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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)

#171
post #113
post #9

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

They are supporting open source, no? Could depend on your definition of course, but still.. Anyway: the tricky point here is that the division/department/whatever which deals with that is not the same one as the management (or whatever group) pushing for these advertisements. To the point that treating Microsoft as one big untrustable entity and putting a dollar sign in its name becomes a bit weird and overly general…

>They are supporting open source, no?

Yes, definitely they are. But with strings attached, in the form of WSL.

I'm patiently waiting for the day when they will announce that some big software/service from them (Office? GUI? Outlook?) will be finally integrated into Linux, but sadly it has to be WSL to work properly/faster/better/with support, that is, Windows, and not the real thing. The next big Linux distribution, the one that every business will take as the standard to make their products (and drivers!) compatible will carry the Microsoft brand. Microsoft attempted to kill Linux in the past, and failed spectacularly, so they're now aiming at controlling it by becoming a Linux vendor, possibly the biggest one.

One doesn't become Platinum Member at the Linux Foundation just for the lulz, especially when it costs about $500000 per year. https://blog.desdelinux.net/en/microsoft-joins-the-linux-fou...

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

#172
post #166
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 re…

Because the nature of the base product being open source is that the VSCodium devs can patch out any sufficiently bad behaviour, and the risk of this becoming a fork should serve to discourage this behaviour in the first place.

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

#173

I welcome this. Because it might cannibalize some users who might gravitate away from Google to a lesser evil. I also find the Microsoft pop ups less annoying in number and invasiveness compared to iOS

What pop-ups in iOS? You won't see ad popups instigated by Apple on any iOS device to my knowledge. And for app notifications, you have complete control from the very beginning.

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

#174
post #109

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…

Ads don't have a place practically anywhere. They are annoying in the OS, and also annoying on the websites, in between movie scenes, on the side of city buildings etc either. Reminds me of the Futurama scene:

Fry : So, you're telling me they broadcast commercials into people's dreams?... But how is that possible?

Professor Farnsworth : It's very simple. The ad gets into your brain just like this liquid gets into this egg. Although in reality it's not liquid, but gamma radiation.

Fry : That's awful. It's like brainwashing.

Leela : Didn't you have ads in the 20th century?

Fry : Well, sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio, and in magazines, and movies, and at ball games, and on buses, and milk cartons, and T-shirts, and bananas, and written on the sky... But not in dreams.

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

#175

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 has been doing this for years to many users when changing their search engine, and nothing has been made. They own the legislators.

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

#177

When you pay for Windows you are the product. When you don't pay for Linux, Linux is the product. The only thing that keeps me in Windows is the VPN connection to work.

Who pays for Windows? I certainly didn't.

If you bought a computer with Windows installed, you paid for Windows.

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

#178
post #8

I'm sick of tech companies giving the only way to decline their preferred approach as "maybe later". No, I'm sure I don't want Bing or Edge next month either. If I change my mind I'm perfectly capable of finding the setting and even if I wasn't I'm sure it's only a DDG (or Bing I guess) search away to docs I'm almost certain you will have

Avast! when it needs restart has a funny "remind me next century" option.
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