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Windows 10 is bringing ads to File Explorer – how to turn them off

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Re: Windows 10 is bringing ads to File Explorer – how to turn them off

#251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> can be resolved with a trivial amount of research If someone has to do a hundred trivial fixes then you might start to believe that there is something fundamentally broken with whatever software confronts me with a hundred trivial problems. I'd absolutely love to get away from windows but I tried it multiple times in the past and linux just isn't close to being an alternative in the desktop market. There are so man…

A hundred trivial fixes? More like 3 trivial fixes max! Jesus christ, Linux isn't that complicated. You're likely to run into a similar number of problems setting up your scanner on Windows! I've run Linux on desktops and laptops for years with next to no problems.

Interestingly, there's always someone like you making such claims in every online debate about Linux on laptop. And yet I have never succeeded in making Linux run as well as Windows or macOS on any of my laptops over decades.

I never seem to have one of those unicorn hardware/driver combinations that perform well, don't drain battery, don't run hot and don't break on dist-upgrade. I have researched my issues every single time because I would prefer to use Linux for many reasons, but the fixes I find are often partial, temporary and fragile. Eventually I give up and go back to macOS or Windows.

dist-upgrade almost always breaks things for me, especially all those hard fought for fixes. And it's not just minor things that break. Last time (Ubuntu 16.04 to 16.10) networking stopped working completely because some maintainer had decided that network manager should no longer manage wired connections on my particular variant of Ubuntu.

Re: Windows 10 is bringing ads to File Explorer – how to turn them off

#252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> can be resolved with a trivial amount of research If someone has to do a hundred trivial fixes then you might start to believe that there is something fundamentally broken with whatever software confronts me with a hundred trivial problems. I'd absolutely love to get away from windows but I tried it multiple times in the past and linux just isn't close to being an alternative in the desktop market. There are so man…

A hundred trivial fixes? More like 3 trivial fixes max! Jesus christ, Linux isn't that complicated. You're likely to run into a similar number of problems setting up your scanner on Windows! I've run Linux on desktops and laptops for years with next to no problems.

https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2254322

That's a 156 page thread. The result? Ubuntu still doesn't fully work on that particular machine.

And that machine isn't particularly unusual in its class.

Re: Windows 10 is bringing ads to File Explorer – how to turn them off

#253
post #194

When will Microsoft stop with this shit, and do a 180 degree U-turn? What does it need? It's unbelievable how MSFT turned Windows from the great Win7 to the worst spyware operating system in human history aka Win10 in just 5 years. Is it just greed? Is it that they failed with Mobile (WinPhone is dead and has 0.1% world wide market share) and Android amd iOS have a bigger market share than Windows 7? (Win10 has way s…

> Is it that they failed with XBoxOne, now Sony and Nintendo eat MSFT former console market share as breakfast.

I'll think you'll find that XBone has sold pretty well (faster rate than the 360 in the same time period). It just that the PS4 sold extraordinarily well in comparison. Too early to tell for the switch but WiiU (which was competing with xbone) was nowhere near eating their breakfast.

Re: Windows 10 is bringing ads to File Explorer – how to turn them off

#254
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a reasonably noob-unfriendly linux distro (arch) on my bleeding edge kaby lane xps 13 laptop (month or two old) and even the touchscreen worked without any messing around with config files and so on. It came with ubuntu pre-loaded and I assumed they tweaked the arse out of the configs for it, and so expected pain when I replaced the OS. Turns out I was wrong. Vanilla with a minimal distro and even the touchscr…

> At the same time I'm don't understand how anyone with who works in tech and is thus capable of really understanding these things would voluntarily pick this stack as their daily driver. Because it's way less work. Simple as that. Windows, in my experience, just works. The things about it that don't work are the exceptions. Windows gets out of my way and lets me work with minimal setup and maintenance. Linux, on the…

> Because it's way less work. Simple as that.

Definitely FUD.

> Windows, in my experience, just works. The things about it that don't work are the exceptions. Windows gets out of my way and lets me work with minimal setup and maintenance.

Except that most of the time windows apps crash, freeze and the OS simply just get a blue screen. It also get slower if you don't restart it. The desktop is slow and buggy. It's really hard to tweak(try to turn off Alt+Ctrl+L without turning off the lock-screen).

The entire registry-thing is just garbage, installing and removing software takes a lot of time. And those loooong forced updates... windows fans complain about how much time it takes to configure linux yet windows setup is such a PITA.

I and my close ones only use linux but I've a windows7 desktop at work and I can't use it without a linux virtualbox because it's really uncomfortable and unstable.

> Editing endless config files; building some obscure driver from source to make a device function correctly

Tried gentoo or arch? Install a beginner's distro like Mint.

> and heaven help you if you want to do an OS version upgrade.

On ubuntu it never failed me or anyone I know. But simply reinstalling it is far faster, especially if you've a setup tool(or use the software backup program in mint).

Re: Windows 10 is bringing ads to File Explorer – how to turn them off

#255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I run LibreOffice on my Mac and documents ALWAYS render differently than on Word. I always have to proofread on an office computer before I send files out to my colleagues. If you're authoring the documents, you don't need to use docx. Use a more open format that's supported better by both. As for reading documents, who cares if it renders differently? So long as you can read it that's enough. >I literally used Blue…

A more open format? You mean ODF? A niche format that literally only cough free software enthusiasts cough care about? You know what happens when you give someone .ODF in the real world? "Hey, (I can't open this|This looks completely broken), can you resend as doc/docx please?" As for reading documents, who cares if it renders differently? People in enterprise, which accounts for most usage of Office.

Both plain doc and rtf are way better than docx in portability, docx is a disaster.

Re: Windows 10 is bringing ads to File Explorer – how to turn them off

#256

Here's a better idea - show Microsoft that you don't accept this type of behaviour by switching products/services. I'm aware that Windows 10 is a "free" OS, but trying to ram this type of behaviour down my throat is despicable unethical behaviour and I don't condone it. It is why I've switched to Linux for my daily computing needs.

Linux isn't entirely immune to this. Ubuntu had Amazon search integration https://www.howtogeek.com/188589/5-things-you-need-to-know-a... A while back. Not sure where that stands today. Firefox was paid by Google in the past and I believe Yahoo these days. macOS had a connection with Bing in Spotlight. The current incarnation is just a dog with different fleas.

|Not sure where that stands today.

Then why say anything? You're referencing an article from 2014, on howtogeek.

Re: Windows 10 is bringing ads to File Explorer – how to turn them off

#257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's great. Here's why most people don't: they like editing Word documents, using Bluetooth, playing AAA games, printing and scanning, connecting to external monitors, watching DVDs, and transferring files from their phones.

>they like editing Word documents LibreOffice supports this and it works quite well. I would guess most people prefer google drive these days, though. >using Bluetooth Do you actually know anyone non-technical who has used bluetooth at all in the past 5 years? Or technical for that matter, I've used bluetooth maybe 3 times in that time frame and always had no issues on Linux. >playing AAA games This is your only legi…

>I do this all the time. Works OOTB on popular distros.

Debian doesn't connect with android phones OOTB. What's the opposite of FUD?

Re: Windows 10 is bringing ads to File Explorer – how to turn them off

#258
post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>they like editing Word documents LibreOffice supports this and it works quite well. I would guess most people prefer google drive these days, though. >using Bluetooth Do you actually know anyone non-technical who has used bluetooth at all in the past 5 years? Or technical for that matter, I've used bluetooth maybe 3 times in that time frame and always had no issues on Linux. >playing AAA games This is your only legi…

>I do this all the time. Works OOTB on popular distros. Debian doesn't connect with android phones OOTB. What's the opposite of FUD?

Debian isn't really a hands-off distro. It works OOTB on i.e. Ubuntu, Fedora, Linux Mint, etc. It's trivial to get working on Debian, though: https://wiki.debian.org/mtp

Re: Windows 10 is bringing ads to File Explorer – how to turn them off

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like there are a couple of minor issues that can be resolved with a trivial amount of research: http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_w530 If you hit other problems, did you do any research? Did you ask for support anywhere?

Every minute I spend "resolving minor issues" is a minute I have to repeat if I ever reinstall, a minute where I could be getting work done but am instead dinking with the tools rather than using them, a minute where I am not using my computer for the thing I want to be using my computer for. Manual screwing around in .conf files, having to care about what GPU is in use and fussing around with configurators before us…

People hit problems on Windows, too. According to your sort it's never Microsoft's fault or the shitty vendor's fault. As soon as you hit a problem on Linux, troubleshooting is out of the question and the only logical conclusion is that Linux is a garbage platform entirely unsuited to end-user use. Fuck off, spend 10 minutes fixing your shit and quit bitching or stick to your ad-ridden Windows 10 Spyware Edition.

Re: Windows 10 is bringing ads to File Explorer – how to turn them off

#260
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your basic point is legitimate, but in passing I want to say that in Linux distributions you can change the windows decorators/formats to suit yourself, often including a theme designed to resemble Windows. Not to detract from the point you're making, which is quite valid.

On Windows, you can change the presence of ads in Explorer to suit yourself also.

Changing the look of window borders vs having ads and telemetry baked into my OS and being opt out by default are a bit different.

Also, there's plenty of distros that look great out of the box.

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