The Lazy SRE

If you're using Chromium on Linux with an Intel integrated GPU and noticing high CPU usage during YouTube playback, you're probably missing hardware video acceleration. Here's how to fix it.

Requirements

• Intel GPU (Broadwell or newer for VP9 support)
• Arch Linux (or similar distro)
• Wayland session

Step 1: Install Intel Media Driver

sudo pacman -S intel-media-driver libva-utils

Verify VAAPI is working:

vainfo

You should see VP9 profiles listed:

VAProfileVP9Profile0            : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVP9Profile2            : VAEntrypointVLD

Step 2: Configure Chromium Flags

Edit ~/.config/chromium-flags.conf:

--ozone-platform=wayland
--enable-features=VaapiVideoDecoder,VaapiVideoEncoder
--ignore-gpu-blocklist
--enable-zero-copy
--enable-gpu-rasterization

Important: Do NOT add --use-gl or --use-angle flags. Let Chromium auto-select

If your Linux fonts look a little fuzzy, like a hungover morning, there’s no need to stress. You can make them render a bit more sharp and clean by setting a single environment variable.

Just open /etc/environment, add the line

FREETYPE_PROPERTIES="cff:no-stem-darkening=0 autofitter:no-stem-darkening=0"

and reboot.

What this does is turn off Freetype’s “stem darkening” a feature meant to thicken fonts at smaller sizes.

While the idea is to improve readability, it often makes text look slightly blurry instead. Disabling it is like opening the blinds on a sunny morning—suddenly everything

Why Your DNS Is a Privacy Liability?

Every time you visit "news.site" or "health.blog," your devices, usually by default send unencrypted DNS queries that:

📡 Reveal exact domains you visit (even through HTTPS)
📡 Expose your streaming habits, work tools, and shopping patterns
📡 Enable ISPs to sell your behavioral data or inject ads

It’s like mailing your diary to your internet provider – page by page, every single day.

The Triple-Shield Protocol: Privacy Without Compromise

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been experimenting with ways to harden my home network without tanking performance.

Lately, I’ve been vibing to some synthwave tunes, and YouTube is my go-to music source.

Since I spend a lot of time in the macOS terminal, I didn’t want to drain my battery by keeping a browser open just to listen to music.

So, I wrote a short script that uses yt-dlp and mpv:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then
    echo "Usage: pm <SONG_NAME>"
    return 1
fi

query="$*"
s_index=1

while true; do
    yt-dlp -f bestaudio ytsearch$s_index:"$query" -I $s_index -o - 2>/dev/null