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Windows 10 nagging users with Bing advertisements (push alerts)

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Re: Windows 10 nagging users with Bing advertisements (push alerts)

#161

Post by hhjj »

whyoh wrote: post #109
ridiculous_fish wrote: post #66

It may not be widely known that Gmail users on Windows get a popup telling you to use Chrome [1], and then also an email disguised as a security alert telling you to use Chrome [2]. Google is leveraging their properties to push their browser, and Microsoft is responding in kind. Or maybe vice-versa; either way it's all really obnoxious. 1. https://i.imgur.com/KsD9hFx.jpg 2: https://i.imgur.com/CDs1eIE.png

The difference is that ads on websites are somewhat expected and usually easy to block and contained inside a browser. Ads inside an OS are in a different category of annoying. Especially on Windows where it's not just one setting to turn them off, but they're scattered through the OS, they get re-installed with updates and it's a constant game of whack-a-mole to get rid of them. I don't get the point of comparing Wi…

Not really different, it's leveraging users from a product to another. Gmail and Windows users are both stuck and forcefully promoted "unrelated" products (specific ads tied to OS/website so not easily blockable).

Re: Windows 10 nagging users with Bing advertisements (push alerts)

#162

Post by 1_player »

ridiculous_fish wrote: post #66

It may not be widely known that Gmail users on Windows get a popup telling you to use Chrome [1], and then also an email disguised as a security alert telling you to use Chrome [2]. Google is leveraging their properties to push their browser, and Microsoft is responding in kind. Or maybe vice-versa; either way it's all really obnoxious. 1. https://i.imgur.com/KsD9hFx.jpg 2: https://i.imgur.com/CDs1eIE.png

Or any Google app on iOS (i.e. Youtube), when you click on a link, asks whether to download Chrome or open it in Safari.

Shut the fuck up and open it in my default browser, thank you.

Re: Windows 10 nagging users with Bing advertisements (push alerts)

#163

Post by rambojazz »

jrsj wrote: post #42
amysox wrote: post #9

And people wonder why I still don't trust Micro$oft, even if they say they're supporting open source.

I don’t think this is really related. Google supports open source & they do basically the same sort of stuff. Open source at this point is just common sense. It’s more profitable than a fully proprietary model in many cases.

Pardon me, in what cases is open source more profitable than proprietary?

Re: Windows 10 nagging users with Bing advertisements (push alerts)

#164

Post by masklinn »

userbinator wrote: post #64

10 or 15 years ago, this behaviour would universally be called adware and shunned, yet now Microsoft does it too? In addition to the Windows 10 alert, Microsoft Edge has also gained a new full-screen prompt that advises users to restore the ‘recommended’ browser and set Bing as the default search engine. ...complete with Corporate Memphis[1]. That screenshot sums up just about everything I hate about "modern" softwar…

> In addition to the Windows 10 alert, Microsoft Edge has also gained a new full-screen prompt that advises users to restore the ‘recommended’ browser and set Bing as the default search engine.

Can it be disabled / remembered?

Because I'm pretty sure every browser will prompt to set itself as default browser.

Re: Windows 10 nagging users with Bing advertisements (push alerts)

#165

Post by hvidgaard »

skohan wrote: post #148

This is the kind of thing which makes me roll my eyes when people try to argue that the "New Microsoft(tm)" is actually benevolent and developer friendly, and I should be happy about things like them acquiring Github.

I will never call a corporation benevolent, but they certainly are developer friendly right now. Opening the source of many of their frameworks and tools have aided us in debugging many times. It's also possible to get in contact with their developers directly through github.

I don't really feel one way or another regarding their Github purchase. If not Microsoft, then someone else. Right now Microsoft seems like a less bad owner, but time will tell.

Re: Windows 10 nagging users with Bing advertisements (push alerts)

#166

Post by skohan »

Macha wrote: post #152
amysox wrote: post #9

And people wonder why I still don't trust Micro$oft, even if they say they're supporting open source.

Microsoft has always been a famously schizophrenic company: https://bonkersworld.net/organizational-charts As a result, I'm happy to trust e.g. the VS Code team, while I would not extend that trust anywhere near the Windows team.

What makes you think the VSCode team has enough autonomy that this kind of crap won't leak in when some enterprising product manager sees a ripe user-base available to exploit to improve their KPI's?

Also VSCode is already set up to enable this type of garbage. The "recommended extensions" popup is a great vector for getting programmers to use the tools MS decides are best for them, and the features for working on remote codebases are great for blurring the lines between a codebase that you actually control, and toolchains which depend on an Azure server somewhere in the middle.

Re: Windows 10 nagging users with Bing advertisements (push alerts)

#167

Post by andai »

asddubs wrote: post #144
skinkestek wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not for many of us at least. Has't worked reliably for me and a number of others for close to a decade I think (the first blog post I know of that mention it is from 2011 or 2013 I think.) Oh, and I think it is the same thing as others mention in this discussion: infantilization and "we know better than you". But being Google it might also be just general lack of care.

i believe there's a setting somewhere to enable verbatim search, but yeah google has steadily been getting worse

I need to confirm this, but it looks like they're adding a 5-second delay to the server response time if the User-Agent is a browser they don't like. (Changed the user-agent to Firefox and the delay immediately went away.)

Re: Windows 10 nagging users with Bing advertisements (push alerts)

#168

Post by mcny »

vbezhenar wrote: post #121
userbinator wrote: post #64

10 or 15 years ago, this behaviour would universally be called adware and shunned, yet now Microsoft does it too? In addition to the Windows 10 alert, Microsoft Edge has also gained a new full-screen prompt that advises users to restore the ‘recommended’ browser and set Bing as the default search engine. ...complete with Corporate Memphis[1]. That screenshot sums up just about everything I hate about "modern" softwar…

Google still promotes Chrome as much as it can from its services. 5-10 years ago plenty of freeware were installing Chrome if you did not pay attention to remove some hidden checkbox. Apple nags me about Music subscription almost every time I open Music app. I don't understand what's wrong when Microsoft promotes its software and services.

I think Google showing Chrome pop ups to users on the latest Firefox or chrome based edge is anticompetitive but we aren’t talking the law here. When we install something like Adobe Flash and it installed Google Chrome, I would be angry at Adobe Flash, not at Google.

On the Apple side, I find the “free” (continues as paid) Apple TV+ nagware on settings menu is much more offensive than the nagware on Apple Music.

The OS showing ads is worse than apps showing ads.

Re: Windows 10 nagging users with Bing advertisements (push alerts)

#169

Post by salamandersauce »

I've had this pop-up during a full-screen game OVER top of it. I actually had to alt-tab out of the game to close it because there was no other way to.

I've also had Windows stop me on boot recently to "finish setting up my PC" which was just to ask me to switch to Edge and Bing and to subscribe to Office 365...

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