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Microsoft's Weather app now shows more ads

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Re: Microsoft's Weather app now shows more ads

#71

Considering retail for the OS is $199 I find it insane the way Microsoft is pushing such a dystopian freemium model on their users. When you buy a new computer with Windows, the manufacturer pays Microsoft for that license too (obj not the same cost as a retail one, but a cost nonetheless) Meanwhile essentially every version of macOS is free (gotta go back a few years to find retail upgrade copies, which are still fa…

I believe $199 would be for Windows 10/11 Pro, not Home. Which a) you probably don't need and b) actually has better options to get rid of ads etc. The retail price here for Windows 10/11 Home is around $110. Mac OS X Tiger for example was also around $129 (but yes, this was a long time ago). Then ago, you obviously already pay premium for the Apple hardware. And maybe also sign up for their services.

You need a pro version in order to be allowed to sign into your own computer with your own user and not involving the internet.

Re: Microsoft's Weather app now shows more ads

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think… in settings? Once below Apple ID, if you’re not signed in, and once by iCloud. There also are AppleID and iCloud direct integrations, which can be thought of as advertisements. And if you are using iCloud and there’s not enough space, you’ll see a banner on every app that uses iCloud (except Finder) that hey, there’s not enough space. I think this is an advertisement, but it’s for a service people might actu…

> I think this is an advertisement, but it’s for a service people might actually want I don't think that's what makes Apple's in-OS ads acceptable. Whether somebody "actually wants" iCould or whatever, is dependent on that person. What makes Apple's in-OS ads acceptable are that they are for Apple services that are totally in-context to where you are in the OS: an "ad" for iCloud appears in the Settings dialog hierar…

>an "ad" for iCloud appears in the Settings dialog hierarchy where iCloud settings would normally be. Also, they are really subtle and hard to notice, tastefully integrated with the OS/color scheme.

Okay. But can they be permanently disabled?

Windows' OneDrive ads can be disabled, FWIW. There's a switch for almost everything in Windows (which doesn't excuse the shitty defaults, but still).

Re: Microsoft's Weather app now shows more ads

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

macOS being free is sleight of hand. The cost is just baked into the margin on their hardware. Maybe if you could run macOS on hardware of your choice (i.e. "hackintosh") it would be an apples-to-apples comparison.

GNU/Linux is Free as in Freedom, Windows is free as in free beer, MacOS is free as in free airplane pretzels.

Except that Windows and macOS aren't $0 free, they just get included with hardware so people don't see the cost.

Re: Microsoft's Weather app now shows more ads

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

macOS being free is sleight of hand. The cost is just baked into the margin on their hardware. Maybe if you could run macOS on hardware of your choice (i.e. "hackintosh") it would be an apples-to-apples comparison.

GNU/Linux is Free as in Freedom, Windows is free as in free beer, MacOS is free as in free airplane pretzels.

This comparison has never made sense to me. If I get a free beer, I can do whatever I want with it. Drink it, dump it, whatever. Same thing with pretzels. Am I missing something?

Re: Microsoft's Weather app now shows more ads

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows has had personalized ads for a long time now, they just mask it as "Recommendations". They're in the start menu, the search bar, the task bar, and even your lock screen! I remember many years ago when dynamic lock screen for Windows 10 was turned into a giant ad for Disney's Minions . It's everywhere in the OS.

Just a small correction noting that Disney is not involved with the Minion movies

Interesting, all these years I just assumed Despicable Me was a Pixar property. Never heard of Illumination before but I enjoyed their work on The Super Mario Bros Movie.

Re: Microsoft's Weather app now shows more ads

#76
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GNU/Linux is Free as in Freedom, Windows is free as in free beer, MacOS is free as in free airplane pretzels.

This comparison has never made sense to me. If I get a free beer, I can do whatever I want with it. Drink it, dump it, whatever. Same thing with pretzels. Am I missing something?

Yes

Re: Microsoft's Weather app now shows more ads

#77
post #7

And every article like this just convinces me that switching my personal desktop to Linux a couple years ago was the right choice. I do wish that Affinity or another PS competitor had a good Linux or at least WINE support. Seems to be one of the greater gaping holes imo.

Photoshop is the one kicker for me, too. Nothing comes close. GIMP is a dumpster fire. Lately I have been doing pretty well with Figma though. Been daily driving Debian 12 w/ KDE for about a year now and it has been rock solid and quite enjoyable. I never imagined I would ever admit this - but I find myself frustrated by the latency of macOS on my Macbook Air more and more after how instantaneous certain things are o…

Photopea?

Re: Microsoft's Weather app now shows more ads

#78
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GNU/Linux is Free as in Freedom, Windows is free as in free beer, MacOS is free as in free airplane pretzels.

This comparison has never made sense to me. If I get a free beer, I can do whatever I want with it. Drink it, dump it, whatever. Same thing with pretzels. Am I missing something?

To get free _airplane_ pretzels you need to first be on an airplane, which means you need to buy an airplane ticket, which costs hundreds.

Similar with free beer. You need to do _something_ to get the free beer. It will probably cost less than the airline ticket, but it will still cost.

Re: Microsoft's Weather app now shows more ads

#80

I haven’t had to deal with nearly as much bullshit from Microsoft since I switched to AtlasOS, which is a trimmed down version of Windows. Then again, I know better than fully trusting a third-party patch for an operating system, of all things… so I only use that for games and absolutely nothing else. My main daily os at the moment is Manjaro.

First time I heard of Atlas OS. How is it different from Windows LTSC?

It does a bunch of things to minimize Windows’ footprint: https://github.com/Atlas-OS/Atlas

Mind you, I don’t agree with some of those, like removing Windows Defender and disabling core isolation. I skipped those during setup.

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