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EntityQ838191· pop 12· linked from 14 articles

Also known as local user

Before the popularization of the Internet in the 1990s, Internet slang defined a luser (sometimes expanded to local user; also luzer or luzzer) as a painfully annoying, stupid, or irritating computer user. The word is a blend of "loser" and "user". Among hackers, the word luser takes on a broad meaning, referring to any normal user (in other words, not a "guru"), with the implication the person is also a loser. The term is partially interchangeable with the hacker term lamer.

Wikidata facts

Instance of
Internet slang
Subclass of
user
Depicts
user
Said to be same as
lamer
Sources (1)

via Wikidata · CC0

~3 min read

Encyclopedic overview

4 sections
Contents
  • History
  • See also
  • Notes and references
  • External links

Before the popularization of the Internet in the 1990s, Internet slang defined a luser (sometimes expanded to local user; also luzer or luzzer) as a painfully annoying, stupid, or irritating computer user. The word is a blend of "loser" and "user". Among hackers, the word luser takes on a broad meaning, referring to any normal user (in other words, not a "guru"), with the implication the person is also a loser. The term is partially interchangeable with the hacker term lamer.

The term can also signify a layman with only user account privileges, as opposed to a power user or administrator, who has knowledge of, and access to, superuser accounts; for example, an end luser who cannot be trusted with a root account for system administration. It is popular with technical support staff who have to deal with lusers as part of their job, often metaphorically employing a LART (Luser Attitude Readjustment Tool, also known as a clue-by-four, cluestick, or cluebat), meaning turning off the user's access to computer resources and the like.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “luser” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.