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

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

#291

Post by mrguyorama »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #117
newaccount74 wrote: post #103

Everyone is doing it. Google is using Google search to shove ads for Chrome in your face. Microsoft is using Windows showing ads for Bing in your Face. Apple is using the settings app to shove ads for TV, Fitness subscriptions, etc. in your face.

> Apple is using the settings app to shove ads for TV, Fitness subscriptions, etc. in your face. And system notifications to shove ads for Safari in your face. Same with Windows using system notifications to advertise Edge. Luckily, the popular Linux distros aren't that tacky yet.

I mean, canonical already did this like a decade ago.

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

#292

Post by macintux »

mrguyorama wrote: post #277
macintux wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banning all advertising would also destroy many small businesses. Interstate billboards are a nuisance, no doubt, but I can’t tell you how many roadside markets, small restaurants, etc I’ve visited while traveling that I’d never have known about otherwise.

Funny, billboards have been banned here in Maine for decades, and small businesses do very very well in this tourist driven economy. Meanwhile you cross the border to new hampshire and are immediately pestered with garbage advertising that provides no benefit to your life.

There’s a difference between a destination and a waypoint.

If I’m driving through, say, Georgia, I’m not there as a tourist, I’m desperately trying to get away from it, probably via the interstate.

But I’d rather stop at an interesting restaurant that I spot via a billboard than whatever fast food chain happens to be camping out at the next interchange.

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

#294

Post by codalan »

ta988 wrote: post #154

Now wait for the same PM to go work on vscode and github. "We see .idea files in your repository, do you know that VSCode can make your hair grow again" "You are running Linux, but have you tried Linux in Windows with WSL2, free 30 days license by clicking here"

A big reason for me to start learning Emacs again is due to the inevitable rot of VS Code. I'm even playing around with Neovim a bit.

VS Code is like milk, but with an unknown expiration date. At some point, it will be spoiled by MSFT injecting their marketing garbage into the experience. This will take priority over improving performance and fixing bugs. And they've already added spyware into the software by default.

I've realized I would have been better off just sticking to Emacs/Vim entirely, where I can rely on my tools for decades to come. They're not constantly changing the UI/UX, because the maintainers of those products are actually doing useful work, rather than busy work.

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

#295

Post by crop_rotation »

codalan wrote: post #289
crop_rotation wrote: post #204

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 (…

Google and Apple do things similar on their devices. I get nagged to backup my Android phone. It's a thinly-veiled upsell to their Google Drive product. There is no way to tell it to STOP ASKING ME. I have an alternative backup system that I use. I will never pay for Google Drive. The same is true for the iPhone. If you forget to turn off the Apple iCloud stuff on your phone, you'll hit the free limit at some point,…

Neither of these are remotely similar to what M$FT is doing here. For one, I don't remember using any device where Google drive is an uninstallable app. Second, on android you can always turn off any notifications from any app. I don't even remember seeing any thread on such google drive notifications, so even it happens it seems very rare. The windows cases are too many and show up here every once in a while with some new obnoxious popup.

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

#296

Post by mrguyorama »

inkcapmushroom wrote: post #222
fortran77 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s my experience too. I run all Windows here and I stay on the happy path. I did turn off a few options in control panel to reduce some UI clutter, but nothing has been hacked away. I run Pro and use an outlook.com login to sync settings. I don’t see any of these ads or pop ups. This is mostly fud here.

My work laptop with Windows just got a notification yesterday requesting me to install some game from the XBox Live store which certainly seemed like a bad use of system notifications. Haven't got any popups though.

Why would microsoft send you a notification about a random third party game?

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

#297

Post by mrguyorama »

M95D wrote: post #226
mordae wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No we don't. AMD has working GPUs with working drivers now. I have not rebooted to Windows for over a year and I probably won't for at least another one. All my games run just fine under Steam or with the help of Lutris.

> No we don't. AMD has working GPUs with working drivers now. Oh, no, they don't! I'm forced to browse using Windows right now because the radeon driver crashes when I open new pages in Firefox. Most of the time it resets itself and I get the display back, but sometimes it crashes completely and I have to press the reset button. (Gentoo, 5.15 kernel, Radeon HD 4250 onboard video)

Buddy that internal "GPU" is like 24 years old. Make sure Firefox isn't attempting to use hardware rendering because it sure as shit won't work or help. You know you can get a couple year old Thinkpad on ebay for like $200 right? One with a significantly more capable CPU, GPU, and battery and other things.

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

#298

Post by codalan »

brap wrote: post #83

I was so pissed off when I installed a fresh copy of Windows 11 on my parents' new computer. Just more and more BS thrown in your face and it never ends. It made the computer they bought almost unusable for them. I had to spend a good chunk of time trying to debloat it, but my parents still complain about the occasional popup that confuse them.

I couldn't finish the W11 Home Edition installation on my parent's computer without having them create an account, so I just installed Xubuntu on it instead, and probably avoided a lot of headaches.

I'll probably revisit that computer and install Linux Mint with KDE Plasma, and do the same on their W10 machine.

If push comes to shove and they need some Linux incompatible app that I can't get to work with Wine, I'll just buy a used Macbook.

W10 is bad enough and W11 is not a viable option.

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

#299

Post by utdoctor »

codalan wrote: post #289
crop_rotation wrote: post #204

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 (…

Google and Apple do things similar on their devices. I get nagged to backup my Android phone. It's a thinly-veiled upsell to their Google Drive product. There is no way to tell it to STOP ASKING ME. I have an alternative backup system that I use. I will never pay for Google Drive. The same is true for the iPhone. If you forget to turn off the Apple iCloud stuff on your phone, you'll hit the free limit at some point,…

“How is this not any different than a popup in Windows nagging me to switch to Edge? Or to buy O365?”

The implementation. I would argue Microsoft is far more egregious on how it shoves “recommendations” in your face compared to Apple or Google.

Lots of sites have ads for example, but you can quickly discern well integrated ads vs ones that are distracting.

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

#300

Post by ziml77 »

mrguyorama wrote: post #286
DrBazza wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 accide…

And yet, with all that supposedly terrible cruft, it's still a more stable and reliable interface to program against than pretty much anything in Linux world. The best Linux api is Win32. Oh, and that also means if you wrote Windows API compliant code in 1998, it still works today.

I still can't get over how wild it is to look back at even Windows 1.0 documentation and see familiar functions.
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