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

#361

Post by selfhoster11 » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 11:16 PM UTC

rob74 wrote: post #46

tapoxi wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"requiring a newer PC" is a bit of an understatement - Windows 11 is the first version that will actively refuse to run unless the hardware meets its "compatibility" requirements, and from what I heard, it's quite picky...

Older Windows versions required a particular amount of RAM to install, which was a check that could be disabled from the install media. That said, I do agree that Windows 11 is on a new level when it comes to this.

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

#362

Post by selfhoster11 » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 11:19 PM UTC

passivate wrote: post #214

0x0nyandesu wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every windows since 7 has been a train wreck by my standards. The amount of times I've had a system update just clear my windows profile is objectively abysmal and yet every HN thread someone will go and defend them. No one cares about HDR. How about some decent data retention? I get better frame rates in Linux running wine than I do in windows 10 since the 2020 updates.

People defend Windows because they don't have the same experience as you. I don't either. Windows is a rock solid OS that I use at work and it just works. For instance, the machine I'm typing this on has a 250 day uptime, my second W10 box next to it has a 460 day uptime. I use them every day to get stuff done. I work in biotech, not in s/w dev land, and my computer is IT managed (so maybe they're doing something spe…

My one guilty pleasure as a Linux user, was using my work laptop that was managed by the IT team. It was the only way I could ever use Windows 10 and describe the experience as "pleasant". I guess the almost complete lack of forced reboots/update installations and stupid junk on the default install contributed to the experience.

I still used a Start Menu replacer. That was one thing I wouldn't want to give up.

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

#363

Post by selfhoster11 » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 11:19 PM UTC

minimaul wrote: post #236

klodolph wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ran positively well on decent hardware. On a relatively recent (at the time) processor and ideally more than 1GB of RAM and it was absolutely fine. It's reputation for instability was heavily due to early NVIDIA WDDM drivers being utterly crashtastic - this is something that did eventually get resolved. At the time I had an ATI card and it was perfectly stable.

It was teeth-grindingly bad even on 2GB of RAM.

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

#364

Post by selfhoster11 » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 11:20 PM UTC

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).

No, it wasn't. At least in my experience, Vista with 2 GB of RAM was dog slow on a mechanical hard drive. So slow, that I eventually replaced it with Linux and got my start into Linux in the first place.

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

#365

Post by selfhoster11 » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 11:21 PM UTC

ynx wrote: post #333

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.…

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.

I don't care how they technically implement the icons. It's my start menu, and not their billboard. If they want ad space, they better set up a monthly payment to my account.

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

#366

Post by dogma1138 » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 11:22 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #280

r00fus wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> macOS only runs on very expensive hardware and doesn't run most programs people need (because the business world is still Windows oriented) This is an outdated take - it's functionally untrue in most business settings. Gaming on the other hand, is very much still mostly Windows only.

functionally untrue in most business settings Most business settings have some absolutely critical custom software written in Winforms or something that can't be ported, plus an entire machine of IT personnel and software tools that would be just as costly to convert.

Microsoft somewhat already did the work needed to migrate of windows by making Active Directory and Group Policy irrelevant.

With office 365 and intune you can essentially have the same control as traditional AD joined machines actually Intune probably has better management than GPO these days.

The only thing that is still missing for corpo is Intune for Linux and even that isn’t 100% required as long as there will be Intune for Edge on Linux, once you can manage the browser the majority of the controls the organization needs are handled.

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

#367

Post by selfhoster11 » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 11:26 PM UTC

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.

IMO it all went down the toilet with 10 and I don't see the next "good" release ever happening again.

8 and 8.1 were the last death throes of decent design, and then they started making a mess of everything in Windows 10. Not only didn't they reverse it with Windows 11, they doubled down on it when they had a perfect chance to rebrand with a "back to the classics" comeback to Windows 7-like UI without backlash.

Their trajectory is locked in. Barring a miracle and re-prioritising on their users, "good" Windows releases are dead forever. Looking forward to the LGR Retrospective on "Windows 7, the last good version of Windows" in about 10 years time.

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

#368

Post by selfhoster11 » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 11:29 PM UTC

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?

I lived through the tail-end of the Internet Explorer monopoly, and tried to push Firefox with those willing to try it. I don't want an IE 2021 in the form of Chrome with a broken web for other clients.

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

#369

Post by jeroenhd » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 11:37 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…

My problem with Linux for end users is that Windows and Linux break down differently.

When a Linux update fails (which can happen automatically; for example, Ubuntu 16 reserved a very small boot partition and upgrading it to the latest version leaves it with too little space to keep the normal amount of kernels available), you end up digging through files and configuration and terminal commands. This is different from Windows where you have four buttons to click, and if all of those fail, you either reinstall the entire OS or reverse engineer Microsoft's logic and directory structures.

When Windows fails, the OS usually detects the issue and reverts all the work. Their self repair is excellent. Sure, Windows Update may be broken for a while and the forced restarts make the whole process annoying, but the system still works.

Linux can easily leave the system unbootable while Windows has the necessary recovery options. Boot recovery and System Restore are some features that definitely improve Windows' stability. Timeshift with a CoW filesystem and some GRUB hooks can somewhat replicate the effect, but I haven't seen any distros enable all of those by default yet.

For example: I enabled encryption in the installers of both Ubuntu and Manjaro and hibernation simply didn't work. I managed to make it work with some config tweaks on both, but out of the box my laptop simply shut down and lost all of my work when the battery got low. My laptop also had no sound, stuttery video and no working microphone because of missing drivers for Nvidia, Intel and Realtek chips. Udev rules broke sound every time I unplugged my HDMI drive or let it go to sleep.

Windows sometimes breaks down because of shitty drivers, but I've never seen it happen this severely.

This was probably all related to the manufacturer's decisions about board configuration, drivers, and other proprietary crap, but the end user doesn't care whose fault that is and neither should they.

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

#370

Post by tehbeard » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 11:41 PM UTC

LegitShady wrote: post #166

tehbeard wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just accept that 10 is buggy at this point and have no desire for an even buggier/jankier 11. Current bugs: - every MS app store app has the windows image preview program icon, despite following every guide I could find to fix this. - sometimes WiFi just dies, and won't come back until I disable the card, full reboot, then enable it (Intel 6 chipset AFAIK, so not some noname brand) - explorer randomly dies when swi…

>- explorer randomly dies when switching virtual desktops and then comes back. I've had this one 3 machines now and I've no clue why. Were you using an Nvidia graphics card and did you right click on the left box of explorer where the quick access toolbar is? This is a common issue with Nvidias context menu in that situation.

Nvidia card....not sure about the rest, this has happened with the shortcuts at least.