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De-crufted Windows 11 coming to Europe soon

arstechnica.com

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Re: De-crufted Windows 11 coming to Europe soon

#71

Post by Zandikar »

aetherspawn wrote: post #3

Suppose you are buying a new laptop ... does anyone else feel sad that their operating system has effectively turned into some weird social media marketing tracking data harvesting hybrid of a thing? But in the name of progress and security, you can't stay on Windows 10. So for me it's this weird middle ground right now .. waiting for either Windows to U-turn, die out, or for more work apps to port to OS X.

> does anyone else feel sad that their operating system has effectively turned into some weird social media marketing tracking data harvesting hybrid of a thing?

I'm just surprised it took them this long tbh. Windows used to set the standard for enshittification. Now that they're chasing cloud-based windows, I see they're returning to form.

Re: De-crufted Windows 11 coming to Europe soon

#72

Post by dghlsakjg »

lovepronmostly wrote: post #14
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regulators didn't enforce cookie banners. Cookie banners are a form of malicious compliance. When you complain about them, you are doing the lobbying work of ad companies for free. The correct solution is to just not spy on people, and the problem is that the EU didn't go far enough and just ban the behavior altogether.

What is the limit here? If I own a store and you walk into my store am I required to forget that you came into my store? Monday: Bill: "Hey Jane (store owner), do you have any X45 hammers?" Jane: "Sorry Bill, I'm out but might have some tomorrow" Tuesday: Bill "Did hammer come in I mentioned yesterday?" Jane: "What hammer? Sorry I'm not allowed to remember anything about people in my shop because that would be spying…

The law says that you need consent for any cookies which aren't strictly necessary for the functioning of the site.

In your instance, I would have put a backordered hammer in my cart. I come back the next day to check and see if the hammer is in stock. The cookie that enables cart behavior is necessary to the functioning of an online store. No consent needed.

In the real world, this basically means that tracking and marketing cookies are what you are being asked about. They don't need to ask about much else.

The EU has a very good write-up: https://gdpr.eu/cookies/

Re: De-crufted Windows 11 coming to Europe soon

#73

Post by miki123211 »

jchw wrote: post #55
just_boost_it wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got a mac for the first time this year. Honestly, it feels like taking a shower after getting home from the beach on a sunny day when you've been wearing sunscreen. Everything just works with no extra garbage, no constant intrusive updates, no hassle. The only issue I had was the lack of alt-tab, and that was solved by an app called alt-tab.

I find macOS annoying no matter what I do. AltTab is nice, but the window management still sucks in my opinion. The security bandages used to work around traditional desktop security models makes it feel incredibly annoying to use; I'll try to set a keyboard shortcut (not a global one mind you) in iTerm2 and suddenly I need to enable iTerm2 to have accessibility access? Disabling SIP is needed for a myriad of things…

> Discord will direct you to disable SIP if you want to .. capture audio during screenshares

This is untrue, there's a difference between disabling SIP and changing your security policy to "reduced."

Disabling SIP lets you modify files on the system volume along with a few other things, like a way to run executables that require private entitlements that aren't signed by Apple. The reduced security policy lets you run older Mac OS versions (there's no online signature check during installs) as well as kernel extensions from authorized developers.

Discord relies on the latter, as it uses the ACE extension for audio capture, the same one that powers Rogue Amoeba's excellent apps. There are APIs to do this natively now, introduced in Ventura I believe, but Discord hasn't yet switched over to them.

Re: De-crufted Windows 11 coming to Europe soon

#74

Post by aetherspawn »

xcv123 wrote: post #64
jchw wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In a few minutes That's a pretty big understatement to be honest. I don't use Windows anymore, but I still occasionally set up Windows for other people and there's so many annoyances that it's difficult to even enumerate all of them. Off the top of my head: - MSEdgeRedirect to stop Windows from opening Edge even when it's not your defualt browser. - Shutup10++ to quickly disable a bunch of crapware/unwanted feature…

Takes less than a few minutes with this PowerShell script: https://github.com/n1snt/Windows-Debloater

This is great, although my use-case is a bit different to your original use case. I would love a group policy version (xml or something) of this that can be centrally setup for any PCs we unbox. I think InTune itself can actually do most of this stuff if you can track down the right settings ...

The trouble is keeping it up to date between Windows updates because they auto-install the bloatware.

Re: De-crufted Windows 11 coming to Europe soon

#75

Post by jchw »

MisterSandman wrote: post #63
jchw wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find macOS annoying no matter what I do. AltTab is nice, but the window management still sucks in my opinion. The security bandages used to work around traditional desktop security models makes it feel incredibly annoying to use; I'll try to set a keyboard shortcut (not a global one mind you) in iTerm2 and suddenly I need to enable iTerm2 to have accessibility access? Disabling SIP is needed for a myriad of things…

> and suddenly I need to enable iTerm2 to have accessibility access? This is a strange thing to complain about, you have to do it literally once and it takes less than 5 seconds and 5 clicks. And I would rather have a nice settings panel showing what apps have access to what, rather than the mess that is Windows privacy settings.

Why is it strange to complain about randomly needing to grant applications access to apparently-unrelated permissions? This sounds exactly the same kind of weird handwaving Linux fanboys routinely get scolded for. And "It's better than Windows" doesn't make it good, but the fact is that you don't have to do this for any kind of keybinding in Windows, so it's neither here nor there.

Re: De-crufted Windows 11 coming to Europe soon

#76

Post by jwells89 »

iansinnott wrote: post #46
akmittal wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having moved to mac 4 years ago I can't think of going back to windows. Only downside I find is you need to buy Apple hardware at premium to experience MacOS

It used to be that you could create a Hackintosh with cheap hardware. Had a really fast "mac" this way a few years back. Unfortunately since apple is moving away from Intel this may not be viable anymore.

I hackintoshed with an old laptop years ago, and more recently with a custom built tower.

When it’s good it’s really, really good. That old laptop had a better LCD panel than you could get in any Macbook of that era, and that tower ran circles around any real contemporary Mac.

The problem is that no matter how hard you try, there’s always little glitches that are downright impossible to eliminate unless you have the chops to tinker with DSDTs and kernel extension development.

Re: De-crufted Windows 11 coming to Europe soon

#77

Post by isoprophlex »

jszymborski wrote: post #44
mutex_man wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My process for a new laptop for the last decade or so has just been to nuke Windows and immediately install Linux. The only machine I own that runs windows is my home gaming PC due to many online/competitive games not supporting proton or other tools. Thankfully I work for a company who happily allows me to continue this practice with my work laptop. My last and current work laptops have run NixOS and it's been great…

I always deploy the DBAN when I get my hands on a new laptop. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darik's_Boot_and_Nuke

> DBAN can be configured to automatically wipe every hard disk that it sees on a system or entire network of systems, making it very useful for unattended data destruction scenarios.

Bored, belligerent 14 year old me would have loved to get his hands on this...

Re: De-crufted Windows 11 coming to Europe soon

#78

Post by xcv123 »

aetherspawn wrote: post #74
xcv123 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Takes less than a few minutes with this PowerShell script: https://github.com/n1snt/Windows-Debloater

This is great, although my use-case is a bit different to your original use case. I would love a group policy version (xml or something) of this that can be centrally setup for any PCs we unbox. I think InTune itself can actually do most of this stuff if you can track down the right settings ... The trouble is keeping it up to date between Windows updates because they auto-install the bloatware.

> The trouble is keeping it up to date between Windows updates

Just run the script again after a major update. Only takes a minute. And don't let Windows update automatically. I have used this script and it works well.

Also found this in the other comments https://atlasos.net

Re: De-crufted Windows 11 coming to Europe soon

#79

Post by corethree »

aetherspawn wrote: post #3

Suppose you are buying a new laptop ... does anyone else feel sad that their operating system has effectively turned into some weird social media marketing tracking data harvesting hybrid of a thing? But in the name of progress and security, you can't stay on Windows 10. So for me it's this weird middle ground right now .. waiting for either Windows to U-turn, die out, or for more work apps to port to OS X.

Linux is pretty good. I use all three.

Re: De-crufted Windows 11 coming to Europe soon

#80

Post by winterqt »

miki123211 wrote: post #73
jchw wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find macOS annoying no matter what I do. AltTab is nice, but the window management still sucks in my opinion. The security bandages used to work around traditional desktop security models makes it feel incredibly annoying to use; I'll try to set a keyboard shortcut (not a global one mind you) in iTerm2 and suddenly I need to enable iTerm2 to have accessibility access? Disabling SIP is needed for a myriad of things…

> Discord will direct you to disable SIP if you want to .. capture audio during screenshares This is untrue, there's a difference between disabling SIP and changing your security policy to "reduced." Disabling SIP lets you modify files on the system volume along with a few other things, like a way to run executables that require private entitlements that aren't signed by Apple. The reduced security policy lets you ru…

> There are APIs to do this natively now, introduced in Ventura I believe, but Discord hasn't yet switched over to them.

As of a few days ago, they have: https://twitter.com/advaithj1/status/1723926917286371818

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