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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

#301

Post by Mirioron »

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…

>I just don't understand why people run windows.

For me the main reason is games. Dual booting is really annoying and jumping through the 15 hoops it takes to run games on Linux doesn't seem worth it considering how poorly games seem to run natively on Windows already. It's not a question of "there are no games for Linux" but rather "the game I want to play is not on Linux".

This one point is basically the anchor that all the other usage is centered around for me. Linux simply doesn't offer something amazing enough over what Windows does to warrant all this trouble for games. If the games I wanted to play ran decently on Linux with few problems then I'd probably switch over. But considering that MS is now doing that Xbox game pass subscription even on Windows, I think the chance of switching is becoming less and less likely.

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

#302

Post by BenjiWiebe »

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?

One data point, I don't believe I'm a monster, but I do enjoy my Walmart job.

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

#303

Post by t-writescode »

will4274 wrote: post #239
disiplus wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that, and also we paid for the windows license.

So? There are free products with ads (like Gmail), paid products without ads (like Netflix and Windows 8), and paid products with ads (like Hulu and Win10 home edition). I'm not the biggest fan of the paid+ads business model, but it's a valid model and Microsoft has been pretty consistent - Win10 has followed this model since release, so nobody is being tricked.

People were tricked when they were forced to upgrade through confusing prompts. People were forced when Microsoft strong-armed processor companies to not support Windows 8 and instead force Windows 10’upgrades if you wanted new machines.

Disclosure: I worked for Microsoft during Windows 8 through early Windows 10 development on related teams.

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

#304

Post by grazhero99 »

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.

I disagree that Windows is the only platform for gamers. Obviously wine isn’t perfect yet, and getting banned from online games can certainly be a problem, but it’s gotten to the point I can say that Linux is viable alternative. The compromises you have to make are incredibly reasonable compared to what they used to be.

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

#305

Post by koalaman »

Delmania wrote: post #89
eternalny1 wrote: post #24

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?

google.com is ad supported. I pay a ton of money for Windows.

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

#306

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

miguelmota wrote: post #279

Firefox is like a Toyota; it sometimes lacks the latest bells and whistles but it’s always been reliable and generally cares about your safety. Microsoft is pushing hard on Edge to get more users to use Bing and more Bing users means more search ad revenue.

> it sometimes lacks the latest bells and whistles but it’s always been reliable and generally cares about your safety.

Automotive engineer for 20 years. How people still think Toyota today is Toyota of the 1990s, I have no idea. Pro Tip... Every car mfg uses the exact same suppliers. The seats in the Toyota Corrola are made by Johnson Controls, same as any GM. Hyundai builds the frame for Jeep Wrangler and other body on frame trucks. The new Tacoma has a foot and a half of fascia between the grill and bumper because the supplier for the cooling package, bumper, frame, and class-A sheetmetal couldn't agree on things. The electronics in the Fiat 500, are mostly the same as what's in a $400,000 Ferrari. McClaren doesn't spend 1/100th the money that Ford does on power management for a single vehicle, so you need to plug in your super car with a trickle charger when it's not being driven. .... Long story short, almost all vehicles have the same poor reliability right now. This current crop of vehicles 2018+ are easily the least reliable vehicles ever built, mfg doesn't matter.

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

#307

Post by Carpetsmoker »

This kind of stuff isn't new and has been going on for years.

When I got a new laptop in 2017 I had a look at Windows 10 to see what it's like before I replaced it with Linux, and I got similar messages. I wrote a thing about it which has some screenshots: https://www.arp242.net/browsers-conflict-interest.html

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

#308

Post by t-writescode »

wgerard wrote: post #300
heavenlyblue wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not to mention how just plain ugly LibreOffice’s page renderer is. The kerning and spacing and shapes just seem so off all the time.

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

#309

Post by overgard »

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…

I switched over to running desktop linux a couple months ago because I was so fed up with these things, but the truth is... it's just pretty bad. Like if I let my laptop go to sleep my touchpad will never work again. I had to do a bunch of weird kernel hacks to keep my wifi working when the device goes to sleep, and even then it's a hack (I had to enable the airplane mode button, and then make sure to hit it twice any time I open the screen. Come on!). And the lock screen breaks if I'm plugged into a monitor, it shows this weird low resolution version and a high resolution one on top of it. Everything is just incredibly sloppy and either outright broken, or kind of broken. This is Kubuntu btw! I tried Fedora and it crashed every two minutes if I booted X windows so, that didn't work out. Also the main thing with Fedora was it couldn't recognize my sound card, which is like the main intel thing built into every laptop. Maybe it's a winmodem thing again or something, but overall it just does not work at all.

So the reason people are still using Microsoft: You HAVE to unless you explicitly buy hardware for Linux. It's just unusable otherwise and the trajectory is getting WORSE, not better.

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