Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 373 posts

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

#201

Post by ant6n »

calciphus wrote: post #158
FredPret wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I became a new MacOS user when the M1 was released. One thing I really like is that it's so much more similar to Linux than Windows. Many of my favourite Linux server tools also run on Mac. They're either included or are a "brew install x" away. Everything from cron to nginx (for local web dev) works like a charm. Combine this with the extreme ease of doing office-type work on a Macbook: Excel works, printing / scann…

Every time I click the play button on my keyboard, Apple Music launches and asks if I want to start a subscription. There's no (normal) way to make it so that play will launch, or even reliably play, Spotify. MacOS is covered in non-removable Apple adware like this but somehow always gets a pass. ... yes apparently I can install an app that force quits Music every time it launches, or I can modify system permissions,…

Apple is full of weird choices that are off-putting to newcomers, intrusive ads, bugs. For some reason in German, they use a non-standard keyboard layout and they don't sell a standard one.

But it's still better than Windows.

I just wish Apple would fix their idiosyncrasies, I may have gone into the eco-system more fully. I guess they don't need the business of undecided people.

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

#202

Post by GrinningFool »

gumballindie wrote: post #124
nerdjon wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with the idea of leaving negative reviews just because a game doesn’t support a specific platform. It’s the same toxic fanboy wars we see if a game doesn’t come out on a specific console or available on a specific store. Doing so costs money for a small portion of the community. Ultimately these studios are businesses and have to make financial choices. I do fully recognize that this is a chicken and the e…

I paid for a product and I expect that product to at least not intentionally restrict use on proton. If you intentionally restrict its use on whatever platform i see fit then you are getting a negative review. The wine folks and valve have put serious effort into patching your product to work on linux, but when you actively undermine their effort and intentionally limit its use - either by banning players on linux or…

> If you intentionally restrict its use on whatever platform i see fit then you are getting a negative review.

The flip side of this coin is that when they don't restrict it, it's viewed as supported, and they get bad reviews when it doesn't work perfectly on those platforms they don't test on.

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

#203

Post by giancarlostoro »

simiones wrote: post #149
giancarlostoro wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried Lutris? It seems to have GOG support, and is designed to help you do all the incantations for you. I havent tried it yet, but have heard a lot of good things about it.

There's a limit to how many third parties I was willing to install to get the programs I wanted working. I also didn't read anywhere that Lutris would have helped with GOG - every reddit thread I trawled ended up saying that we need to wait for a Linux version of GOG. I tried Steam, I tried playing with a few of its options, I tried a few ways of running GOG as a steam game - decided to switch back to Windows. I do e…

All I know is Lutris is meant to handle every windows game client: GOG, Steam, Origin, and so on.

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

#204

Post by crop_rotation »

People comparing this to Google are missing the point. Google doesn't put popup on Microsoft websites in Chrome to switch to Google equivalent, not even on Office online or other places where Microsoft may be dominant. Chrome acts as a platform and doesn't add shady stuff or popups to any websites you view, which is what is expected of a platform. Microsoft also put things into MSOffice which work better on Windows (and trust me Office on Mac is missing so so many features compared to Windows), and that too is a problem, but much smaller than an OS doing shady things like this.

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

#205

Post by JohnFen »

nailer wrote: post #156
matkoniecz wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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)

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.

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

#206

Post by [deleted] »

thesuperbigfrog wrote: post #5

"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…

[deleted]

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

#207

Post by tivert »

thfuran wrote: post #134
rendang wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think parent meant ban all advertising - buses, billboards, TV, etc

Yes, I mean all advertisement, with exceptions like being able advertise on a business's own premises or upon explicit request like signing up for a newsletter (on purpose, not due to dark pattern fuckery). But no jamming third party advertisements everywhere imaginable or first party advertisement into products that aren't just ads.

Honestly, I'd take a slightly different tack: ban all advertising except that which focuses on product features (like a lot of old-timey ads did), and then have strong enforcement of penalties for false advertising. Then limit innovation in delivery to places where it's both not intrusive and already established (e.g. media publications, etc).

The manipulation and excessive proliferation has to stop, but I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with a business being able to reach out to tell people about what they're selling. There just needs to be strong regulation to speak for other interests in society.

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

#208

Post by nicolaslem »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #153
mort96 wrote: 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…

I daily drive a Gen 9 on Linux, it works fairly well, it even gets BIOS updates through fwupd now! However I cannot state how bad the display is, it's dragging-a-window-leaves-a-visible-trail bad.

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

#209

Post by whywhywhywhy »

mythz wrote: post #53

I'm a big fan of WSL, which has kept me on Windows for years more than I otherwise would have. But I can't stand the scammy adware infused OS Windows has become and will be moving to Apple Silicon full-time when the next gen M3 Desktop hardware is out. As a recent M2 Macbook Air owner I'm surprised how much software supports ARM/Apple Silicon natively, where everything I use daily as a .NET developer worked OOB [1].…

> But I can't stand the scammy adware infused OS Windows has become

Set up the drivers for a professional level ASUS motherboard last night, during the installation of the drivers, which was essential because LAN and Wifi didn't work without them. It showed me ads for Norton 360 and WinRar over and over during the installation that seemed to take way longer than it should.

Then it told me an update was required and preselected in the update was install WinRar and Norton360.

Like ASUS, please I'm begging you, just charge me the $0.20 to $1 more that these ads earned you direct to me. Please just charge what you need to make a quality professional product and have some self respect for what you're shipping.

This only happens because it's become normal all across windows software and tools.

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

#210

Post by DrBazza »

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, etc. Windows OS could wither and die and it wouldn't make much of a difference to the bottom line.

The corporate computing future is adverts. If you want to use any significant piece of software at scale, something needs to pay for it.

Post reply on HN