Microsoft Is Putting Ads on the Mail App in Windows 10 • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft Is Putting Ads on the Mail App in Windows 10

#91

Post by JorgeGT » Fri, Nov 16, 2018, 5:49 PM UTC

AsyncAwait wrote: post #28

jklinger410 wrote: post #14

Pay for Windows, get bloatware and ads. Pay for Mac OS...don't. Use Google, get everything for free subsidized by ads. Pay for Windows, still get ads? Hmmmmm

Get Linux for free, still don't get ads.

Ubuntu not only came (or still comes?) with an Amazon app right on the launcher, but also offered Amazon product suggestions when you were using the search function.

Re: Microsoft Is Putting Ads on the Mail App in Windows 10

#92

Post by yebyen » Fri, Nov 16, 2018, 5:50 PM UTC

jahabrewer wrote: post #72

jimmies wrote: post #41

Anyone remembers just 5 years ago, Microsoft had a huge campaign about how everyone got "scroogled" by Google? Especially this ad about Google reading your mail to devliver you ads? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iI1ominSL_c Oh, how the time has changed!

To be fair, from the article: > although these ads are interest-based, they do not look at your emails to display ads based on data from your email.

Well, everyone thank Satya Nadella, it's a miracle we were able to draw the line somewhere! /s

I'm sorry, this snark is not really directed at you, but how exactly are they determining your interests if they're not reading your e-mails? Where does that data come from? I'd be happy to take back my /s if someone can tell me it was all voluntarily collected, but I suspect the answer is really "they just found a different way to spy on you other than reading your email."

Re: Microsoft Is Putting Ads on the Mail App in Windows 10

#93

Post by Semaphor » Fri, Nov 16, 2018, 5:51 PM UTC

andrewmunsell wrote: post #22

Is it at all ironic that I get a page that is trying to force me to turn off my ad blocker when I am trying to view a link about Microsoft putting ads in their Mail app?

Weird, either you need to get a better adblocker, or they don't show that in EU.

Re: Microsoft Is Putting Ads on the Mail App in Windows 10

#94

Post by x0x0 » Fri, Nov 16, 2018, 5:51 PM UTC

PascLeRasc wrote: post #86

x0x0 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the only serious competition for home users has laptops that (now) start at $1200, plus tax, applecare, and dongles (oh, you wanted a USB-A connection like basically every device in the world uses? Jony is about to courage your wallet. You want to be able to connect it to the odd tv via HDMI, what everything in the world uses? More courage!)... so basically $1500 to walk out the store. I'm aware you can g…

Chromebooks are pretty much perfect for home users, and starting to be decent for developers too.

My parents live in rural America, and the internet connection is not good. It's manageable for email and browsing, but even the school has problems with chromebooks and their bad internet connection.

Plus... if you're fleeing Windows because of the advertising, you're gonna go to a google product? How on earth does that help?

Re: Microsoft Is Putting Ads on the Mail App in Windows 10

#95

Post by eutropia » Fri, Nov 16, 2018, 5:52 PM UTC

jammygit wrote: post #44

All I want is to be able to give companies my money in exchange for not being spied on, manipulated, or locked into some walled garden. I can't for my OS - I have to use free gnu/Linux because everyone else treats me like crap. Is my money not good enough for them? This is getting absurd

I had to spend several days manually ripping out huge chunks of Win10 to get something resembling the usability of XP. That included removing all of the updating utilities, hosts-file blocking of microsoft servers, removal of most of the preinstalled apps, as well as disabling and deleting all of the scheduled tasks which try to re-install and re-enable those settings.

All this trouble so I can play modern PC games... Next system upgrade cycle I think I'll be moving to linux.

Re: Microsoft Is Putting Ads on the Mail App in Windows 10

#96

Post by legulere » Fri, Nov 16, 2018, 5:52 PM UTC

jammygit wrote: post #44

All I want is to be able to give companies my money in exchange for not being spied on, manipulated, or locked into some walled garden. I can't for my OS - I have to use free gnu/Linux because everyone else treats me like crap. Is my money not good enough for them? This is getting absurd

The Elementary linux desktop [1] tries to get its users to pay.

[1]: https://elementary.io

Re: Microsoft Is Putting Ads on the Mail App in Windows 10

#97

Post by Someone1234 » Fri, Nov 16, 2018, 5:53 PM UTC

otippat wrote: post #43

Someone1234 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After installing Windows 10: Go to Settings -> Privacy, and slide many (most?) things to off. Including Diagnostic & Usage Data to Basic. Settings > Personalization > Start and slide "Occasionally show suggestions in start" to off. Settings -> Personalization -> Lock Screen and slide "Get fun facts, tips, and more from Windows and Cortana on your lock screen" to off. Settings -> System -> Notifications & actions -> "…

And then do it again after most updates to the system.

Fortunately they stopped doing that. It was definitely a problem with the first two-ish feature updates for Windows 10 however.

Re: Microsoft Is Putting Ads on the Mail App in Windows 10

#98

Post by craftyguy » Fri, Nov 16, 2018, 5:53 PM UTC

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #88

Dear Microsoft, As a vocal critic of the Linux Desktop, your horrifically misguided attempts to "improve" Windows since Windows 10 have so degraded the experience of using it that I am now only 2 reasons[0] away from switching anyway, so at least I don't have to pay for the privilege of using crappy software. I would ask you kindly to cease your endeavors to kill off the Windows Desktop and personal computing in gene…

> GPU drivers still perform worse for my card

Which GPU?

Re: Microsoft Is Putting Ads on the Mail App in Windows 10

#99

Post by johnchristopher » Fri, Nov 16, 2018, 5:54 PM UTC

vezycash wrote: post #46

reading-at-work wrote: post #18

What does HN recommend as a better Win10 email client? I'm familiar with Thunderbird and I'll probably switch to it if nothing else, but I'm not a huge fan of the UI/UX.

I liked Win 10 email client because I can close it and still get email alerts. I'd like an alternative that has close to tray functionality.

I remember that more than 15 years ago it was a pain to set up thunderbird to be closed in the systray and display a notification when new mail arrived. It wasn't a core feature and you had to mess around with extensions or binaries that would just check out your mail and launch thunderbird (but couldn't open the mail mentioned in the notificatin).

15 years later and 3 major windows iterations later and we still don't have it.

Re: Microsoft Is Putting Ads on the Mail App in Windows 10

#100

Post by foepys » Fri, Nov 16, 2018, 5:55 PM UTC

_uhtu wrote: post #47

Amazon has lately been putting ads on prime video for other prime video shows. I have a feeling we're rapidly going towards most paid services having ads. Also, on prime video, occasionally, pressing the fast forward button won't skip the ad. I'm sure it's one of those "bugs" that just happens to force the user to do something the company wants but the user doesn't but I have a feeling it might just stop working all…

Netflix is going down the same route. They are not interrupting continuous playback yet but they are already promoting their Originals with autoplay ads (sometimes even with sound) in some clients. Luckily their clients' range of functions is horribly inconsistent, so I can still chose different clients to avoid this.