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Microsoft begins showing an anti-Firefox ad in the Windows 10 start menu
41–50 of 578 posts
Re: Microsoft begins showing an anti-Firefox ad in the Windows 10 start menu
#42It's not anti-Firefox. It's anti-the-other-browser-that-you-use. It doesn't bother me at all. There are other, more serious things big corporations can do that make me worry.
Re: Microsoft begins showing an anti-Firefox ad in the Windows 10 start menu
#43Microsoft doing shady stuff again. It's really a shame. The engineering that the teams at Microsoft put to the kernel and the actual operating system at large is amazing. But then some Product Management division decides to shove this shit down people's throat and, for me at least, ruins all the fun of what would is otherwise an amazing piece of an operating system. I paid for an operating system, just let me use the…
> Microsoft doing shady stuff again. Seems anything but shady? On the start menu in full sight and just explicitly suggesting their browser over Firefox. Doesn't even claim anything about either browser, just suggests theirs! Seems as honest and upfront as any advertising could be? 'Try our band of coffee' effectively.
If W10 is on 800,000,000 computers[1], and it costs each user 1 second of productivity, then every time that ad shows, Microsoft is stealing 222,222 hours of productivity from people and businesses around the world to advertise its subpar browser in an operating system they've already been compensated for.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-says-windows-10-is-n...
Re: Microsoft begins showing an anti-Firefox ad in the Windows 10 start menu
#44Microsoft doing shady stuff again. It's really a shame. The engineering that the teams at Microsoft put to the kernel and the actual operating system at large is amazing. But then some Product Management division decides to shove this shit down people's throat and, for me at least, ruins all the fun of what would is otherwise an amazing piece of an operating system. I paid for an operating system, just let me use the…
I feel largely the same... they build some really cool things, and developer division, the azure guys and .net core guys I've talked to are all great... why are they so heavy handed on the windows side of things, I don't get. Just auto-update edge and put it in a pinned taskbar position with a new icon and a notification bubble... no need to disparage anything, it'd be more assertive and less annoying at the same tim…
> Why are they so heavy handed on the windows side of things, I don't get.
It smells of desperation on the product management side of things. They can't show growth anymore.
I'm not saying they should just give up, but folks, be a bit more dignified over there. Your company's doing great and Windows still does a pretty decent job in many places, cut the crap... At some point you have to accept that Windows is the mature partner, not the hot 20-year old :-D
Re: Microsoft begins showing an anti-Firefox ad in the Windows 10 start menu
#45The prominence of the ad tells you how important browsers are both to revenue streams and computing experience.
So many apps are now delivered over the web the OS is becoming increasingly irrelevant.
The rise of the web has done more for the viability of desktop linux than anything else.
Re: Microsoft begins showing an anti-Firefox ad in the Windows 10 start menu
#46I have to wonder who is responsible for this bs. I admire several aspects of Microsoft, but then things like this appear. It would be ok (barely) to promote the browser in the OS, but to mention a competitor explicitly is just bad.
Re: Microsoft begins showing an anti-Firefox ad in the Windows 10 start menu
#47For all the good they are doing, you'd wonder there's some alterior motive. Reminded me to re-read this article: http://pedrocr.pt/text/microsofts-love-of-linux/
Re: Microsoft begins showing an anti-Firefox ad in the Windows 10 start menu
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Building adds into the start menu search is ridiculous.
How do normal people (who use Windows) think that this is ok? In what universe is that possibly ok - to put ads in a paid-for OS? No matter the context, no matter the version of an os, no matter the reason, no matter what the ads are for, no matter that they could through some questionable hacking or editing be removed - ads in a paid-for OS. Has the whole world gone crazy? What is going on here?
I will go out on a limb and say “normal people” do not consider this an advertisement. The ad itself is a basically an icon, just like all the pre-bundled icons for Office, that are presented as an option to use, and in this case the thing doesn’t even cost money. Despite the emphasis and importance some people (and most of HN reader fall here) place on privacy, the general desktop user base does not care.
As a closing anecdote, my office just upgraded everyone to Windows 10. My boss was still using Internet Explorer as his browser of choice. He was furious that he now couldn’t use his Hotmail menu bar and auto connect to his aol.com email by default anymore. He doesn’t have a clue or care about which browser he’s using, he just wants his things the way he likes. Privacy is not even a passing concern. He’s now on Edge.
Re: Microsoft begins showing an anti-Firefox ad in the Windows 10 start menu
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Building adds into the start menu search is ridiculous.
How do normal people (who use Windows) think that this is ok? In what universe is that possibly ok - to put ads in a paid-for OS? No matter the context, no matter the version of an os, no matter the reason, no matter what the ads are for, no matter that they could through some questionable hacking or editing be removed - ads in a paid-for OS. Has the whole world gone crazy? What is going on here?
> In what universe is that possibly ok - to put ads in a paid-for OS?
People have been accepting ads in paid products/services for generations. Cable TV channels have always had them, as have newspapers/magazines. Most movie theater chains run their own ads these days (not just trailers).
It's easy to see why Microsoft is dipping their toes into this - sadly, consumers don't seem to mind so much
Re: Microsoft begins showing an anti-Firefox ad in the Windows 10 start menu
#50still using Windows?