Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.softpedia.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

491–500 of 578 posts

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

#491

Post by ColanR »

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:…

> Why is there 2+ interfaces for all system configurations. 1 of which is pretty but incomplete, and the other hidden and terrible but complete?

Of all the complaints, that one I totally understand the rationale for. It's an iterative design, they simply haven't finished building the new one yet. Until they do, I ignore it.

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

#492

Post by michaelmrose »

alxlaz wrote: post #242
sergiosgc wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (...) getting used to a workflow akin to that of Windows 1.01 (i.e. a tiling WM) Not really, unless it's a tong-in-cheek remark. Tiling window managers use virtual desktops and programmable positioning of windows to produce a predictable layout. Windows 1.01 had neither of those. Add muscle memory to it and, if you can endure the learning/customization curve, you get a very efficient window manager. Whenever I'm al…

It's tongue-in-cheek of course :). That being said, I did find tiling WMs to be very unwieldy on most screens. When I first went down the tiling WM rabbit hole, I was using a laptop with a 15" screen, and that was great. After a while I got a 27" monitor, though, and tiling became extremely annoying -- every window is now either too wide to be read comfortably and I end up padding the screen with useless xterms, or t…

Tiling window managers are a great way to fiddle with window arrangement LESS not more. Shoving terminal windows between other windows for spacing is spacebar heating. I3 has a branch with the feature required its called i3-gaps. This feature is on its way to becoming a part of mainline i3 but has been available for about 11 years now as a separate package.

https://github.com/Airblader/i3

The setting

    smart_gaps inverse_outer
Would give you a configurable empty border only when you have a singular window ensuring that the single window isn't so large as to be hard to read comfortably.

As far as windows being too small to read comfortably I'd advise you to place no more than 2-3 windows per workspace. For the benefit of those who don't use i3 workspaces are per monitor.

Given 2 monitors you can easily show 4-6 windows which is easily enough context for about any task.

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

#493

Post by eternalny1 »

koalaman wrote: post #305
Delmania wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

I am the OP who called on Microsoft to stop this.

That being said, they upgraded me to Windows 10 for the low cost of $0.

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

#494

Post by michaelmrose »

alxlaz wrote: post #329
heavenlyblue wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are useless xterms different from uselessly used space for a simply centered window? I have 2x4K monitors at home. Moving to i3 is the best thing that happened to me.

> How are useless xterms different from uselessly used space for a simply centered window? You still have to open them and move them around, especially if you do change your layout eventually. I actually didn't have that problem when I was using ratpoison, but some applications (looking at you, Eclipse...) don't really work with it. (I know about stumpwm, and I do know Common Lisp, but alas, we just don't get along t…

Why didn't you use gaps instead of empty windows? Instead of hours writing scripts you could have spent 10 seconds adding a few lines of config.

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

#495

Post by thejokerxi »

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…

Win XP and Win7 was my all time fav microsoft OS. Screw 10. So much data collection and noise.

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

#496

Post by a1369209993 »

neuronic wrote: post #429
nydel wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's everywhere outside of overtly freedom-concerned software. the idiots are winning.

Like the (now past) Amazon integration in Ubuntu?

> freedom-concerned software.

Thank you for giving a example of why we can't use the term "free software" any more. Also fuck Ubuntu.

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

#497

Post by drngdds »

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 use Windows because:

- Chromebooks don't meet my needs and Macs are incredibly expensive.

- There's a lot of software I care about which is Windows-only and doesn't have a good Linux alternative, especially games.

- I have not had great experiences using Linux. I still run into lots of dumb little issues that make me feel like I'm back in the Windows XP days, except this time I have to enter mysterious terminal commands I found on Stack Exchange to make things work right.

- You can easily avoid this kind of nonsense in Windows 10 with like half an hour of setup after your initial install.

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

#498

Post by Marsymars »

proactivesvcs wrote: post #454
Shendare wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Targeted" for me would imply that Windows is checking first to see whether Firefox is installed, and only showing the suggestion if so. If this is just a general suggestion that gets pushed out to all Windows computers, then it's not so much targeted as merely questionable use of platform.

I would be very surprised if it was just pushed out irrespective of telemetry. Since Windows 10 is a mass-market operating system, I'd be surprised if 1% of their users had ever heard of Firefox.

Since Firefox usage share on Windows is >1%, I'd be pretty surprised if most of those users are inadvertently using Firefox without every having heard of it.

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

#499

Post by fox8091 »

owl57 wrote: post #432
dublinben wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How often does a user switch their keyboard layout?

When writing in Russian, every time when they switch between typing prose and typing equations or code. So, maybe about a dozen times per sentence. At first my jaw dropped on your comment, but then I thought, maybe we non-latin-writing people are just abusing a feature meant for something different? Do you use several layouts, but switch between them infrequently?

Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if people assume that non-latin languages have all the characters you need to type in that language on a single layout. For English at least, you really only use a single layout.

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

#500

Post by tenebrisalietum »

overgard wrote: post #459
slgeorge wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not "open source" that's in question here, it is "work done for free without commercially paid developers". A bunch of work happens for things like wifi and cpu because of Android and ChromeOS. But, the number of professional paid developers doing "desktop Linux" drivers is probably fewer than 10 right now [0]. The number of full-time paid developers on "desktop Linux" itself is probably under 100? ... probably…

So honestly, if the answer is "buy special hardware to use this thing"... I'm probably not going to use the thing. I support desktop linux up to the point where I'm willing to use it, and contribute if I am using, but, I'm not replacing everything I own for an experience that's already proven to be bad. I'm not really convinced the problem is hardware, I think there are cultural/organization/design problems here. It…

ACPI is an overcomplicated hostile Microsoft-led standard that has a side effect of creating problems on OSs other than Windows because most hardware manufacturers are only interested enough to test things enough to make sure Windows boots and has no problems. Forget the Halloween documents, this is far more diabolical.

It's an early attack toward making the PC platform move toward ownership and control of Microsoft, well before UEFI or Secure Boot.

Combine this with the modern trend of some hardware manufacturer's refusing to release details needed to create drivers unless NDAs are signed, which wasn't something commonplace in the early 90's when Linux (and Windows NT) was born, and this creates the situation where things don't "just work" on Linux.

With the proper hardware information and without a bad firmware interface like ACPI in the way of the hardware, the only limit is whether someone is willing to write and maintain a driver for it.

Post reply on HN