111–120 of 578 posts
I just installed and ran Firefox. I was presented with a page of ads: https://i.imgur.com/HiS8k1L.png Note that the "top sites" aren't my top sites. They're ads. And then there's an ad at the bottom.
But yes, it would be awesome if we could pay for an ad-free Firefox built by Mozilla.
This, and every other screw-up in the same vein, is why those of us old enough to remember the Halloween documents don't buy the whole "new Microsoft" thing. Want to get me to try Edge? Great -- instead of a passive-aggressive ad, try telling me how it's better than Firefox and why I'd like to use it instead. What will it get me? Better privacy? Better performance? Better development tools? Cynically, it's amazing th…
Over the last couple of years I've been coming round to the fact that microsoft aren't necessarily a major problem now, compared to google and amazon at least. Doesn't take much to put the shields back upto full. I just don't understand why people run windows. Maybe I just use computers wrong, having been on linux for the last 20 years, but my family (who I refuse to help with IT needs) are all far happier on chromeb…
For example, my in-laws got a Chromebook a few years ago. My father-in-law definitely liked it better. For my mother-in-law, it was an unmitigated disaster. He really only uses the computer for watching Netflix and reading the New York Times. She, a teacher, also uses it for work, and she found that most of the programs she used for classroom prep simply weren't available for ChromeOS, and didn't have any equivalent. So I ended up helping her give her old Windows desktop a nice deep scrubbing, put some more RAM in it, all that good stuff, and that's now what she uses when her iPad won't do.
My own parents prefer Windows, too, though that's a more fuzzy situation. Basically, it's just that it's what they've always used. They've tried other platforms a couple times, and quickly found that it just wasn't even remotely worth the hassle of learning all the differences. That's down to differences in file sharing, printer set up, all that good stuff.
Me, for a while I was thinking of switching back to Windows at home for a while, simply because I used Windows at work, and I was getting sick of having to remember two different sets of keyboard commands and suchlike. (Then I went to a shop where all the devs were given Macs, so I ended up there instead.) For my purposes, running some other OS as the host and Linux in a VM is plenty good enough.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's certainly shady, given that they own both the product they're advertising and the medium they're advertising it through. I don't expect that I'll be able to get them to give me a top spot for an ad saying "Concerned about Microsoft's tracking policy? Mozilla Firefox is here", or "Still using Edge? Why not just get the original -- Google Chrome is here'.
This seems pretty common, and I've not heard anyone consider it a problem before. For example radio stations commonly run promos for their own shows while not accepting ads for shows on other stations. Do you consider that shady too? If not, how do to you distinguish the Microsoft case?
But at least where I'm from, it's explicitly forbidden for radio stations (in fact it's illegal for any company) to run any kind of comparative advertising that denigrates a competitor's product. It's OK to show off your product, and it's OK to compare your own product to another company's, as long as you're transparent about what's compared and under what conditions. But an ad that mentions a competitor's product just to denigrate it would be illegal.
It would be okay for KBBL to advertise its news program. It would also be OK for KBBL to run an ad saying "Our program has the fewest fake news on the market", as long as they they tell you how to verify the claim (i.e. what numbers they used, who came up with them, how they came up with them, and how you can get them, too). But if they ran an ad saying "Still listening to WQHG-FM news? Tune to KBBL instead!" they'd risk having their license withdrawn.
It's definitely not pretty common precisely because it's illegal :).
I think Microsoft has every right to suggest their own browser. Chrome does it. Firefox does it. You have to opt out of the reminder. So you have to opt out of Start menu ads. Big deal. Can we focus on something slighty less trivial please?
Firefox is a browser. Chrome is a browser. Windows is an operating system. Consider having a closer look at the IE anti-trust cases to better understand the difference.
Google’s search monopoly is even greater than Microsoft’s OS monopoly was at its peak.
My god if apple did something like this people would burn cities down. Why do people still trust Microsoft when their OS is literally a native advertising and tracking tool now
But no, if Microsoft tries to prop up their 5% broser share, it's really really bad!
(I like Microsoft more than Google)
Back to the anti-competitive behavior that got them in trouble years ago. Someone inside Microsoft at a senior level needs to intervene here with the marketing teams and tell them to stop.
How is this different than getting an ad for Chrome when you go to google.com?
It is the Microsoft sleight of hand. One hand is showing you want you want to see; Open Source initiatives, developer glad-handing, etc. While the other hand does this.
It's more like hundreds of teams who don't talk to each other.
[0] https://metalhead.club/system/media_attachments/files/001/94...
