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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

#481

Post by zeusk »

proactivesvcs wrote: post #449
zeusk wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try using any Google property without chrome, or try using any iOS device without safari. This is pretty harmless in my opinion.

I am an occasional user of Maps, YouTube, Blogger and Translate. Never used Chrome, and all of these properties work just fine and have not tried to push Chrome. I'm also using a stock Android and have never used Chrome on it. Play Store, Play Games, Find my Device, and the Google app work just fine and haven't tried to push Chrome either. I guess I should prepend these observations with "Yet", as I'm not at all of t…

Or you've grown immune to it, because I work on Windows and occasionally setup new VM builds to test things and I always get these banners.

What's even worse is that their CAPTCHA stuff prefers chrome/chromium users off the bat with reliability scores.

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

#482

Post by neycoda »

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."

Because not everyone wants to get things to work through command-line especially Broadcom drivers.

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

#483

Post by darren_ »

TraceWoodgrains wrote: post #467
proactivesvcs wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am an occasional user of Maps, YouTube, Blogger and Translate. Never used Chrome, and all of these properties work just fine and have not tried to push Chrome. I'm also using a stock Android and have never used Chrome on it. Play Store, Play Games, Find my Device, and the Google app work just fine and haven't tried to push Chrome either. I guess I should prepend these observations with "Yet", as I'm not at all of t…

Have you tried using Translate for a web page recently, instead of just a couple sentences of text? Some time ago, they removed that functionality, instead instructing users to use a browser with native translation capabilities to translate pages. It's a pretty blatant push to get people over onto Chrome.

No they didn't. Paste a URL and hit the icon next to it.

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&tab=TT&sl=auto&...

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

#485

Post by mr_toad »

Justsignedup wrote: post #458
kelnos wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely get the distaste for gratuitous UX changes. I've been using Xfce since 2004 and it hasn't changed all that much since then. Overall I'd never claim that a Linux desktop is a "Just Works" proposition, but judging from the issues my colleagues have with macOS, I wouldn't trade my Linux problems for their macOS problems. I can't speak much to Windows anymore, but I can't imagine it'd be all that much better…

OSX problems range from: - oh look, apple decided to change their security model. Now old apps don't work. (necessary to prevent malware). - oh look, no more 32bit programs. - oh look, you plugged in a monitor CRASH. - oh look, you plugged in a charger... CRASH. - oh look, a touchbar. - let's all pay a $1000 premium for hardware. On OSX backwards compatibility isn't a concern apparently. Windows problems range from:…

> let's all pay a $1000 premium for hardware.

Worth it IMHO. I have a Mac mini that I bought on a whim while a Windows desktop was in the shop.

I’ve had it six years now, and in that time I’ve had three Windows machines die.

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

#486

Post by michaelmrose »

grawprog wrote: post #427
tzs wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

>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. But they all perform the same function of choosing a file right? What does it matter if they all look the same? I don't under…

The aesthetics are not a completely invalid consideration. People recognize patterns and find choosing behaviors/reactions easier when recognizing a common pattern. It takes more effort to respond to unfamiliar stimulus. Aesthetics aren't the only consideration though.

File choosers typically allow one to bookmark commonly used directories unfortunately this is per chooser purely for reasons of lack of coordination.

Further despite people asking for it for the last 15 years the gtk version doesn't have a very good way to visually pick out an image in their picker. To date the only good way to pick out an image in a gtk app even GIMP is to open a file manager alongside the application and drag the file into the application or file chooser.

I find it unlikely that most people figure this out.

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

#487

Post by michaelmrose »

grawprog wrote: post #473
tzs wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that there are aesthetic difference like pink sparkles on some. It's that some have a file type filter and some don't. Some show all files while others hide dotfiles and provide a checkbox to show them. Some show files and directories in the same pane while others show directories in one pane and files in another. Some show ".." in their directory list and you go up by opening that, others do not show ".." a…

I understand this, but modularity is one of the philosophies and benefits behind linux, with modularity unfortunately comes inconsistency. As many of the apps available on linux are open source and open source developers are mostly free to use whatever toolkits they want or are comfortable with, you're not likely to get the consistency you want with linux. With windows you have an API provided by windows for ui progr…

Actual modularity would imply a common way to plug in different file choosers so you could use file mangager A with desktop b with application from desktop c.

Inconsistency comes not from modularity but rather from incompetence.

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

#488

Post by neycoda »

grawprog wrote: post #427
tzs wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

>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. But they all perform the same function of choosing a file right? What does it matter if they all look the same? I don't under…

Windows has this same problem, with 3rd party and its own apps. I don't know why it needs 3 different file open dialogs, and it confuses the crap out of normies. Don't even ask me about people getting upset about not knowing when to click or double-click.

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

#489

Post by nneonneo »

ubercow13 wrote: post #477
tzs wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found my screen shot: https://i.imgur.com/Wcwaiwu.jpg

Nice. Actually some of these remind me of Windows, too. It's less common on Windows but plenty of applications seem to link against antiquated libraries which provide really unusable and nonstandard file selection dialogs. One thing I remember being annoyed with is old-style ones that are very small and you can't resize. Here are some, but I've seen weirder ones: https://i.imgur.com/jYa3qX8.png

With sandboxing, macOS is now forcing devs to use their file selection dialog because it will grant access to the selected files - a custom dialog box has no such blessing.

It's nice, actually; it's finally making the file selection process feel uniform. Too many Java apps are still using random Swing dialogs though...

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

#490

Post by tzs »

grawprog wrote: post #473
tzs wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that there are aesthetic difference like pink sparkles on some. It's that some have a file type filter and some don't. Some show all files while others hide dotfiles and provide a checkbox to show them. Some show files and directories in the same pane while others show directories in one pane and files in another. Some show ".." in their directory list and you go up by opening that, others do not show ".." a…

I understand this, but modularity is one of the philosophies and benefits behind linux, with modularity unfortunately comes inconsistency. As many of the apps available on linux are open source and open source developers are mostly free to use whatever toolkits they want or are comfortable with, you're not likely to get the consistency you want with linux. With windows you have an API provided by windows for ui progr…

A standard API can provide more modularity and control than the current approach.

You do this by having several available implementations of the API as dynamic libraries--one using Motif, one using GTK, one using Qt, and so on.

There would be a per user config setting specifying which implementation the user prefers. If a program wants to put up a file chooser, it can read that, then load the right library and use the API. A program might also have per program settings to override that, to handle the case where a user really does prefer, say, GTK file choosers for most programs but Qt file choosers for some specific programs.

This gives you more UI consistency, makes things more modular than having every program include file chooser dialog code, and gives more control to the user, and doesn't interfere with the developer choosing whatever toolkit they prefer for things other than standard dialogs.

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