted to the point I just use the Recent Apps page to go to my previously used apps.
For Boxing Week in Canada, lots of carriers had the Pixel 4a 5G for $260. This is the phone I would have bought if it had been out when my MZP died, so I decided to pick it up. If I didn’t like it, I’d have 15 days to return it. If I did like it more than the LG G8X, I’d try to sell my LG G8X. My fears were that the Pixel would have worse performance with its midrange SD765 (especially compared to the LG G8X's SD 855, 2019's fastest Android processor), possibly worse battery, I’d miss the expandable storage, and most importantly… that I wouldn’t be able to sell the LG G8X at a reasonable price to recoup the costs.
So here is an ludicrously in-depth, very long-winded comparison between the two phones, based on my personal experiences with them. Keep in mind the LG G8X is a 4 month old phone so in some ways may have deteriorated in terms of performance and battery. I guess you could say it’s a bit unfair to compare a brand new days-old phone with a 4 month old phone, but I guess it could also be said that it’s a bit unfair to compare a SD 855 phone with a SD 765 phone. That being said, I haven’t noticed an appreciable decline in performance or battery on the LG.
So, which came out on top? (Spoiler: surprisingly, despite its “worse specs” on paper, the Pixel won out in nearly every regard, completely creamed the LG in memory management, is basically the same in terms of app and website opening speeds, even games better.)
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Dimensions

Perhaps a dumb reason, but one of the main reasons I was thinking of switching away from the LG G8X is the weight. I didn’t realize how much of a difference 27g would make, but my wrist gets tired using the LG G8X after a while, whereas my wrist does not with the Pixel nearly as much. In terms of the length and width, though the LG is bigger, it doesn’t feel much bigger to use (outside of the weight).
Some people like huge phones, and good for them! For me, the Pixel’s lighter profile wins out by far.
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Hardware

Power buttons for both phones are on the right side. Pixel has volume also on the right, which makes taking screenshots a pain. LG has the volume buttons on the left, much more convenient for screenshots. LG also has a useful Google Assistant physical button on the right below the volume buttons, which is not remappable. Pixel has a matte plastic back with a camera bump, the LG G8X has a glass back that is completely flush with the camera. In theory this sounds nice for the LG G8X, but I suspect the glass contributes to the weight of the phone. This is an incredibly slippery phone! The weight of the charging cord is often enough to pull this slippery guy off a tabletop. Can be solved with a case.
LG wins here. The glass feels more premium, and the buttons are a lot nicer. The flush nature of the device is really nice.
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Haptics

Not something I care too much about honestly. I had read some review somewhere saying the LG haptics were bad, but I didn’t mind it at all at the time. Similar to the MZP. Now that I have the Pixel though, I think I see what they mean. The LG feels …tinnier? than the Pixel. The first time I received a notification on the Pixel I almost jumped out of my seat at how full and robust the vibration was.
Pixel wins here, I think. Maybe. But I don’t really care much for haptics so it’s a non-issue for me.
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Display

LG G8X has a slightly bigger screen at 6.4” vs 6.2”. In practice I can’t really tell the difference. In terms of image quality, I am no expert at distinguishing this. Pixel appears a bit brighter than the LG G8X at max brightness. Pixel appears a bit darker than the LG G8X at minimum brightness. Honestly not a huge difference either way. At low brightness, the LG has a bit of a “black smear” effect that I notice while scrolling that isn’t as evident on the Pixel. Colours, I don’t know. Reds and whites look more natural on the Pixel otherwise hard for me to tell much of a difference. However, LG gives you a lot of flexibility in playing around with the colours of the display and stuff and I’m sure you could get it to look the way you want. The Pixel only offers 3 colour options. Finally, the status bar on the Pixel is HUGE and feels like they could’ve saved a lot of space if they cut it down. Thus for many apps the LG G8X feels significantly more spacious because of the status bar – the Pixel’s status bar is, from what I can visually estimate, literally twice as tall as the LG’s. Auto brightness: LG G8X is way better. Smooth gradation, whereas Pixel is abrupt.
Overall I think the Pixel is maybe a tad nicer on default settings, but I’ll give it to LG G8X for the flexibility with adjusting the screen colours however you want, as well as the extra real estate afforded by the much smaller status bar (and of course bigger screen).
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Fingerprint sensor

LG G8X fingerprint is frustratingly inaccurate. I am only successfully like 60-70% of the time with my thumbs. Sometimes it’s fantastic, other times I cannot get it to work 5 times in a row and I need to enter the passcode manually. I can’t seem to recreate the conditions where it doesn’t work. That being said, I really like having front-facing fingerprint scanners: my phone is often sitting on my desk, and it’s really nice to be able to check things on my phone without having to lift up the phone or entering a passcode. Also, when my phone is on my desk, I unlock my phone with my index finger which is a lot more accurate than when I use my thumb, I guess because the index finger has such a smaller surface area. Thus that frustration with inaccuracy isn’t as big of an issue when my phone is on my desk, but it’s still generally much slower than a regular fingerprint reader.
The Pixel fingerprint reader on the other hand works ridiculously well (maybe because of the index finger thing? Though my old thumb Moto Z Play was also a lot quicker and more reliable than the LG G8X), and is much quicker in recognizing the fingerprint. There is also a “Swipe down on fingerprint reader” gesture to bring down notification panel. I constantly get false positives when I accidentally rest my finger on the sensor, so I’ve turned it off. The fingerprint reader is incredibly shallow to the point where I sometimes don’t know where it is because it’s hard to feel. As a result, sometimes I need to search for it a bit, and other times I accidentally turn it on without even noticing that I activated the fingerprint sensor. Both problems could be solved with a case (which I don’t have yet)
Overall it’s a tossup for me. I like the reliability and speed of the Pixel’s, but I like the front-facing sensor on the LG for when I have the phone laying on my desk (which is a lot of the time).
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Speakers

I can’t tell. They both sound different. The max volumes are very similar in volume. The Pixel has a much quieter, almost imperceptible min volume. The Pixel 4a 5G sounds more… spacious? Maybe echoey. The LG G8X’s speakers sound more… precise? There is an obvious difference in the two sounds, which sounds “better” might be an obvious difference to others but I can’t tell. I have to assume that the LG G8X’s headphone jack audio is much better than the Pixels with the HI-Fi Quad DAC thing, but I don’t have any high end headphones so I can’t test it really. The LG G8X has some fancy “DTS:X 3D Surround” effects, which all sound terrible always, so I never leave them on. LG G8X has an equalizer, Pixel does not. Audio for both come out of the bottom right “speaker grille” and the earpiece speaker grille. For both phone the bottom speaker is louder than the earpiece, but the Pixel’s speakers are closer in volume than the LG G8X’s: block the bottom speaker, and the audio is greatly diminished.
I think the LG wins this one with the audio options and flexibility? There’s probably something fundamentally different between the speakers on the two phones but I really I can’t tell which I prefer. People had a lot of complaints about the Pixel 5 speakers, I have no clue if the 4a 5G have the same problems.
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Microphone

Take a listen for yourself. I read a very relevant CBC report with both phones about 15 cm away from my face. I also recorded my laptop playing some music, about 30cm away from the phones. I think the Pixel maybe takes in more sound, but as a result also has more background noise than the LG. On the contrary the LG sounds tinnier to me.
Overall I still think I like the Pixel better, but again take a listen yourself!
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Battery

The Pixel has a 3800 mAh battery, the LG has a 4000 mAh battery. That being said, there are obviously many other factors contributing to battery life (processor, cell signal, etc). If I just use both phones nonstop, they both have great SOT. Both get about 8-9 hours for me of SOT uninterrupted. It’s the standby time that the Pixel excels at though. Overnight drain is <1%/h on the Pixel whereas it’s about 1.5% on my LG. Standby drain while out and about is about 1%/h on the Pixel whereas it’s about 2%/h on the LG. It’s unfortunately the standby drain that turns the LG G8X from a true 2 day phone to a not-quite-fully-2 day phone. (Also keep in mind cell signal plays a big role in battery drain – the signal in my area isn’t super great. I’m sure the drain for others isn’t as bad as the 2%/h I’m experiencing, but you might live in an area with better reception!)
Both phones have great battery life. I will give this one to the 4a 5G for the great standby time. I’ve included screenshots of my (very phone heavy) holiday break battery life, as per Accubattery. I may continue to add Pixel battery life screenshots as the days go by.
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General software and special features

Mostly just going to list features here, bear with me. Pixel has the huge advantage of having day 1 Android updates for 3 years. LG G8X has maybe 1 update left in it, if at all? Both phones have double tap to wake. LG has double tap the status bar to sleep, which is very nice. Pixel has call screening with the phone, Now Playing song recognition. Notifications are basically identical. LG G8X technically has a 1 handed/Reachability mode, but it has worked a grand total of 2 times for me despite trying it countless times. Would have been nice. The Pixel’s “Recent apps” screen has a Screenshot button and a Select (text) option. I don’t find the screenshot button very useful at all as I can just take a screenshot with the (admittedly uncomfortable) Power button + Volume Down combo. Select text I have not used yet but I could see being useful. The LG has an, in my opinion, much more useful set of frequently used icons on the bottom. Not customizable, but pretty true to what I use frequently. I use the feature very often. In addition to split screen apps, LG also gives you the option for a “pop up window”, Windows style, that you can drag around the screen, which could be useful for multitasking I guess but I’m still not sure in what use cases you’d have multiple windows-style windows open (they don’t work on the dual screen).
LG apps
LG has a bunch of bloatware that I never use and I disabled right away. I haven’t tested out the Whale browser at all. LG has its own LG Health app which I did not check out. It has an FM Radio which could be useful. There is a screenshot tool/app which could be useful, but I just use the regular screenshot shortcut. (Speaking about screenshots: Android 11 brought with it screenshots that are instantly taken as soon as you press Power + volume down, which is fantastic on the Pixel. On the LG, you still have to hold the buttons for a second or two. That being said, it is very annoying taking screenshots on the Pixel due to the volume and power buttons being on the same side. Android 11 also removed the ability to take a screenshot by holding the power button, which could have been great.) LG also has a pretty robust “HD Audio Recorder” app with lots of flexibility, but doesn’t do the transcribing that the Google audio recorder does (Which you can download though to the LG via apk). LG G8X has 2 apps you can assign to each bottom corner of the lock screen, which is where I put my GCam. Both phones have double tap power button to turn on camera shortcuts. LG also has a “Context Awareness” feature, which lets you adjust your sound profile, Bluetooth, wifi settings automatically based on your location. Also lets you find your parking spot. Neat in theory, but I didn’t use it much for concerns about battery drain (did not test to see if it really drained much). LG has a “Floating bar” you can turn on, which is a little tab which gives you shortcuts to apps that you can set, audio controls, screen capture, quick contacts. I could see this being really useful! I didn’t realize til just now writing this that we could set our own apps though, so I haven’t tested it to see if I’d actually use it. Finally, the G8X has a desktop mode, which I unfortunately don’t have access to. I can imagine this being useful in certain situations.
LG's previous app gesture
One big complaint that I have a big reason I was tempted to ditch the LG. The “previous app” gesture is completely busted on the LG. I won’t talk about it much here as I’ve already documented it elsewhere. In short, it’s completely unreliable and only works the way you’d expect it to work like 30% of the time. It is infuriating and makes me want to chuck out the windows at times. I’ve stopped using the gesture entirely and just open the Recent Tabs instead, which over time adds up a decent amount of time. The Pixel has no such problem. Generally the LG is also buggier than the Pixel, with jankier animations, turning off out of nowhere, sometimes getting stuck on the Recent Apps screen, completely going unresponsive at times – the latter three problems being quite rare, but they’ve happened.
Pixel power menus
Emergency info, power off, restart, Google Pay, Google Home devices. No longer has screenshot. LG power menu: Power off, power off and restart. Pixel definitely wins here.
Volume menus
Pixel has media volume slider, notifications toggle, Live Transcribe, and a shortcut to an audio settings overlay. LG has a context-sensitive volume slider (media volume slider when there’s audio playing, call volume during a call, notification volume otherwise), and a drop-down menu for individually controlling the different types of volumes. If you don’t want a context-sensitive slider, you can also set it to by default open just the one type. Pixel wins here for me: though the context sensitive slider can be useful, Live Transcribe is a pretty neat feature. Pixel also lets me control both notifications (Toggle) and media volume slider within one tap, whereas the LG only lets me change (in one tap) whichever context sensitive option is available at the time, otherwise I’d have to open the menu.
Overall, LG has a lot of features crammed in, but I rarely if ever use any of them. They are functionally bloatware for me. LG does have some genuinely useful software quirks like double tap status bar to sleep, the Floating Bar (I guess), and the lock screen shortcuts, but I have never been so aggravated with a phone before in my life with the previous app gesture and other bugs that I have to give Google the win here. (Also, reliable frequent software updates, less bloatware, and other useful features like Call Screening, Live Transcribe, Now Playing). The caveat is I haven’t used the Pixel long enough to see the bugs present in the Pixel.
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Default launchers

Google uses the Pixel Launcher. Very minimal flexibility, but it is pretty slick to use with great animations. Google search bar on the bottom, At A Glance (temperature, date, calendar events) at the top, Google feed to the left. You can’t adjust icon packs or grid size. App drawer showing frequently used apps at the top, and the rest of the apps in alphabetical order in a scrolling pile/list. LG has their own launcher with more flexibility (screen swipe effect, icon shape, grid size, option for left swipe to be Google feed or LG’s whatever feed). Unfortunately LG’s app drawer is truly horrendous, a horizontally moving multipaged mess that doesn’t automatically sort (if you add an app, you need to manually sort alphabetically to get them all alphabetical again). I never know which page I am on (there is an indicator at the bottom, but still) and thus it takes me far longer than it should to find an app I’m looking for. Just give me a scrolly bar!
Either way, both launchers aren’t great (except for animations -they’re both slick) and you should really use some 3rd party launcher instead. I use Microsoft Launcher personally, which has some janky animations but lots of great functionality. Nova of course is another popular option with even more customization.
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Always On Display

Pixel Always On Display displays 5 notification icons, time, date, weather, battery. No customization. LG G8X lets you customize the home screen quite a bit (you can add your own images, change aspects of the format, displays time, date, battery but only displays 3 notification icons. Has quick icons you can swipe to access to eg. turn on flashlight, change songs, etc. The Pixel’s is dimmer than the LG’s, which I think I prefer. The LG’s is very bright at night when I’m trying to sleep. Finally, picking up the Pixel will wake it up and bring it to the lock screen. Picking up the LG does nothing.
Kind of a toss up. At first I was leaning toward the LG for its flexibility, but the Pixel’s 5 notification icons are frankly more useful to me. I also like the dimmer AOD of the Pixel. If you’ve got the Dual Screen, you’re almost never even going to see the AOD on the LG.
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Performance

Okay, so I realize that “opening apps and web pages in quick succession” is not something anyone ever does in real life. That being said, I think there is a little bit of merit to it.
Another reason I was thinking of switching away from the LG G8X was that this supposedly high end Snapdragon 855 didn’t feel nearly as quick or snappy as I thought it would. A definite improvement from my Moto Z Play, but also not quite the blazing fast speed I was expecting? So I did a ridiculously unscientific speed test between the two. Keep in mind the following caveats:
- MY LG G8X is 4 months old
- LG G8X has 111gb used of 128gb, Pixel has 75.14gb used of 128gb.
- Apps are close to parity but not quite
- I love reading about tech, but have not myself owned too many products. I am not a professional reviewer by any means, and have never really owned any high end phones (I had an iPhone 4 when it came out, the next “highest end” phone I’ve owned would be this LG G8X). So eg. with displays, I’m not the best at judging.
- I only got the dual screen a day before I got the Pixel, so most of my LG G8X impressions are from Dual Screen use. I’ve also used the Dual Screen for a bit since getting it, so I do have thoughts in its own section.
- I did comparisons in two different scenarios: 1st scenario, both phones were restarted, full battery. 2nd run, both phones had been on and used over a period of about 48 hours without turning them off. LG G8X was at 70% and Pixel was at 100%. Pixel was used generally much more than the LG phone was all day. The reason for doing it both after a fresh restart and after a few days on is that I had noticed that my LG seemed to perform worse after several days, and seemed to be better after a fresh restart.
1st run
With both phones freshly restarted and at the same battery percentage, geeeeeeeeeeeeeenerally the LG G8X was faster at opening apps than the Pixel. But honestly not as frequently as I was expecting. The LG G8X was generally able to open more intensive apps a bit faster than the Pixel. I’ve attached the “stats” here. In short, the LG was able to open 12 apps less than half a second faster than the Pixel, whereas the Pixel was able to open 9 apps less than half a second faster than the LG. The LG was able to open 8 apps more than half a second faster than the Pixel, and the Pixel was able to open 6 apps more than half a second faster than the LG. The phones opened 7 websites equally quickly. In terms of websites, the LG was able to open 23 websites faster than the Pixel, and the Pixel was able to open 9 websites slightly faster than the LG. They opened 3 websites at the same speed.
The most egregious thing here was the Pixel completely smoked the LG in terms of keeping app and websites in memory. It wasn’t even remotely close. Even before I got the Pixel I had noticed my LG seemed to be dropping apps quickly, but it wasn’t clear how quick it was until I directly compared these two phones. On my first run, after loading tons of Chrome tabs, both phones had to reload 80 days (the most recent app). After that, the LG continued to consistently reload apps, whereas the Pixel was able to load at least 7 apps without having to reload before I stopped testing.
2nd run
At this point I had both phones on for about 48 hours and had used my Pixel for about 3 hours that day (then charged to 100%) and then used my LG for about 2 hours right before testing it (battery about 70% when I started testing). I cleared all the apps from memory. I have no clue if the battery difference contributed or what, but the results completely flipped around, and quite dramatically. The Pixel was able to open apps slightly faster by <0.5s than the LG with 38 apps. The LG was slightly faster by >0.5s than the Pixel with 10 apps. The Pixel was noticeably >0.5s faster than the LG with 8 apps, and the LG was noticeably faster >0.5s than the Pixel with 6 apps. They were equally fast at opening 17 apps.
Really striking results. I rarely turn off my phone, which is maybe why I’ve been feeling my LG gets sluggish pretty easily? Clear something about keeping the LG on for periods of time causes… stuff… to build up, and the Pixel completely smoked the LG in terms of app opening on the second run. That being said, the <0.5s speed advantages really are quite miniscule, could very much be due to margin of error from my tapping, and of course there are always a million variables impacting how quickly an app opens up. But still, the Pixel is no slouch with its SD 765.
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Gaming

I also ran the Dolphin emulator on The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker and Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance. Both phones performed equally well, hitting 29-30 fps for Wind Waker and 59-60fps for Fire Emblem consistently. Genshin Impact ran a bit smoother on the LG than the LG (and the default setting for LG was “Medium” graphics, while for the Pixel was “Low”.) Both phones had lots of frame drops. I’ve included some screen recordings of Genshin Impact, both ran at medium settings, as well as the Dolphin games at default settings, using each respective phone’s default screen recorders. I’m not sure why the LG recording is such miserable quality (and muted), they both visually looked the same while actually playing the game. Similarly, I have no clue why the Pixel recording made the voices all echoey, they sound fine normally. Similarly, with the Dolphin emulator, normally Wind Waker is able to hold 29-30 pretty well, I suspect also running the screen recorder simultaneously caused it to drop frames. I repeated the Dolphin emulation after resetting the phone, and I still got frame rate drops. But uh, yeah, the Pixel also held its framerate better with the screen recorder than the LG did (normally they’re both good at holding the framerate).
Using Dolphin to emulate Xenoblade was a completely different story. Through the opening sequence, both phones (and my laptop) hiccupped at the same places. That being said, outside of those hiccup spots in cutscenes (and one area with a larger concentration of enemies), the Pixel 4a 5G was mostly able to maintain 30fps. Exploring Colony 9 was a smooth 30fps throughout the city. The LG G8X hiccupped in those cutscenes, but in other places where the Pixel was 30fps, the LG G8X was chugging along at 15-25fps. Most notably this occurred while exploring Colony 9. I have no clue what’s going on here, I didn’t actually expect the Pixel to perform so well here, or the LG G8X to perform so poorly. I tried walking around Colony 9 again when my phone cooled down a bit and it performed better, but quickly tanked back down to ~20fps within 15 seconds. I suspect LG throttles its phone pretty hard?
Overall, shockingly, I have to give the Pixel the win here. It’s no comparison. You can check out the gameplay vids yourself. I don’t know if I have a lemon of an LG G8X or what. If anyone else is able to emulate Xenoblade on their LG G8X, let me know how it performs for you. Is my phone a lemon? Or did LG just optimize their phone extremely poorly? (ALSO Apologies for the terrible resolution for the LG recorder, I didn’t realize you could change the resolution to full HD til my rerecording after the phone had cooled down).
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Camera

I thought the LG’s camera was fantastic coming from the Moto Z Play. Then I got the Pixel! GCam does help, but unfortunately you can’t set it to the double-tap-power button shortcut. The LG camera app does have some merits (lots of flexibility in image settings if you have the time to tweak settings to take a photo), but for a quick point and shoot it just doesn’t compare to the Pixel a lot of the time. That being said, I feel the LG actually sometimes takes more accurate photos? If I take a photo of something drab and dull, the LG captures it pretty accurately, whereas the Pixel takes a far nicer looking photo but doesn’t look like the drab reality. The Pixel though also takes much nicer, realistic photos of nice vibrant things, whereas the LG’s photos look more washed out. For day shots, or shots facing light, the… dynamic range? Is that what it’s called? For the Pixel is far better than the Pixel. The LG will blow out eg. the details in clouds (ie. Clouds will just appear white and uniform), while the Pixel will preserve the detail and colour of the clouds. For night shots, the LG actually takes better non-Night mode night shots than the Pixel. But the Pixel’s Night Mode absolutely smokes LG’s Night Mode, no questions asked. LG with GCam’s Night Sight helps a lot though. The LG’s selfie camera focuses off into the distance instead of your face so is functionally useless. Finally, I don’t take videos so won’t really comment on it. LG’s wide camera is a lot wider than the Pixel’s, which is a plus for LG.
Overall, the Pixel has a better camera but the LG isn’t too shabby, and sometimes takes nicer shots than the Pixel. Non-Night mode shots are actually better on the LG, but usually Pixel’s night mode turns out better looking. I’ll let the photos do the talking, where I have comparison shots between the LG (with the LG cam as well as the GCam), vs. the Pixel. I’m a lot more interested in shots with challenging lighting, thus the weird dark shots. Unfortunately the weather isn’t great here so no nice outdoor shots. Also unfortunately I have now noticed that a lot of them are blurrier than I’d like – I am too lazy to change them now! I may add more photos to the albums later.
---

Dual screen

I just picked this up a day before the Pixel came in. I was pretty excited for it because there are definitely times where I want to multitask, or where I’ve got split screen open trying to copy some text from what window to the other but the keyboard pops up and blocks my view.
Unfortunately, the dual screen implementation feels far more half-hearted than that of what I’m hearing about the Surface Duo. The two screens feel more like two separate machines with a tenuous link, than like two parts of the same unit. At the same time, the 2nd screen doesn’t have the same functionality as the main screen: you can’t split screen it, you can’t change the launcher, the home screen is not continuous at all with the main screen’s home screen, and when you throw one screen’s contents over to the other screen, it often feels like a mystery what will occupy the screen whose contents you just threw over to the other screen.
Using one screen as a keyboard for the other screen in theory sounds really neat, but it only works with the LG keyboard, which has an embarrassingly tiny dictionary with terrible autocorrect suggestions. Even when it works with the LG keyboard, when you tap in a text field on the top screen, the phone does this janky animation where the keyboard first shows up on the top screen before jumping down to the bottom screen. If you tap on a text field on the bottom screen, it won’t by default push the bottom screen contents up and open the keyboard on the bottom screen (which could be what some people want, I guess).
Very, very, very few apps make good use of the dual screens, even with the 3rd party Wide Mode app which forces any app into Wide Mode (which just turns apps into Tablet Mode rather than giving unique content to each screen). The LG Whale browser seems to be the best app to make use of the dual screen (you can open links in one screen on the other screen) – that being said, I’d much rather use other browsers. Chrome does a reasonable job, and you can open taps from one screen in the other screen. I can’t find a way to get Youtube to open a video on one screen and me scrolling through comments/searching through other videos on the other screen.
Overall something I really wish they would have incorporated was, say, opening a link in one app and the internet browser automatically opening in the other screen, or at least giving me the option to open in the other screen! Say, a friend sends me a link to a website and then I open the website in the opposite screen automatically and then continue talking to my friend on the first screen. Not a feature that is currently implemented.
The LG Gamepad mode seems like a great idea: the top screen acts as the screen, the bottom screen acts as the gamepad. Supposedly the games will detect it as a native gamepad. Unfortunately, it was not compatible with Stadia, Xbox GamePass Streaming, or Dolphin Emulator. It was compatible with Final Fantasy V and PPSSPP. Games like Genshin Impact, a game without controller support absolutely begging for it, work really well with it as you can also create a custom gamepad with buttons that correspond to tapping areas on the game screen. I was most looking forward to it working with Stadia, Gamepass and the emulators though (I don’t play too many native Android games) so I definitely am pretty bummed.
My biggest complaint though is there just simply is no easy way to type with the dual screen vertical. Though I’d like to make use of the dual screen features sometimes for the occasional time I want to multitask, I sadly discovered the few times I would use the dual screen to its potential does not warrant having the carry this colossal phone around with its incredibly uncomfortable typing position. The obvious solution would be to have a “wide mode” split keyboard, which actually does appear if you Wide Mode an app and then use the keyboard. But from what I can tell, there is no way to “wide mode” a keyboard when you’re using the dual screens as, well, dual screens. On single screen phones I usually type with two hands, whereas I can’t type with one hand on this phone because the keyboard only shows up on one screen, and the other screen is in the way. On this phone, the only way to type is to hold the phone with one hand, and use a finger on the other hand to peck at or swipe the keys.
Overall, I think I like a dual screen in theory, but LG didn’t execute it very well at all. Instead of feeling like an extension of the main screen, it feels like its entirely own entity and doesn’t always flow well with the main screen. The absolute paucity of apps making use of the dual screen to its full potential is unfortunate. The biggest culprit is that typing in dual screen vertical mode (The way I use it most frequently) is extremely uncomfortable. All these drawbacks don’t make keeping the dual screen on worthwhile, as someone who only occasionally requires the dual screen.
---

Conclusion

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading! This wound up being nearly 7000 words… wasn’t expecting it to be, like, even a quarter that long. I'll be happy if even one person reads through 50% of this.
I think the Pixel demonstrates that spec sheets really are not everything. Either that, or I got a lemon of an LG G8X (not outside the realm of possibility). With the caveat of the LG having much more fuller storage and being used for 4 more months, despite the LG’s supposedly better chip, performance is objectively pretty similar between the two phones in terms of app opening and opening websites. The Pixel was actually beating out the LG pretty consistently after both phones were used for 48 hours. Both phones run Genshin Impact kind of miserably, and run Gamecube games on Dolphin without a hitch. The Pixel was significantly better than the LG in emulating the Wii. The Pixel consistently destroyed the LG in terms of memory management. The Pixel’s smaller battery capacity of 3800 mAh outlasted the LG’s 4000 mAh battery, even when the LG was brand new. The camera in the Pixel is far better than the LG. The software experience of the Pixel is smoother and less buggy (and certainly less frustrating). The fingerprint sensor is a tossup for me. The audio is maybe better in the LG, but I can’t really tell. Screens are similar. The LG does “feel” more premium, but I do prefer the lightness of the Pixel. The one definitely advantage the LG has over the Pixel is the expandable storage.
Needless to say, I think I am going to keep the Pixel. I didn’t want to leave the LG G8X community behind though without giving a good reason to do so, and I hope this 6000+ word document with accompanying Dropbox folder of photos, screenshots, and screen recordings explain why I did so, and also demonstrate that spec sheets aren’t everything. I’ll probably try to sell the LG G8X + Dual Screen, but taking a look at how long these phones stay on Facebook Marketplace/eBay, I’m not very hopeful I’ll be able to sell it at even a fraction of what I bought it for. Anyway, thanks for reading.
I spent way too much time on this.
Also I haven’t proofread this, so I’m sure there are mistakes abound.
Also I really need to get working on actually important stuff. Thanks for reading!
---

Much needed tl;dr (Which is still long):

- Spec sheets are not everything.
- Was getting tired of LG G8X's weight, previous app gesture being busted, standby drain, general glitchiness, slower performance than expected, so I picked up a Pixel 4a 5G.
- Did lots of tests which you can check out in the Dropbox
- I subjectively like Pixel's camera, speakers, microphone, default screen colour balance, software cleanliness better.
- Really surprisingly, my specific days-old Pixel 4a 5G outperforms my 4 month old LG G8X in app opening and website opening (unless I freshly restart both phones). REALLY surprisingly, my Pixel ran circles around the LG in Wii emulation, and was equally competent at Gamecube emulation and Genshin Impact
- I will be keeping the Pixel. I will try to sell the LG G8X but am not hopeful. I will miss LG G8X's expandable storage but not much else.

[Updated late 2020]
There's a few links on the game website, but this is everything else I can find. Comment or message me and I'll update the list. Some of the github projects are 5 years+ without being updated. If you can confirm which ones do work I will add this.

Websites

• Neptune's Pride
• IronHelmet (Developer) (Twitter|Facebook)
• Youtube channel (The help videos are private though)

Discussion

• Official IHG Forum
• This Subreddit
• Official IHG Discord Server
• Fight Against Bordom (NP & Starbourne player group)

Guidance

• Offical help 'Codex' pages
• Gamepedia Wiki (infrequently updated)
• Wikia Wiki (DEAD)
• Introduction to Neptune's Pride - shmup (2016)

API tools

Websites which use your API code

• NP2STATS

Github Projects (last update prefixed)

Most of these have NOT been checked or tested in any way by me. Some projects are old and unlikely to work. Updates in 2020 are bolded.

• Bindings / APIs
  
  • 2020 phpTriton: PHP bindings.
  • 2019 neptunesfolly: Python bindings
  • 2017 neptunepy: Python bindings.
  • 2015 neptunes-pride-api: Web API
  • 2020 neptunes_pride: Ruby bindings.
• Userscripts & Browser Extensions (~mods)
  
  • 2018 NP True Dark: True Dark setting (self-only).
  • 2016 Neptune's Pride Seer: Unclear.
  • 2017 TritonExtensionEnabler: Chrome Screenshot Sharing Tool
  • 2013 neptunesPrideClient: Chrome(?) combat predictor, sensor sharing and data analysis
  • 2013 A Chrome UI Mod:
  • 2018 My old userscript mods: BROKEN
  • 2017 NP+: Chrome extension.
• Alternative Clients / UIs
  
  • 2020 Neptunes-Dashboard: Written in Kotlin
  • 2020 galatea: Written in F# & Fable
  • 2015 SpaceNorad: PHP client.
  • 2013 neptunesPrideClient: Written in Objective-C
  • 2015 Xanax: Unsure. "Improved Leaderboard and Intel views"
• Calculators Generally simple scripts. NOTE: You can click c to open the in-game combat calculator.
  
  • 2020 Combat Simulator: Written in HTML/JS.
  • 2018 'battle_checker': Written in python.
  • 2015 Neptunes-Pride-2-Calc: Collection of scripts to forcast
  • 2013 A simple Python combat simulator: No user-interface!
  • 2012 npcombatsim: Written in HTML/JS.
  • 2016 triton_utils: Some simple useful utilities.
• Notifications
  
  • 2018 Neptune's Pride Alert: Sends SMS when attacked.
  • 2018 Klaxon: Android push notificaitons.
• Bots / AI (Note: bots are against the game rules. Get written permission by the developer before using.)
  
  • 2016 npbot: A bot of some kind (Ruby)
• Other
  
  • 2020 NP World GeneratoCustomiser: Map utility for custom games.
  • 2020 NP2 Wallboard - A ten-foot style display for tracking stats in Neptune's Pride 2: Triton.
  • 2015 np2-sleep: Auto-pause game during admin's sleeping hours.
  • xanax: Improved Leaderboard and Intel views for Neptune's Pride (requires node.js)
  • 2014 Salo: AI Simulation inspired by NP
  • 2020 NeptunesModeller: Collection of scripts to forcast
  • 2015 NeptunesPrideStateDownloader: C# tool Bad code.
  • 2016 neptunes_pride_simulation: Find optimal starting moves
  • 2013 neptunesPrideServer: PHP clone?
  • 2019 neptunes_pride_scripts: Cli to pause game.
  • 2015 Map Renderer: Written in C#
  • 2020 np2 tool: CLI in Python for Proteus.
  • 2019 cordova-vue.neptun.learn: Data analysis?
  • 2017 plutos-envy: Game dev inspired by NP.
• Crud (unknown code / partially implemented / never working)
  
  • 2020 UNKNOWN 1: Cli tool. Written in Go
  • 2020 neptunes-pride-bot: EMPTY.
  • 2019 neptunes_pride_scraper: Written in JS.
  • 2014 NPBC: Written in JS.
  • 2014 Ruler modification?: Written in JS.
  • 2018 knp3: Kotlin API? Not sure.
  • 2015 np_visualizer: Not sure. Written in JS.
  • 2017 np_clone: ~Empty.

Similar Games

• Solaris Open source, in early development. Discord GitHub
  
• Subterfuge Mobile only.
  

All right crew!
​
The Chrome OS Stable Channel got promoted to milestone 84 last week on Tuesday - from 83.0.4103.119 to 84.0.4147.94. As with every new milestone update, this brings massive changes to the table, offering several new features, bug fixes, and security enhancements to better improve your Chrome OS user experience. In light of the global situation, Google decided to defer the features from Chrome OS 83 to 84. This means this update is packed with major features. Fun fact: exactly 10,000 commits landed in this build of Chrome OS, excluding platform specific updates. Here is everything new I found in this build of Chrome OS!
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Like my content and want to buy me a coffee? You can support me on ko-fi using this link or by using the link in my Reddit profile. If you want to be kept up to date with everything new to Chrome OS, feel free to give me a follow. Thanks in advance for your support!! :)

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Featured changes

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This section showcases changes I believe to be the most significant to this build of Chrome OS. They make a massive impact to the user experience and may be something to look forward to when upgrading your system to this build. These changes will also be listed in the "Notable changes" section of the post.
​

1. Ash: You can now snap app windows to the top of the screen to maximize, and unsnap a maximized window by dragging down from the top bar. Small change, HUGE productivity booster. See my demo on Reddit here.
2. Multi-display overview and snapping windows in clamshell mode is enabled by default. This means you can snap windows in overview mode without needing to go into tablet mode. See screenshot.
3. Files app: The completely revamped file manager built with Google Material theme and WebUI is enabled by default. This features a nice white theme, outline iconography, and native RAR archive support. This replaces the old files app on Chrome OS. See screenshot.
4. Linux (Beta): The new Terminal system app that features a cool black theme, tab UI, and new settings page is enabled by default. To find terminal settings, right click the terminal icon on the Shelf. See screenshot.
5. Linux (Beta): Linux apps can now use your Chromebook’s microphone, which opens the door to multimedia apps such as Audacity. To enable, head to Chrome OS Settings > Linux (Beta), then enable the “Allow Linux to access your microphone” toggle. Chrome OS settings will require you to restart the Linux container to apply changes. See screenshot.
6. You are now able to resize the disk size of Linux (Beta) out of the box. The setup installer also bakes the disk resize tool in it. By default, the disk size is dynamically allocated, but you can change it to a fixed size if you need more/less space. See screenshots.
7. Explore app: The brand new Help SWA app, called “Explore”, is enabled by default. It completely overhauls the Help app experience, featuring a slick Google Material theme with nice Google-y illustrations. This app aims to help people get set up and take full advantage of their Chromebook. It also merges perks from buying a Chromebook, like free Google One storage for 12 months (YMMV). See screenshot.

​

Notable changes in this build

​
The following is everything I found with this version of Chrome OS. There may be more things I might've missed - please let me know in the comments if you find a significant change not listed here. Bullet points in bold are changes I believe are the most significant.
Interested in trying out cool new Chrome and Chrome OS features that didn’t make it in by default? Click here to see my recommended flag list. (link coming soon)
​
Ash

• You can now snap app windows to the top of the screen to maximize, and unsnap a maximized window by dragging down from the top bar. Small change, HUGE productivity booster. See my demo on Reddit here.
• Multi-display overview and snapping windows in clamshell mode is enabled by default. This means you can snap windows in overview mode without needing to go into tablet mode. See screenshot.
• You can now use a 3-finger swipe gesture to switch tabs in tabbed apps, including the new Linux terminal app. Previously, you could only scrub tabs in Chrome windows.
• New feature flag to scale down Shelf app icons in tablet mode when there is no more room left on the Shelf. Requires chrome://flags/#shelf-app-scaling to be enabled. See screen recording.
• Fully gestural navigation in tablet mode is enabled by default for Kukui (Lenovo Duet), Eve (Pixelbook), Nocturne (Pixel Slate), and Hatch (Acer Chromebook 712, Asus Chromebook Flip C436FA, Samsung Galaxy Chromebook) boards. Fully gestural navigation hides the back arrow, home, and Overview mode buttons from the Shelf when in tablet mode. Other Chromebooks will need the chrome://flags/#shelf-hide-buttons-in-tablet feature flag to be enabled.
• You can now drag and drop Chrome tabs on the right or left side of the screen to create a new window while in tablet mode. Note: only applicable on some devices. This is useful for quickly viewing Chrome tabs side-by-side. See my reddit post about it here.
• New feature flag that brings moving partial screenshot with magnifying glass to Chrome OS. This allows you to quickly resize the viewport before saving changes. To get this feature, enable chrome://flags/#movable-partial-screenshot-region. See screen recording.
• Chrome OS will now block notifications on displays with a fullscreen window. Previously with multiple displays in Chrome OS, if any one of them was fullscreen, then notifications were not shown on any displays. This update will block notifications on the display with the fullscreen window, but will show notifications on the other display.
• New feature flag that enables search results for OS settings in the launcher. This feature adds several shortcuts to the launcher search bar when search for a setting (e.g. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth). Note: this depends on chrome://flags/#new-os-settings-search to work. Not all part of Chrome OS settings is searchable in this build. Test this feature out by enabling chrome://flags/#launcher-settings-search. See screenshot.
• Lock screen media controls will hide when you close the Chromebook’s lid, or when the Chromebook suspends. This is done as a privacy preserving feature.
• Fixed context menu appearing when right-clicking the Virtual desk name.
• The tablet mode back gesture will be suppressed when web pages or web apps use touch-action:none in their CSS. This helps address an issue where users would accidentally trigger the back gesture when interacting with stylus-driven apps.
• Login/Lock screen: fixed enterprise management disclosure message mistakenly showing up for family-link accounts due to developer confusion between management and enterprise management.
• Fixed fullscreen Android apps preventing users from revealing Chrome OS’ Shelf set to auto-hide.
• Fixed Chrome OS not remembering if restored windows are minimized or in view.
• Significant Alt + Tab performance optimizations with multiple windows.
• Huge polish to the upcoming Ambient mode that’ll eventually overhaul the lockscreen experience. In the previous milestone, the ambient lockscreen had performance problems, no animations, and random visual glitches. In this build, all of the three are fixed. Despite this, I don’t recommend daily driving it yet due to its incomplete nature. To get a preview of how this feature looks like, enable chrome://flags/#enable-ambient-mode.
• New Managed icon "badge" next to the avatar in the lock/login screen. See screenshot.
• Fixed a visual bug where the user can trigger the Virtual desk gesture bounce animation in the login/lock screen.
• Fixed a bug where shortcut apps pinned to the Shelf do not have radio buttons for “New Tab/New Window”.

Bluetooth

• The Bluetooth Handsfree profile (version 1.7) feature is now enabled by default. This new bluetooth profile adds indicator support to report events like headset battery level. It also includes wideband speech, which allows you to enjoy hands-free interaction with your bluetooth devices with improved voice quality and better noise reduction.
• Bluetooth suspend notifier is enabled by default. This feature allows you to wake up your Chromebook with a bluetooth mouse or keyboard.
• Bluetooth wide-band microphone priority lowered. This prevents your Chromebook from auto-selecting bluetooth microphone when there is another audio input option.

Camera

• The Chrome OS Camera app will now save video captures as MP4 (H.264) instead of MKV. This will help users make it easier to use recorded videos in other apps.
• Camera video recordings will use the recording’s start timestamp as its filename in the file manager. This also improves the thumbnail load speeds when recording a long video with your Chromebook.
• Pressing the volume keys in the camera app will now take a photo or record a video.

Chrome

• Chrome will now reduce CPU and power consumption when it detects that a window is occluded by other windows. It will also suspend work painting pixels. This feature is rolling out to some users, with a full roll-out planned for Chrome OS 85.
• WebUI tab strip’s tab counter has a new progress throbber to better visualize that a new background tab was created. See demo by Google.
• Chrome will now show the quiet notification permission UI for sites known to trick users into accepting the notification permission. See screenshot.
• Fixed an annoying issue with dragging and dropping files into Chrome. Rather than navigating the current tab away and losing data of the page, dragging a file into Chrome (example: photo.jpg) will open a new tab instead.
• Fixed Chrome on Chrome OS using the wrong scale factor on a secondary display when site isolation is applied.
• Fixed regression that caused a tab to shrink after adding to a group when only one tab is present.
• New chrome://conversion-internals page. This page allows developers to understand the state they are modifying while developing the Conversion Measurement API. The page shows tables of active impressions and their metadata, and conversion reports and when they will be sent.
• New chrome://app-disabled page to show a demo of what it looks like when a managed user tries to launch a restricted app.
• Simple info bar to opt-out of WebUI tab strips.

Chrome OS Settings

• The new Chrome OS settings fuzzy search bar can finally search through your settings. Before this update, the fuzzy search only found Wi-Fi settings. Ctrl + F will also activate the search bar. To get the new fuzzy search instead of exact string matching found in the old Chrome OS setting, enable chrome://flags/#new-os-settings-search. See screenshot uploaded here.
• When attaching a Chromebook to an external monitor, enabling chrome://flags/#display-change-modal will split the resolution and refresh rate into two drop-downs. See screenshot.
• Port forwarding status should now be updated in Linux settings when Crostini shuts down.
• Changed and added a few outline icons to search and in Chrome OS settings UI.

Exo

• Fixed a bug on some devices that caused cursor images to be drawn in the wrong orientation due to the screen orientation being reported incorrectly to clients.

Explore app

• The brand new Help SWA app, called “Explore”, is enabled by default. It completely overhauls the Help app experience, featuring a slick Google Material theme with nice Google-y illustrations. This app aims to help people get set up and take full advantage of their Chromebook. It also merges perks from buying a Chromebook, like free Google One storage for 12 months (YMMV). See screenshot.

Family Link

• New native dialog that triggers when a child attempts to install or enable an extension or app and the parent has turned off the "Permissions for sites, apps, and extensions" setting in Family Link.

Files app

• The completely revamped file manager built with Google Material theme and WebUI is enabled by default. This features a nice white theme, outline iconography, and native RAR archive support. This replaces the old files app on Chrome OS. See screenshot.

Linux (Beta)

• The new Terminal system app that features a cool black theme, tab UI, and new settings page is enabled by default. To find terminal settings, right click the terminal icon on the Shelf. See screenshot.
• Linux apps can now use your Chromebook’s microphone. To enable, head to Chrome OS Settings > Linux (Beta), then enable the “Allow Linux to access your microphone” toggle. Chrome OS settings will require you to restart crostini to apply changes. See screenshot.
• You are now able to resize the disk size of Linux (Beta) out of the box. The setup installer also bakes the disk resizer in it. By default, the disk size is dynamically allocated, but you can change it to a fixed size if you need more/less space. See screenshots.
• The disk resize dialog now recommends at least 5GB for Linux. If there is less than 5GB available (when leaving 1 GB headroom on the physical disk), the string changes to a warning that tells the user they should try to free up space. Minimum disk size for Linux is 2GB.
• Fixed a serious bug impacting some devices (HP x360 is one) where Linux (beta) would automatically reinstall when restarting the device without user intent.
• Fixed a crash bug that would happen if a user cancels the Linux (Beta) install window at just the right moment.
• Internationalized terminal strings.

Input

• You can now resize the onscreen keyboard floating by dragging from each corner of the keyboard.
• Added yawning, ear with hearing aid, and sari emojis to the Virtual keyboard.

Mouse

• Chrome OS now supports High resolution mouse scrolling out of the box. This allows users with a free-spinning mouse scroll wheel (like Logitech G502) to scroll with pixel-level precision. Previously, if you move the wheel less than a click, it won’t scroll until you move it by more than a click. Supported mice include a broad range of Microsoft and Logitech mice (any mice that report REL_WHEEL_HI_RES from the Linux kernel).

Palm Suppression

• New feature flag that suppresses touch when a stylus is on a touchscreen. Here’s a hands-on demo of the new suppression mechanism that I did about a month ago. Enable chrome://flags/#enable-palm-suppression to significantly improve palm suppression. Note that it may NOT work for all devices. Does not work on a HP x360 14-inch (thanks for testing u/magick_68 ).

Printing

• Initial printer server support for CUPS. You will be able to configure connections to external print servers and print from the printers on servers using CUPS. To add a print server, go to Chrome OS settings > Advanced > Printing, then Add a printer > Print server.

​

The nitty-gritty stuff

​
This advanced section is a long list of things changed that impacts web developers and enterprise users. There are some nitty-gritty stuff in the full changelog linked below, but this list covers the most important Blink and Chrome changes introduced in this release cycle.
​
Disclaimer: because of how enormous the changes are between Chrome OS 83 and Chrome OS 84, I decided to omit a large amount of blink and v8 changes. However, I made sure to pick the most important blink and v8 changes introduced in this release cycle. That said, this is everything I found with this version of Chrome OS. If you find a mistake, discover something new that's not on this list, or have feedback, feel free to let me know in the comments below.
Chrome

• Websites that do not support TLS 1.2 and above will show a full-page warning to users that the connection is not fully secure. If users have sites affected by this and need to opt out, they will need to use the SSLVersionMin policy to disable the security indicator and warning. See the Google blog post for more information.
• DTLS 1.0, a protocol used in WebRTC for interactive audio and video, will be removed by default. Enterprise users who need additional time to adjust can use a policy to temporarily extend the removal.
• Extensions: fixed declarativeNetRequest chrome extensions failing to install from the Chrome web store.
• Insecure downloads will be blocked from secure pages. The change will roll-out gradually. Users will be warned about insecure executables in Chrome 84, and files will be blocked in Chrome 85. Refer to this rollout chart by Google.
• In effort to reduce websites’ ability to track users, Google is reducing the granularity of information from user agent strings by exposing the information through user-agent client hints. See this explainer for more information. The User-Agent Client hints is currently rolling out to some users, with a full roll-out coming to Chrome OS 85.
• Chrome will protect users against extensions that attempt to change their preferences without their consent. After an extension changes the default search engine or the new tab page, Chrome will confirm the change with the user, and allow them to keep the change or revert back to the old settings.
• New media feeds API to allow a user agent to discover a media feed provided by a website. When fetched by the user agent the site will return a feed of personalized media recommendations for the user. This feature is behind a feature flag: chrome://flags/#enable-media-feeds

Blink

• The new Screen Wakelock API is here! It provides a way to prevent devices from dimming or locking the screen when an application needs to keep running. This is HUGE for web developers! Previously, there was no standard way to prevent any aspect of a device such as screen or cpu cycles from going into power saving state. Some web developers use hacks such as adding very tiny video elements to the page and keep looping until some timeout. The Screen Wake lock API was heavily requested since it reduces the need for hacky and potentially power-hungry workarounds. See the Google web.dev blog for more details.
• Fixed a bug that caused textarea font size to flicker when font-size and transition CSS properties are both applied on a textarea.
• Fixed intrinsic size invalidation for canvas elements. This bug caused some photos and elements to not have the correct aspect ratio or size.
• Fixed a race condition that caused Gmail loading in offline mode to get stuck when devtools are open.
• Fixed a bug that caused a thin black horizontal line to show when hovering on YouTube’s video player. See this Redditor’s post of the bug.
• Fixed form submitting broken with multiple submissions. This bug caused one window to be broken and the other one to be okay instead of opening two windows with the same URL.
• Fixed an async form submission bug that broke sites due to Chrome expecting the first load event for just-created iframe to be for the form submission.
• New QuicTransport API that allows Web applications to connect directly to remove servers using QUIC. QuicTransport provides a client-server API that supports bidirectional transfer of both unreliable and reliable data, using UDP-like datagrams and cancellable streams. See this web.dev article for more information.
• Correct silence detecting condition in Web Audio. The silence detection should be activated when there are no automatic pull nodes, or the local destination node has an active input connection.
• Fixed positioned SVG backgrounds unstable with zoom or transitions due to sub-pixel snapping.
• Fixed form reset failing to visually update a shadow node with the default option label.
• Fixed inset box-shadow invisible in composited scroller with solid color background
• Fixed Cross-origin-embedder-policy: require-corp breaking HTML pages from extensions.
• Fixed pointerrawupdate incorrectly reporting mouse X/Y values when pointer is locked.
• Fixed submitting form that targets an iframe randomly failing silently.
• Fixed form submission taking precedence over window.location navigation
• Fixed SVG elements with filter not updating when manipulated outside of DOM and then appended back into DOM.
• Initial support for CSS Flexbox gutters. This addresses an issue web developers had when the grid shorthand resets gaps. See this developer discussion for more details.
• New row-gap, column-gap, and gap CSS properties that allows you to specify spacing between flex items and/or flex lines. Having this feature would reduce the need for extra "wrapper" divs, negative margins and other hacks. See this developer doc for more information.
• User-Agent Client Hints and the Client Hints Feature Policy infrastructure are enabled by default. This aims to provide developers with the ability to perform agent-based content negotiation when necessary, while avoiding the historical baggage and passive fingerprinting surface exposed by the vulnerable "User-Agent" header.
• Initial implementation of the new Virtual Keyboard API. Previously, developers had control over the displayed shape of the Virtual Keyboard through the inputmode attribute, but have limited control over when the keyboard is shown or hidden. This API will broaden this control. Developers cannot use this API yet. See design doc for more information.
• New Layout instability API to help developers identify unstable pages caused by DOM elements shifting around due to content loading asynchronously. It reports a value (the "layout shift") for each animation frame in the user’s session. This change is incredibly useful for web developers to sort layout problems on their websites. See this explainer for more details.
• WebAssembly SIMD support that will expose hardware SIMD instructions to WebAssembly applications in a platform-independent way. SIMD can boost performance by exploiting data level parallelism and is also useful when compiling native code to WebAssembly. See some documents on github for extra details.
• New Cookie Store API that exposes HTTP cookies to service workers and offers an asynchronous alternative to document.cookie. See this explainer for more information.
• New cross-origin iframe support for the Web Authenticator API. Check this w3c document for more details.
• New Idle Detection API notifies developers when a user is idle, indicating such things as lack of interaction with the keyboard, mouse, screen, activation of a screensaver, locking of the screen, or moving to a different screen. See this explainer for more details.
• New revert keyword to allow authors to roll back the cascade to the previous cascade level for a given CSS property. For example, on a
  element, specifying display:revert will cause the computed value of display to be block. See this section for more details.
• CSSStyleSheet.replace() has been removed. Calls to replace() will throw an exception if `@import rules are found in the replaced content. See developer discussion here.
• Enhances the Intl.DateTimeFormat API by adding a fractionalSecondDigits option to control the format of fractions of a second. Useful for web developers who need to output time information with millisecond precision. See developer document for more details.
• Web Animation API has been extended to include support for promises, replaceable animations, and read-only access to animation timeline. See updated specs here.
• Unprefixed ruby-position and ‘appearance’ CSS. See this section for details about ‘appearance’ and this one for ruby-position.
• New Javascript weak references that enable Javascript developers to create weak references to Javascript objects. These references help web developers define cleanup routines that don't keep the related objects alive but are optionally executed after the related object is garbage-collected. See this documentation for more details.
• New private methods and accessors feature. This keeps state and behavior private to a class and lets library authors present a clear, stable interface while changing their code over time behind the scenes. This adds private methods and accessors to Javascript. See this document for more details.
• New HTMLVideoElement.requestVideoFrameCallback() that registers a one-shot callback, called when a video frame has been presented for composition. It also provides useful metadata about that frame. See this explainer for more information.
• New origin isolation implementation. This allows web developers to opt in to giving up certain cross-origin same-site access capabilities — namely synchronous scripting via document.domain, and postMessage() the WebAssembly.Module instances. Reasons why a site may want better isolation include performance isolation, allocations of large amounts of memory, side-channel protection (e.g. against Spectre), and improved memory measurement. See this document for more details.

Enterprise and Admin Console

• Admins are now able to configure additional update policies for Chromebooks that are managed by Chrome Browser Cloud Management, such as allowing updates, roll back to a previous version, set relaunch notifications, or control when the Chromebook checks for updates.
• Admins can now configure network files shares for users using policies that allow configuring SMB settings such as NetBIOS discovery, NTLM authentication, and preconfiguring file shares so users can see them in Chrome OS’ files app.
• Timestamps in the device list’s CSV export file are now in human-readable format.
• Admins can now configure Chromebook’s screen resolution and UI scaling for displays.
• Admins can now re-enable the Dinosaur game for users to play when Chrome cannot connect to the internet.
• CORS enterprise policies CorsMitigationList and CorsLegacyModeEnabled will no longer work.
• The ForceNetworkInProcess policy will no longer take effect.
• Users are now able to select “always allow for this site” when opening an external protocol in Chrome OS 84. This feature is only available for secure origins and limited to the current origin.
• Requested by several IT admins, Chrome will be able to remember approval for launching external protocols. Users will be able to check "always allow for this site" when opening an external protocol.
• The URL Allowlist policy will not allow you to allowlist external protocols anymore. To improve security, this change was reverted back.

​

Platform changes

​
This part of the list covers the most significant platform changes I found in this build, from platform version 13020.87.0 to 13099.72.0. This includes low level changes, including kernel and driver updates and bug fixes. There are a ton more nitty-gritty stuff between these changes that lives outside of chromium/src. Note: due to the sheer volume of changes in this section, I am likely missing a lot of changes.
​
Disclaimer: I'm still learning how to read these changes!
ADHD

• Fixed a bug that causes audio stutters when casting desktop to a Chromecast.
• Fixed a bug that caused audio to stop playing after some time (e.g. YouTube in Firefox)

BlueZ

• a2dp: fixed bugs related to connections dropping out due to “Device or resource busy”.

chromiumos-overlay

• Dnsmasq: fixed security vulnerability CVE-2019-14834 in net-dns/dnsmasq . The CVSS severity score is rated 5 out of 10, 10 being the most severe.
• Wpa_supplicant: updated everyone to 2.8. See this link for changelogs

crosvm

• Fixed a bug where xhci host controller would stop responding if the crosvm emulated xhci device fails to trigger an interrupt for the event ring.
• Virtio net: added multi queue support to improve network bandwidth.

EC

• Nocturne: enabled Type-C Port Manager v2 / Power Delivery 3.0 on the Pixel Slate

gestures

• Fixed intermittently large, janky scrolling on web pages when using Bluetooth mice. This is caused by Bluetooth connection going to sleep, and the initial Bluetooth packet on wakeup being delayed, resulting in excess acceleration and page scroll.

libapps

• nassh: fixed ssh mini console not echoing input
• Terminal: minor theme styling changes to the Terminal settings page
• Terminal: update the context menu using material design. See some screenshots.
• Terminal: fixed a bug where chromevox does not launch using Ctrl + Alt + Z when the terminal is focused
• Terminal: increased opacity to 50% to cursors so that you can see characters that it is hovering over.
• Terminal: switched to HSV (Hue, Saturation, Value) color model for the color picker.
• Terminal: ensure that there is room for scrollbar by adding 12 px on the right margin when the user sets the scrollbar to visible.
• Terminal: added optional border around terminal to make it easier to select/copy text that starts on the edges.

Linux 3.8

• Fixed critical security vulnerability CVE-2019-20636 in the Linux kernel related to input having out-of-bounds writes via a crafted keycode table. The CVSS severity score is rated 10 out of 10, 10 being the most severe.

Linux 3.10

• Fixed critical security vulnerability CVE-2019-20636 in the Linux kernel related to input having out-of-bounds writes via a crafted keycode table. The CVSS severity score is rated 10 out of 10, 10 being the most severe.

Linux 3.14

• Fixed critical security vulnerability CVE-2019-20636 in the Linux kernel related to input having out-of-bounds writes via a crafted keycode table. The CVSS severity score is rated 10 out of 10, 10 being the most severe.

Linux 3.18

• Fixed critical security vulnerability CVE-2019-20636 in the Linux kernel related to input having out-of-bounds writes via a crafted keycode table. The CVSS severity score is rated 10 out of 10, 10 being the most severe.
• Lowered the bluetooth suspend interval and window to use less power
• Soraka: Fixed HP Chromebook X2 rotation sensor broken after suspending
• Fixed a bug that would cause instant tethering to break when pairing to a Pixel device.

Linux 4.4

• Updated Linux kernel to 4.4.223
• Fixed Pixelbook not able to achieve 5120x1440 at 60hz on a Samsung CRG9 display. Previously capped at 3840x1080.
• Lowered the bluetooth suspend interval and window to use less power

Linux 4.14

• Updated kernel to Linux 4.14.180.
• Fixed kernel crash when extending Chrome OS desktop to a UDL 2.0 monitor and rapidly pressing the up and down keys to change UDL resolution in Chrome OS display settings.
• USB Serial: added support for ASKEY WWHC050, BroadMobi BM806U, and Wistron Neweb D19Q1
• Lowered the bluetooth suspend interval and window to use less power
• Fixed Pixelbook not able to achieve 5120x1440 at 60hz on a Samsung CRG9 display. Previously capped at 3840x1080.
• Fixed a bug that would cause instant tethering to break when pairing to a Pixel device

Linux 4.19

• Updated kernel to Linux 4.19.122
• Lowered the bluetooth suspend interval and window to use less power.

Linux 5.4

• Updated kernel to Linux 5.4.40

platform2

• Termina VM: fixed termina/container not maintaining the correct time and date when the Chromebook lid is closed or when device is suspended.
• Chaps: temporarily increased RLIMIT_MEMLOCK from 1 MB to 32 MB to prevent a crash bug occurring to some users using chaps.
• Sommelier: relanded copy transfer optimizations, but with bug fixes to copy transfer that prevents black boxes and graphical corruptions from covering Linux apps. The workaround that prevented the black boxes from showing in Chrome OS 83 just disabled copy transfer completely.
• Authpolicy: added readv to the allowlist to prevent various crashes due to the updated samba library’s authpolicy using new syscalls.
• SMBFS: fixed directory listing on SMB showing only a small number of files due to an issue with readdir() on 32-bit platforms (e.g. elm boards with kernel 4.19).
• SMBFS: Fixed slow directory loading speeds when navigating to a large directory on the SMB share using the files app (500+ files)

Xorg-conf

• Eve: fixed “random cursor movements” issue on the Pixelbook by swiping on the touchpad, lifting the finger, and swiping again.

Misc.

• Updated Linux (Beta)’s kernel from Linux 4.4 to Linux 5.4.

​
Click here to see the full official changelog by Google (no platform logs, sorry). Enjoy, and happy updating!

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

• There are predators taking advantage of the CoVid-19 outbreak to scam people. Don't be fooled. Here is what the FTC is suggesting you watch out for and what they are doing to protect you.
• What to do the moment you cannot make ends meet
• When is the point of no return to flatten the curve by state
• What is your Governor doing about the CoVid-19 outbreak?
• This bilingual fabric mask usage and cleaning instruction site from Hong Kong
• Eviction and Foreclosure information by the HUD

EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE

• IF YOU ARE EXPERIENCING LOSS OF JOB OR INCOME, PLEASE SEE THIS NEW YORK TIME'S ARTICLE FOR ASSISTANCE
• COLLEGE STUDENTS in need of STORAGE SPACE, U-Haul is offering free 30 day storage
• IRS is providing tax relief for some affected families
• Find your state's unemployment benefits signup page here
• Banks offering assistance to their customers
• A pretty comprehensive list of financial relief options for people working in specific industries or states. Seems to mostly be interest-free loans and grants.

EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE FOR WORKERS

• Small Business Guidance and Loan Resources
• Assistance for Service Workers
• Assistance for those in Student Loan Crisis
• Assistance for Bartenders
• Assistance for Restaurant Workers
• Assistance for Musicians
• Assistance for Authors
• Assistance for CoVid-19 Positive tested Restaurant Workers
• Assistance for Domestic Workers
• Assistance for Freelance Artists
• Assistance for our Military and Families
• Assistance to all Veterans, Active Duty, Reserves and National Guard
• Assistance for Painters, Printmakers, and Sculptors

EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE ORGANIZATIONS AND FUNDS

• United Way's COVID-19 Community Response and Recovery Fund
• Covid-19 State by State
• Personal loans and other services being offered by banks
• A fantastic list of charities providing emergency relief
• Salvation Army (I do not agree with their politics, but now is not the time for it- lives are on the line, so please don't @ me)
• USDA FNS Disaster Assistance
• Catholic Charities USA

WHAT WE CAN DO TO HELP

• Join this subreddit to stay on top of project and volunteer opportunities related to the CoVid-19 outbreak.
• Sew face masks to donate to hospitals. Here is an additional article analyzing cloth material and what works best to block viruses.
• Donate to COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund for WHO
• Another subreddit to keep up with ways you can volunteer right now.
• Donate to United Way's COVID-19 Community Response and Recovery Fund
• This post seems to be collecting ways to improvise medical parts needed.
• If you are healthy, GIVE BLOOD. There is a national shortage.
• If you are healthy, sign up for Meals on Wheels.
• Feeding America is collecting donations specifically for those affected by the CoVid-19 outbreak.
• Donate to Direct Relief
• 3D print parts for hospitals
• Helpful Engineering is asking for volunteers to design, source and execute projects that can help people suffering from the COVID-19 crisis worldwide.
• Donate to NoKidHungry.org to make sure children who rely on school lunches get fed
• Help the homeless survive CoVid-19

SERVICES

• Free Wifi is being offered by some companies
• Dark Noise is extending a free trial of their soothing background noises
• Free food delivery
• If you make payments on a NEW Ford vehicle, they are currently offering 6-month payment relief
• LinkedIn is offering 16 different courses to teach you how to adjust to working from home
• Phone someone else on quarantine with Quarantine Chat
• DoNotPay creates fake credit cards so that you don't get automatically charged when your free trials end.

FOR HEALTHCARE WORKERS

• Companies offering free food to healthcare workers
• This post seems to be collecting ways to improvise medical parts needed.
• Headspace, the most popular meditation app, is offering a free subscription to ALL HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS
• Ten Percent Happier is offering free accounts for you guys
• McDonalds is offering free coffee to healthcare workers
• My undying gratitude. You guys are heroes.

K-12 STUDENTS

• Free K-5th Grade educational worksheets for printout
• Fiveable provides resources for AP students and is making special efforts during the CoVid outbreak
• Outschool is providing free classes for students whose schools have closed.
• Scholastic has created a free Learn at Home program for families with kiddos
• ABCmouse.com is offering their lessons in different subjects like math, science and art for free thanks to UNICEF. All you have to do is go to ABCmouse.com/redeem and type in the code "AOFLUNICEF"
• This is an amazing spreadsheet listing resources for students affected by school closings!
• Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University is offering free courses "covering aeronautics, meteorology, computer applications, history and more" for k-12 students.
• PBS LearningMedia has a bunch of great learning tools for K-12. - u/arcaneatheist
• The Barbara Bush Foundation has created an Educational Toolkit for At-Home Learning

COLLEGE STUDENTS

• Cambridge is offering free textbooks and until the end of May
• Modern States is offering "Freshman Year for Free". Take tuition-free, high quality courses online from top institutions for college credit.
• At-Home Solution for TOEFL iBT ® Test and GRE ®General Test Amid Coronavirus Pandemic

BOOKS, AUDIOBOOKS, GRAPHIC NOVELS, MAGAZINES

• Overdrive Most libraries have accounts here that allow you to check out eBooks, eAudiobooks, digital comics, manga, newspapers, magazines and stream movies and television shows for free. Most libraries also have ways for you to sign up for a digital card so you can create an account online.
• Standardebooks.org has free e-books for download that are high-quality. - u/CharlesChaplined
• https://openlibrary.org for tons of book options. - u/NakedKittyAlucard
• You can now download over 300,000 books from the NYPL for free
• some libraries offer other services, like Hoopla, Flipster...; check your local library’s website (need a library card number usually) - u/tyrsa
• Project Gutenberg is a digital library of books that have all entered the public domain, meaning many classics such as Shakespeare, Moby Dick, and A Tale of Two Cities are available for free as ebooks. - u/Unique_Emerald_Sol_I

STREAMING FOR MOVIES, DOCUMENTARIES, AND TELEVISION

• If your library offers it, you can get a trove of documentaries through https://www.kanopy.com/ - u/FIREDrillTW
• Shudder the horror streaming platform is offering a free 30 days
• Sling, an internet alternative to television, is offering free trials
• The NFL, NBA, and NHL are offering free league passes and streaming of games from other seasons
• Crunchyroll offers many, many anime free without an account (mostly subtitled), while Funimation offers quite a number of its anime for free if you sign up for an account (mostly English dubbed).- u/Unique_Emerald_Sol_I
• Here’s How to Get in on Extended Free Trials from Your Favorite Streaming Services
• A list of free trials for streaming services
• Watch Netflix with your fellow quarantined with this Chrome Extension
• If you have internet access you can watch all local television channels for free with this not-for-profit service: https://www.locast.org/ This free streaming service is available for the cities of Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Denver, Rapid City, Sioux Falls, Sioux City, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Washington D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. - u/mpowers123

VIDEO GAMES

• Destiny 2 is free on Steam. - u/SazquatchSquad
• Emulator.online gives you access to Game Boy, SNES, and Sega Genesis games on your PC
• Free PC video games being offered by GOG.com
• Epic Games is offering some of their games for free for a limited time
• F2P games on Steam; Warframe, Path of Exile, Crusader Kings 2 (base game only), Counter Strike: GO. - u/Aperture_Kubi
• MMOs with a free tier: Eve Online, Star Trek Online. - u/Aperture_Kubi

OTHER MEDIA ENTERTAINMENT

• The Met Opera is offering free performance streams
• Mayhaps a symphony?
• The fascinating world of the Marble Olympics (Hazers forever!)
• 15 Broadway Plays and Shows you can watch free.
• BroadwayHD has a free 7 day trial allowing you to enjoy Broadway hits from home- suggested by u/DoxxedMyselfNewAcct

HOBBIES, LEARNING, TIME PASSERS, AND EXERCISE

• Duolingo is a free app that teaches you other languages!
• Want to... I dunno, is this dating via skype???
• Affinity, an art studio alternative to Adobe, is offering a free 90 day trial
• The YMCA is offering free online classes and include some of the Y’s most popular group exercise classes like Boot Camp, Barre, Yoga and low impact programs for seniors
• JSTOR is allowing free access to its articles even if you aren't a university student right now
• Down dog yoga is offering free classes on their app! -From u/RedditRabbitt
• Planet Fitness is hosting daily workout routines on their YouTube channel. Live stream starts tonight at 7pm EST.- From u/CharlesChaplined
• Peloton, an exercise app, is offering a free 90 days
• Minimoog, a digital synthesizer app, is now free
• I work for a public library and just updated our site with a ton of educational and cultural resources all in one place. - u/Amoretti_
• Adult level difficulty word and number puzzles for print out.
• Adult coloring book pages for printout
• KORG is a music-making app that normally costs $20, but is free until March 31st
• Free online courses for adults
• Zencastr is a website that helps you start your own podcast (I mean, might as well). Right now it is offering free services due to the virus.
• Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is offering free lessons
• Creativebug offers free hobby classes through many libraries. Check to see if your library has an account with them! - suggested by u/tyrsa
• https://www.zooniverse.org/ Participate in various historical transcription projects to help scientists & researchers. Some projects available in their app. Everything from transcribing Civil War records to looking at photos from nature cams and marking if and which animal actually set it off. - u/tyrsa

VIRTUAL TOURS AND LIVE WEBCAMS

• Behold! The Great Wall of China!
• Tons of different art and museum galleries
• Get a dose of nature or wildlife from all over the world. There are numerous live webcams, many are educational and others are simply fascinating and entertaining. Here's a couple of my favorites. https://explore.org/livecams/ Cornell Lab Bird Cams - u/Owlatmydoor
• The Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden is doing a Home Safari live on their FB page at 3 PM every week day. They highlight an animal each day and incorporate an at-home activity to keep children learning at home. - u/2020isashitshow
• The Houston Zoo and San Diego Zoo has various webcams
• Tour a real farm!
• Penguin Cam!!
• The Monterrey Bay Aquarium
• National Park virtual tours
• VRbars in VRchat- u/Pikapetey
• Virtual Reality experiences

STUFF FOR KIDDOS

• Lunch doodles with Mo Willems every weekday at 1PM ET. Recorded drawing sessions for kids, about 20 min each. - u/LakersRebuild
• Tumblebooks- free interactive ebooks for kids and teens, most libraries have an account with this service
• McHarper Manor is offering free daily arts and crafts classes
• Apparently your family can Skype a scientist? And like... ask them stuff?
• GoNoodle has free games for kids to keep them moving and thinking. Great for indoor recess, home school, etc. - u/stockingsandbonds
• Pinna is a streaming service for podcasts, music, and audiobooks for kids ages 3-12 and is offering a free 60 days
• Kinedu offers developmental activities for babies/infants and is currently offering its services for free
• Storytime! Frooooom Spaaaaace!
• Space Racers was created by NASA to teach kids STEAM... uhm... stuff!
• Audible is now providing free audiobooks for children (in 6 languages!)- suggested by u/aCoupleTwoTree
• Burger King is offering free meals for children WITH THE PURCHASE OF AN ADULT MEAL as long as supplies last
• Karate online (training for kids) - https://www.karatelessonsonline.com/ waiving fees - u/lazloth

​
LIST OF OTHER HELPFUL LISTS, DISCOUNTS (AND THINGS I COULDN'T CATEGORIZE)

• A list of free or discounted services due to coronavirus
• An additional extensive list of free learning resources for children and what they are.
• A list of stuff to do, I suppose.
• Amazon Prime has some of The Great Courses included. A full course is usually $50-60 - u/dedmuse22
• 20 Quizzes To Take If You're At Home And Bored During The Coronavirus Quarantine
• My list of major grocery/other store chains with special shopping hours for the elderly, pregnant, or those with underlying health risks.

​
​
3/20 Update: Please, check out my new category "How we can help". If you would like additional subcategories, feel free to comment with the request and if I don't currently have any resource listed under that category, I will do my best to find some. Stay sane out there, fellow cave people.
If you know friends or loved ones who might benefit from these resources, please feel free to share as I intend to continue updates daily for the foreseeable future.
3/21 Update: I am making an extra effort to focus on emergency assistance and emergency resources, and ways we can help, and this will be my area of focus for the next few days. I feel like this is something we'll all be worried about to some degree or other. If you are aware of any organization or program offering emergency assistance due to the coronavirus pandemic, please leave it in the comments.
If you or a loved one is struggling to make ends meet due to the CoVid-19 situation, please make use of this post.
3/22 Update: Important information has been expanded to keep people up to date on what their state is doing about the pandemic and steps to take if you are in financial dire straits (since the bill wasn't passed today).
3/23 Update: More emergency assistance and important information has been added. I think I can ease up on that some. I'll return to finding more forms of entertainment to help keep up our spirits up and our butts at home.

Source | Guestbook

Questions	Answers
I understand that people are always hesitant to answer this very specifically, but I'm always curious - given 7 million visitors, what your ballpark profit? And what's the ratio of the profit-to-expenses, which I assume is mostly server hosting costs as a one man operation?	Most of my profit comes from ads. I make around 5 cents for every hour someone spends in Photopea (on average). In 2019, people spent 5 million hours working in Photopea, so I made around $250,000. I hope it could be 2x to 4x more this year :)
	Photopea runs completely in your computer (after Photopea.com loads, you can disconnect from the internet and use it offline). I use only a file hosting, for which I pay around 50 USD a year.
the below is a reply to the above
How is that possible to only pay 50 USD/year when you get ~7 million people in a month and your site is 1.8mb. That's around 12tb/month. I don't know of any host willing to do 12tb of data for $50/12	I don't understand it either :/ I will ask my hosting provider.
the below is a reply to the above
Don’t! :)	I already did :)
the below is another reply to the original answer
I'm glad you have a subscription option. As a policy I don't turn my adblocker off, but I'll totally subscribe as your rates are quite reasonable! If you're around and don't mind answering, how many subscriptions do you have?	There are hundreds of people paying for Premium :) so about 0.01% of all users :)
the below is another reply to the original answer
How much do you think you're losing out because of adblockers?	It is hard to tell, maybe between 10 to 40 percent :/
the below is a reply to the above
You should implement a donation feature as well, to offer more ways for users to support you.	People can already order a Premium. I think it is better to get something in return (removing ads), so anybody who wants to support us can do it :)
First of all, thank you for making a great alternative. My question is, how would you compare Photopea to The Gimp in terms of features and interface?	The interface of Photopea is closer to Photoshop than GIMP (so it is more comfortable to Photoshop users). I think all you can do in GIMP you can do in Photopea, but with a different workflow. You can open GIMP files (XCF) in Photopea.
	There are many advanced features in Photopea, that are not in GIMP. The most important is probably the full support of a PSD format.
the below is a reply to the above
Have to confess I'd never heard about this software until reading your post, but your mention of the PSD feature makes me want to check it out immediately. I admire your determination, dedication, and skills.	Thank you :)
the below is a reply to the above
Does it support vectors better than Photoshop? I don't like how limited it is in Photoshop. Even illustrator is annoying	Photopea can open SVG and PDF images better than Photoshop. Just try it!
the below is a reply to the grandparent
Thank you for your program. I use it to make memes and do photoshopped things!	You are welcome! I am happy that Photopea is useful to you :)
How did you learn how to make software?	I was interested in computers since I was 14. I was studying computer science at the university between 18 and 25 years of age.
	I studied theoretical computer science at the Charles university in Prague. Finishing the university was probably the hardest thing in my life (I do not enjoy learning as much as I enjoy creating stuff). But I also think it was the most valuable and productive part of my life and I am very proud of it :)
Here to say I've been using it, maybe the only white listed site on my ad-block. What was the hardest part to implement?	The advanced foreground selection was quite hard. It is used e.g. in MagicCut. I wanted to reach the quality of remove.bg (where you pay $2 per image), but it still does not work that well.
	Anyway, I think MagicCut works better than all other free tools and many commercial tools, so it can save you a lot of money :)
the below is a reply to the above
You should look at U-2 Net https://github.com/NathanUA/U-2-Net a recently released paper with code that has amazing results	I know quite a lot about this research :) The problem is, that people use Photopea for free, so it would have to run on their computers. They would have to download a 200 MB network, and unless they don't have a $2000 GPU, they would have to wait for hours to do such foreground / background detection.
the below is a reply to the above
From the paper: "To facilitate the usage of our design in computation and memory constrained environments, we provide a small version of our U2-Net, called U2-Net† (4.7 MB). The U2-Net† achieves competitive results against most of the SOTA models (see Fig. 1) at 40 FPS." Unless there's something similar but better or they're outright lying, 4.7 MB sounds like an extremely reasonable memory footprint and it's pretrained so nobody's going to max out their GPU. You might want to give it another look.	Wow, that sounds great, I will put it into my issues: https://github.com/photopea/photopea/issues/2368
the below is a reply to the grandparent
Not 100% sure, but a GPU is needed to train the network (which can take hours) and the trained networks usually do things in seconds or even faster. Users would still need to download the network, but it wouldn't be very computationally expensive.	Such trained network can process the input in seconds on the GPU. If you process the input of the network on a CPU (even with multiple cores), it can take minutes or even hours. And training on a CPU can take weeks :)
I use Photopea regularly when developing web sites. I don't have to fire up my VM or limit myself to GIMP or Krita. The third most popular tech magazine in the Czech Republic, Letem světem Applem, was developed with the help of your tool. Díky! My question: will you ever open-source Photopea, at least partially?	Hi, thanks a lot!
	A huge part of Photopea is open-sourced and available at https://github.com/photopea?tab=repositories
the below is a reply to the above
I'm scared to even open that repo 😂. What hosting provider are you using that can handle 5 million users in a year?	I have a local hosting provider from the Czech Republic. It is just distributing HTML, CSS and JS files (no server-side computations like PHP or SQL databases), so it is not that hard.
Hi! Two questions 1. Does photopea have support for RAW photo files of varying cameras? (.ARW for example) 2. Why do you think Adobe charges so much for their platform when your model is clearly fairly simple to produce (if one person can do it alone) and functions profitably?	Hi! Yes, Photopea can open .DNG, .CR2, .NEF and .ARW files :)
	There are programs that are much more expensive than Adobe products :) It is hard to tell, but I think it is because there are no reasonable alternatives, or the alternatives are not known very well.
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As a Fuji user, .RAF support coming at some point?	Hi, the .RAF format was invented by Fuji and has never been publicly described anywhere. I tried to ask Fuji to provide a description of their format, so that I can implement it into Photopea, but nobody replied :(
	I think Fuji does not want you to open their files in any other software than their software.
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I don't think fuji has their own editing software, most people use either Capture One or Lightroom, or Irident X-Transformer to convert into a DNG	Photopea can open DNG without any problems :) but it is a real pity they don't store it in DNG directly.
I just discovered this software and it is bloody amazing. As a hobby animator, I'm wondering - Do you have any plans, or have you at least thought about, making an animation software in the same way you have achieved this? Something like Adobe Flash/Animate or Toon Boom Harmony. (I'm already sold on your idea for a video editor, since Davinci Resolve's free version has NEVER been able to render videos for me without crashing) There is a distinct lack of reasonably priced animation software that achieves nearly as much as these two ridiculously expensive subscription programs, without sacrificing something really important to animation. The closest thing to achieving what Animate or Harmony has is Blender's new 2d animate mode, and even then, you have to sacrifice convenient features like easy tweening. An alternative free (or one-purchase) animation software would make me - and so many other people happy. Now that I know this software exists, I'll be sure to donate to its production.	Thanks! You are not the first one asking for this :) I wish I could make so many tools, but I am afraid my life is too short for all that work :D
	If I manage to make a good team of programmers in the future, I would love to make such animation software.
Is there a comprehensive guide I can find for all the tools in photopea? I’m new to photo editing and still confused by the interface.	Photopea is an advanced editor and it is hard to learn simply by using it. I wrote a manual here: www.Photopea.com/learn .
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You made documentation? What kind of unholy programmer from the abyss are you? Don’t let our bosses find out or we’re screwed.	I made it after several years of explaining people how to do things in emails, etc :) Now, I can simply send them links to my documentation. It took me less than a week :D
I love using photopea! I open it almost daily. Is there a way to review the source and contribute pull requests? Have you thought about providing an offline or self-hosted release?	Thanks! The open-source parts of Photopea are published on our GitHub: https://github.com/photopea?tab=repositories . We provide a self-hosted versions for money, as it needs to be updated regularly.
How would you compare it to photoshop?	Photopea has about 90% of features of Adobe Photoshop, but there are some features of Photopea that Photoshop doesn't have (e.g converting PDF, SVG, Sketch, XD, Figma to layered PSD documents).
	Also, only Photoshop and Photopea fully support the PSD format, so I think Photopea is the best alternative to Photoshop at the moment.
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What do you think about GIMP?	GIMP is great, but it can not work with PSD files properly. Also, the interface is quite different from Adobe Photoshop, and it is hard to use for former Photoshop users.
	https://www.facebook.com/photopea/photos/a.1703140446613703/2373211539606587/
Do you pronounce it photo-pea, or photo-pee-ah?	I pronounce it Photo-pea, but most of people pronounce it photo-pee-ah.
	It is probably the most asked question in our subreddit :) /photopea.
	EDIT: I did a quick search and here is what I found :)
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Good to know I got its pronunciation right :D I like photos and I like peas. What made you call it photopea?	I wanted it to be PhotoSomething, and I wanted a domain PhotoSomething.com . Most of domains were occupied, until I found Pea :)
Not a question, but I just want to put this out there for all the non-developers, but the fact that Photopea was created by a single programmer is absolutely astounding. As a developer myself, I cannot fathom the productivity of this developer nor have I ever met someone that could be this productive. Teams of 10-20 developers could not match the functionality and feature list of photopea. And actually, here is a question after all, have you ever recorded or livestreamed yourself coding? I'm having a hard time imagining the pace required to be this productive. Do you have an estimate of the number of hours you have put into this?	Hi, thanks a lot! I think I put between 15 000 and 20 000 hours into Photopea :) I never recorded myself programming, but most of it is just staring into the wall thinking, opening Youtube or Reddit from time to time (to "relax" a bit), and I writing code once in a while :)
Any chance your program can export files to work with a cnc machine?	Sure, just tell me what format does that machine accepts? Is than an open format? Can you use e.g. an SVG?
	Manufacturers often create their proprietary formats to make you dependent on their software.
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G-Code is pretty common, although I'm unsure as to what Z-axis information you would capture in an image format unless it was texturized somehow and interpreted that as topography? Maybe like the color coded images to show 3 dimensions in a planar view. I know lasewaterjet cutting and similar that do 2D operations typically ask me for a DXF file or equivalent. I've never used Photopea for this (or even tried) but typically I take a vector format and import into CAD software to generate a DXF for this purpose. I know my media guy can never get me a format I need to import a logo and such for mechanical design. A DXF or similar vector would be amazing if it doesn't exist already.	Hi, would you be able to write this into our GitHub? https://github.com/photopea/photopea/issues . And most importantly, would you be able to discuss it there with me, if I have any questions? I never worked with any CNC machine.
Hi !! Can I know about your backend ?	There is a webhosting which stores one HTML, one CSS and several JS files. Photopea is written in Javascript and runs completely in a computer of the visitor.
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Have you used any frontend frameworks?	No, I wrote my own Javascript, HTML and CSS. I usually prefer to use what I know, instead of learning how to use new tools :)
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How do you handle users that pay for premium? There must be some sort of database right?	Yes, there is a database. I just wanted to say, that out of these 7 million people, the database is needed maybe for a hundred of them.
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Not without dinner first	Take my upvote, too :)
Are there any new browser features or HTML features that will make your code a lot simpler?	I would love if browsers let Photopea know, when Ctrl+T was pressed on the keyboard. People have been using the Ctrl+T shortcut in Adobe Photoshop for decades and almost every week, someone asks why it does not work in Photopea.
	At the moment, when you press Ctrl+T in any browser, it opens a new tab (panel), and a we can not do anything about it :( I have been personally arguing about it with browser developers for over five years.
	"Fighting" with browser developers is quite a big part of my work, which is quite sad :(
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When in fullscreen Ctrl+T works in both Chrome and Edge, it triggers the transform tool. Maybe prompt the user to switch Photopea to fullscreen ? The website feels like a standalone app so it makes sense to get rid of the browser UI anyway.	I think the Ctrl+T should be usable even when not in the fullscreen mode.
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I'm sure you must've researched this thoroughly over the years but maybe stackoverflow seems to have a couple good answers on disabling new tab shortcut keys. Maybe have a look? Esp these 2: 1 - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/38442886/chrome-disable-ctrlt-shortcut - you could make your own extension and then make that extension do the "Free Transform"? 2 - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18625091/how-to-disable-firefox-new-tab-action-when-pressin-ctrl-and-clicking-a-link-wi I'm no good at js but maybe have a look...	I guess I could also just make my own web browser and ask users to install it :D
How about a Desktop version? That'd be great!	You can go to Photopea.com and press More - Install Photopea. It will add an icon to your homescreen, which will start Photopea without the browser UI. But it works only in the latest Chrome, Edge and Opera. https://www.facebook.com/photopea/photos/a.1703140446613703/2120885974839146
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What Api does that? Seems chromium only but i wouldn't care. Never heard of that.	It is called PWA - progressive web apps, and the app can trigger the installing process https://medium.com/@dhormale/install-pwa-on-windows-desktop-via-google-chrome-browser-6907c01eebe4
What are your plans for the video editor, and how can I keep up to date on its progress? (video editor here that loves what you did with photopea)	I do not have any specific plans about the video editor yet. You can follow Photopea on Facebook or Twitter to know about the progress (links in my original post) :)
You mentioned your income is through ads. Have you thought of other avenues for revenue sources or ways to increase your current revenue even more to be able to hire more employees?	Yes, I have thought about it, but I don't know about any ways, which could work better than ads.
	Most of the current Photopea user can not afford to pay for the software, so I don't want to make half of features available only after the payment.
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Would a premium version that's identical in features but without ads be an option? Unless this is already a thing?	It is already a thing :) You can hide ads for $10 for three months. Also, there is no subscription, you pay manually any time you want. Ads come back once it runs out :)
What things does Photoshop do better than your alternative?	Photoshop can open almost all RAW image formats (in their Camera Raw program). I think Adobe pays the camera manufacturers, so that they allow Adobe to open raw files from their cameras.
	At the moment, Photopea can open only four RAW formats, which cover around 80% of the market.
Do you think that photopea has been a success? I use it for work everyday and I certainly think it is!	I think it is the most useful thing I made in my life so far, so it is a success :)
Good stuff. Love a free image editor. Why is this already on the front page, with just 6 comments and 22 points?	I don't know much about the Reddit algorithm, but I think it is also about how old the post is. E.g. if you get 20 points in 5 minutes, you will be on top of a post, which received 50 points in an hour.
What's your favourite video game? Also thank you the amount if complete trash I have cropped using photopea is immeasurable	I received my first computer when I was 13 and PC games seemed too complicated to me (and most of them were in English, which I did not know well). I never had a playstation or a gameboy. So I never played video games much.
	The first game I "understood" and truly enjoyed playing was Serious Sam :) I also spent A LOT of time playing Clash of Clans.
Will it stay free or is there a possibility that you're gonna put a price on that?	Photopea has been free to use since the first release seven years ago, and I would like to keep it free to use in the future, too.
Love photopea, I use it all the time! Does anyone trouble you with any legal issues since it's basically an online photoshop?	Thanks! I think the similarity of the interface of Photoshop and Photopea (and other photo editors) is a good thing. Imagine if each brand of computers had a different layout of a keyboard, because they wanted to be "different". I am very happy, that I can simply take any keyboard and start typing on it right away.
	Maybe one time someone will come and say, that we have to make the background red, because the dark grey color is already used in their program. And we have to rename the Brush tool to "hair on a stick tool", because the Brush tool is already used in their program. But I hope such time will never come :D
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Please make an April 1st version with copyright-friendly tools, that would be awesome. Brush – Hair on a stick Bucket – Metal container Move – Relocate and so on. Edit: April Tools’ Day	That is a graet idea! :D
How do you approach creating something that is intuitive? How do you know that your logic is universally understood? Are there any examples of tools, tasks, icons that you have had to change based on feedback? Thank you and great work!	The user interface of Photopea has been evolving for seven years and there were probably hundreds of suggestions from users, which I listened to and modified, to get what we have now :)
Hi Ivan, I've used Photopea for a couple of years for basic editing. Congratulations - it's an amazing tool. The only feature that prevents me from upgrading to a paid version is the font selection interface. There are far too many fonts available, they load slowly, are all obscure and not represented well in preview. Would you consider curating/refining the available fonts?	Hi, thanks! It is completely fine to use Photopea for free, you don't have to pay for Premium :)
	You can mark some fonts with a star, and then, you can display only the "starred" fonts. You can use filters to see e.g. only "sans" fonts and hide "comic" or "handwritten" fonts. You can enable Latin-1 and other language categories, to see only fonts with many letters (only professional fonts support more than 200 letters).
Have you experienced any pushback/pressure from the bigger players?	No :) I have been in touch with people from Google, Adobe, Corel, Canva and other companies, evrybody was very friendly and helpful :)
Thanks for making Photopea- I'm certainly loving it. Will there ever be an offline version?	Hi, thanks!
	A big challenge is, that Photopea can not use fonts from your computer, and it downloads fonts from our server, when you choose to use that font. So changing fonts would not work in an offline version (except of a couple of fonts we could pre-store).
	I think the amount of time people spend using their computer offline is decreasing, and will be almost zero at some point :)
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If I use a font I have purchased, is it easy to implement, if you don't have that font on your server?	Hi, just press File - Open in Photopea to load a font (TTF or OTF file) :)
Do you plan to keep photopea solely browser based?	Many people think that browser programs are slower or "less capable" than desktop programs, but it is not true in the last five years. So a "download and install" version of Photopea would not have many advantages.
	I could provide an offline version of Photopea, but at the moment, most of money come from ads, which would not work offline :/
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You can try and make an Electron app, I know its essentially a browser but it would give that "native" feel to users.	Hi, you can already press More - Install Photopea in Photopea and use it as a PWA :)
Great. Now can we please start working on a viable PDF editor that doesn't cost hundreds of dollars per year?	Photopea can already do it to some degree :) have you tried it?
	The PDF format was not meant to be edited further. But we are improving.
Thanks for developing Photopea. After your last AMA, I started using it. Is there a way for size of a new document to default to image dimensions on the clipboard? That's one of the handiest things in Photoshop so you don't have to either enter manually or overguess then crop down later.	The size of a new document should be set by default to the dimension of the content of the clipboard.
	But it works only in Chrome, Edge and Opera. Firefox did not implement the necessary standard yet. Don't know about Safari :/
You mentioned you plan on making a video editor. Have you considered an Illustrator alternative as well?	Photopea already has many vector-related capabilities. It can open, edit and save SVG and PDF files. Somehow, I feel like a video editor would be more fun to make than an advanced vector editor.
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Didn't know it supported editing SVGs. How does it compare to something like Inkscape?	The interface is a lot different than Inkscape. Just try it and see how it works :)
I know this is a long shot, but any chance I can join on board with little to no knowledge so I can learn (for free of course)? 😁 It could be doing menial tasks for all I care. If not, any advice for someone like me wanting to change career path and code? I'm just tired of what I've been doing so I just recently starting some online coding courses but would like to learn more hands on if possible. Hoping to change career path for the future.	Well, if I spend time teaching you, I will have to invest less time into developing Photopea :D
	I have been often tired of what I did, I get tired of Photopea-related work from time to time. There is not just a bad job and a good job, there are many things in between. But whenever you have to choose between a simple goal and a hard goal, don't be afraid to go for a hard goal :)
How did you begin to scale up the workforce? What positions did you prioritise and how did the recruitment process go? I'm in an early process of starting up a web application and can see it being difficult going from working alone on a project to trusting people to share the same determination to grow it. Thanks	I do not have any team, I still work on Photopea alone.
Hi. Great stuffs. I will definitely give it a try soon. May I give a suggestion ? I use GIMP for Image editing since I usually have to make some illustrations for my work. And GIMP provides me with the function of adding Text from another format, like LaTeX (to write math formula). Do you think this would be possible to implement in your app ?	Hi, is the LaTeX text rasterized to pixels after you insert it? Or you can modify it in GIMP?
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the LINUX version of GIMP has a module in the Render section which allows me to type in the LaTeX code and product an image of the formula. I am not really used to the terminology of image like vector or raster image. But once the formula is produced, it is not modifiable. So if I messed up, I have to redo the process from the beginning.	We don't have such thing in Photopea at the moment.
	I used to write my masters thesis in https://www.sharelatex.com/ . You can also convert LaTeX to a PNG image here: http://latex2png.com/ (right-click the image - Copy Image, and paste it in Photopea).
Can it do animations? The only thing I use photoshop for at this point is it's animation ability, especially it's keyframe animations, where you can make a single frame last however many seconds you like. If it can do that, i can finally delete photoshop.	Hi, we do not have such animation capabilities as Photoshop. But there is a special mechanism for making animations from layers: https://www.photopea.com/learn/animations
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This kind of animation capability is exactly what I was looking for. Does it allow you to view the animation as a preview before you choose EXPORT?	Of course :) Just drag-and-drop a GIF into Photopea and try to export it as a GIF, it will take you around seven seconds :)
what was your eureka moment for photopea that whoa this is possible?	Sometimes, when I learn about a new algorithm or a method, I wonder how elegant and ingenious it is :) Like - the person who came up with it should have been really smart, I wish I was also that smart :D
Have you considered using Patreon? Have you considered letting people subscribe for a fixed period if no ads?	Hi, we already offer a Premium account, where you pay and it hides ads for a period of time. I know about Patreon, but I feel a bit uncomfortable about accepting money for nothing in return.
Is there a downloadable version available/in the works?	You can go to www.Photopea.com and press More - Install Photopea, to get an icon to your homescreen.
	https://www.facebook.com/photopea/photos/a.1703140446613703/2120885974839146
i tried using it on my display tablet, there doesn't seem to be any pressure sensitivity?	Hi, try to update your tablet (drivers, browser, os, etc). But it works on the latest iPad and on my old Android phone (it tracks the pressure of my finger). If it does not help, try to report it to the tablet manufacturer (as it will not work in any website, not just Photopea).
Is there support for sprite editing tools or just tools in general for game devs?	Do you mean generating sprites, etc? It can do most of things Photoshop can do, but if you need something more, you can always suggest it here :) https://github.com/photopea/photopea/issues
What made you decide to create a free photo editor?	It was just an experiment of analyzing PSD files in a browser. I gradually improved it. I did not want to make a photo editor during the first two years of work. But at some point, I realised - hey, it should not be that hard to make it into a photo editor.
How is this compared to GIMP?	Hi, you can read this article: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/photoshop-alternative-no-its-not-gimp/
	But it is about Photopea from two years ago. Photopea improved significantly since then.
So is it WASM or just regular old JS + WebGL? I found this looking for a browser based paint.net alternative a while back and thought it was awesome, but the controls were a bit too advanced/inaccessible for my requirements. If you're serious about growing the dev team I'm a self employed engineer if you want to hit me up.	I wrote only JS and GLSL (for GPU processing). I use three WASM libraries, which I did not make. Thanks for your offer, but I would like to hire someone I could work with in person.
I’ve been using photopea ever since your previous AMA a year ago. My question is: how often are do you AMA and how did it impact traffic to photopea?	I did only three AMAs with about a year between them. The traffic grows by about 10 - 20%, which lasts for a day or two :)
How much time have you invested in creating this tool? Or what's your weekly time investment?	I never measured it, but I think it is about the "regular" 40 hours a week.
Did you know most of what you needed before starting on Photopea or did you learn as you went along with adding new features? What unexpected difficulties presented themselves while working on Photopea?	It is like I knew how to use a chisel, but I never carved a statue that big.
	I learned many practical things (state-of-art algorithms etc), I used many things I learned at the university, which I thought I will never use :)
How do I start contributing to Photopea?	What would you like to contribute with? You can help us find bugs or help beginners at our subreddit: www.reddit.com/photopea
I hope this hasn't been asked, but why haven't you made a downloadable/fully offline version of your program yet? I know that as soon as you load the site you can use it offline, but there are times when people need to edit pictures without any internet connection at all.	The online version makes it much easier to release new versions and do updates. I update Photopea about 30 times a week (with minor fixes).
	Also, it feels a little uncofmortable to imagine, that someone is using a two year old version of Photopea and is cursing me because of some bug, which I already fixed, and I can not do anything about it at that moment :/
What technologies did you use to build this?	I used Javascript and WebGL :)
It's really great that you're offering an alternative to Photoshop! I was wondering, what language or software did you use to write Photopea?	I wrote my code in Javascript, but in my opinion, the language is not important at all.
	The best language is the one you know how to use. Also, for me, it is important, that there is a way to execute my code fast, which is possible with Javascript in modern browsers.
[removed]	Hi, you should not use Auto-translate, as we have a professional Swedish translation. Just press More - Language - Svenska. You can switch languages without restarting Photopea.
	Photopea.com should be in Swedish the first time you open it, if Swedish is set as your main language.
What's your End User Licensing Agreement looking like? How is this licensed? I like to know before end users start requesting such as im sure someone now wants to install this in a corporate environment...	Photope works in your computer and it never sends any data outside your computer. It is just like buying the cheapest calculator and using it. You don't get a licence to use such calculator, the numbers that you enter into a calculator don't leave the calculator.
	Our terms of service are here: https://www.photopea.com/privacy.html
What's your opinion of the current state and direction of front-end development?	I think I don't know much about it. I write my JS code in notepad and that code is precisely the code which runs in the browser of a user (without any modification). I did not change the way I develop webapps in the last six years.
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Straight up Windows Notepad? Not notepad++ or Visual Studio Code or Atom or anything else???	I use Notepad++ :)
Are you planning in translating it? If so, I'd be glad to work on the italian version.	Hi, it is already translated into 40 langauges, just press More - Language - Italiano :)
Hey Ivan, i'm very impressed by your work, but i'm an avid GIMP user. As you can imagine switching editors is always a hassle once you've got used to one. So can you give me some bullet points why it would be worth to switch from GIMP to Photopea? Thanks for the AMA!	Hi, I think you should stay with GIMP, since you already know how to use it :) And if there is nothing specific you miss in GIMP, you probably don't need such features :)
Hey ivanhoe90 I noticed today that the pen tool behaves backward when clicking the second point and dragging. It's like the curve goes the opposite direction than anyone would expect. I almost filed a github issue on it but I just didn't have time. Is that a bug?	Oh, I am very sorry, it is fixed now.
Hi, I wanted to know what's your story. That is your biography. And what did you study too get here? How did you get the idea for photopea?	Hi, I gave a talk about it in France a year ago :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZmaeC_Ma5A
DUDE! Your program saved me in the final semester of my Masters. I needed to upload images and I don't have a scanner so I used my phone and fixed the colour and tones in Photopea. Bless you for your hard work. I guess my question is what kind of cheese do you like?	Thanks a lot! If you only knew how happy I am about such comments :)
	I like all cheeses, as I think they are all amazing, each one in a different way.
I love this software and I use it daily, Every time I think to myself "I wonder if can also do" the answer has been yes. I love showing my co-workers this software while working in Citrix, it always blows people away that this works. Question: Any change of seeing a feature that doesn't automatically export local files to the download folder? I would love to select where I want to automatically save them or just save as > location (The google drive system already amazing though) It's that one minor thing that makes me end up with File(17).png	Hi, thanks! The saving mechanism depends on the settings of the web browser. The browser usually handles the file saving the same way for all websites. So just change the browser settings - make the browser ask you about where you want the files to be saved (we can not do anything about it as a website).
Do you think Photopea can have more active users than Photoshop? And why?	It is hard to tell. There are many features in Photoshop and other editors, which Photopea can not do. Even if Photopea has more active users, it does not mean it makes more money.
Well I'm 9 hours late and maybe it was already asked and answered, but if you feel like responding... do you have to recreate stuff like puppet warp or quick select from scratch? Like you have to go back and read some old white paper on the algorithm, and then sort of reinvent the wheel?	Hi, that is correct, there are usually no free implementations of such algorithms, and if there are, they are not in Javascript or are not good enough :/
	Actually, the Puppet Warp is based on a 2009 paper from Takeo Igarashi. I found a mistake in it and I wrote him an email, and it took me several emails to persuade him that he really made a mistake in his paper :) But many other authors refuse to look deep into papers they wrote a long time ago.
Who would you prefer Photopea being aquired by, and why?	I don't know. I am not looking for an acquisition at the moment.
I'm getting into video editing. I'm a noob to photoshop and video editing. Are there any tools in this that can complement my video editing? I was thinking of being able to create custom graphics for the videos but what else are the capabilities?	I dont know much about video editing, but you can use Photopea for photo editing. I think the more time you spend learning a tool, before actually using it, the less time you will spend in total (e.g. doing something by "trial and error" in 3 hours vs. learning it in 1 hour and doing it in 30 minutes, because you learned how to do it).
How were you able to acquire such a vast amount of knowledge about editors and programming?	I studied programming at the university for many years. Learning how to use Photoshop or any other editor is easier, but still can take weeks or months.
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I'm currently studying programming at uni too. Am I correct in assuming that the vast majority of the code for photopea is JavaScript since it's a web application?	Yes, I wrote my programs in Javascript :) But I did not have any Javascript class ever in my life. I think the programming skills are not related to the knowledge of a specific programming language.
Could you comment on https://github.com/photopea/JS-guide a bit? I don't quite understand why you're against using syntactic sugar. Especially let, const, and strict equality. I'm not claiming to be an expert at all, but most of these guidelines are in opposition to modern day JS practices. So I was just curious if you could elaborate on your decision making!	I think it is up to you what you write. But I am used to writing as "simple" code as possible, and it just looks cleaner to me if you use "var" instead of let/const (and it has no impact on the speed).
[deleted]	I think the knowledge is the most important. Also, it should be someone friendly, calm, rational, etc :D
Hey, I don't know if this has been asked before but since you have mentioned that Photopea can run offline after it's been loaded (meaning that there is no server backend), have you ever considered packing the app into a desktop app (e.g. with Electron or nw.js)?	Hi, I think opening a website is faster and more comfortable than downloading and installing something. Also, the electron version would be hard to update (unless it is just an iframe with Photopea inside it).
Have you ever considered making Photopea into a mobile app?	Hi, half of our users use Photopea on phones. It works quite well. If you look for "photopea" on Youtube, most of videos are recorded on phones.
My Reddit client doesn’t have a comment search feature, but have you considered bundling an electron version for people to download? Seems like a quick win, and even gets around ad blockers. Or if it’s a premium only offering, is just icing on the cake	Hi, I was a bit lazy to maintain a separate version of Photopea. I don't see any advantages it would have over the basic version.