mandatory "give fedora a try" post
install gentoo
Windows 10 nagging users with Bing advertisements (push alerts)
181–190 of 231 posts
Re: Windows 10 nagging users with Bing advertisements (push alerts)
#182I'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
When Microsoft updates Windows 10, they try to get you to sign in to a Microsoft account and present the options "Continue" and "Remind me in 3 days". No, Microsoft, how about "no"? Or "fuck off"?
I remember when I wanted to build cool things on windows because this kinda stuff didn't happen.
Re: Windows 10 nagging users with Bing advertisements (push alerts)
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google really started this though. And they didn’t use anti competitive advertising practices to kill IE, they used them to kill Firefox.
> Google really started this though. I guess you must be young enough to not remember when Google didn’t exist. The anti-trust trial against Microsoft being referred to above began several months before Google was founded. The FTC inquiries into whether MS was abusing a monopoly position with IE began before Sergey Brin even started at Stanford. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...
No I remember that, I was referring to the browser war happening now. The old IE days aren’t even relevant to what’s happening now though. Except maybe to show that the only reason Microsoft even had to fight that case in the first place is that they weren’t lobbying the government as much as they “should” have.
Re: Windows 10 nagging users with Bing advertisements (push alerts)
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
In the cases where you aren’t necessarily trying to profit from it directly but rather provide a platform that ultimately makes you more money. Or really for any case where you aren’t selling the software, because you’re able to reduce the cost of development and maintenance.
Re: Windows 10 nagging users with Bing advertisements (push alerts)
#18510 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.
On Android I turned off the «play protect» because I'm sure what I'm doing, and every time I try to install something it asks me if I want to enable Play Protect™ with no way to turn off their reminders.
Also, some of my apps have some play store popups asking me if I want to update the app every time there's a new version, even though I explicitly turned off auto updates and update notifications, again, with no way to turn off their friendly reminders.
I hate modern «you better do what we think you should be doing» software.
I'm happy that I have LTSC version of Windows that just works and doesn't have those popups (but Windows Defender still has some annoying notifications that can't be disabled AFAIK).
Recently, Whatsapp forced me to update it because it refused to work if I don't. Meanwhile, there are open source IM clients that were made 10+ years ago and still work without any updates just fine. I wish all software was like that.
Re: Windows 10 nagging users with Bing advertisements (push alerts)
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
The OS is basically a website now.
website plus gaming, a web game.
My Windows 10 Settings app has a "Rewards" icon. After opening 100 tabs with the Firefox container you get an achievement. On Xbox they have a rewards system for just using your console, like start a few different games.
In the future, the OS will have personalized ads everywhere, "hey buy your favorite cookie now!" inside Outlook, combined with achievements for using it correctly, "Two more emails for Master of Email!"
And of course social interaction, "Ann just saved the file annual report. Do you want to like and share?"
You also have to buy usage time with gold coins or wait 24 hours.
Re: Windows 10 nagging users with Bing advertisements (push alerts)
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. Neither my Mac nor my Linux pop up ads or promotions out of the blue during normal operation. So your statement that everyone does it is simply false.
Maybe if you already use the things that they are pushing on you, you won't notice anything. But every time I've updated my work laptop Apple have tried to make me opt-in to Siri after restarting with the new update -- they even add the obnoxious Siri button back to the touch bar even though I've removed it several times.
But for example, I set my default browser to Firefox once, and macOS has never nagged me about Safari since then. That's a difference isn't it?
Re: Windows 10 nagging users with Bing advertisements (push alerts)
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
Game support is unparalleled, probably (partly) because you can use 10-20 year old design primitives and fully expect it to work on Windows for the foreseeable future (well, ARM desktop machines might be coming, so we'll see if that causes some pain in the industry).
Wine/Proton handles all that these days.
Not quite. Multi-player games with anti-cheat has a serious problem running on Proton.
Re: Windows 10 nagging users with Bing advertisements (push alerts)
#18910 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…
I don't get the hate towards Corporate Memphis. I'm not sure what would be better instead; a stock photo seems just as bad. To me the problem isn't in what the ad looks like, but that the ad is there. I also don't like that the ad is shown to a particular group of people, i.e. ones who aren't doing what lies in the company's best interests.
I think it's just the fact that it reeks of the kind of focus-grouped design language where all the edges have been rounded off so that it can't possibly be objectionable to anyone. When you pair this with poor corporate citizenship like this, it just creates a bizarre dissonance between a company which is trying to project a warm and human aesthetic, while they are mistreating users with their actual actions.
But at the end of the day, I don't think it's Corporate Memphis' fault - it just happens to be the design aesthetic which is often paired with this kind of shitty behavior which nobody likes. If somebody is constantly feeding you bitter medicine on a silver spoon every day, you might grow to hate the spoon.
Re: Windows 10 nagging users with Bing advertisements (push alerts)
#190The ways Microsoft wants to trick users into using edge, using all sorts of dark-patterns, has rapidly increased with the launch of chromium edge. Opening Edge on startup, asking in Windows update-screens, putting Edge on the desktop and taskbar, asking to change to Edge when clicking on links, dissuading users when searching for browsers on bing, advertising Edge in the start-menu, it goes on... Chromium Edge is bri…
I kinda get it. MS is looking at other tech companies that do this without any backlash and keeps wondering why they are singled out. If you ignore their history it is not a completely meritless line of thought. Why shouldn't they try if evey other company gets away woth it?
Maybe because it's an operating system you pay for, and it's more aggressive than competitors.
> MS is looking at other tech companies that do this without any backlash and keeps wondering why they are singled out ... Why shouldn't they try if evey other company gets away woth it?
Since when is MS late to the party on this one? They lost a huge anti-trust action for privileging their own browser decades ago. If anything MS invented this.
on a side note, it does not make sense to anthropomorphize a corporation, and a corporation does not deserve consideration on fairness grounds.