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Microsoft is using malware-like pop-ups in Win11 to get people to ditch Chrome

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211–220 of 373 posts

Re: Microsoft is using malware-like pop-ups in Win11 to get people to ditch Chrome

#211

"You might argue that this is Microsoft’s operating system, or that when using Microsoft’s browser and search engine it’s well within its rights to try and sway people away from Chrome." "Microsoft’s behaviors here are totally beyond a simple webpage prompt. I shouldn’t have to be dismissing pop-ups that appear on top of my apps and games, or ones that magically appear after I update my copy of Windows." Windows 11 i…

What should Windows 11 users do to let Microsoft know that such behaviors are intrusive and offensive? Downgrade to Windows 10. If enough users did this, they might realise that people still want to use Windows, but without the user-hostility, so will be more incentivised to change things back to how they were instead of just squeezing harder on what remains of their userbase.

Psh. Microsoft will just force-upgrade those computers back to Windows 11.

Re: Microsoft is using malware-like pop-ups in Win11 to get people to ditch Chrome

#213
post #60

Microsoft really needs to take a real hard look at Windows and figure out what its place is in the world. I know very few people outside of gamers that have a full computer outside of one given for work. This is one of the many reasons that my windows computer is solely for gaming (and I use a debloated Windows 10 LTS install) and never has anything sensitive on it. Any general computing tasks happen on my Mac. I wou…

> Microsoft really needs to take a real hard look at Windows and figure out what its place is in the world.

I wish it would just quietly die in a corner.

As a developer Windows has brought us such highlights as:

* backslash instead of forward slash

* magic paths with drive letters, spaces, and tildas (for you kids, that 8.3 DOS compatible path names)

* its own custom C/C++ project format rather than make, that accidentally gave birth to CMake

* VBA, and all associated viruses

* exclusive file locks

I can't be bothered to go on, but the man-hours/years/decades/centuries spent on making code work on Linux and Windows is spectacular.

Re: Microsoft is using malware-like pop-ups in Win11 to get people to ditch Chrome

#214
post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with PC hardware is that yes, there's more choice, but it's all mostly bad. Nobody other than Apple manages to put a decent and reliable trackpad on their machines for example, and all PC laptops I've used have at times gotten really loud. If you're okay with non-Windows OSes, hardware choice is the main reason to pick Apple machines. Also, Linux is coming along rather well on Apple Silicon machines.

FWIW, I find current gen (starting with 8th) HP EliteBooks decent enough. They work perfectly in Linux (actually better than Windows, since for a while some bits weren't recognized...). They're quiet unless I'm compiling something (if I don't use Windows, which for some reasons gets the fan spinning even when it's supposed to be asleep). The trackpad is good, even though it's worse than my 2013 MBP's. The main issue…

Just to add a data point, the HP ElitBooks have been my replacement for ThinkPads. I find the to be a good replacement. I've been running Redhat on an HP elitebook 840 g6, which Ive had for about a year now, and I've been very happy with it. The trackpad is mostly good, not great, but I'm more of a nub guy and that works perfectly.

Re: Microsoft is using malware-like pop-ups in Win11 to get people to ditch Chrome

#215

I did ditch Chrome. I also ditched Windows. Been using Linux and Firefox as my daily driver for 5 years or so now without any problem. Windows 10 was another nail in the coffin. Windows 11 was the final nail. Trying really hard to figure out what I miss, probably Visual Studio IDE (not Code), but that's it. I'm not even sure if MS even care any more. They have multi-billion dollar "pillars" of Office, XBox, Azure, et…

Fedora Linux, Firefox, Jetbrains IDE's and terminal is enough for me :)

Re: Microsoft is using malware-like pop-ups in Win11 to get people to ditch Chrome

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equivalent hardware. $500 does not buy you a Mac Air level laptop. And I am talking about power users, not the hypothetical grandma. Although grandma is ALSO better served by a Macbook.

Regarding hardware for grandma, you misspelled iPad.

Correct, grandma should use an iPad. Big screen, big fonts, plays Wordle, does Facetime, doesn't even have a terminal.

I love my iPad for video and games like chess. Even some people who draw like theirs for that.

Re: Microsoft is using malware-like pop-ups in Win11 to get people to ditch Chrome

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it was a Microsoft Rewards promotion. Something I don’t recall opting into. https://promos.microsoftrewards.com/US/en/SS/88/rules Edit: Chrome isn’t even installed, I use Firefox.

Yeah Microsoft Rewards is super annoying, and I'm not sure who even actually engages with it. But if you want to use windows you can remove MS rewards from your account and the notifications stop [1]. [1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/how-to-opt-out-of-...

IMO "you can turn that off" is absolutely not an acceptable answer to this stuff. It's my computer and it shouldn't be doing anything that I didn't specifically tell it to do. And that's not even to mention how often these setting are reset, or new "settings" added

Re: Microsoft is using malware-like pop-ups in Win11 to get people to ditch Chrome

#218

as someone who is now fully accustomed to using an ubuntu derivative for my machine, i find this absurd but at the same time, fitting. one of the most fascinating ideas that got ingrained in the last 50 years was the idea that TV HAD commercials. a 30 minute show would be only 22 minutes while 8 would be reserved for ADS. since the ads were part of the programming, there was no other alternative but to sit through th…

> I'd say apple too because i recently after a long time tried an apple device and the music app was pushing HARD to get the music + or something. Plus, app store now has ADS. on a thousand dollar phone. in a first party app. I wonder if this is a regional thing. On my old iphone, I've had a few "try music+" or whatever it's called a few times when it came out. Then, on my new iphone, it even sent notifications to tr…

>you're entitled to 3 free months with your new phone"

something similar but i don't remember exactly what it was.

on my android, google tries to push hard for "enable play protect". every often on an app update or app install it tries to convince me to press accept. i refuse but they dont refuse to keep trying.

same for other google apps like phone or messages. they want me to opt in for sharing of data.

Re: Microsoft is using malware-like pop-ups in Win11 to get people to ditch Chrome

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately Linux is still far from ready. It's awesome that it can run Steam games quite seamlessly, and it can even run non-Steam games if you fiddle around a bit and find the magic incantations. But - I tried using it for things like GoG, and quickly found out that there is actually no way of running GOG on Linux, even with Proton/Wine, unless maybe if I go and install a bunch of other 3rd parties. Not to mentio…

"GoG" what is that? > Unfortunately Linux is still far from ready. Depends on person. I use it for over decade, exclusively for few years since my Windows install bricked itself and recovery partition few years ago (and I discovered that I have no idea how I should reinstall Windows)

I'm referring to GOG Galaxy, the Good Old Games game launcher. It's an app similar to Steam, which allows you to install and update your GOG games, get achievements, sync saves etc.

Re: Microsoft is using malware-like pop-ups in Win11 to get people to ditch Chrome

#220
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good Old Games. It's a game store, like Steam. Used to be for old games hence the name.

> quickly found out that there is actually no way of running GOG on Linux But GoG is a website, not an application. The games they've ported/adapted to Linux work great, at least for me. I've never had the slightest trouble.

Clarified in another reply, I was referring to GOG Galaxy, the launcher that you would use to keep those games up to date, sync saves across systems etc.
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