Why so much Google junk dependency in the news comment section?


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I've decided to erase creepy uncle Google from my life and thus have everything Google blocked on a router/browser level. However, I'm unable to post any comments on your news feed because my router/browser is going crazy blocking all the crap from Google you have in place.

 

apis.google.com

ajax.googleapis.com

fonts.googleapis.com

www.google.com

 

Why is all this crap from Google necessary so the thing even runs? I really like Neowin as source of news and I often comment on things, but now it has become a complete no go because your site seems to depend on Google stuff so heavily you can't use it unless you basically hand over your entire life to it and trust their pinky promise of privacy.

3 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

I've decided to erase creepy uncle Google from my life and thus have everything Google blocked on a router/browser level. However, I'm unable to post any comments on your news feed because my router/browser is going crazy blocking all the crap from Google you have in place.

 

apis.google.com

ajax.googleapis.com

fonts.googleapis.com

www.google.com

 

Why is all this crap from Google necessary so the thing even runs? I really like Neowin as source of news and I often comment on things, but now it has become a complete no go because your site seems to depend on Google stuff so heavily you can't use it unless you basically hand over your entire life to it and trust their pinky promise of privacy.

Analytics, font rendering, ads.  They aren’t going to change it, and honestly they don’t need to. 

  • Like 3

google provides more than analytics; they provide live updating directories for web developers for fonts, APIs, jquery libraries ect.

ajax is part of jquery and it's essential to many of this site's live scripts such as FPN comments section and the mini-spy

 

none of those listed in your post are analytics they are those that I mentioned

 

by blocking all of google you're blocking more than just ads and analytics

  • Like 2
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9 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

I've decided to erase creepy uncle Google from my life and thus have everything Google blocked on a router/browser level. However, I'm unable to post any comments on your news feed because my router/browser is going crazy blocking all the crap from Google you have in place.

 

apis.google.com

ajax.googleapis.com

fonts.googleapis.com

www.google.com

 

Why is all this crap from Google necessary so the thing even runs? I really like Neowin as source of news and I often comment on things, but now it has become a complete no go because your site seems to depend on Google stuff so heavily you can't use it unless you basically hand over your entire life to it and trust their pinky promise of privacy.

Tinfoil hat on there pretty tight there. 

 

Ajax frameworks is probably why you can't do anything... google what Ajax is if you want to know why, but it's basically scripting that any site uses nowadays, Google just happens to have some nice packages that provide a good base to build off. 

 

Google scraping what fonts your browser renders and frameworks to generate the look and feel of a page? Shock. Horror. You'll probably have half the internet broken for you which such an encompassing block.

  • Like 2

@shockz

Why is it necessary to always put down people who don't like totally creepy behavior from mega corporations? Just because everyone just carelessly and without any kind of doubt uses Google doesn't mean they are absolutely harmless totally not creepy mega company. Just like you don't report all your happenings in your real every day life to some company that you have no relation with, how is this situation with Google any different? And my life is pretty good without any Google in my life, thank you very much. Like, literally no different because there is bunch of really good services that are not centralized to a single data hoarder and I have a choice there. I can simply opt using something else instead of Google Maps or GMail. Except with nonsense like this here, where you don't. I wouldn't mind if Neowin used Google's prepackaged code locally. As long as it's not pinging back Google every time, do it as much as you want. Pulling it every time from their servers, that's the problem. Doing so you literally say "Hey Google, this user is now using webpage Neowin". it's how they are building user profiles and selling it to advertisers. How else do you think Google makes billions every year? Magic? Would you be ok that such activity would constantly be leaving a trail behind you everywhere you go and is handing it over to a company whose services you don't even need, want or use? Just like I don't use Facebook and I don't want their stupid Like buttons and other beacons trailing me around, I expect the same thing from Google. Or at least have such ability. Yet that seems to be incredibly hard with mentality like this here and with amount of webpages that are doing this. One thing is having an option like with facebook where I just block their ###### and nothing changes outside of their services, other is, not having one where they shove or "graciously" hand over to users to shove in. I guess you guys would just prefer if I simply don't use Neowin anymore. Problem solved? Sure. Doable. But is that really the way? I think not. No page should ever put user into such position with a 3rd party that's entirely unrelated to you other than providing snippets of easy code to shove into a webpage. If problem was in Neowin itself, I'd say screw it and I'd bugger off. But it's not. It's the 3rd party f**king it up. That's my problem. And only problem. And don't think I'm running some personal vendetta against Neowin here. I've asked LinusTechTips why their forum runs graphic buttons like "Reply" and "Quote" from Google servers as well. Answer was "it's convenient for us". And I have all the buttons missing and replaced with underlying text because of said blocking. I'm visiting tons of forums and theirs is the only one doing this nonsense. And I still like to hang around there despite having messed up buttons, because people there are nice and content is cool. I had a choice and I took it. I'm still there despite broken missing buttons. here, I don't have this luxury. I could accept half broken webpage just the same. But I only have an option of totally working or totally broken. One with google, one without google.

 

It's just funny observing people rage over avast! and Jumpshot for days, but they go like nyaaaaaah when Google is mining and selling their online presence on pretty much every webpage they visit and no one bats an eye. Instead people like me who avoid it and criticize it are called "tin foil hat crazy people". Funny double standards, don't you think?

41 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

@shockz

Why is it necessary to always put down people who don't like totally creepy behavior from mega corporations? Just because everyone just carelessly and without any kind of doubt uses Google doesn't mean they are absolutely harmless totally not creepy mega company. Just like you don't report all your happenings in your real every day life to some company that you have no relation with, how is this situation with Google any different? And my life is pretty good without any Google in my life, thank you very much. Like, literally no different because there is bunch of really good services that are not centralized to a single data hoarder and I have a choice there. I can simply opt using something else instead of Google Maps or GMail. Except with nonsense like this here, where you don't. I wouldn't mind if Neowin used Google's prepackaged code locally. As long as it's not pinging back Google every time, do it as much as you want. Pulling it every time from their servers, that's the problem. Doing so you literally say "Hey Google, this user is now using webpage Neowin". it's how they are building user profiles and selling it to advertisers. How else do you think Google makes billions every year? Magic? Would you be ok that such activity would constantly be leaving a trail behind you everywhere you go and is handing it over to a company whose services you don't even need, want or use? Just like I don't use Facebook and I don't want their stupid Like buttons and other beacons trailing me around, I expect the same thing from Google. Or at least have such ability. Yet that seems to be incredibly hard with mentality like this here and with amount of webpages that are doing this. One thing is having an option like with facebook where I just block their ###### and nothing changes outside of their services, other is, not having one where they shove or "graciously" hand over to users to shove in. I guess you guys would just prefer if I simply don't use Neowin anymore. Problem solved? Sure. Doable. But is that really the way? I think not. No page should ever put user into such position with a 3rd party that's entirely unrelated to you other than providing snippets of easy code to shove into a webpage. If problem was in Neowin itself, I'd say screw it and I'd bugger off. But it's not. It's the 3rd party f**king it up. That's my problem. And only problem. And don't think I'm running some personal vendetta against Neowin here. I've asked LinusTechTips why their forum runs graphic buttons like "Reply" and "Quote" from Google servers as well. Answer was "it's convenient for us". And I have all the buttons missing and replaced with underlying text because of said blocking. I'm visiting tons of forums and theirs is the only one doing this nonsense. And I still like to hang around there despite having messed up buttons, because people there are nice and content is cool. I had a choice and I took it. I'm still there despite broken missing buttons. here, I don't have this luxury. I could accept half broken webpage just the same. But I only have an option of totally working or totally broken. One with google, one without google.

 

It's just funny observing people rage over avast! and Jumpshot for days, but they go like nyaaaaaah when Google is mining and selling their online presence on pretty much every webpage they visit and no one bats an eye. Instead people like me who avoid it and criticize it are called "tin foil hat crazy people". Funny double standards, don't you think?

I'm not saying I like google, or their practices, there's a lot I don't like about them... I'm just not concerned if Google is scraping fonts I'm loading in a browser or utilizing an API. You might as well log off the internet if you're on that level of paranoia with such minutia. 
 

Hope you’re on a VPN, because chances are your ISP is probably also a large media conglomerate, or partnered with one, selling your browsing history, or using it for their own commercial purposes. 

 

PS- Paragraphs would help. 

Edited by shockz
2 hours ago, RejZoR said:

I've decided to erase creepy uncle Google from my life and thus have everything Google blocked on a router/browser level. However, I'm unable to post any comments on your news feed because my router/browser is going crazy blocking all the crap from Google you have in place.

 

apis.google.com

ajax.googleapis.com

fonts.googleapis.com

www.google.com

 

Why is all this crap from Google necessary so the thing even runs? I really like Neowin as source of news and I often comment on things, but now it has become a complete no go because your site seems to depend on Google stuff so heavily you can't use it unless you basically hand over your entire life to it and trust their pinky promise of privacy.

If you want unbiased news... go to the associated press or Reuters websites.

@shockz

Quote

I'm just not concerned if Google is scraping fonts I'm loading in a browser or utilizing an API.

Because you think that way. It's not just their good will to offer everyone free fonts that don't even consume any of their bandwidth. It's a company whose sole purpose is making money. Their fonts are fetched on every visit for a very specific purpose of trailing people online and they give them fancy fonts in exchange. It shows how little you have to give users to make them happy and shows the level of ignorance and lack of knowledge by users if they find this so easily acceptable. Not saying you're stupid because you don't see it problematic, I'm just saying you don't really understand mechanism behind it. For you it's just pretty harmless font. Like every casual user thinks as well. But fonts, I don't care. I have it blocked, webpages look slightly different because browser loads default ones. No harm done, I can still use them just fine. Not being able to post a comment at all, that's a bit different, don't you think?

 

Realistically, I'm not really even expecting any one to change anything here, but it doesn't hurt to ask. People are becoming more and more privacy aware and conscious and over time you'll want your webpage to be structured differently. Without such garbage pinging multibillion corporations every time an user visits it and gets punished by entirely unusable webpage if they decide to block it. I guess we said everything that can be said here.

13 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

@shockz

Because you think that way. It's not just their good will to offer everyone free fonts that don't even consume any of their bandwidth. It's a company whose sole purpose is making money. Their fonts are fetched on every visit for a very specific purpose of trailing people online and they give them fancy fonts in exchange.

I'm well aware of that. I honestly just don't care. Background noise in regards to usable metrics. Again, internet minutia. 

 

Quote

For you it's just pretty harmless font. Like every casual user thinks as well. But fonts, I don't care. I have it blocked, webpages look slightly different because browser loads default ones. No harm done, I can still use them just fine. Not being able to post a comment at all, that's a bit different, don't you think?

 

Weird. Disabling things that impact the look and functionality of a webpage all in the name of making sure google doesn't get a hit on a font load that adds to their metrics of usage. It's a font stat. And an IP address. It's just silly to do. Especially when you're using a site designed for, well, exchanging information in an online forum and community. 

 

I get it, it's personal to you now. The big bad google. Sticking it to them, as if it'll make any difference. Have fun with that.

  • Like 2
Quote

It's a font stat. And an IP address.

Literally everything you need to trail users even when they aren't even using any of your apps and services. I never asked for their stupid fonts, they are just there. And so is all the other crap they serve. Ignorance really is a bliss... If you just don't give a ######, there isn't any problem. Fun.

 

Shockz visits webpage www.reddit.com. Fonts ping Google with your IP that you've been seen on www.reddit.com accessing them. Shockz visits webpage www.neowin.net and fonts again ping Google that your IP has been seen on www.neowin.net. Shockz goes to linustechtips.com, Google Fonts ping Google that your IP was seen on linustechtips.com. All while not even using Google for anything on purpose like using their maps, GMail or something. It's odd that you don't find this problematic or creepy at all. Would you just so freely allow your local advertisement agency to know every store, coffee shop, car service and car parking payment machine you've ever used by automatic pinging back and make hundreds of thousands of whatever currency you have from that? Not to mention question their privacy policies and care how they handle that data. I think you'd have a problem with that. All people would and have. Because in real world it's somehow ###### super creepy and undesired, but online it's "just pretty harmless fonts".

10 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

Literally everything you need to trail users even when they aren't even using any of your apps and services. I never asked for their stupid fonts, they are just there. And so is all the other crap they serve. Ignorance really is a bliss... If you just don't give a ######, there isn't any problem. Fun.

 

Shockz visits webpage www.reddit.com. Fonts ping Google with your IP that you've been seen on www.reddit.com accessing them. Shockz visits webpage www.neowin.net and fonts again ping Google that your IP has been seen on www.neowin.net. Shockz goes to linustechtips.com, Google Fonts ping Google that your IP was seen on linustechtips.com. All while not even using Google for anything on purpose like using their maps, GMail or something. It's odd that you don't find this problematic or creepy at all. Would you just so freely allow your local advertisement agency to know every store, coffee shop, car service and car parking payment machine you've ever used by automatic pinging back and make hundreds of thousands of whatever currency you have from that? Not to mention question their privacy policies and care how they handle that data. I think you'd have a problem with that. All people would and have. Because in real world it's somehow ###### super creepy and undesired, but online it's "just pretty harmless fonts".

 

So when you go to every store, coffee shop, car service an car parking payment machine do you pay with cash? If you pay with a credit/debit card you're already giving that to your bank when then sells it to a third party....

5 minutes ago, c.grz said:

 

So when you go to every store, coffee shop, car service an car parking payment machine do you pay with cash? If you pay with a credit/debit card you're already giving that to your bank when then sells it to a third party....

Yeah, but I have a choice of paying with card or money. I don't really have a choice of using Neowin without "paying with credit card". If you get the analogy...

4 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

Yeah, but I have a choice of paying with card or money. I don't really have a choice of using Neowin without "paying with credit card". If you get the analogy...

You do have a choice:

 

1. Continue to use Neowin aka Pay with credit/debit

2. Find a site similar to Neowin but that doesn't depend on Google aka Pay with cash

Hey, if you don’t want google in your life then fair play. But using them as a CDN for fonts and scripts is a common practice so get over it. Feel free to browse the web on a text browser.

3 minutes ago, Human.Online said:

Hey, if you don’t want google in your life then fair play. But using them as a CDN for fonts and scripts is a common practice so get over it. Feel free to browse the web on a text browser.

Hilarious mentality. Truly hilarious. Hitler's common practice was to gas the Jews and everyone weren't fine with it. Just because something is commonly practiced, it doesn't make it ok. Why haven't Jews just gotten over it like you say I should eh?

 

Also there is nothing wrong with rich content so your snarky "text browser" comment is rather lame. You won't see me complaining over webpages that are filled with AJAX and custom fonts and all that jazz. But they use it locally. I do have a problem when such content is unnecessarily pinging some 3rd party because it needs to be constantly pulled from 3rd party servers.

 

@c.grz

Your analogy doesn't work. You're giving option between two entirely different things, not two options within one single thing. Not even remotely comparable.

2 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

 

@c.grz

Your analogy doesn't work. You're giving option between two entirely different things, not two options within one single thing. Not even remotely comparable.

I disagree but whatever, won't change the fact that Neowin depends on Google and you want nothing to do with Google.

 

Only two options; find another site or allow Google.

1 hour ago, RejZoR said:

Literally everything you need to trail users even when they aren't even using any of your apps and services. I never asked for their stupid fonts, they are just there. And so is all the other crap they serve. Ignorance really is a bliss... If you just don't give a ######, there isn't any problem. Fun.

 

Shockz visits webpage www.reddit.com. Fonts ping Google with your IP that you've been seen on www.reddit.com accessing them. Shockz visits webpage www.neowin.net and fonts again ping Google that your IP has been seen on www.neowin.net. Shockz goes to linustechtips.com, Google Fonts ping Google that your IP was seen on linustechtips.com. All while not even using Google for anything on purpose like using their maps, GMail or something. It's odd that you don't find this problematic or creepy at all. Would you just so freely allow your local advertisement agency to know every store, coffee shop, car service and car parking payment machine you've ever used by automatic pinging back and make hundreds of thousands of whatever currency you have from that? Not to mention question their privacy policies and care how they handle that data. I think you'd have a problem with that. All people would and have. Because in real world it's somehow ###### super creepy and undesired, but online it's "just pretty harmless fonts".

I guess I just don't care? Google knows I browse neowin.net. Horrifying lol. Not to mention, the IP I'm currently on is utilized by about 6000 other people right now, and the one at home is utilized by 6, and also changes. Not to mention their search bot indexes all posts on this site, just another, more vital and relevant stat on what I do on this site than worrying about a few api calls and font caching.

 

And honestly? The "creepy" methodology of how sites create these metrics is actually quite helpful as it gets more advanced. I often see ads relevant to my interests that contain coupon codes or other deals I'd normally not see if I'm incognito. I guess that really sucks? Damn, I got a deal on something because of my browsing habits. What a let down.

Blocking stuff just to block it and not understanding what it is for or does, isn't very wise.

 

The items you listed are legit services, had you said:

google-analytics.com

googleads.g.doubleclick.net

pagead2.googlesyndication.com

 

Then I might be onboard.

The short answer is that we can't afford to do everything ourselves on the income we get from running this site so we offset some services that Google provide for "free". But rest assured everything we load into pages is required for one reason or another, and we also work hard at ensuring fast loading pages where we can.

 

I think you will come across this problem on most commercial sites though, it isn't limited to Neowin.

 

We are enrolled at Brave and Scroll too which modify our pages for their own purposes (I don't like it, but what you gonna do?) and we have a subscription ($28/year) that strips all ad/tracking content from the whole site. There are options, but we need to keep the lights on for a number of people too :) 

On 2/12/2020 at 10:07 PM, RejZoR said:

Hitler's common practice was to gas the Jews and everyone weren't fine with it.

Aaaaaaand you cited Hitler...  So anything else you say is more nonsense.

 

Cheerio!

On 2/12/2020 at 10:07 PM, RejZoR said:

Why haven't Jews just gotten over it like you say I should eh?

Because the two are completely the same!  OK!

On 2/12/2020 at 10:07 PM, RejZoR said:

your snarky "text browser" comment is rather lame.

But comparing the use of the words most common CDN to gassing Jews is perfectly normal!

On 2/12/2020 at 10:07 PM, RejZoR said:

But they use it locally.

To their detrement.  If you knew anything about CDNs you'd know that.

On 2/12/2020 at 10:07 PM, RejZoR said:

unnecessarily

Nope, you're out of your depth with this comment too!

On 2/12/2020 at 10:07 PM, RejZoR said:

constantly

Again showing how little you understand a CDN.

On 2/12/2020 at 10:07 PM, RejZoR said:

Your analogy doesn't work.

Says the guy who compared the use of a CDN to the holocaust.

On 2/12/2020 at 10:07 PM, RejZoR said:

Not even remotely comparable.

Just, uh... LOL

 

On 2/12/2020 at 6:53 PM, xendrome said:

Blocking stuff just to block it and not understanding what it is for or does, isn't very wise.

 

The items you listed are legit services, had you said:

google-analytics.com

googleads.g.doubleclick.net

pagead2.googlesyndication.com

 

Then I might be onboard.

The thing is, I didn't post any of this because blocking any of this doesn't break anything. So I don't have any issue with it. It's blocked by default for me and that's the end of it. It doesn't break any webpages as a result. Blocking ajax, fonts (partially) and other Google API's however does and that's the issue I have with. If all this was blockable and I could still comment in the comment section, even if in slightly broken form, I'd be fine with it. I do understand reasons why some pages are mildly broken and I accept it, because I'm filtering things from it. But when it totally breaks (as in I can type comment in the field and when I click post, it just hangs on an empty page), the reasons become questionable when some functionality invades webpages inner workings so far it just doesn't work if you remove it. Again, if it was first party thing, I wouldn't have an issue with it. I've accepted to hand over certain information to Neowin by using your website. I didn't do the same for Google on your site because they have nothing to do with Neowin on any level otherwise. I still appreciate honest reply by @aSteveParker . They do it from cost saving reasons and I can't blame them for that, money doesn't just fall from sky to run webpages.

22 hours ago, Riva said:

I hope you are not using Chrome...

Try Decentraleyes and privacy badger out.

Lol, why would I use Chrome and then complain about Google stuff infesting webpages? :D That would be an epic oxymoron. I'm using those two extensions along with few others.

What I find amusing about all this is that it's being made out that it's just Neowin that has become completely broken with these blockages. As has been pointed out, there are going to be plenty of other places that suffer similar issues. I find my opinion on this is much the same as when people report that the site isn't working correctly when they have their adblocker active. If you want to block such things then that's fine, Neowin cannot stop you. But you can't complain that the site is broken when you are the one breaking it for yourself...

  • Like 3
  • Brandon H locked this topic

Locking Thread

 

I think this thread has run its course. We at neowin do not condone Ad or Script blocking. We can't stop you if you choose to do so, but if things on the site break in the process then we will not be able to assist you to get around that.
As stated, Neowin uses CDN resources from Google for many of its live scripts to function in a simple manor.

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    • Nice to see! Especially now with Arm64 VMs getting more popular and sometimes even cheaper than traditional x86 ones in datacenters.
    • I never said they weren’t, I said I don’t care. Do keep up…
    • TerraMaster F2-425 Pro review: a low-powered Intel NAS that ships with AI (OpenClaw) by Steven Parker It has been a while since I reviewed a TerraMaster NAS, but the company reached out to me asking if I was willing to test the F4-425 Pro, which goes on sale today. It is an upgrade on the F4-425 Plus, which I reviewed back in October 2025 What you need to know is that it basically follows the design principles of the four-bay F4-425 series, with its all-metal exterior. Here are the most important specifications: TerraMaster F4-425 Pro CPU Intel Core N350 (8x E Cores/Threads, Max burst up to 3.9 GHz) Intel Core N305 (4x E Cores/Threads, Max burst up to 3.8 GHz) TDP: 7W / 9W (Base) Graphics Intel UHD Graphics 32 EUs (1.35 GHz) Intel UHD Graphics 24 EUs (1.25 GHz) Memory 1x slot 16 GB DDR5 4800MT/s non ECC SODIMM (Max 32 GB) 1x slot 8 GB DDR5 4800MT/s non ECC SODIMM (Max 32 GB) Disk Capacity 120 TB (30 TB x 4) Supported RAID Types TRAID, TRAID +, RAID0, RAID1, RAID5, RAID 6, RAID 10 Network 2x RJ-45 5 GbE Internal storage 3x M.2 2280 NVMe Slot (PCIe 3.0 x1) Bootloader 2Gbit 256 GB NAND Flash card (MX30LF2G28AD) USB port (internal) USB Ports 1x Type-C 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) 3x Type-A 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) HDMI 1x (HDMI) Hardware Transcoding Engine H.264, H.265, MPEG-4, VC-1 Maximum resolution: 4K (4096 x 2160); Maximum FPS: 60 Size (H/W/D) 219 x 181 x 150 mm Weight 2.9 kg System Fan 150 x181 x 219 mm Power 90W, 100V - 240V AC, 50/60 Hz, Single frequency Power consumption (HDDs) 45W (4x 4TB ST4000VN008 in read/write state) 14W (4x 4TB ST4000VN008 in hibernation) Noise Level: 20.9 dB(A) Using 4 SATA HDDs/SSDs in standby mode; Test environment noise: 17.3dB(A); Test distance: 1m Warranty 2 Years OS TOS 7.0.0706 (Beta) MSRP £639.99, $699.99, €739.99 / £739.99, $799.99, €839.99 As you can see above, there are two variants of the F4-425 Pro releasing today. The lesser variant has the slightly weaker N305 CPU and iGP, and 8 GB less RAM, although it also costs $100 less than the top variant we are testing today. In addition, these new F4-425 Pros are shipped with the as-yet-unreleased TOS 7 beta. So what is TOS 7 exactly? During the device initialization, you are warned not to use it in a production environment, which we'll get into later. My contact told me that TOS 7 exits beta today, June 23. The clear difference with the F4-425 Plus is that it contains the more powerful N350 Intel CPU released in the first quarter of 2025, with support for DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.1, LPDDR5 (4800), DDR5 and DDR4, and a max TDP of just 7W. It also supports AV1 decoding, as well as H.264, VP8, VP9, H.265 (8 bit), and H.265 (10 bit). The different capabilities in the Alder Lake-N (and Twin Lake) series are listed below. Processor E-cores L3-cache Turbo clock GPU GPU-clock TDP Intel N355 8 6 MB 3.9 GHz 32 EUs 1.35 GHz 9 W Intel Core 3 N350 3.9 GHz 1.35 GHz 7 W Intel Core i3-N305 3.8 GHz 1.25 GHz 9 W Intel Core i3-N300 3.8 GHz 1.25 GHz Intel N250 4 3.8 GHz 1.25 GHz 6 W Intel Processor N200 3.7 GHz 0.75 GHz Intel N150 3.6 GHz 24 EUs 1 GHz Intel N97 1.2 GHz 12 W Intel Processor N100 3.4 GHz 0.75 GHz 6 W The CPU is part of the Alder Lake-N series that sits just below the top N355 offering, albeit with an impressive TDP (less than the N355 and N305) for the features it offers. It is designed for low- powered systems and entry-level laptops. As before, we are seeing another NAS with an acceptable, if not great, amount of RAM. It should be noted that the F4-425 Pro only has one SODIMM slot, so if you are planning to upgrade the already 16GB included in this NAS, it will have to be on one module of Single Rank DDR5. As a reminder, up until a couple of years ago, it was commonplace to only get 2 or 4GB max on a flagship Synology or QNAP home NAS. Ever since the likes of TerraMaster and more have entered the market with ample RAM sizes included in their NAS offerings, it has gone a long way in forcing the hands of the traditional makers to up their game a bit. Before we dive in, you can view the different SKUs released so far since the 2025 series launched for Home and SMB users, with the most important specifications listed along with the MSRP listed below: SKU CPU Cores Memory Link Price F2-425 Intel N5095 4 4 GB DDR4 2.5 GbE x1 $249.99 F4-425 Intel N5095 4 4 GB DDR4 2.5 GbE x1 $369.99 F2-425 Plus Intel Core N150 4 8 GB DDR5 5 GbE x 2 $399.99 F4-425 Plus Intel Core N150 4 16 GB DDR5 5 GbE x 2 $569.99 F4-425 Pro Intel Core N305 8 8 GB DDR5 5 GbE x 2 $699.99 F4-425 Pro Intel Core N350 8 16 GB DDR5 5 GbE x 2 $799.99 The F2 in the product name means two 3.5-inch HDD bays, where F4 is four 2.5-inch bays. First impressions Like with the F8 SSD Plus packaging, the F4-425 Pro is using the upgraded box materials, which certainly look better than a plain cream colored box with TERRAMASTER stamped on the sides. The box gives off a premium feel and certainly adds a positive vibe to first impressions. In the box F4-425 Pro TNAS device Power adapter LAN cable (CAT 6) Quick guide [full online guide] Limited warranty notice Screws (for HDD bays) Stickers 2x rubber feet (spares) Design As has become kind of common with TerraMaster, certainly in the last three years, the 2025 F2- and F4-series have received a makeover that really adds to the premium feel of the NAS. Gone are the plastic shells, now replaced with an aluminum outer shell, with the front and back retaining the textured black plastic we saw on the 2024 models. Some key differences from the 2024 series include placing the power button back on the front, along with the addition of a Type A USB port. It's not much bigger or heavier either; in fact, it weighs 500 grams less than the F4-424 Pro. It's slightly shorter in height and depth (length), but only by a few millimeters. The front and back do retain a similar style to the 2024 series. On the front, you just have your four bays along with LED indicators for the HDDs and power. The welcomed change is having a USB port on the front for quick access, should you need to back up a USB drive, for example. Around the back, from top to bottom, you have a reset pin hole, an HDMI port, two 5 GbE Ethernet ports, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) Type A ports with a Type-C port below them, and a connector for the barrel port power source. Again, there's no Kensington Security Slot present, which is a bit of a shame considering it's a data storage device. Left side Right side On the left and right of the F4-425 Plus, it is completely smooth aluminum with a TERRAMASTER logo printed on both sides. On the bottom, there are some holes to assist ventilation. Unlike with the F4-425 Plus, the rubber feet did come unstuck during the teardown, which was also an issue on the 2023 series. It seems like other customers have lodged complaints about them, as TerraMaster now includes two spare rubber feet in the box, in case any of the preinstalled ones are lost; however, this seems more like a papering over the cracks solution rather than actually fixing the issue with better quality rubber stand-offs. There are also four screws that must be removed in order to access the internals. Teardown Upon removing the four screws, you can slide the device out of its shell to reveal the three NVMe M.2 slots (PCIe 3.0 X1) and single SODIMM slot connector, which is populated with a single 16GB DDR5 4800MT/s module. I added a couple of MP44Q M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSDs (2 x 4TB) that can be availed on Amazon for $492.99 that TEAMGROUP supplied us with, along with a 250GB 970 Evo Plus that my colleague Chris White sent me by accident and let me keep a few years ago. As I have said in previous reviews, TerraMaster support staff actually encourage installing whatever you want on their devices, and happily, the USB port for the bootloader is now easily accessible should you want to use it for your own flavor of NAS OS, such as TrueNAS, Unraid, or maybe Xpenology. Yes, because TerraMaster has now switched to a 256 GB NAND Flash card (3rd photo above) for the TOS bootloader. This is also replaceable, but you can also simply add a USB bootloader, access the BIOS, and tell the F4-425 Pro to boot from that instead of the Flash card. Unlike earlier iterations of TerraMaster NAS, you don't have to tear this down any further than the four screws on the outer shell in order to be able to access and manage the memory, NVMe slots, and USB bootloader. However, if you need to access the NAND Flash card or CMOS battery, then eight more screws (four on each side) need to be removed in order to take off the rear panel with the 120mm fan, and then the motherboard can be lifted off and removed from the SATA connector PCB. There's also no risk of threading the screw holes, because the four that hold the shell in place are metal on metal, while the screws that hold the rear panel on do screw into plastic. Either way, like last time when I reviewed the F4-425 plus, I was just happier to see larger screws being used. Overall, it follows some great improvements in build quality from the 2024 series and earlier. Setup BIOS The F4-425 Pro includes an Aptio BIOS from American Megatrends [1, 2], and you can setup pretty much everything here including the boot order, which is locked to the UEFI OS, however above that choice you can enable or disable booting to the USB bootloader so this would still allow you to switch to a USB stick with an alternative bootloader and boot from it, or disable it to instead always start from the first disk with an OS installed on it. Initial Setup Setup is roughly the same as the F4-425 Plus, along with the new TOS 7 setup dialogs, so there will be no surprises here. Upon connecting to the LAN and booting up, the F4-425 Pro can be reached by navigating to http://tnas.local. If that doesn't work, you can use the local address assigned via DHCP, which you can find using the TNAS PC desktop application, which is essentially a TerraMaster NAS finder. The setup process is pretty straightforward, through a wizard, and in full below: TOS 7 Initialization As you can see, TOS 7 received a new coat of paint, and the initialization requires fewer interactions. Happily, TOS no longer decides to throw all disks into the same Storage Pool; 2.5-inch HDDs are allocated into Storage Pool 1. This is because two of the HDDs are allocated to hold system files. Previously (with TOS 5 and 6), if you pre-installed HDDs and SSDs, they were all placed into Storage Pool 1, even if you did not select the SSDs for inclusion during the onboarding. TOS 7 Setup On first boot, there is a tutorial and some steps to take to harden the TNAS (or not), which includes an immediate update from TOS 7.0.0616 to 7.0.0706, of which the changelog screenshot is also included in the above gallery. It must be noted that the Security Advisor still contains (in my opinion) a pretty major bug in that if you enable SPC and then do the required rebooting, the Security Advisor still says that SPC is disabled. TerraMaster provided the following statement about it: It is disappointing that TOS 7 has been in beta since December, and this OOBE issue is still there. Shutdown option has moved Instead of a Taskbar option to manage the NAS, all of these options have been moved to the Control Panel, initially I did not see it and my contact had to show me how to power off the F4-425 Pro. To logout, reboot or power off you can find those controls at the top right of the Control Panel. It is also possible to power off through the TNAS mobile app beta. Storage setup Above, you can see the steps I took to create the Storage Pools and Volumes. I made a second Storage Pool using TRAID on two 4TB MP44Q SSDs (which, in this instance, is similar to RAID 5), and finally, I added the 250GB 970 Evo Plus drive as Hyper Cache on Storage Pool 1 in Balanced mode. Registering If you decide not to lock down the F4-425 Pro in Security Isolation Mode (blocking all external connections), then you could set up a TNAS device ID through the Remote Access setting in the Control Panel (which must be unique). This works in combination with an online TerraMaster account. TOS 7 TNAS Online Creating a TerraMaster account and linking the device online activates the warranty when you provide proof of purchase and the serial number, but it also gives you access through the TNAS mobile app, which allows you to complete certain operationsб including powering off and restarting the NAS remotely. A TNAS mobile update is required to gain access through TOS 7, and this is provided on the TerraMaster website, as it is not yet on Google Play. The app is evolving all the time and has made leaps and bounds since I first started reviewing TerraMaster devices almost three years ago. It is not quite there yet if you are comparing the likes of Synology, which, sadly, a lot of users online do all the time. OpenClaw setup One of the main selling points of the new F4-425 Pro is the inclusion of OpenClaw, with TerraMaster claiming that it is "powered by the world's first AI-native TOS 7 OS, supporting local-first smart workflows and independent data control." However, I immediately ran into problems trying to enable OpenClaw. After waiting 20 minutes at the "Enabling" message of the OpenClaw app following installation, I decided to do some searching online and discovered that it couldn't complete the installation process due to SPC being enabled, which is something TOS 7 immediately recommends to be enabled on first boot. SPC for NAS (TOS 7) is basically the same principle as UAC in Windows; it blocks executables from being launched by non-Super Users. After reaching out to my contact about these issues, I received the following response: Anyway, this only became clear when I closed the OpenClaw app screen and clicked on the OpenClaw icon in the taskbar; that is when I saw the message about disabling SPC. I think, due to the fact that this is a requirement, this should be a prompt during the installation process, not when closing the App Market and then trying to launch OpenClaw. There's also no 'Getting started' guide for people like me who have never used OpenClaw. I tried to add an LLM and discovered the tutorial led nowhere. That's when I started looking around the official TerraMaster forums, and I found a guide that helpfully explains that you won't get anywhere with OpenClaw unless you have a paid plan, which is disappointing because I imagined there would be an option to use a local LLM as I do in SubtitleEdit with Whisper-XXL. In addition, with the marketing imagery on the official site, it says that the OpenClaw feature is "all processed 100% locally for absolute privacy." which led me to believe that I could install a local LLM, not one that required paid tokens. In any case, TerraMaster does not provide guidance for this new feature, which was also a selling point of the F4-425 Pro! My contact also provided clarification about the above points I raised with TerraMaster Since it is not in the scope of the review to add paid services, I'll leave that to the people who are more qualified with OpenClaw. F4-425 Pro Surveillance App TOS also comes with a Surveillance app, which is not installed by default; it can be found in the App Market recommended section. In addition, after installing, it doesn't drop a shortcut on the Desktop or top taskbar, but you can "Send to Desktop" from the App Market listing for the app for a quick way to open it. Adding my Reolink POE doorbell camera was painless. TerraMaster doesn't appear to have a repository of preconfigured cameras; instead, the camera must be added using ONVIF or RTSP. No mobile Surveillance app TerraMaster still doesn't have a dedicated Surveillance app, although from searching online, Surveillance can be used and managed through the TNAS mobile app. I tried this with the updated TNAS mobile app beta in combination with TOS 7 and got a message that Surveillance was "Only accessible through web browser," so I reckon this must be limited to the stable versions of TOS 6 and the mobile app. More quirks In addition, whenever I minimized the Live View window in the browser Surveillance app, the feed appeared to switch to the Low-bandwidth stream, and there was no way to get the High-quality stream back. To get the High-quality stream back, I had to close Live View and then reopen it. Benchmarking A pretty cool feature of the TOS 7 is that it allows you to install directly to the NVMe M.2 SSD. In order to do that, you would have to leave out any HDDs during initialization, and even then, the system partitions are always written to two HDDs when they are eventually added. With three NVMe slots, this also gives an interesting scenario where you could build a TRAID storage Pool for installing all your apps and Docker on, and keep the third for SSD cache on the HDD pool. Limitless options! SATA PCIe 3.0 X1 A CrystalDiskMark test on a mapped network drive from within a Windows 11 25H2 PC (image above) connected over a 5 GbE hub was well within acceptable ranges. Although the read result on SATA was a little less than with the F4-425 Plus, for some reason, while writes were generally better. SATA PCIe 3.0 X1 I also ran the NAS Performance tester, which tests the link speed performance. As you can see, it pretty much maxes out the 5GbE connection. Of course, you can also opt to bond the two 5 GbE connections for a bit more umph, but I didn't do that. TOS 7, which, as of testing, is still in Beta, comes with an App Center that has a bunch of handy programs you can install right off the bat, such as Emby, Plex, Docker, as well as in-house Backup and Surveillance solutions. As you can imagine, any media streaming services you would want to host off the F4-425 Pro will work great, thanks to the Intel Core N350 CPU and its 16 GB of DDR5 memory. Accessing from mobile is only possible if Security Isolation Mode is disabled, which can put your NAS at risk from external sources, so there was no way to access it from the TNAS Mobile app. It's also quiet. I had this sat next to my computer on my work desk for the past week, and I did wonder if the noise I was accustomed to with NAS devices would annoy me, but all I could hear was a soft whirring of the rear fan (which was a little annoying) when the disks were not actively copying or reading data. Conclusion So what have I learned? Unfortunately, this release raises a few important questions and concerns that I feel haven't been adequately addressed. What I didn't like Our variant shipped with TOS 7 beta, and it's advised not to use it in a production environment. I feel that's a bit limiting on an $800 device. The mobile app is also still in beta and does not support some of the first-party apps, like Surveillance, and it still has quite a few bugs. I am a bit confused about the OpenClaw marketing along with the F4-425 Pro. I feel like that if it's going to be a main selling point, then offer official guidance on how to get started with it. TerraMaster recommends enabling SPC, but then markets the NAS for use with OpenClaw, which requires disabling SPC to be able to use it, opening up genuine security concerns for the NAS; and that's before you get into the security concerns of OpenClaw itself. Of course, the above issues won't be a problem if you decide to install something else on it, or even go back to the stable TOS 6. I wish TerraMaster had just given TOS 7 as opt-in rather than shipping with it. TOS 7 has been available as a preview since December 2025 (so well before my last TerraMaster review), and according to a thread on Reddit where a user shared a screenshot from the TerraMaster Facebook page, it is scheduled to launch today, June 23, but there's nothing about that in the TerraMaster news blog. My contact confirmed over email that TOS 7 exits beta today. The rubber feet also deserve a mention as they continue to be a problem, with them coming unstuck the moment you shift the F4-425 Pro anywhere on your desk. What I liked What it comes down to, though, aside from what I already mentioned, you are still getting a quality, affordable device here, so recommending it will depend on the individual's use case. If you're just looking for a relatively small NAS device to manage virtual machines on, backup your files, and take care of your home theater streaming, then it is a great device that will certainly futureproof you for some time. It provides good performance, takes up little space, and is, on the whole, very quiet. Four bays afford proper redundancy using TRAID or RAID 5, and you can even expand on storage capacity by adding the 2-bay D5, or 4-bay D8 Hybrid DAS over a USB 3.2 (10Gbps) link. Considering the 2024 releases were more about power, with the likes of an Intel Core i5-1235U high-end laptop CPU under the hood, I asked my contact last time if we could expect more of the same in higher-end models and was told: It makes a lot of sense to use Intel's N350 chip inside a NAS; it is more than capable of doing what the F4-425 Pro is intended for, media streaming and backup. The only downside is still the clear lack of community and even staff support on the official forums. In the past, I have had topics go unanswered for days, or there would be generic-type "we've noted this and passed it onto our developer team" type responses. Along with the other things I mentioned, it all ends up costing it a couple of points. If you are comfortable with the command line, Docker, and setting up TrueNAS or Unraid, you'll be fine. You can do great things with this hardware. In TOS, the apps are a bit lacking, and things don't always work as expected.\ AI NAS?! What has become clear to me this year is that we are going to start seeing all kinds of "AI NAS" come to market, and while that might be good for us consumers, be diligent and research these claims. Although the F4-425 Pro technically comes with AI, it is really using a cloud service that is externally sourced off-device through the third party OpenClaw app. My colleague did review a newcomer to the NAS space earlier this year, and it includes a local AI assistant inside the Zettlab D4 NAS, and they do not even use AI in the product name, check out Chris' review here. Where to buy and a discount coupon However, it does not change the fact that this is truly a great entry-level home media-class NAS that you can buy right now. TerraMaster is having a 20% off launch discount, plus you can also still apply our unique 10% off coupon on checkout, which only works on the official website. So here is a breakdown of the pricing that is only valid on the official TerraMaster website. TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N350) + 20% discount + 10% coupon = $575.99 TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N305) + 20% discount + 10% coupon = $503.99 TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N350) + 20% discount + 10% coupon = £525.59 TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N305) + 20% discount + 10% coupon = £460.79 Use NEOWIN coupon code during checkout for 10% discount Over on Amazon US and UK, the F4-425 Pro also gets a 20% launch discount, but here, the above 10% coupon cannot be applied. TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N350) for $639.99 at Amazon US (was $799.99) TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N305) for $559.99 at Amazon US (was $699.99) TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N350) for £583.99 at Amazon UK (was £729.99) TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N305) for £511.99 at Amazon UK (was £639.99) As an Amazon Associate, when you purchase through links on our site, we earn from qualifying purchases.
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