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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

#511

Post by strbean »

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?

This is one of the most absurdly awful things in Windows 10. Trying to disable a network adapter requires navigating a maze of useless New Design(r) config pages (where, for example, the ONLY interaction is "set connection to Metered mode"), complete with broken back buttons that take you somewhere arbitrary.

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

#512

Post by dhx »

magduf wrote: post #325
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…

>those of us old enough to remember the Halloween documents don't buy the whole "new Microsoft" thing. >Cynically, it's amazing that Microsoft collects so much personal data about each user -- and yet its "target" ads are hopelessly generic and tasteless. This doesn't surprise me. As someone else old enough to remember the Halloween documents, MS has long suffered from serious organizational incompetence. Just look a…

Organisation chart comic referred to: https://web.archive.org/web/20110701051217/http://www.bonker...

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

#513

Post by phillipcarter »

alharith wrote: post #92
dralley wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Windows division has never really been part of the "New Microsoft", it seems from the outside.

Microsoft didn't buy Github out of the goodness of their heart. They also didn't buy it because of it's significant revenue, a couple hundred million is probably a marketing budget to Microsoft, not something that drives the bottom line. Microsoft also didn't buy it to score appearance points with the socially conscious dev community that populated most of Github, although it was a nice PR story for a bit. You could…

Just wanted to mention that you can already mine the data that would be useful for something like you mention, like so: https://console.butt.google.com/marketplace/details/github/g...

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

#514

Post by ianlevesque »

mr_toad wrote: post #485
Justsignedup wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah. Now try again with the latest Mac mini and compare :(

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

#515

Post by yellowapple »

alxlaz wrote: post #78
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'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…

> In the last five or six years I've come to dread the Linux desktop and its constant churn of rewrites and UX "improvements".

Not like Windows is especially immune to this, either, though in Microsoft's defense they actually listened to the users somewhat and backpedaled to a proper Start Menu instead of continuing to shove Metro down everyone's throats.

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

#516

Post by yellowapple »

sergiosgc wrote: post #166
smabie wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

Similarly, Xfce, LXDE, and MATE are all alive and well and haven't changed much in the last decade, either.

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

#517

Post by smegger001 »

pushpop wrote: post #408
alxlaz wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pre…

Mate desktop has been fairly stable (the default green tinted icon set is gross but fixable). I switched to it after Ubuntu long term support, and Debian on my other computer dropped gnome 2. Just didn't like gnome 3 or unity. Cinnamon was okay but at the time was still coupled to the brain dead ideas the gnome team had been perusing at the time. I haven't checked it out recently enough to know if it had improved.

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

#518

Post by yellowapple »

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…

With herbstluftwm I address that issue by just doing a split; you don't necessarily need to put anything in a given pane, so it's possible to just resize the pane for the window about which you actually care, and ignore the unused space entirely.

Of course, I typically end up sticking a terminal or editor or chat window or music player or something in there anyway, because why not?

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

#519

Post by strbean »

ColanR wrote: post #491
Justsignedup wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It isn't exactly advertised as an incomplete alpha product. Everything in Windows 10 funnels you into the new interface. The fact that the first-class option for system configuration is woefully incomplete is pretty hard to forgive. This is the only supported version of the flagship product of a fortune 500 company, not an early-access Steam game.

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

#520

Post by userbinator »

Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #9
moksly wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building adds into the start menu search is ridiculous.

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?

"normal" users somehow end up with dozens of toolbars and adware and related crap anyway, which they don't mind at all, so MS taking another piece of that pie doesn't really look anything out of the ordinary to them.
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