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Get your Windows license refund

en.refund4freedom.org

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Re: Get your Windows license refund

#281

Post by chihuahua »

noisem4ker wrote: post #176
CodesInChaos wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which was extra nice because I had no idea I was in fact charged for the bloatware, but I still got ~50€ for it on top of the OS license price. I actually expected those to pay for being pre-installed, offsetting or possibly even exceeding the cost of the Windows license.

There's no way the typically included 30-day trial of an antivirus or Office costs 50€. It must've been a full yearly subscription of one or the other, that managed to sneak in right before checkout without being de-selected.

While your mouse is over the "place order" button, after the left mouse button has moved through the first 0.2mm of its 1mm travel, but before the click is registered, the checkbox next to "1 year subscription to McAfee Anti-Virus" is automatically enabled, to better serve our customers.

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#282

Post by cesarb »

d3Xt3r wrote: post #254
boplicity wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am seriously saddened by the complete takeover of mobile computing by Apple and Google. There is no freedom on your own device to choose your own software, except inside the very narrow constraints allowed.

Thankfully, Linux phones are becoming more and more viable as a daily-driver. We just need more folks to start using them.

> We just need more folks to start using them.

I would if I could. Which non-Android Linux phone can I buy here in Brazil? Importing from outside Brazil doesn't count unless it has ANATEL certification, customs rejects any non-certified phone.

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#283

Post by Joel_Mckay »

efreak wrote: post #245
Joel_Mckay wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone probably buried your post for Sealioning, but in general even trying to install a clean windows 11 pro OS over a windows 11 Home embedded firmware license/hardware-signature on a gaming laptop is too complex for many users. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning Perhaps getting outside for a nice walk could lower stress levels a bit. =3

In that case, I suggest (not having tried it) that updating the OS and then resetting it might work better? Does Windows still have the reset option it had in win8?

The issue is the update license is different than full install licenses, and the red sticker oem licenses people scam are hardware specific.

You usually must pay for windows twice (or more if you don't know) to be Pro license compliant for commercial use.

Setting a machine up for multi-boot Linux/BSD is not always a simple process with every BIOS firmware, and configuring Windows to stop automatic encryption of NTFS volumes is nontrivial. Even with an offline install for games, if the OneDrive account is ever activated... files are upped to Microsoft cloud anyway.

Running an offline win11 account with a recent "rclone gui" NFS mounter for cloud APIs is a better option:

https://github.com/rclone/rclone

winget install Rclone.Rclone

Thankfully, disarming Win11 TPM/Drive-boobytrap/BS-encryption/Spam is easy with Rufus, O&O ShutUp10, and Copilot removal (note undocumented AI API areas suggested RAT/snitch-ware... the final straw with Microsoft BS around here...)

https://github.com/pbatard/rufus

https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10

https://github.com/zoicware/RemoveWindowsAI

Yes it still supports DRM Steam games, and Win11 x4 gen4 SSDs are now about 17% faster i/o on my rig.

You know what I like about Apple OS, is you just flip around 8 options and it goes quiet.

Best of luck, ymmv =3

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#284

Post by terribleperson »

karlgkk wrote: post #248
terribleperson wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of things are stopping me. Like needing a smartphone to read a menu at a restaurant, or replace a lost credit card.

> Like needing a smartphone to read a menu at a restaurant, Every restaurant I’ve been to like this has a menu somewhere. > or replace a lost credit card. The phone numbers never stopped working. You just stopped calling

I called Capital One to replace a card this month (either there's no online flow or it wasn't available to me). The default flow to verify my identity before they'd replace the card was to send a notification to the android app. My android version is too old. The alternative flow (which took them 20 minutes to figure out) was to send a text message with a link to an online ID verification service.

Is it COMPLETELY impossible that you could receive that link on a dumb phone, send it to a PC with a webcam, and then take a selfie photo and an ID photo? No. Is it likely to be an incredible hassle? Dear lord, yes. You can't upload photos, so you'd have to finagle with a webcame to get a shot of your ID on a surface followed by a selfie of yourself. Is it possible that in other similar situations, you'll be required to use an android app instead of a website? Yes, I've had that happen.

I think you are grossly underestimating the degree to which smartphones have become absolutely mandatory for many tasks.

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#285

Post by thayne »

One of the reasons I like building my own PC is that when I build it from parts, I don't have to pay then windows tax when I'm just putting linux on it.

Although that doesn't work as well for laptops :( .

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#286

Post by trueno »

Zambyte wrote: post #273
neallindsay wrote: post #185

I also raised an eyebrow at "the vast majority of laptops are only sold with a specific proprietary operating system: Microsoft Windows", but after looking at some estimates it seems legit. Probably only about 1 in 10 laptops is a Mac. Software developers really just live in a different world than normal people. It got me thinking though: what is a laptop? People probably count Chromebooks, and that seems fair. Is a…

I can't think of any software engineers I personally know who use Mac. In my industry, pretty much anyone who uses Mac is in a managerial position.

all of our engineering teams use macs except one dude who carries his early 2000s windows4life gamer energy with him wherever he goes. as it turns out if you aren't specifically like doing cuda or dx stuff having unix and being able to compile quickly, emulate or translate every deployment target architecture, great ppw ... lends a lot of credit towards many domains of software engineering. it feels like it collapsed multiple devices into one. i just spin up a windows environment if i need to support some janky legacy windows only thing.

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#287

Post by Zambyte »

trueno wrote: post #286
Zambyte wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't think of any software engineers I personally know who use Mac. In my industry, pretty much anyone who uses Mac is in a managerial position.

all of our engineering teams use macs except one dude who carries his early 2000s windows4life gamer energy with him wherever he goes. as it turns out if you aren't specifically like doing cuda or dx stuff having unix and being able to compile quickly, emulate or translate every deployment target architecture, great ppw ... lends a lot of credit towards many domains of software engineering. it feels like it collapsed…

... I guess I know a couple of software engineers that use Windows.

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#288

Post by cgrealy »

Zambyte wrote: post #273
neallindsay wrote: post #185

I also raised an eyebrow at "the vast majority of laptops are only sold with a specific proprietary operating system: Microsoft Windows", but after looking at some estimates it seems legit. Probably only about 1 in 10 laptops is a Mac. Software developers really just live in a different world than normal people. It got me thinking though: what is a laptop? People probably count Chromebooks, and that seems fair. Is a…

I can't think of any software engineers I personally know who use Mac. In my industry, pretty much anyone who uses Mac is in a managerial position.

Every engineer at my job uses a mac. Same for my friends job.

In fact, the only people who use windows are finance people, HR, etc

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#289

Post by fwipsy »

pkaye wrote: post #164
fwipsy wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I applaud Dell for offering this as an option, and for getting Ubuntu certification even on many devices which don't offer it. However, in practice it's not worth much because the standard configurations are discounted, while custom configurations with Ubuntu are not. For example, in this configuration Ubuntu is listed as $140 more than Windows. If you click the info icon, it's because it's $60 cheaper but loses you…

Dell probably gets money from other companies for the additional bloatware software installed on Windows system.

The same issue applies to any custom config, Windows or Ubuntu. I assume it's because a few standard specs benefit from economies of scale.

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#290

Post by cgrealy »

janalsncm wrote: post #209
supernikio2 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key word here is "impose". I can imagine a world where at time of purchase you would select which OS (if any) you would want pre-installed on the machine. Even a checkbox for Yes/No Windows would be an improvement.

I’d imagine the choice would be Windows (+$120) Linux ($0) DIY ($0)

Linux wouldn't be zero. There's still a cost involved in installing the OS, even if it's miniscule and automatable. You can bet your life that laptop manufacturers are going to charge you for it.
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