321–330 of 804 posts
Thanks, but no thanks. The only winning move, long-term, is to excise everything this wretched company makes from your life as vigorously as possible. It's been true 20 years ago, and it's even more true today.
;)
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Windows has historically oscillated between pretty awful and pretty decent. XP was good, Vista was bad, Win7 was good, Win8 was a disaster, Win10 was decent again. Now we're in a low part of the cycle with Win11. Maybe there's another 'good Windows' on the way. But I'm sceptical this time, being in the era of enshittification and the AI slop bubble, where everything is user-hostile by design, where if something seems…
> XP was good, Vista was bad, Win7 was good, Win8 was a disaster, Win10 was decent again. Now we're in a low part of the cycle with Win11. The cycle is more complicated: * 2000: exceptional * XP: bad (the original XP was indeed bad) * XP SP2 (from a technological perspective basically a new OS): decent * Vista: bad * 7: good * 8: awful (it was so bad that soon 8.1 was introduced) * 8.1: bad * 10: controversial (some…
Win98: bad
Win98 SE: good
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I believe they are abusing their customers but I think it's in poor taste to compare this to domestic violence.
Like domestic abusers, things only expand and escalate from here.
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Windows has historically oscillated between pretty awful and pretty decent. XP was good, Vista was bad, Win7 was good, Win8 was a disaster, Win10 was decent again. Now we're in a low part of the cycle with Win11. Maybe there's another 'good Windows' on the way. But I'm sceptical this time, being in the era of enshittification and the AI slop bubble, where everything is user-hostile by design, where if something seems…
> XP was good, Vista was bad, Win7 was good, Win8 was a disaster, Win10 was decent again. Now we're in a low part of the cycle with Win11. The cycle is more complicated: * 2000: exceptional * XP: bad (the original XP was indeed bad) * XP SP2 (from a technological perspective basically a new OS): decent * Vista: bad * 7: good * 8: awful (it was so bad that soon 8.1 was introduced) * 8.1: bad * 10: controversial (some…
Hated 10, was forced to it basically only due to gaming, a common assholish trick MS uses whenever it can. But when looking from 11 perspective, 10 was fine compared to that heap of disorganized badly designed crap.
Yet again time to be ashamed to work for MS, this time its sticking around like tar spit on a white shirt.
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> No, "learn the FOSS version" is not a solution Hard disagree. Not that it has to be FOSS, but you have a product that is predatory towards you and you refuse to change your ways. Leaving an abusive relationship is hard, but sometimes you have to do it.
> you have a product that is predatory towards you and you refuse to change your ways. And honestly it seems like you refuse to learn even the smallest bit about human nature. Very, very few people want to "learn" how to use their computer. Walk into a room of 100 graphic designers who have spend the last 20 years using Photoshop exclusively and put GIMP in front of them and and at least 98 of them are going to say w…
I see this point being missed over and over again in this thread. To people like you and I the computer is often the entire point. To normal people it's a tool. It exists to get the job done so they can move onto something else.
The solution that requires the least effort is objectively the best solution. Most of the time that still means Windows, and it won't change until the required level of effort changes.
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Better yet: don't pick any poison at all -- both System76 and Tuxedo Computers (as examples, sometimes you can buy a latop without an OS and save the money, same goes for PCs) offer laptops with Linux installed: no Microslop tax, and hardware that's guaranteed to work with OSS.
Linux is just no good option. Linux has it's own issues that make them unusable for people that don't want to put time and effort in their OS itself. Current example: Slidly incompatible unix tools, still not 100% complete, but rewritten in rust.
Both installing Windows and installing Linux can be difficult for most people. I have done both professionally and when installing Windows I have encountered frequently more serious problems, which required much more time to solve than the problems encountered when installing Linux.
For those who have someone else to install and configure Linux, it is at least as easy to use as Windows.
My parents, more than 80-years old, have used for many years Linux without any problems and they have no idea what Linux is, they just know the applications that they are using for viewing and editing documents, e-mail, Internet browsing, music or movies listening or watching, TV watching or recording (with TV tuner) and so on.
I bought my first x86 PC in 1994 to install Linux on. I wanted a Sun workstation but couldn't afford it. I know people run an operating system to run programs on so it isn't easy to switch but so many windows users make it sound like they have Stockholm Syndrome. My advice as a Linux user of 32 years for normal people is to buy a Mac.
The Macbook Neo seems likely to be a a huge seller. It's got the price of entry down to where it's now the obvious recommendation for less-technical friends/family wanting an affordable-but-nice laptop for light home/office/student use. I suspect it's going to hurt iPad sales though, as a real Mac running MacOS is vastly more capable than any iPad.
Maybe, but I somewhat doubt it, for a few reasons:
- Kids like iPads for gaming/video watching, and the overhead of computer interfaces for them might discourage laptopping (understandable for littler kids; regrettable loss of tech familiarity for older ones, but true regardless).
- Parents/rough users like iPads 'cuz there aren't moving parts or gaps to get hammered and damaged, though the screen is a risk.
- Cellular iPads/huge phone-alikes are pretty popular, and the vast majority of users are unfamiliar with the idea of hooking a computer-shaped device up to cellular internet.
- iPads are easier to MDM-manage/lock down. You can do that on MacOS too, of course, but a lot of folks find it easier to regulate kid/employee/etc. use of an iPad because the management system is familiar and simpler.
- iPads feel like a big phone. That's a pretty intuitive switch for a lot of folks who either don't have keyboarded computers at all, or associate them with non-fun (work/school) computing. Silly distinction to draw, to be sure, but very significant in the minds of many users. The single-brick/touch aspect of iPads is desirable enough that a fold-out laptop isn't going to overlap with a lot of those users.
These flowers smell like shit. If you don't use Linux or MacOS yet, why?
I use a blend of Windows, MacOS, iOS and Linux. Each is good at its own thing. I don't understand the game of picking exactly one hill to die on. I spend about 60% of my time on Apple operating systems, and 40% elsewhere. Windows really does suck from a UX perspective, but if you are trying to make money doing things professionally with a computer, it's hard to beat. Running outlook and office on Mac just doesn't hit…
I switch around enough that I try not to do crazy amounts of personalisation in my desktop OS. Probably this evens out the OSs and there are aspects I like and dislike about each. I guess I prefer KDE Plasma to Windows or MacOS. I choose that for my own computer, but I spend far more time in Windows. I'm not sure I agree it it much worse from a UX perspective. It allows keyboard only usage very easily, which is something I struggled with in MacOS.
1) I'm only focusing on the UI - there are some things I struggle to forgive, like not being able to set add my own ringtone or alarm tone, or not being able to have the volume of a ringtone increase as the phone rings like on every ancient feature phone.