Microsoft’s new Windows prompts try to stop people downloading Chrome • Hacker News Board

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

#331

Post by kitsunesoba » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 8:36 PM UTC

technobabbler wrote: post #152

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. 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…

My biggest gripe with Chrome isn’t so much its tracking (though that’s not great either) but rather that for Google, efficiency is a ghost of an afterthought and all engineer time goes into pumping out shiny new web features to woo devs.

Only OS maintainers seem to give two hoots about efficiency… Google and Mozilla see no issue with turning your laptop into a battery destroying space heater, and the impact of Google’s part in this is outsize with every other app being built with Electron.

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

#332

Post by passivate » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 8:39 PM UTC

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #259

passivate wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with parent, most non-technical people don't want to be system admin for their OS, so MS taking over is not really a bad deal. All my computers are IT managed and I have never had any update issues, so maybe there is some special sauce there via group policy. I have instructed them to section off my work PCs so they never update unless I tell them to, and it works. I get months and months of uptime till I tak…

The special sauce is probably WSUS, which allows them to control the update process for everyone and determine which updates they get and which they don't. Additionally, the WSUS channel for updates is behind Microsoft's normal updates, which allows for them to prevent problematic updates from reaching WSUS servers in the first place. Of course, home users get none of this. I personally believe it is arrogance to say…

Your arguing against something I didn't say. You can disagree with me, but you can't put words in my mouth. I didn't say or imply "shouldn't be allowed" or anything similar.

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

#333

Post by ynx » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 8:42 PM UTC

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.…

Re: Candy Crush - technically, those icons on the start menu were served up via XML tile specifications, and it wasn't installed until you clicked.

Source: Over the years, an app I had my hand in was on one of the rotations.

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

#334

Post by tester756 » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 8:53 PM UTC

Just a friendly reminder that whenever I open gmail from Edge, then it asks me about using Chrome too

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

#335

Post by Brian_K_White » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 8:54 PM UTC

somehnguy wrote: post #264

selfhoster69 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so. Didn't a recent software update change this?

Started with iOS 14, so a little over a year ago.

the ability or the inability?

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

#336

Post by tester756 » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 8:57 PM UTC

1_player wrote: post #304

maltalex wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's has been bashed so consistently on privacy issues on mainstream media that non-techies often associate them with creepy data collection. Microsoft hasn't been in the news as much, at least not regarding privacy matters. They're often seen by the public as the solid company behind trusted products like Office and Windows.

> Google's has been bashed so consistently on privacy issues on mainstream media that non-techies often associate them with creepy data collection What? Every non-tech person I see is happily running Google Chrome and has never even considered Firefox. Hell, I think most still think Google is one of the "good guys". Non-tech people still trust Google much more than Microsoft. Microsoft is bad, but they haven't made y…

>Non-tech people still trust Google much more than Microsoft. Microsoft is bad, but they haven't made your data their core business just yet.

That's pretty interesting claim, what makes you think so?

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

#337

Post by procinct » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 9:00 PM UTC

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #329

procinct wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would imagine surely there’s a distro that is just as functional as what you’re imagining Haiku will be one day right? The main issue I find with Linux is app support but that would be worse again with Haiku. What sort of usability issues would you expect to run into with something like Mint? Btw not saying Haiku isn’t cool, it absolutely is. But I see it being a long way behind even the Linux desktop.

> I would imagine surely there’s a distro that is just as functional as what you’re imagining Haiku will be one day right? You can imagine it all you want, like most things that are pure fantasy. > The main issue I find with Linux is app support but that would be worse again with Haiku. There are other issues that I consider important. Things like how application management works, coherency of the platform, stability…

This is a pretty uncharitable interpretation of my comment. I currently don’t even use Linux on desktop (though I have in the past). Like I said, Haiku is very cool, and I love the idea behind it and Serenity, but in terms of what is closer to a useable desktop, I think it is still a while off, and will always suffer from app support (if that isn’t as important to you as it is to me that’s fine).

I do agree though that all of the Linux distros that are aimed at being minimalist aren’t simple (e.g Arch).

Though there are some like Puppy Linux which I think have quite cool ideas around it.

Please refrain from projecting whatever ideas you have around “Linux desktop people” onto me.

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

#338

Post by rnd0 » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 9:02 PM UTC

tapoxi wrote: post #37

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…

Outside of requiring a newer PC I don't think Win11 is a trainwreck at all, I was auto-upgraded to it a few weeks ago and it's been fine. Auto HDR is neat for games and there's been a UI refresh, other than that it's basically Windows 10.

I used the rufus work-around to install it, and I'm nervous that it'll die after an update for that reason.

Aside from that, and a couple of UI annoyances (the placement of the start button and the re-arrangement of the start menu) I'm happy enough with Windows 11 that it will be a bummer for me if I have to go back.

For me it's little things like the way the context menu is cleaned up -but the old one is still available, and the file manager is similarly cleaned up. I also like that WSL is better than it was on Windows 10 (running gui apps are now an option without grafting a separate and half-assed X implementation ).

So yeah, I'd say "trainwreck" is a hyperbole -especially for anyone who had to use Windows 8!

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

#339

Post by HeckFeck » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 9:17 PM UTC

npteljes wrote: post #265

fartcannon wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no darkness in the world of FOSS, it's an actual, currently functioning, computing utopian dream. Let Caeser have his awful stuff. We can all push for fun, and free computing.

I agree, I honestly feel like the FOSS world is tech's last bastion when it comes to this stuff. There's a lot of bullshit too but it's nowhere near the mass surveilled dark-pattern galore the current tech era is.

SystemD and the Gnome file picker don't look so bad now, do they?

At least Pottering isn't trying to extort loans from me when I start/stop a service.

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

#340

Post by armchairhacker » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 9:29 PM UTC

badsectoracula wrote: post #294

jeroenhd wrote: post #190

Back when Edgeium was new and just Chrome but with a lot of Google cruft removed, I actually used Edge instead of Chrome when I was on Windows. It was the same browser with some additional tweaks that I quite liked. Then Microsoft started this aggressive, disruptive push to bring it to iOS Safari's level as the only browser people should use. I don't know any good operating systems for normal people anymore. Windows…

> Linux has been making progress but still isn't a good alternative for the common user unless they have an expert to rely upon when something breaks down IME "common users" already rely on an expert when their Windows OS breaks down. Not long ago I had to walk my aunt through opening the command prompt in Windows 10 and entering the command to do a full reboot (as opposed to that hybrid shutdown+hibernation) because…

In my experience the real issue with Linux is that it’s hard to set up. Especially when you have/get an OS preinstalled with Windows, to just using Windows. And that most applications / drivers don’t support it nearly as well.

There are many many distributions. When I started Linux, I first tried Ubuntu because that was recommended to me. Ubuntu is installed with Xfce which looks and basically is clunky and outdated. Setting up WiFi was a PITA because my laptop doesn’t even have an ethernet port, and i couldn’t do much else without wifi. I had to configure some stuff via the command line because there were no settings for it, and install a new trackpad driver. Eventually I gave up Ubuntu because it was too hard to use with my trackpad.

Later on I installed Debian which IMO should be recommended. But i couldn’t properly install regular Debian. After some research I had to install “nonfree” Debian from some confusing site, because my computer needs a nonfree Wifi driver (again, no Ethernet port). Setting up Wifi was an even harder PITA.

At least Debian was usable and had good trackpad support once I set up. Plus I have to admit the graphics are way better than even macOS and Windows. It’s also very noticeably faster than macOS, running the same programs. But actually installing it wasn’t easy.