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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

#571

Post by gruez »

jmnicolas wrote: post #568
gruez wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the Bavarian agency for data protection is to be believed, you can fully disable telemetry in the enterprise/education version ($300/license). https://www.ghacks.net/2020/02/02/german-data-protection-age...

I tried to look for the enterprise version a few years back. It is unobtainium unless you're buying a few thousand of them.

Have you tried resellers? eg. https://www.cdw.com/product/windows-10-enterprise-ltsc-2019-... Also, I've heard that if you need to comply with volume licensing requirements (ie. minimum 5/25 products), you can buy a bunch of cheap CAL licenses.

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

#572

Post by CamperBob2 »

reaperducer wrote: post #563
CamperBob2 wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Games back then weren't an important part of our culture. They are now. Consequently they are a requirement. Seems simple enough to understand.

Games back then weren't an important part of our culture. The mind boggles. I think you've just outed yourself as someone who wasn't alive or awake back then.

I was writing games back then, thank you very much. :-P

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

#573

Post by modo_mario »

s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #401
deaps wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

It's anticompetitive as fuck but people stopped caring about that it seems. Also why it's against firefox and not let's say chrome. Inb4 Google does this too on their products. Yeah and it's less fucked but absolutely fucked just the same.

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

#575

Post by tripzilch »

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…

> But the chances of something like waking up to the announcement that Microsoft is removing desktop icons in the next update and you can just install this third-party application for it (which will break with every update) are practically zero.

I get your point, but I do think this has actually occurred. Remembr when 7 updated to 8, and when 8 updated to 8.2 (I think) and when 8 updated to 10? I didn't use Windows much back then, but I really remember those three updates.

I forget which, but one unexpectedly took nearly 4 hours. Like an entire morning waiting for updates to finish, unable to use that computer, which was the one computer hooked up to the beamer, but it had to be updated at some point. I actually wrote a "windows update game" during that time, where you had to play a platforming hourglass, collecting percentages of progress. If you got to 100% it said something like "Restart to finish upgrading", then it started at 0% again, and you got ONE point. I think somebody got a high score of three.

And the first update completely changed the UI, removed the Start Menu (or hid it?), made icons into "tiles", some of which were "active" (?), which is to me a lot like you're describing. I was truly lost in Windows for a while. On all sides, not just the UI, but the settings, the folders.

And I still don't know what I have to do in Windows to disable ALL the telemetry and advertising in menus. Is it still possible? It's probably about as hard as setting up an Ubuntu install. And it's keeping me scared away from Windows, just like setting up Ubuntu seems scary to some other users.

It's not that I don't like Windows, like you say, if it were 2000 (or XP, or 7, I've also gotten used to those) ... actually you're right that 2000 might have been the last Windows that I wasn't slightly scared about (spying on me, even though what we considered "spying" in the days of XP, are like Tuesdays now).

There's this one thing that will always make me go back to Linux, however. And is that (perhaps the way I use it?) Windows has a "honeymoon" period that is one or two years, after that it just degrades in quality, responsiveness, just getting slow. And I have no idea how to fix that, clean it up, or whatever, besides installing Linux. Which makes the thing run smooth again. The only thing that seems to slow Linux down after a while, is the browser because the web just keeps getting heavier.

But I don't hate using Windows for those 1-2 years :) Especially now they got better command line stuff, who knows.

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

#577

Post by use___net »

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:…

- WTF are all important links on the M$ website dead?

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

#578

Post by unblocker »

rafiki6 wrote: post #465
noncoml wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they are not. But your argument is a logical fallacy. The fact that people who disagree with me are not automatically “paid shill” doesn’t imply that “paid shills” aren’t there. Of course I cannot prove it, but the signs are there. How else do you explain the sudden change of heart of the HN community overnight? Who usually have very strong opinions on this topic.

To set the record straight, I have not ever nor do I currently work for microsoft. If you have IP tracking skills you can probably figure out where I work from these posts. As a matter of a fact, I don't like a lot of things about msft, this just isn't one of them. I dislike that msft is getting a disproportionate amount of hate about this stuff and yet Google and Apple don't seem to get the same level of flack. Peop…

> 'I dislike that msft is getting a disproportionate amount of hate about this stuff and yet Google and Apple don't seem to get the same level of flack.'

If I made a comment that they are all dishonest shitbags who cannot be trusted, somehow I get the feeling that you will have some kind of objection to that sentiment as well, 'Rafiki.'

> 'I wanted to offer a different perspective that acknowledges that this is the state of things across the board, and this one thing is less harmful than it's being made out to be. '

In other words: "The current state of things is Microsoft users are getting the shaft, and ya know guys, it's not so bad if you only lube up your asshole first."

> 'What I am trying to say is that this incident isn't evidence of anything except that Microsoft is like every other company that will use any advantage it has to push its product. Google and Apple do it too.'

Right: immoral, evil, controlled by dishonest psychopaths. Exactly the point.

If everyone else was jumping off a bridge, would you jump too?

> 'Let's put our energy in things that pressure companies to behave properly like lobbying governments to step up their anti-trust and privacy enforcement.'

Except Microsoft is owned by the very same people who own the U.S. Government. Same folks who own Google. Same folks who own Facebook. Same folks who probably own you.

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