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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

#321

Post by digi_owl »

SteveNuts wrote: post #130
wildrhythms wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like there's a cyclical gridlock between businesses and business software vendors in which neither party can afford to be the "first" to move to a new platform. It's like a comical game of chicken because in less than a decade all of this software is going to be in a web browser anyway.

I think with the rise of cloud based productivity software (Google Docs, etc.) we'll see a rise in alternative OS's. I know one of the big issues with adopting Linux on the desktop in companies is the issue with access control (something like AD's Group Policy). It's amazing how you can control pretty much every permission/policy imaginable within your domain using AD, and until something like that comes out for Linu…

The sad thing is that MS office is about more than editing documents these days. Thanks to embedded VB scripts etc the suite is more a RAD environment for office drones. There is an untold number of business processes that are effectively encoded into a excel spreadsheet sprinkled with scripts.

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

#322

Post by digi_owl »

vetinari wrote: post #297
cm2187 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How can you do it in gui on windows? IIS has a UI for pretty much everything > Why? They're not hard to install if you need it. Yes but 1. pretty much everyone uses txt commands so configuring these things with a UI would typically not appear in search results when looking for how to do something 2. having a UI is about making the OS self discoverable and intuitive. If it takes to be aware of and install some third…

> IIS has a UI for pretty much everything And it was game of "where they did hide that thing I need to configure right now?" at the beginning. Fortunately, later they did allow config files. Additionally, GUI does not allow all the thing you can (and want) to configure using the config file. You can also put your config files into svn or git repository and track changes to them over time. No more "what did I set to t…

> And it was game of "where they did hide that thing I need to configure right now?"

And sadly that is a game that the Linux user space devs are getting very adept at implementing...

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

#323

Post by rebootthesystem »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #311
rebootthesystem wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Switching to something else requires you to replace that software. That's a cost. My point is that this is impossible. You can't buy the software you need at any cost. It does not exist. You can't even consider other platforms for this reason. > you can still contact your software vendors and ask them for a Linux version. Zero interest in that for on simple reason: There's nothing wrong with deploying and using the…

> My point is that this is impossible. You can't buy the software you need at any cost. It does not exist. You can't even consider other platforms for this reason. There are people who can. Most people don't use $50K worth of Windows-locked CAD software. 80% of people who use Microsoft Office can get by perfectly well with LibreOffice or Google Docs, despite the loud objections from the remaining 20%. > Why would a c…

With respect, and I don't mean this as a personal dig but rather a statement of fact as I perceive it, I don't think you understand how business works.

None of what you say above makes any sense in the real world.

Absent a clear, true and significant competitive advantage not a single responsible business owner would make the reckless move of switching platforms.

And, BTW, these advantages go far beyond cost. Frankly, in the end, if you have a real business, cost isn't as significant as function. And, by "function" I don't mean how the software works. I mean how the enterprise functions, with software being one set of tools at your disposal.

Simple example: Hire office workers familiar with and trained on MS Office tools, of course on Windows. Now hire 1,000 of them. Shove them in front of Ubuntu Linux with Libre Office.

The productivity dip will be significant and it might last a while while they learn both a new OS, new GUI and new tools. And, of course, now you have the potential for one or many compatibility issues as you communicate across departments or with other businesses.

So long as you don't use MS Office compatibility, by definition, will always have a question mark next to it. And, if there are tools that depend on MS Office you have a serious problem. One example would be domain specific Excel add-ins.

Yet, that's not the worst of it. This forced switch at scale causes the company to lose focus and have to concentrate on something totally unrelated to what it is they do for several weeks. Not only is that bad, that's irresponsible.

And, in the end, what do you gain? Nothing. Actually, no. You gain problems and potential problems. The kinds of things you might regret in six months or five years as documents and work accumulate.

"If it works, don't fix it" is sage advice.

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

#324

Post by lutusp »

tuwtuwtuw wrote: post #207
H4CK3RM4N wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But advertising/"telemetry" preferences seem to accidentally get reset every few forced upgrades.

Which advertising preferences in Windows have you seen with this?

The earlier post is correct -- as time passes Microsoft changes the advertising configuration within Windows. For example, the presence of advertising within File Explorer is a new development. Earlier, harangues about Edge being a superior browser when one launches any other browser (or tries to change the default system browser) suddenly made its appearance and is now a fact of life.

It was once possible to disable advertising about OneDrive, but Microsoft has reconfigured things so that's no longer possible without deep hacking (no user-level configuration options). There's an "Uninstall" option attached to the OneDrive client's listing in the Start menu, but if you choose the option, instead of uninstalling the OneDrive client, the system opens the Control Panel Programs & Features applet, where OneDrive is nowhere listed.

As time passes the advertising is becoming more aggressive and less controllable. On February 14th a commercial announcement related to Valentine's Day appeared, but I wasn't able to track it to its source. Just one example -- Microsoft is jealous of Google and they're becoming an imitation.

The deep issue here is that corporations have to decide how to most efficiently grow their companies. Do they pay attention to customers, or stockholders? At some point in the past (I think it was during the Reagan years) corporations turned their backs on customers and made stockholders the focus of their attention. And from a corporate perspective, it was a good choice, because customers are fickle and unpredictable, but stockholders only care about quarterly earnings reports -- no earnings and they walk.

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

#325

Post by Karunamon »

vetinari wrote: post #276
Karunamon wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> A niche format that literally only cough free software enthusiasts cough care about? And ISO and Microsoft. Microsoft cared enough about ODF, that they implemented importers and exporters for the MSO. > "Hey, (I can't open this|This looks completely broken), can you resend as doc/docx please?" Do you realize that you can open and export ODF formats in the MSO? > As for reading documents, who cares if it renders dif…

Do you realize that just being able to save a file in a format does not necessarily mean being able to properly render files in that format that were created by other programs?

ODF is basically XKCD 927. It solves no problems in the real world. It has no new features. The effort spent by OpenOffice in implementing it could have been better spent on making the Word filters not suck - to this day I still have Word2003 format documents with tables that OO won't render properly.

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

#326

Post by khedoros1 »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #264
jedikv wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is your only legitimate point, but it grows less legitimate every day. As a gamer I've not seen much more progress (outside of WINE workarounds, some GoG ports and Valve-specific games). Most AAA games still exclusively windows due to things like DRM (Denuvo is windows-only IIRC)

I don't even game very much and I still have a lot of big titles on Steam+Linux - Rocket League, Alien: Isolation, Bioshock Infinite, Civ 5, a ton of Valve games, Torchlight II, PAYDAY 2, Saints Row, SOMA, FTL, Kerbal Space Program, Metro: Last Light, Borderlands 2, Tomb Raider, Towerfall Ascension... I could play nothing but positively rated games on Steam on Linux all day every day for a year without running out of…

The game library on the Super Nintendo means that I could play nothing but positively rated games every day for a decade without scratching the surface of what's out there. Problem: Good games aren't fungible, timing matters, and people want what they can't have. There's social value in being able to take part in talking about the games that my friends like.

Let's see: 183 games listed on my Steam account, 54 of those are available for SteamOS+Linux. A lot of those 54 are great games, but so are a lot of the 129 others. In my game catalog here, I've got about a 30% chance that the game I want to play right now will actually run in my current OS without rebooting. I don't like those odds much.

Wine? It's got the same issues that complex compatibility layers usually do. I consider it an option of last resort.

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

#327

Post by perfectstorm »

jolux wrote: post #182
perfectstorm wrote: post #181

Not sure why this is a big deal. you can turn it off. HBO subscribers are shown ads (for other HBO shows) at the beginning of the play. I believe that happens with Amazon Prime Videos as well. Google shows ads for Chrome browser when you google from a different browser. how is this any different ?

Because you pay Microsoft to use Windows, and you pay them a lot. With HBO streaming you can always skip past those ads, and I've never seen them on Prime videos (if you could again you can skip past them). With Google, they're giving you the service for free, so ads are expected. If I'm going to shell out $120 for a Windows license, I don't want to see goddamn ads built into the fucking operating system.

Google started playing ads on their $129 Google Home just the other day (http://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/3/16/14948696/go...).

Apple shows ads to older iPhone users (https://9to5mac.com/2015/12/11/apple-advertising-iphone-6s-t...).

how is this any different ? Actually Windows can at least be turned off.

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

#328

Post by vacri »

mattmanser wrote: post #268
vacri wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, one distro (of dozens people use) tried running ads once, it was a PR disaster, and they stopped doing it quite a while back.

That a bit like saying "Google, one of dozens of browser makers". Ubuntu has 50% market share.

If you want to be pedantic about it, why not focus on the ads being half a decade ago and not in the past couple of LTS releases?

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

#329

Post by vetinari »

Karunamon wrote: post #325
vetinari wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A niche format that literally only cough free software enthusiasts cough care about? And ISO and Microsoft. Microsoft cared enough about ODF, that they implemented importers and exporters for the MSO. > "Hey, (I can't open this|This looks completely broken), can you resend as doc/docx please?" Do you realize that you can open and export ODF formats in the MSO? > As for reading documents, who cares if it renders dif…

Do you realize that just being able to save a file in a format does not necessarily mean being able to properly render files in that format that were created by other programs? ODF is basically XKCD 927. It solves no problems in the real world. It has no new features. The effort spent by OpenOffice in implementing it could have been better spent on making the Word filters not suck - to this day I still have Word2003…

If I had a dollar for every document made in Word version X that didn't display correctly in Word version Y... As an Office for Mac user, I could tell you long stories of inconsistencies (e.g. they finally fixed dropdown controls embedded in documents in the july 2016 update).

In LibreOffice defense, it is kind of difficult to implement specification, that says things "works like Word95".

In the end, these inconsistencies are not a big deal. Neither between different Office versions, nor between LO a MSO. If you want pixel-perfect layouts, use tools intended to do that (i.e. InDesign or other DTP).

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

#330

Post by Meph504 »

Mithaldu wrote: post #289
morrbo wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As i said below i am more on about MS even considering this as a default option for a server environment, not about the lack of control.

For one: There is no lack of control. I don't know about Home, but from Pro and up you have full and fine-grained control available if you use the correct APIs. For the other: This is primarily a shift in their philosophy of considering every user someone who would happily endanger the entire internet for their convenience. If you're not the type of person to have received notification of this change as part of your…

Might want to check that, anniversary update simple made many of the previous group policy functions, and API calls, only functional on educational and enterprise versions.
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