191–200 of 231 posts
I use the software W10Privacy[1] to change my settings from all the nagging implemetrations. With it, you can (not) completely uninstall Edge, but restrict it so much that it no longer bothers you. This can also be used to display the internet advertisements, the "important" notices and other hints with which Windows wants to promote its not-so-good products. [1] https://www.w10privacy.de/english-home/
You'd think they'd have realised by now how counterproductive these antics are. If you need to consistently plug and annoy users to force them to use your product, they'll be deterred against it even more.
Is it possible that the reason they’re still doing it is because it works, for better or worse?
Their tests are short duration, so they measure the smaller but more immediate bump — then fail to notice long term user disengagement.
It’s common for A/B testing to “switchback” downhill like that: recording mild positive signs in the short-term, highly focused trials while causing long-term diffuse damage to your brand/engagement.
Companies are datablind like that.
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Why don't you watch netflix on linux? DRM is supported there, too. Or do you want to use linux only for software you trust?
Is it? You don't get 4k netflix on Linux. just 720p. There used to be a workaround to use an extension to change your user agent and then a later one to swap out some player JS but pretty sure both have been broken since late last year.
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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.
I think there’s always a risk that a product like this can be set up in such a way that OSS is used mainly as an advertising feature, and essential features can be gradually moved from the open source section to proprietary code.
All I’m saying is that open source is not a panacea, and there are plenty of ways for large well resourced entities to abuse it
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 l…
For instance, VSCodium is not available as a native download for M1 processors because GitHub Actions don’t support M1 yet.
Would Microsoft potentially delay supporting CI/CD for M1 because it’s not in their strategic best interest to support Mac as a development platform? It’s not out of the question to imagine this kind of thing could enter their prioritization process
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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…
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> 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.
Why do you say that? MSFT has been engaging in the same behavior for 30 years, trying to force people to use their browser by bundling the browser and default browsing behaviors into the OS. Why does this feel any different than what was happening in 1995? It seems exactly the same to me. Google brought new competition into the middle of an ongoing browser war, and they also do pushy things to nudge people toward their browser. But I don’t see the line you’re trying to draw.
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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.
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All sorts of security features in the browser only work on newer operating systems: Hardware-enforced Stack Protection: https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-chrome-this-new-feature... Significant improvements to ASLR starting in Windows 8: https://msrc-blog.microsoft.com/2013/12/11/software-defense-... And many more things. New Windows releases aren't just coats of paint.
I would not have thought the improvements would have been that significant (I'm old and ignorant). HeSP is dependent on the cpu? (article noting intel gen 11 and amd ryzen 3 are needed) and ASLR still being implemented on Win7 with http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2639308 We still have to keep a couple winxp and nt boxes alive at work for diagnostic gear (none are online). Thankfully not my job as I am obviously a ris…