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Microsoft plugging more ads into Windows 11 Start Menu

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Re: Microsoft plugging more ads into Windows 11 Start Menu

#41

Post by Night_Thastus »

esperent wrote: post #25
Night_Thastus wrote: post #9

To anyone who hasn't I highly encourage setting up PiHole. Great for reducing the severity of these sorts of things, and helps to sanitize and clean up your internet. Don't need to buy a Pi either, it can run on a laptop or desktop just fine. It's great for catching anything that can't be by an in-browser adblocker, like in the OS or on other devices.

How does a pihole compare to NextDNS? I know you can set custom lists in a pihole, are there any other differences? NextDNS is very easy to set up. Pihole always feels like it'll be yet another thing to manage.

I have no experience with NextDNS, but with PiHole I can say it has been very "set and forget". Logged into the router, set the DNS server IP. Then into Windows to disable IPv6. Now it just runs in the background quietly for years. It can be set up to do updates automatically as well if desired.

I have occasionally disabled it, thinking it may have been the cause of some internet trouble, but so far that's never been true.

Re: Microsoft plugging more ads into Windows 11 Start Menu

#42

Post by wlesieutre »

mschuster91 wrote: post #35
wlesieutre wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple’s products aren’t perfect at this either, but they’re at least much easier to control. You basically just have to disable notification permission for TV. News is spammy also, but not strictly advertising Apple’s junk, it’s just regular attention spam. Meanwhile in the App Store guidelines: > 4.5.4 Push Notifications must not be required for the app to function, and should not be used to send sensitive personal…

> Not a great look, and it tells you that Apple is willing to compromise on their principles to make a buck. I think they're holding a good balance here. For example, I do enjoy an alert from the burger slinger down the road when they put up a sale - but I had the choice between opting in or not. Meanwhile, on Android you don't have the choice, all you can do is mute notifications from that app in the future (and los…

If TV wanted to send notifications for new things that I have access to, that could be helpful. Like the “New music from artists you follow” that Music does. Sending notifications for things that require you to sign up for a subscription is unsolicited marketing and I’d rather they didn’t spam notifications for that, in accordance with the policies that they make everyone else on their platform follow.

One thing I wish Apple would copy from Android is having apps categorize their different types of notifications and let you turn them on and off individually. And then enforce that in the App Store review. I don’t need Uber to send me Uber Eats offers, but I don’t want to block useful notifications by turning all of them off.

They recently added a “time sensitive” categorization that you can let break through Focus Mode rules, but IMO that’s not granular enough.

https://developer.android.com/develop/ui/views/notifications...

Re: Microsoft plugging more ads into Windows 11 Start Menu

#43

Post by AraceliHarker »

If you've been following Windows 11 since the first leaks, you'll know that during beta testing, a glitch on the server side that Microsoft used to deliver ads to Windows made the shell unresponsive. Ads in Windows 11 aren't just an eyesore, they're also a source of glitches.

Re: Microsoft plugging more ads into Windows 11 Start Menu

#44

Post by beembeem »

duffyjp wrote: post #33
beembeem wrote: post #14

I am not upgrading from Windows 10. These newer releases are turning the OS into an ad-serving platform, which is unfortunate because the user is essentially paying for the OS. Microsoft is trying to have its cake and eat it too. If I'm paying for the product, I don't expect to be flooded with ads.

I've literally never touched a single PC running Windows 11. I've normally been an early adopter-- I even used Windows 8.0 and 8.1 but I just have zero interest in Windows 11. I earn my living on a Mac, do my photography hobby on a Mac-- Windows exists (for me) only for games, and Linux is closer to parity every day.

It's unfortunate, because there are some improvements like WSA (Windows Subsystem for Android) [1] that I think are a big step in the right direction. The problem is the OS is becoming user-hostile in order to squeeze every last penny out of users. On a paid product (when there are an entire universe of free software), what is the point of paying for ads?

[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/android/wsa/

Re: Microsoft plugging more ads into Windows 11 Start Menu

#45

Post by quenix »

Marsymars wrote: post #37
dustedcodes wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ads in the core user interface in iOS I have never seen any ads anywhere in iOS. I'm utterly confused by this comment?

I consider the App Store in iOS part of the core user interface. (As mentioned in my top-level comment, apps can't be installed or manually updated without using the App Store.) See https://www.macrumors.com/2022/10/22/apple-announces-more-ap...

That seems a bit unreasonable

1. The App Store is not a "core UI element";

2. Even if it was, it's reasonable to see ads in a _store_. It's somewhere you go specifically in order to buy things and see companies' offerings. It's in the name -- a store. Like others have pointed out, no other portions of the OOB experience have ads.

Re: Microsoft plugging more ads into Windows 11 Start Menu

#46

Post by orev »

Marsymars wrote: post #37
dustedcodes wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ads in the core user interface in iOS I have never seen any ads anywhere in iOS. I'm utterly confused by this comment?

I consider the App Store in iOS part of the core user interface. (As mentioned in my top-level comment, apps can't be installed or manually updated without using the App Store.) See https://www.macrumors.com/2022/10/22/apple-announces-more-ap...

You don’t get to change the definition of words just because it fits your argument better. App Store is not the core user interface , it’s a separate app. There’s no reason to go into the iOS App Store unless you want to install something new. Updates are installed automatically so you never need to see those ads. Core user interface would be things like the Home Screen, Settings icon, etc. (and yes, the badges in Settings do qualify as ads and that would have been a stronger argument). You could also argue about all the fake apps in the store, etc., but again that’s not part of the core OS, which is the topic here.

There are certainly things to complain about on iOS, but in this case you’re just inventing a non-issue.

Re: Microsoft plugging more ads into Windows 11 Start Menu

#47

Post by belltaco »

websap wrote: post #15

It's outrageous that once a great OS builder, is now resorting to pushing it's subscription services through it's OS. Imagine MacOS and iOS showing in menu ads, I hope Apple never stoops to this level.

Mac OS is already there and arguably worse. It shows a fake red notification to make you sign into iCloud and doesn't go away till you do.

https://i.stack.imgur.com/OqNzj.png

Re: Microsoft plugging more ads into Windows 11 Start Menu

#48

Post by Marsymars »

quenix wrote: post #45
Marsymars wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider the App Store in iOS part of the core user interface. (As mentioned in my top-level comment, apps can't be installed or manually updated without using the App Store.) See https://www.macrumors.com/2022/10/22/apple-announces-more-ap...

That seems a bit unreasonable 1. The App Store is not a "core UI element"; 2. Even if it was, it's reasonable to see ads in a _store_. It's somewhere you go specifically in order to buy things and see companies' offerings. It's in the name -- a store . Like others have pointed out, no other portions of the OOB experience have ads.

Those points are both matters of opinion, with which I do not agree.

(The first one doesn't particularly matter, because I'm forced to use the iOS App Store regardless of how you classify it, the second of which I forcefully disagree with - I am opposed to any ads that I cannot opt out of seeing. I don't go to the store to see ads, I go to download exactly the apps I want, and to update apps I already have installed - in both of those situations ads are unavoidable.)

(And other portions of the OOB experience do have ads - as noted in my link, both the News and Stock apps, although I don't use either. And apparently soon the Maps app if it doesn't have ads already.)

Re: Microsoft plugging more ads into Windows 11 Start Menu

#49

Post by Marsymars »

orev wrote: post #46
Marsymars wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider the App Store in iOS part of the core user interface. (As mentioned in my top-level comment, apps can't be installed or manually updated without using the App Store.) See https://www.macrumors.com/2022/10/22/apple-announces-more-ap...

You don’t get to change the definition of words just because it fits your argument better. App Store is not the core user interface , it’s a separate app. There’s no reason to go into the iOS App Store unless you want to install something new. Updates are installed automatically so you never need to see those ads. Core user interface would be things like the Home Screen, Settings icon, etc. (and yes, the badges in Se…

I find this response kind of puzzling. I'm telling you about my subjective use of iOS. As far as I'm concerned, the App Store is a core part of iOS. iOS isn't a useful OS without the App Store. I can't install apps or manually update them without seeing ads. It's not really a matter of definitions, it's simply a matter of how I use iOS.

I've prefaced all my comments on this subject by pointing out that I'm describing my experience. And in my experience, despite my best effort to avoid ads, I'm forced to see more (and lower quality) ads on iOS than I am on Windows.

Re: Microsoft plugging more ads into Windows 11 Start Menu

#50

Post by oh_nice_marmot »

spicyusername wrote: post #10

The only reason I use Windows in 2023 is for video gaming. Every other non-gaming PC I own is running Linux. Windows has become inferior to Linux in every other way. More upgrade headaches, worse resource utilization, worse desktop environment, more crashes, data collection, and now embedded ads. These technology companies have really demonstrated over the past few decades that they are unable to maintain reliable pr…

Beginning with the XP I became a heavy Windows user until version 7. Those releases were the heyday for Windows IMO. But since 8 and, worse of all, 11 I ditched it altogether and none of the computing devices in the house run Windows.

This is all to say that my main gaming rig runs Ubuntu 22.04 LTS with Gnome, heavily tweaked, to look and behave like MacOS and.... Its a dream.

Heck, in fact I like it so much that I prefer it to MacOS in every possible way. The only issue is, still, the lack of Adobe support.

And that is why I still have an Apple machine.

Give it a try. You will be surprised by how well so many games run.

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