Microsoft Advertisement Inc. • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft Advertisement Inc.

#31

Post by z3t4 » Sat, Nov 16, 2019, 9:26 AM UTC

Nextgrid wrote: post #14

zerop wrote: post #12

I have been seeing this MS vs other debates since decades. Why Linux has not been able to come up with a consumer OS. Why Windows or MAC only rule in consumer OS space?

Linux user experience is awful and there’s no pressure to improve it; unlike in a for-profit company there’s no common objective & leadership that unite all the people building the Linux desktop. Doesn’t help that there are dozens of competing desktop environments so a lot of effort is duplicated and wasted.

Ubuntu is very user friendly. Competition is good for the consumer and result in better products.

Re: Microsoft Advertisement Inc.

#32

Post by pcr910303 » Sat, Nov 16, 2019, 9:27 AM UTC

A little bit irrelevant to the article:

Unpopular opinion but, is opt-outtable telemetry that bad?

Of course using tracked behaviors for add targeting is bad (which is why my opinion is irrelevant to the article) but using telemetry to do AB-tests, UX-tests, finding bugs, etc... what’s really bad about it?

Every comment about telemetry in HN reads something like ‘Telemetry with opt-out is bad, so GitLab is bad, VSCode is bad, brew is bad, etc...’ but personally I really can’t see the problem.

For people who can’t believe the company enough for processing one’s data can turn off telemetry right? The fact that one is using the application from one company (for example, VSCode) implies that they trust the company (in this case, MS). If one doesn’t, one can manually turn it off.

Re: Microsoft Advertisement Inc.

#33

Post by arminiusreturns » Sat, Nov 16, 2019, 9:28 AM UTC

jeena wrote: post #28

pojntfx wrote: post #25

Just use Linux. It's really that simple.

I kind of agree, with distros like Ubuntu you get the Windows convenience and most of the people just use a browser for everything nowadays anyway.

Ubuntu isn't the only user friendly distro either. It depends on what the user wants to do. For example Manjaro, while not perfect, has an excellent hardware detector, and I sometimes recommend it for people who want to game.

I have many times wanted to really dig into the "windows skins" for a few different DE's and experiment on users to see if they even noticed the difference. I suspect done correctly you could have a windows lookalike with linux underneath that many of the browser only users wouldn't be able to tell apart. I also suspect that Microsoft knows they have hurt themselves with 8/10 and their recent pushes into Linux Foundation are hedging their bets, trying to find ways to keep people on doze who might otherwise leave the ecosystem. I do get frustrated at how many people at HN ignore MS's history of anti-foss and now deride anyone who brings up EEE, but I disgress. I went gnu/linux only years ago seeing this coming after years of sysadmin'ing Win/OSX/Linux, and haven't regretted it at all.

Beyond that, I remind people that they had to learn how to use windows, and even it keeps changing things (umm where did local account creation go at install, oh wait, I have to unplug ethernet to get that option? thats bullshit), so why not learn to use something like linux? It's really not that hard, especially with all the gtk frontends for cli stuff.

Re: Microsoft Advertisement Inc.

#34

Post by arcticfox » Sat, Nov 16, 2019, 9:29 AM UTC

jk3faster wrote: post #27

zerop wrote: post #12

I have been seeing this MS vs other debates since decades. Why Linux has not been able to come up with a consumer OS. Why Windows or MAC only rule in consumer OS space?

If you are not heavily dependent on softwares that run exclusively on Windows, I would say user experience on any mainstream GNU/Linux distribution is far better than that of Windows(which still insists automatic update before a reboot/shutdown). Also, community support for linux is much better. Places like AskUbuntu and community forums of distributions are much better than microsoft's support forum. Try a distribut…

What finally got me on Linux for good was Regolith (an Ubuntu distribution with a tiling WM preconfigured). The window manager is just better, faster, and I can use my vim shortcuts to move between windows and desktops. And, crucially for Linux, it came ready to go so I didn't have to spend days getting it working how I'd like.

Re: Microsoft Advertisement Inc.

#35

Post by sz4kerto » Sat, Nov 16, 2019, 9:31 AM UTC

jeena wrote: post #28

pojntfx wrote: post #25

Just use Linux. It's really that simple.

I kind of agree, with distros like Ubuntu you get the Windows convenience and most of the people just use a browser for everything nowadays anyway.

We still don't have fully hardware accelerated video playback in browsers under Linux. To check this, watch a 4K video in the browser and look at the CPU usage.

Edit: I can block ads in various ways (pi.hole, etc.) but I can't fix laggy UI. I'm always using Linux on one of my PCs so that I can follow how it's progressing, but Win10+WSL2+VcXsrv gives me the best of all worlds.

Re: Microsoft Advertisement Inc.

#36

Post by oefrha » Sat, Nov 16, 2019, 9:33 AM UTC

jk3faster wrote: post #27

zerop wrote: post #12

I have been seeing this MS vs other debates since decades. Why Linux has not been able to come up with a consumer OS. Why Windows or MAC only rule in consumer OS space?

If you are not heavily dependent on softwares that run exclusively on Windows, I would say user experience on any mainstream GNU/Linux distribution is far better than that of Windows(which still insists automatic update before a reboot/shutdown). Also, community support for linux is much better. Places like AskUbuntu and community forums of distributions are much better than microsoft's support forum. Try a distribut…

Linux people keep peddling this, I'd say it'll never be the year of Linux on Desktop if you keep denying you have problems. Last I tried to dual boot my Windows gaming rig to Ubuntu Desktop earlier this year, it can't even do fractional scaling on my 4K monitor, making it completely worthless. You'd think HiDPI support is pretty basic stuff in 2019. Granted Windows HiDPI is still craptastic compared to macOS, as least it has been usable since 2015.

Re: Microsoft Advertisement Inc.

#37

Post by ekianjo » Sat, Nov 16, 2019, 9:34 AM UTC

> And, Apple has lit this torch.

Too bad this ends on this line. So you recommend trusting another corporation over Microsoft to be virtuous over the long term? The only OS you can truly control is well known, and it's Linux.

Re: Microsoft Advertisement Inc.

#38

Post by yread » Sat, Nov 16, 2019, 9:35 AM UTC

> what does that even mean

to me it reads like a description of "marketing accessibility" in more words. So, making your ads work well with screen readers. Truly a devilish conspiracy by M$ /s

Re: Microsoft Advertisement Inc.

#39

Post by kerng » Sat, Nov 16, 2019, 9:36 AM UTC

nroets wrote: post #4

Microsoft had the dominant consumer operating system since the 1980s. Using that advantage (and not innovation and quality !) they were able to grab substantial chunks of other markets: Word processing, commercial compilers, cloud computing etc. Next up is digital assistants and advertising. What is the alternative for average consumers ? Chrome books ?

Chrome books are definetly worse when it comes to tracking!

It's sad that besides Linux, there arent that many options anymore...

Imagine the tracking that happens on phone, compared to desktop.

Re: Microsoft Advertisement Inc.

#40

Post by cryptozeus » Sat, Nov 16, 2019, 9:37 AM UTC

We have win machine at the office with latest OS. I don’t see these ads at all. Clearly there is a way to prevent this otherwise companies would not go for it.