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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

#401

Post by s_y_n_t_a_x »

deaps wrote: post #324
rafiki6 wrote: post #313

Has anyone here actually looked at the "anti-Firefox" ad in question? It's literally a tile that says "Still using Firefox? Edge is here!". I'm not really sure what we expected here. This is about the same as a browser asking you to make it default when you open it. All big companies do weird anti competitive things. This isn't one of those things. I know I'll likely get downvoted for this opinion, but to many commen…

It's not an overreaction. It's literally a targeted ad showing up in your day to day work space. It's invasive. I switched to mac a long time ago, but I still have a Windows device because some things are just painful (or impossible) to use on a mac. The difference between using an application that prompts "make this default?" and a specifically targeted ad showing up on your start menu is that the user used the appl…

It sucks, but it is kind of an overreaction.

I turned the ad off... there's nothing but 32 pixel icons in my start menu.

I simply never see the outrage, customize your Windows install and move the fuck on.

That's why Linux gets jacked off all the time right, customizability?

(that was rhetorical, I support Linux and realize the most beneficial aspect is it's open-source nature)

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

#402

Post by intopieces »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #376
robinhood wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still – it’s a misleading title (border-line click bait). Anti-Firefox ad implies that they say something negative about Firefox, which clearly isn't the case.

"Still using Firefox?" Seems to me implies that it's old and antiquated and only used by people who don't know any better. Of course the opposite is true.

To build on your point: Yes, and this is precisely how Microsoft intended. It’s a disingenuous question. The OS knows you’re still using Firefox, because that’s what prompted the ad to begin with.

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

#403

Post by viraptor »

starik36 wrote: post #316
zentiggr wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> She fights every application update unless there's a clear reason Unless you are in the IT industry or at least an enthusiast, this is a rational approach.

Actually the opposite. Unless you work in IT, you likely don't understand changelogs or release notes very well. Unless you can assess the risk of not updating, the safe approach is to auto update everything. Yes, it may be annoying and you may run into new bugs.

On the other hand: Your USB ports stopped working? You should've been updating the bios. You got breached via the browser or email app? Should've been updating them.

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

#404

Post by ubercow13 »

overgard wrote: post #343
slgeorge wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you MUST buy certified hardware [0], preferably with it pre-loaded with Linux [1]. Ultimately, Linux didn't make enough of a dent in the desktop hardware space in the 90's/00's. The level of interest from hardware vendors (ODM/OEM/component manufacturers) has gone down - that's why things are worse. If you don't use non-preloaded hardware you are NOT signalling to anyone that desktop Linux is important. This red…

Well, I'll definitely keep an eye on that piece of hardware. I do intend that the next system I buy can run Linux well. I mean I'm going to stick with it, even if it is bad. That said.. even though I'm pointing out hardware issues I don't think the free software world should get a pass on these things. I get that a lack of corporate sponsorship can make things hard, BUT, a lot of the issues I'm running into are thing…

>there's obviously something not quite working with this model when it comes to producing software people can use

It might be that the model is never going to provide the financial incentives to work perfectly on every random Windows laptop, which is what you seem to mean by 'producing software people can use'. Meanwhile, plenty of people use it just fine - your laptop not working hardly invalidates the whole desktop Linux concept.

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

#405

Post by jessaustin »

overgard wrote: post #294
braythwayt wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 liter…

Dude you can't criticize Monsanto on HN...

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

#406

Post by frenchyatwork »

immigrantsheep wrote: post #395
black_puppydog wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is Microsoft using their desktop operating system market share to drive their web browser market share. That's pretty much what they got sued for before. Given, their market position in desktop might be a different one now than back then. But it's still quite close to what antitrust laws were written against. Also saying "oh all corps do stuff like that calm down" is a really bad defense IMO.

Don't most linux distros come with Firefox preinstalled? How is that not pushing the other way? OSX comes with Safari. Every time you visit youtube with another browser it nudges you to install Chrome. Why is Microsoft singled out here?

The suit was based on the (at the time) pervasiveness of MS-windows. These other things are not near as ubiquitous yet.

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

#407

Post by jedberg »

viraptor wrote: post #399
jedberg wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The level of interest from hardware vendors (ODM/OEM/component manufacturers) has gone down - that's why things are worse. I'm sort of surprised the Linux community didn't put more effort into a compatibility layer so that Windows drivers could be used on Linux, or something to make it easy for vendors to quickly port their Windows drivers to Linux.

It's only doable for a small subset from the system side: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NDISwrapper On the other hand, large drivers like NVIDIA use their own blobs which likely share a lot of code between systems.

Right, what I'm saying is that I'm surprised more effort wasn't put into NDIS to make it work with other types of hardware.

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

#408

Post by pushpop »

alxlaz wrote: post #188
sergiosgc wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I entirely understand alxlaz's position, buy my solution was exactly sticking to better window managers (in terms of long term support). My workstation is Linux since '98 or '99, and since then I've used GNUstep for about a decade, then i3 and now sway (basically i3 for Wayland). I'm free from the breaking changes alxlaz describes. I just checked, and GNUstep is pretty much alive. Even that change was caused by me wa…

Ah, I'm in a similar-ish boat, I use WindowMaker :). This isolates me from most, but definitely not all dubious changes. I've been down the tiling WM rabbit hole a while ago but it's just not for me, I like the mouse, I like icons... It's a little unsettling that there are two ways to get a stable experience: using window manager from 1998 (OK, ok, WindowMaker is still maintained-ish, in fact a very tiny portion of t…

KDE 4 was released in 2008 and has been stable and consistent for more than a decade. That predates Windows 7. So in the same time KDE has been consistent you’ve had had the migration from XP or Vista to Win7. Then Windows 8 and now Windows 10. They’ve all bought massive changes in the UI experience.

If you don’t like KDE then use LXCE or Enlightenment or any of the other Linux desktop environments that have been pretty static (and have been even longer than KDE).

So yeah, there actually is a lot of choice on Linux and not all of it looks dated.

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

#409

Post by jeromebaek »

frenchyatwork wrote: post #406
immigrantsheep wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't most linux distros come with Firefox preinstalled? How is that not pushing the other way? OSX comes with Safari. Every time you visit youtube with another browser it nudges you to install Chrome. Why is Microsoft singled out here?

The suit was based on the (at the time) pervasiveness of MS-windows. These other things are not near as ubiquitous yet.

No. peak market share of Windows XP was 80%. market share of chrome is hovering around 65%. search engine share of google is like 90%.

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

#410

Post by tzs »

smabie wrote: post #91
alxlaz wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just don't understand why people run windows. I've used Linux for about the same time and honestly, I understand it completely. I would switch, were it not for muscle memory and for the fact that at least 50% of my work involves systems-level development for Linux (mainly embedded stuff, so a lot of cross-compiling). In the last five or six years I've come to dread the Linux desktop and its constant churn of rewr…

Or you could just use a window manager that doesn’t change? I’ve had the same desktop env for over a decade and nothing has changed at all. In contrast with windows and osx where we literally cannot opt out.

Almost all my Linux work has been via command line for quite a while, so maybe this has changed, but my recollection was the GUI inconsistency had little to do with the window manager. It had much more to do with the X libraries that the developer of each app decided to use.

I used to have a screen shot showing me running something like 5 different GUI apps on a Linux system, all of them trying to open a file, each with a completely different file chooser dialog. That's because one app used Motif, one use GTK, one used Qt, and I have no idea what the others used.

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