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Microsoft begins showing an anti-Firefox ad in the Windows 10 start menu

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Re: Microsoft begins showing an anti-Firefox ad in the Windows 10 start menu

#291

Post by rafaelvasco »

Kunigaikstis wrote: post #58
Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

- Linux isn't very user friendly to begin with, whether it's in the form of OS usage or apps that you're used to. - A lot of people, including myself, grew up with Windows. Switching right now, after tens of years of usage, seems unnecessary still. - WARNING, personal opinion: Windows is the only platform for gamers.

Yeah, only reason I'm staying with Windows for the foreseeable future is because of the much superior app and games support compared to other platforms. Would have no problem going for Linux if it supported all my apps, steam catalog etc. I know things been improving in this area. For games, what must happen is the advent of a full cross platform graphics abstraction. WebGPU is a promising one. Vulkan too. But it's a very hard problem.

Re: Microsoft begins showing an anti-Firefox ad in the Windows 10 start menu

#292

Post by Nullabillity »

New_Horizon wrote: post #251
robbyt wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great people don't work at crappy companies.

That's a pretty silly idea. So anyone working for Walmart is a monster? Can't be a good person and just taking the best job you can find for yourself and your family?

The grocery store employment market is pretty different from the sw engineer market. I'd be far more comfortable judging someone's choices when they.. have a realistic alternative.

Re: Microsoft begins showing an anti-Firefox ad in the Windows 10 start menu

#293

Post by chinathrow »

I recently upgraded a Windows 7 installation to Windows 10. There was both Thunderbird and Firefox installed, of each one version.

After the upgrade, Firefox asked to be the default browser (first idiotic change by the Windows team) and then didn't identify the existing Firefox installation and only listed Edge and IE as a selection (second mishap).

Time for another round of regulations.

Re: Microsoft begins showing an anti-Firefox ad in the Windows 10 start menu

#294

Post by overgard »

braythwayt wrote: post #238
randiantech wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats the DNA of pretty much any profit based oganization.

If you over-generalize, sure. But different corporations are selfish/ruthless/exploitative in different ways, and organizing our thinking about the ways in which a for-profit organization acts selfishly/ruthlessly/exploitatively helps us make our own decisions and craft our own strategies for getting what we want from them, or choosing with whom we do business.

Look at companies like Monsanto (their sins probably don't need mentioning). Or Volkswagen (cheating on environmental tests) or Goldman Sachs or... anyone. Every major company will ALWAYS throw ethics under the bus, it just depends on their situation which ethics they feel great about tossing away. Trying to figure out who the "good guy" is doesn't matter, none of them are.

I'm not a communist, but Microsoft is literally doing the (amoral) thing that is in their best interest. Hate the game not the player I guess?

Re: Microsoft begins showing an anti-Firefox ad in the Windows 10 start menu

#295

Post by reaperducer »

wgerard wrote: post #82
iso1631 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I just don't understand why people run windows. There are many, many products that either run significantly better on windows (Office) or are completely unavailable on other OSs (many video games). That's changing, for sure. But there's still a long tail of products that semi-necessitate windows.

or are completely unavailable on other OSs (many video games)

I get a chuckle whenever I realize how things have changed.

In the early to mid-80's, there was a popular mantra that the IBM PC ecosystem was for "serous work," and anything else was "just for games," which was a slap at Apple (then dominant for business, but rapidly slipping) and the other alternatives.

Today, it seems that for the majority of ordinary people, the only reason they stay in the Wintel ecosystem is for games.

Re: Microsoft begins showing an anti-Firefox ad in the Windows 10 start menu

#297

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

stiray wrote: post #278
iso1631 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I just don't understand why people run windows I do. And just a disclaimer, I am using linux 100% on desktop (and prefer freebsd on servers). Where I run firefox, i3, terminal, evolution (as I am forced to use it due to Exchange support, while I actually prefer mutt) and this is it. I rarely run anything else that is windowed. The reason is simple. Linux desktop really sucks. Instead of whole community stepping tog…

As someone who uses one of the minority desktops within a minority distro (Fedora w/ Cinnamon spin), I agree that all of the trash-talking within a community is to the detriment to its spread.

I almost wish we could get all Linux users to verbally agree to something like the following:

"I will not trash popular Linux desktop environments to outsiders. Ubuntu is fine. GNOME is fine. I understand that for the sake of the Linux Desktop's survival, it is more important that I be helpful and supportive of people's choice to use Default Ubuntu, rather than telling them that my Arch/Xfce/i3 setup is The One True Path."

Use whatever you want in private. Just shut the f--- up about trashing Ubuntu/Mint/Manjaro at every opportunity because you disagree with some decision of theirs. It makes us all look bad.

Re: Microsoft begins showing an anti-Firefox ad in the Windows 10 start menu

#298

Post by zentiggr »

iso1631 wrote: post #59
alxlaz wrote: post #20

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…

Because I work in a Windows-only facility, at least where my level of dev work is done.

And I live in a house where the only other person has only ever user Windows, and hates change. Like even desktop icons shouldn't relocate unless she does it herself.

She fights every application update unless there's a clear reason, then there better not be any more differences than the ones indicated.

Re: Microsoft begins showing an anti-Firefox ad in the Windows 10 start menu

#299

Post by kbenson »

swebs wrote: post #138
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, Microsoft did add tracking prevention tools much like Firefox and Safari have. So they did add the common browser feature Google refuses to integrate. Privacy-minded people who insist on using Chrome should switch to Edge over Chrome. But I refuse to contribute to the Chromium monoculture.

No they shouldn't. They should switch to Firefox or Safari. Or at the very least Chromium (from a Linux package manager).

>> who insist on using Chrome

> They should switch to Firefox or Safari.

There seems to be a disconnect here. You can tell people they should do something all you want, but if they've already shown themselves unable or unwilling to do so, you're better off putting that effort into something that might actually achieve something.

Re: Microsoft begins showing an anti-Firefox ad in the Windows 10 start menu

#300

Post by wgerard »

heavenlyblue wrote: post #275
wgerard wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just don't understand why people run windows. There are many, many products that either run significantly better on windows (Office) or are completely unavailable on other OSs (many video games). That's changing, for sure. But there's still a long tail of products that semi-necessitate windows.

How is office better than Google Docs?

FWIW, I don't think it is necessarily.

But, a lot of people are forced to use office for various reasons - trying to edit a docx in Docs/Pages/LibreOffice, for example, can be really frustrating for any number of reasons (fonts, margins, etc. all sometimes break spectacularly).

So if you're using office quite frequently, windows can be very appealing.

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