Windows 11 is getting out of hand with its push for advertisments, frankly - remember the recent full-screen pop-up to persuade users to install Edge or other Microsoft services? Then another advertisment was placed in the Start menu, and now Microsoft has finally worn my temper thin - with a new Game Pass ad coming to the Settings app.
This will likely arrive in the July update for Windows 11, or at least it’s almost certain to do so. It was present in the latest preview update Microsoft just released for the OS (and quickly paused due to a bug, but that’s another story). It’s also worth noting that the ad has been present in earlier test versions of Windows 11.
I wholeheartedly believe that all forma of unsolicited or public advertising should be completely banned. Nothing good comes from it, it is only a nuisance to everyone.
But have you thought about a legal person’s right to fuck your eyes and brains?!
Also, what about their freedom of speech… Shit lord
Shit lord
They should, but that’s never going to happen unless political lobbying is made very illegal (like life ruining and business bankrupting illegal, not slap on the wrist, cost of business illegal)
Life sentence. Solved.
We should be able to charge them for ad time. You want to paint an advertisement on my car you have to pay me. Why should it be any different when you want to put ads on my work computer screen when I’m working with clients?
And it’s not like w11 is free, the price of a PC with Windows installed comes with its’ license’s costs. It’s not told to the consumer so they won’t even know they are using a product they paid for, for them it’s what a clean basic PC looks like. And that’s what prevents many to care about it the same way they can be frustrated by a paid streaming plan with ads. To take is as a given, and shifting the Overtone’s window of fucked up services even further.
I don’t like solving things with regulation, because that’s always a victory in one battle making the enemy stronger for all the following ones.
But doing this EU-style, like browser choice, only with operating systems, can be a solution.
People love cheap and easy things. That’s how social media won over normal web. Seeing the choice between “install Fedora for freeeeeee” and “install Windows for 20$” significant amount will choose the former.
At the very least, the price of OEM OS should be disclosed before one buys it.
Doesn’t quite cut it.
Now if there’s no other option or if the variant with Linux is labeled as “other” or “no OS”, and listed separately, normies still choose Windows 99% of cases. Sometimes they pirate it.
They should have a clear choice in the store from a few OSes with details. Summaries with screenshots will do.
if i cant grafitti the walls why can corporations?
Because they own that wall. The owner of a wall (or poster space for that matter) can do whatever.
And what do we get to own? Nothing… My OS… My… bandwidth… My RAM? Nope.
Oh I own my computer, and I don’t get ads as a result. It’s not impossible. A Linux DE does not have ads and your browser can block them with various methods.
Yup. If you use Windows, you need to accept what Microsoft does, because they control the OS. If you use Linux, you only need to accept what the software you install does, and there are a lot of options to select from.
Feel free to complain when Microsoft does something stupid, but don’t expect Microsoft to do anything about it. If you want control, use something that preserves that control.
sounds like time for even more grafitti to cover their ads
Especially in a paid service, like why do I pay for these services if you’re still going to advertise, track, or datamine? I know the answer is greed, why profit off of one option when you can profit off of all of them, but I, the consumer, am fed up with the customer abuse.
Shit, I’m a web developer and I’m fed up with all the ads, tracking and stalking that goes on. It’s so ingrained like “why not use Google for analytics?” or “just host it on Amazon.” 90% of the services we use at work I refuse to use at home (and go as far as outright blocking them).
Exactly.
Fortunately, my company doesn’t put ads in our product because it’s essentially a B2B product and customers pay a lot to use it, and our product being unusable could cost individual customers potentially millions if it blocks their day-to-day activities (we deal with regulations). We do use spyware though (e.g. fullstory), which makes sense given that lens, since being able to solve problems before they report them has a lot of value for our customers. If we did anything unethical, I would push back and potentially quit, since I’m not interested at all in manipulating customers (ads, dark patterns, etc).
I don’t think the tools we use to catch issues in the field make ethical sense in other contexts though. So yeah, I block a lot of the stuff we use in our product, and we don’t do anything to actively counter blocking in our app either (if you block it, you don’t get the pre-emptive bug-fixing).
You probably agreed to all of this in the billion page TOS so it’s no unsolicited.
A regulatory change would obviously need to prevent them from hiding that kind in intentionally too long legalese TOS. It has to be a clear single acknowledge, not obfuscated or bundled with functionality.
But how will the wealth addled convince us pleblians to spend money on worthless garbage? Or convince us that we’re ugly and not good enough so we buy their products? Oh the humanity!
In all seriousness, advertising has had way too much of an influence on our culture and it needs to be properly regulated. I’m sick of being negged by beauty product ads.
SoMeBoDy HaS tO tHiNk Of ThE sHaReHoLdErS!!!
They haven’t gone overboard with THIS one, because they already went way the fuck overboard years ago and never got back on board
Man I’m gonna have to bite the bullet and make my next machine a linux one
Imma make the jump once they force me to 11. I’ve been saying this for years but they finally got something cooking i truly can’t abide. That screenshot of what you’re up to every ten seconds is fucking terrifying to me and that’s not even considering govt snooping. I ain’t about to leave a record of my porn consumption for my wife to see lol! Linux is finally juuuust about idiot proof and game friendly enough for me. Can’t wait to be one of those smug guys that says ‘just use linux lol’
Microsoft has made the choice very easy for me. I still have an i7-7700k that works just fine. But that’s “too old”, so when Windows 10 hits end of life, I’ll be switching over to Linux.
Why wait?
Not important enough to me at this point to spend the time changing over. Windows 10 does what I need it to and still gets security updates. When one of those two factors changed, then it will be worth my time to change over.
I didn’t wait. I did it earlier this year and haven’t booted from my Windows 10 drive since then. My entry drug was Linux Mint. But I quickly switched to OpenSUSE Tumbleweed after because I wanted something that ran the KDE Plasma 6 desktop environment (I prefer how it looks and handles multiple displays). It isn’t that hard to learn the basics you need to use Linux, as long as you use a decently stable distro that you won’t need to troubleshoot at every update. In my limited experience, you only need more in depth knowledge when you try messing around with more “cutting edge” and less “stable” distros and are installing experimental features.
I can’t believe that Microsoft is expecting everyone to get rid of their computer to switch to 11 once the support for 10 expires next year. I even revived an 15 year old laptop that only had 4Gb or RAM by installing Mint on it (and switching its HDD with an SSD I had kicking around). It’s fast and perfectly usable for everything but modern games now
Not knocking your choice, OpenSUSE is a grand daddy OS, but if others are looking for a good KDE experience I find Fedora KDE Spin, which is not anweird fork yoi can get it from Red Hat themselves, is very good and come out of the box with all the latest and greatest like Wayland and Pipewire by default.
I tried Fedora KDE spin first but it didn’t work out for me. IDK if it was my hardware configuration it didn’t like but the first time I booted it, it spammed me with crash reports. I poked around it for a few minutes, not being able to go far without things crashing again and again. I installed the updates and rebooted it hoping it would fix it but it got much worse after that. I couldn’t do anything else as it immediately crashed at startup. I couldn’t be bothered to look any further into it and switched to OpenSUSE which has been rock solid for months and still going. I’m running Plasma 6.1 with Wayland on it with no issues as well and I know Plasma 6.2 is coming soon. It uses pipewire as default as well. To be honest, IDK what Fedora would do better for my uses, except maybe for a faster package manager.
I’m certain that my Fedora experience isn’t typical but for me at least it was a disaster.
Yeah that doesn’t sound typical, but you’re right if you’ve got those going on OpenSUSE then I don’t think you’re missing anything major. If Fedora ever gives me trouble I might give that a try. I just wasn’t interested in PopOS or Mint as a lot of other people were because I want those latest core components and don’t really like GNOME.
I hear you. It’s been a burutal long slog of putting up with their crap for as-long-as-one-has-done-it no matter when anyone gets out. I made the switch to mac and linux many years ago and after a brief transition period, everything personal-computer-related became wonderful somehow. Well . . . “neat”, anyway. Leaving behind extensive and difficult experience with everything from 3.1 to 95, to 98, ME, XP, Vista, 7, and 10. (skipped 8 for obvious reasons.) It had its good times but they’re long gone. Good riddance. Best of luck to anyone still out there.
I switched to Linux mint. No ragrets. It takes a bit of fiddling and a teensie bit of a learning curve. But it’s way easier than Microsofts endless deluge of shit.
I’ve had a good track record with PopOS.
Steam works with about 90 ish percent of my games and all the software I use, there’s a Linux version or proton can run it. Plus the OS is rock solid.
+1 to PopOS. My only gripe is that they and Nvidia still haven’t figured out how to move to Wayland, but once that happens (and we can all switch to cosmic), I’ll be a happy camper.
I might be the minority, but as long as they are stable and I can work with my programs, thats all I care about.
I use my pi to experiment, but I use PopOS as my daily driver nowadays.
the issue I have had with PopOS is multi-monitor support, I cant rotate my rotated second monitor except through the nvidia settings, and my settings get wiped after a reboot, its a known issue for years, other than that I havent had any problems, I have been slowly finding replacement software for everything that I used on windows
Interesting, I have that setup, but then again I have an official system 76 machine that is still supported. I have three monitors with one rotated for dev work/teams (ugg).
If you wanna game and want everything to work, get bazzite, i wanted to install arch, had huge probs with my nvdia card (i know, but it was gifted with the cudas in mind) so i used bazzite since i loved the steam OS look. I am so pleased, it works amazingly, and there was 0 problems during installation.
Man I’m gonna have to bite the bullet and make my next machine a linux one
Make a compressed backup and try with this one. You’ll feel good.
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People are abusing Google’s ad distro platform to get malware onto people’s machines. I see Microsoft signed up for the same firestorm of possibilities.
I hope someone sues Microsoft.
I updated my work laptop, and they put their shitty copilot button on the bottom right and TURNED OFF MY SHOW DESKTOP BUTTON.
nothing more to add, just wanted to vent with people who may understand my rage with windows lol
As tech support this has made my job a bit more annoying.
If you have adapted to it, rejoice! They are changing it back. Copilot will be a button beside Start button now.
I believe Win + D will do the same as that missing button.
It’s time to ditch Windows and all move to macOS or (even better) Linux
MacOS has different flaws but has major flaws nonetheless. Linux is the one that truly lets you own your computer, you decide everything.
I agree, I use Linux. But “normal people” aren’t able to install an operating system, and they can’t easily go to the shop and buy a Linux computer. They can buy a mac though. Still better than nothing.
For the money you save by buying similarly good hardware that isn’t from apple you can pay someone to install an OS
Yea it annoys me too, you can switch it back, but I can’t do that every time I’m working on someone’s computer.
yeah, I switched it back. for a split second, I just couldn’t believe they had the audacity to do that… lol
I went with a Mac for my last work computer refresh. Had Windows before that. Don’t have a Linux option.
Microsoft, stop. My computer can only be so switched to Linux.
I have run out of things to install Lunix on without getting fired.
Have you installed it on an NES yet? Because that kinda happened: https://www.tomshardware.com/software/linux/you-can-sort-of-run-linux-on-an-nes-demo-shows-a-unix-like-os-running-completely-on-the-nes
Sounds hard, I’d just toss a Pi in it and call it a day.
That’s pretty much what they did anyhow, just with way more steps.
I could probably install Linux on my work MBP, but my boss would make me test on macOS, so it would kind of defeat the point.
At home, everything is Linux except my SO’s desktop, and that’s a job I’m unwilling to be fired from.
Been 100% linux for like 6-9 months now, these stories make me thankful for finally making the switch.
I’ve tried to make the switch 3-4 times in the past and was stopped by 2 main things:
- Drivers / Laptops were tough to get set up
- Gaming
The experience was so much better this time and I really have no regrets. I don’t imagine I’ll ever run Windows again outside of a VM
I’ve been using Linux off and on for about 15 years now. It’s so much easier to use now compared to when I started. I understand why people might’ve avoided it in the past. But the list of excuses is getting pretty small these days.
I’ve been full time for a year and a half now. I tried switching a bunch of times before that and same problems as you. I love it now, it’s a pleasure to use my computer and know that it’s not doing any bullshit behind the scenes.
I’ve kept Windows installed on a spare drive for years now. I don’t remember when I last booted into it on purpose, it was certainly more than a year ago, and was just to install Minecraft Bedrock to play with his friends (his friends bailed). My kids have only ever used Linux. :)
Microsoft went too far in 2001 when they included a new online activation feature in Windows XP which spearheaded the future of drm and enshitification. They’ve been one-upping themselves ever since. All the most recent stuff is just more icing on the shit cake.
Agreed, XP was the turning point - I decided I will never let such an intrusive software on my private computers, so I switched from Win2k to Linux.
People think I’m nuts when I say Win2k was my favorite Windows. I switched to Linux before Vista came out. People say WinXP was good, but really, it was just tolerable.
High five, brother :) I think the XP crowd was just the generation of “one step more tolerant towards privacy intrusions” / not quite computer knowledgeable enough to understand the implications of letting your operating system phone home. In terms of user interface, it was indeed tolerable - you could still configure it to look and behave like Win2K mostly, which is what I had to do for work for quite a long time.
Compared to Win2k, it would just be a resource-hog. :/
I’d say that the ‘modern’ era of Microsoft Enshittification started with IE4 as well as Windows 98. The Channel bar put ads on the Windows 95 & 98 desktops. It was easily disabled, but even that far back, Microsoft was starting to work on making their stuff suck just that much more.
Next was Windows ME blocking DOS access, while still running on DOS, making the OS a bit … unstable, followed by your point of Software Activation in XP.
Windows 2000 was amazing, though. Something really inspiring belief in good corporations and bright capitalist future. LOL
I liked Win2K, yes - then Linux :)
Great shit analogy, Bo Bandi.
Thanks, Mr.Layhe
Stallman warned us, we didn’t listen.
I’m glad to see BadVista still up https://badvista.fsf.org/blog/view/?set_language=en
The thing that irks me the most is that those things work. They’ll see a little complain from the most vocal ones, and that’s it. The revenue will increase, their shareholders will be pleased, the OS will be worse, and we’ll have no viable alternative.
Unless governments start to regulate the hell out of tech companies, it’s only downhill from there.
Edit: about Linux, it’s not viable if you’re outside IT or rely on commercial software. That’s a debate for another post.
Why wont we have viable alternative ? We already have
Agree with everything expect for the viable alternative. Linux is viable for many people
Regarding Linux, what commercial software are you dependent on? More and more, it’s all online, even Office.
Autodesk for myself, apparently its super dependant on .net and other windows framework so its not like they are going to make it linux compatible any time soon.
It looks like it runs perfectly via WINE from a few quick Google searches
Thanks, ill check it out
Adobe Creative Cloud, which despite the name is pretty much local. And although Microsoft Office works online, it has a series of issues that the desktop version doesn’t have, like broken formatting on Word.
Ah. Yeah, I don’t know of a way to get ACC on Linux.
- Adobe Creative Suite. They will probably never release a Linux version
- Industry standard music production s/w
- Offbeat collection of educational/research s/w, creators of which don’t know that Linux exists. They sometimes don’t even support MacOS
- Office Suite which is compatible with MS Office shenanigans
You’re correct on all counts, but you’re also not a typical desktop user, you’re definitely a professional or power user with specific needs.
The average user needs the ability to use a web browser and that’s honestly about it. That’s why Chromebooks are so popular with schools. A basic Linux desktop is quite capable for a standard user.
For the things yoi need you’re correct that it’s not 1:1 and you’d need to move to open source alternatives or tinker with VMs/WINE to get those apps working and it would be a chore.
This is not me. But the kinds of people I’m encountered in my social circle. I’m in the CS/Research industry, so all my tools are linux compatible and have been a Linux user for the past decade.
I think it’s better to have a realistic expectation of Linux rather than consider it a 1:1 Windows alternative. I agree with your last para fully.
What’s next Microsoft? Replace the windows os loading windows page with a 30s ad? Or have defender uninstall apps if a competitor pays enough? Maybe capture a screenshot of my screen every 3 seconds for AI analysis?
Maybe capture a screenshot of my screen every 3 seconds for AI analysis?
Yep yep. Was hoping someone would call me out on that. 😝
Come on man, stop giving them good ideas!
Nah. I’ve been advocating for Linux for decades. For decades I’ve been trying to convince people to switch on its own merits, but none of that has been effective.
It took Microsoft sabotaging their product for me to see the needle shift. So I’m done trying to convince people with carrots, it’s time for Microsoft to convince the masses with sticks.
Yeah I think the masses are going to be a tough sell on Linux until computer manufacturers start offering Linux builds with a pre-installed instance.
I’m sure there are places that do it but there’s probably money to be made in just setting up Linux on machines for people.
You can get laptops on Amazon now with Ubuntu pre-installed. :)
Yeah I think the masses are going to be a tough sell on Linux until computer manufacturers start offering Linux builds with a pre-installed instance.
Everyone’s family needs a tech geek to install Linux on a brand new computer.
It is bullshit, and people will complain while continuing to use Windows so why should Microsoft care?
The thing is that they still hold an iron grip on most creative users as all their software doesn’t yet work on Linux. So we are left with little to no choice between enduring windows and Linux fanatics screaming “Just find an alternative software and relearn everything you’ve spent years learning and perfecting in your preferred one”
Do those programs not work on WINE?
It used to be somewhat better: Corel Linux and Creative apps existed…
Lemmy folk forgetting that not every person cares enough to switch OSes.
If you ever work tech support even at a basic level, you’ll see. It’s not even boomers or genZ. I helped a grown ass human who was my age at 40yo how to install a Firefox extension.
Lemmy folk forgetting that not every person cares enough to switch OSes.
Right, so if they don’t care they’re not going to complain very much about it. If they are going to complain what are they going to do about it? If it’s “just complain and nothing else” then Microsoft doesn’t care.
So are you volunteering to install Linux on everyone’s machines when they get a new computer? And answer their tech support questions when they inevitably need that one program?
I’m volunteering to install Linux on my machine instead of just bitching about Microsoft while continuing to use Windows.
I don’t see how pointing out the reality of “if you’re not going to stop using Windows then Microsoft doesn’t care what you think” somehow makes me responsible for every computer in the world.
Our office uses windows, and egde feels like malware to me
I legitimately, non-ironically, prefer Edge over Chrome, and I cannot explain why; possibly brain damage, possibly too lazy to download Chrome or Firefox and setup my account for either.
For me it’s a pragmatic desire to share information with as few megacorporations as possible.
I deal with MSFT for so many other things, not all by choice - and Edge does everything I need it to do.
As with many such questions, it’s about the trade-off you are prepared to accept.
Edge and Chrome are basically very similar at this point. Firefox is my browser of choice these days. It’s not perfect, but at least it isn’t anti-adblocking and doesn’t freak out when I block 8.8.8.8 like Chrome and the Google devices in my house. I’m moving away from Google as they move away from not being evil. Moving to self hosted stuff as much as I can for photos, email, file storage, and soon, home automation.
I don’t really like chrome either to be honest
Mozilla recently purchased and integrated a large internet ad company, so be ready for a storm coming.
Microsoft has gone too far:
Just now, with this?
Must’ve been asleep for the recall shenanigans
I switched to Linux Mint Debian edition when the Reddit thing happened. I’m glad I did before Windows got this bad.
I made the swap after they forced Windows 7 update behavior to change. You used to be able to download updates but you got to choose when to install them. Then they changed it to either they’re on and fully automatic, or fully off.
At the time, I was running a computer repair company, and my work computer running Win7 was running a data recovery on an accidentally formatted drive for almost two days. After I had left and the program finished, Windows was all “Oh, the computer is idle now. Let me give you a 15 minute warning that I’m going to install updates and reboot if you don’t cancel”.
After the second time, I formatted my work computer. Shortly after, I did the same to my gaming PC. Haven’t looked back once.
I love to hear it. Linux has done pretty much everything I’ve needed it to to and it’s great to see a lot of programs are available for Linux natively.
I think my favorite part of swapping has been forgetting how Windows does things. I’m so embedded in Linux and how it works every day that I don’t remember where to go for certain things in Windows without having to search.
I remember some power user shortcuts like run prompt shortcuts (
appwiz.cplorcontrol userpasswords2) but I used to be able to walk people through how to get certain pages in the Windows UI, and I couldn’t do it today.
Microsoft is so confident in its desktop marketshare that they allow themselves to push the overton window on what users will tolerate.
The only competitor they can lose users to is Apple. And even then not everyone can afford an Apple computer, especially in the rest of the world
Forget Apple. Without buying any new hardware, i managed to replace Windows with Ubuntu just a month ago. My most hated moment on windows was the time i saw the onedrive ad in file explorer… That felt way too intrusive.
Dont forget that the vast majority of users either doesnt know Linux, distrusts Linux, has heard rumors at any point in time about some feature or component not working as perfectly as under windows, is uninterested in computers beyond their daily usage function, or finds themselves in a social circle or job environment hostile to Linux.
What Linux needs to get widely adopted is settle for one central distro, iron out all bugs and compatibility issues and do a bunch of testing with windows users to determine what differences they are confused by. The goal must be to create total feature and compatibility parity with windows, and make the whole process so incredibly simple that even absolute morons with zero interest in computers can both use it instinctively and not miss anything their windows used to do. Then run a massive adoption campaign.
Now I know many aspects of this are directly opposed to the fos ethos, but if Linux ever wants to claim market share they need to spend big on it and pick up the users where they are; in a place of zero user ability and a lot of ignorance.
i think the only way Linux is increasing it’s market share beyond fringe enthusiasts (that’s us) is by more devices coming with it pre-installed. expecting anyone outside of the tech space to change the operating system their device came with is a pipe dream
Get it in the schools. It’s a bad habit from many people’s childhood that they need to break. Make that original habit not suck.
Cosmic desktop can do this. They already have similar history.
OEM have no incentive to ship Linux in their laptops. Plus they get discounts from Microsoft for using windows. So that’s not gonna happen
What Linux needs to get widely adopted is settle for one central distro
One central distro guarantees its eventual enshittification. I’m happy with the knowledge that if my distro enshittifies I can just move to a different one.
I’m not saying we should shutter all the others or make a Linux for profit corporation, just that if there is a sort of “base” Linux that can be used and referenced as universally as windows, with the same capability, stability and compatibility, catering to the same crowd of dumbest possible user, that would go a long way in my opinion in getting Linux more widely adopted.
I believe Mint is designed for ease of installation and use, and similarity to Windows.
finds themselves in a social circle or job environment hostile to Linux.
Ugh. Tell me about it.
I haven’t tried to run the latest Corel graphics suite in Wine recently, but the last time I did it exploded in my face so spectacularly I think my eyebrows still haven’t fully grown back. I really need that to work for… work. Basically everything else I already use is FOSS anyway.
Hopefully they’ll end up with an incredible amount of user telemetry telling them that they’ve created the least adopted version of Windows in the history of the company.
That’s what Windows 11 deserves, they need a punch in the face from users.
they’ve created the least adopted version of Windows in the history
could be tough to beat “Windows ME”… ;-)
Tbh me switching to Debian (using the KDE desktop experience) is feeling better and better, my PC runs over 3x faster, I have way more control over my own device, and everything works better than ever!
