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Microsoft’s new Windows prompts try to stop people downloading Chrome

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Re: Microsoft’s new Windows prompts try to stop people downloading Chrome

#171

Post by klodolph »

helmholtz wrote: post #146
kgwxd wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows releases always alternates between horrible and good enough. 11 will fester on some machines for a while like 8, Vista and ME did. Enterprise will stick to 10, and anyone who cares enough to fight dark patterns every time Windows update runs. 12 will likely be good enough for everyone to upgrade. 14 (they'll skip #13) will be garbo, 15 will be ok. Sun goes up, sun goes down.

Windows 10 was a horrible release. With the passage of time, it has become just about usable (although not really in my opinion). When it came out, though, it had an immense amount of bloatware (candy crush), idiotic auto-updating, sample-your-DNA levels of spyware, Cortana rubbish, identical settings in two places, and a whole host of other unpleasantness. All for what, the dark theme? I fucking despised Windows 10.…

IMO Vista was better than people give it credit for. ME and 8 were the truly bad releases (I used both, ME is super unstable and 8’s UI is a total mess).

Re: Microsoft’s new Windows prompts try to stop people downloading Chrome

#172

Post by the_duke »

mistrial9 wrote: post #137
loudtieblahblah wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i just don't see the point, from a consumer perspective, in all the major players fighting over who's version of Chromium is the most preferred. I get why the company's care - i just don't get why anyone else does. Firefox, for all it's modern faults, is the only browser that's actually different in any substantial way.

> Firefox, for all it's modern faults, is the only browser that's actually different in any substantial way. as a casual reader, I know this is false.. several HUGE efforts, have failed to gain the eyeballs of readers . repeating that there is only one choice, is not useful or constructive right?

Which efforts would that be?

Pretty much every other browser is based on Chromium. Some very niche ones on webkit.

Re: Microsoft’s new Windows prompts try to stop people downloading Chrome

#173

Post by technobabbler »

mmastrac wrote: post #155
technobabbler wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Firefox, for all it's modern faults, is the only browser that's actually different in any substantial way. That's the thing. I don't WANT a browser that's actually different. The web is a duopoly between Apple and Google, and everything else is a second-class citizen. The era of an "open" web came and went, passing us by as capitalism took over. Firefox offers no meaningful freedom when all the content it's suppose…

This comment reads like you've never lived through a browser monopoly. Sure it's great now, but do you think Google will work as hard and dedicate as much budget if there are two or even worse - just one - viable browser?

Frankly I do miss the IE6 days, when everything just mostly worked. NetCaptor, an IE-based browser using Trident to render pages, had its own ad blocker, tabbed browsing, quicksearch, etc. -- most of the best features of Chrome -- without all the compatibility issues of the browser wars.

Disabling ActiveX and Java (not Javascript) and having Just One Browser made for a remarkably clean and simple experience, the likes of which we haven't seen since.

For all the modern innovations, I don't think the fundamental premise of the web has changed all that much -- hyperlinks, text, and media -- but the user and developer experience has gotten a lot, lot worse over time as more and more money competed for eyeballs.

Edit: As for "work as hard and dedicate as much budget"... I hope they don't! A circa-2000s feature freeze on web browsers would be wonderful. Stop "innovating", i.e., creating trash features that only help huge enterprises selling trash advertising. The web doesn't need to be this complex; we're feature-rich and content-poor as it is. What started as a network for academics and info sharing ended up being a marketer's wet dream and a nightmare for everyone else.

Re: Microsoft’s new Windows prompts try to stop people downloading Chrome

#174

Post by musicale »

manbart wrote: post #117
annoyingnoob wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience with 11 is that is just like 10 but with bad UI changes. 11 is stable and runs everything I need. I think 11 is more about changing hardware requirements, requiring a TPM. The UI garbage seems more like an opportunity to try new things, they'll figure out that people don't like these new things.

Yes, the UI is why I’m not planning on upgrading. I prefer the square windows of 10 to the knock-off MacOS theme that is 11. If I wanted MacOS I would be running it

Knockoff macOS theme? I'm in.

Re: Microsoft’s new Windows prompts try to stop people downloading Chrome

#175

Post by Causality1 »

kgwxd wrote: post #64
0x_rs wrote: post #30

I heard some people having a decent time with Edge in the past with some features implementations. Not that I would use it myself, but I'm firmly convinced these childish plays only ruin whatever good work was done on it. Who on Earth would continue using a browser that has such hostile behavior and dark patterns all over the place e.g., buy-now-pay-later at browser level? It's so hard to trust Microsoft anyway, I'm…

Windows releases always alternates between horrible and good enough. 11 will fester on some machines for a while like 8, Vista and ME did. Enterprise will stick to 10, and anyone who cares enough to fight dark patterns every time Windows update runs. 12 will likely be good enough for everyone to upgrade. 14 (they'll skip #13) will be garbo, 15 will be ok. Sun goes up, sun goes down.

I'm convinced there's an alternate universe where Windows 9 brought all the improvements of Windows 10 without treating the user like a contemptible moron.

Re: Microsoft’s new Windows prompts try to stop people downloading Chrome

#176

Post by Causality1 »

klodolph wrote: post #171
helmholtz wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows 10 was a horrible release. With the passage of time, it has become just about usable (although not really in my opinion). When it came out, though, it had an immense amount of bloatware (candy crush), idiotic auto-updating, sample-your-DNA levels of spyware, Cortana rubbish, identical settings in two places, and a whole host of other unpleasantness. All for what, the dark theme? I fucking despised Windows 10.…

IMO Vista was better than people give it credit for. ME and 8 were the truly bad releases (I used both, ME is super unstable and 8’s UI is a total mess).

Vista was fine except for all the OEMs installing it on $300 Office Depot shitboxes. I still miss being able to have My Computer as a menu across the top of my desktop.

Re: Microsoft’s new Windows prompts try to stop people downloading Chrome

#177

Post by majkinetor »

easton wrote: post #145
dotancohen wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see. That's why my comment was worded so carefully: though I'm sure one _could_ install chocolatey from the Windows CLI, a tiny minority ever would do so. But that's for introducing me to the iwr command. I don't use Windows often, but it's good to know what tools are available in the rare instances that I need to. Now I need a mnemonic to remember it... "I Want Real (curl)"

C:\Windows\System32\curl.exe exists if you want real curl. (or just run curl from a command prompt. curl in powershell is an alias for iwr.

Its 5 years outdated tho, better use this, always up to date:

https://community.chocolatey.org/packages/curl

Re: Microsoft’s new Windows prompts try to stop people downloading Chrome

#178

Post by dralley »

technobabbler wrote: post #168
jefftk wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mozilla ... has introduced a lot more dark patterns than Chrome has What are you referring to?

Stuff like this (not my post): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29416956 I just remember that every time I reopen Firefox (to test it for something), some new annoying thing like Pocket or some other trendy extension I didn't ask for has suddenly appeared. And it's always bugging me with CHECK OUT WHAT WE ADDED popups. I don't CARE about your new features, just let me browse the web and stay outta the way, damn i…

All of this combined is still less "dark" than Chrome automatically combining Chrome logins with standard Google accounts, and logging you into the browser account whenever you log into your Google account.

To say nothing of things like FLoC, new web APIs that just so happen to be excellent ways to track you, neutering ad blockers, AMP integration, and so on.

Re: Microsoft’s new Windows prompts try to stop people downloading Chrome

#179

Post by belorn »

0x_rs wrote: post #30

I heard some people having a decent time with Edge in the past with some features implementations. Not that I would use it myself, but I'm firmly convinced these childish plays only ruin whatever good work was done on it. Who on Earth would continue using a browser that has such hostile behavior and dark patterns all over the place e.g., buy-now-pay-later at browser level? It's so hard to trust Microsoft anyway, I'm…

> Who on Earth would continue using a browser that has such hostile behavior and dark patterns all over the place

Every kind of technology today has clear and visible dark patterns. In the past it was advertisement everywhere and now it is user-hostile design. See any discussion about smart tv, subscription services, webshops, smart devices, phones, apps or any other technology topics and the issue of dark patterns will pop up. It is a race to the bottom, and I can see the rationale by Microsoft. They are doing the same thing as google is, just a slight step further.

If people switch to Apple then third-party browser must use iOS WebKit framework, and reportedly have their performance limited to make safari better in comparison. They could go linux but then people complain about a lack of polish and compatibility with programs/hardware that they use and so return back to either windows or mac.

As a person who have been working with computers for my whole life and used to be quite excited by new technology, it is quite often that I get tempted to become a farmer and leave behind the dark world of technology.

Re: Microsoft’s new Windows prompts try to stop people downloading Chrome

#180

Post by authed »

the_duke wrote: post #172
mistrial9 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Firefox, for all it's modern faults, is the only browser that's actually different in any substantial way. as a casual reader, I know this is false.. several HUGE efforts, have failed to gain the eyeballs of readers . repeating that there is only one choice, is not useful or constructive right?

Which efforts would that be? Pretty much every other browser is based on Chromium. Some very niche ones on webkit.

I don't think that Otter Browser is based on Chromium.
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