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Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

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Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#381

Post by Aurornis »

foxandmouse wrote: post #81
Aurornis wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Make sure libreoffice is included Probably an unpopular thing to say here, but in my experience pushing non-tech people to use libreoffice as part of a Linux transition is a fast track to getting them to hate Linux. Using Google Docs has been much more welcoming in my experience. Something about libreoffice doesn’t resonate with a lot of non-tech people.

Couldn’t agree more, if you’re pitching Linux to a non-technical user, you need a gentler off-ramp, not a cliff dive. LibreOffice is a UI time capsule..more archaeology than productivity. Most millennials would think they’d accidentally opened a flight simulator.

I’m relieved to see I’m not alone. I expected my comment to be downvoted because speaking against LibreOffice triggers some people

> LibreOffice is a UI time capsule..more archaeology than productivity.

I agree. Seeing the comments here claiming the outdated UI is a good thing, actually, brings up one of the big problems with a lot of open source and/or Linux soecific software: The resistance to UI change is huge among die-hard users so the projects tend to get stuck in whatever UI language they had a decade ago when they started

When I introduce people to open source versions of different software I find myself starting with “The UI has a steep learning curve, but…”.

It would be so much easier if we could give people apps that were targeted at familiar UI patterns of today, even if it angers a vocal minority who want every UI to look like it came out of the 90s or early 2000s when they first discovered their love of computers.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#382

Post by gruez »

chromehearts wrote: post #270
gruez wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's popular with fintechs, especially new ones. Robinhood for instance was app-only for a few years before they got their web version. Revolut theoretically has a web version but it has far less features than the mobile app. Restaurant "apps" (for ordering and offers) are often app-only as well.

Honest question: What does TPM have to do with this? I mean, Revolut developers don't need to check for TPM or similar to serve other functionalities just because you're on browser or mobile app. Am I getting something wrong?

There might not be "TPMs" exactly on smartphones, but both Android and iOS have device attestation APIs that does the same thing that TPMs do, ie. cryptographically prove to a remote party that you're running some particular version of software.

https://developer.android.com/google/play/integrity

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/devicecheck

>I mean, Revolut developers don't need to check for TPM or similar to serve other functionalities just because you're on browser or mobile app.

Some features are simply not available in the web version. You can try running the app in an emulator to get past that limitation, but an emulator won't be able to spoof device attestations, so if they bother checking for it you're screwed.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#383

Post by neonsunset »

elevation wrote: post #379
neonsunset wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Avalonia would have been a far, far better option.

We evaluated a ton of options, I'm not sure how Avalonia didn't make the list. Thanks for the tip!

Perhaps wasn't available at the time? It has remained relatively little known to teams that lived comfortably within WPF for years, luckily it's changing. .NET's GUI situation is a mess but Avalonia and Uno make it quite saner.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#384

Post by timbit42 »

trinsic2 wrote: post #31
Loughla wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Choose the right distro and automate updates of possible. Mint is the softest landing for Windows users. But they never ever ever ever update anything on their own. Ever. Forever.

Yea I need to think of a good way to automate updates..

Mint's Update Manager has automatic updates built in. Go to Edit > Preferences > Automation.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#385

Post by timbit42 »

roboyoshi wrote: post #349
jbstack wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Next step: escape the Google ecosystem. LibreOffice for docs (its far superior to Google Docs anyway). Syncthing for drive.

Slightly disagree - while LibreOffice might be better in features, the UI/UX of Google Docs worked so much better for me, it's not even funny.

Have you tried LibreOffice's ribbon interface? It is similar to the one on Microsoft Office. You go to View > User Interface and choose "Tabbed". There are 7 different variants available.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#386

Post by timbit42 »

jbstack wrote: post #357
roboyoshi wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slightly disagree - while LibreOffice might be better in features, the UI/UX of Google Docs worked so much better for me, it's not even funny.

I guess I kind of agree with your disagree, but disagree overall! The UI in LibreOffice feels quite clunky and outdated and never seems to have been given any thought since the OpenOffice days. But Google Docs is so feature poor that I'd rather live with LibreOffice's UI. Especially as you can adjust to the latter after using the software for a while.

Have you tried LibreOffice's ribbon interface? It is similar to the one on Microsoft Office. You go to View > User Interface and choose "Tabbed". There are 7 different variants available.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#387

Post by gethly »

hdjfvsjdb wrote: post #345
gethly wrote: post #264

I have been using windows since version 95. I even liked the Millennium version, that was most hated before Vista. I tried Linux several times, but Windows just always worked and Linux usually had always some issues(mostly drivers, lack of good programs and no gaming). But now, after more than two decades, I am certain Windows 10 is my last Windows. Nothing lasts for ever, not even Microsoft's domination on personal…

Glad you are trying Linux again! But on WinME that was complete trash.. Never has an is crashed so much on me... I went to Win2k after that ... Win2k was the last windows I ran in a PC and was IMO peak windows.

Haha, true. But not from my experience. Not sure why. Either i just ignored any issues and simply don't remember them or i got lucky with hardware and drivers? Who knows. Either way, I never had issues with Windows. For me, it just always worked. Even now, I am on W10 and after i ripped out all the guts of the Defender out of the system, I'm quite happy with it. I have a TinyWall firewall so there are no background updates or any traffic without me knowing. I am in mostly full control and have no issues.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#388

Post by dietr1ch »

throwaway7679 wrote: post #312
aleph_minus_one wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> TPM and Secure Boot would be good things if there were no way to prove to third parties that you're using them, or have them configured a certain way (i.e., remote attestation). This is exactly what a TPM was made for, so your statement is a little bit paradoxical.

The ideal is the owner being able to use TPM/SecureBoot/etc to ensure that the device is in the configuration they want. That means resisting tampering, and making any successful tampering become obvious. The problem is third parties using TPM/SecureBoot/etc as a weapon against the owner via remote attestation, by preventing them from configuring their own device, with the threat of being cut off from critical servic…

Not a crypto expert, but given how both, bad players seeking control and people seeking to verify their cloud machines are both remote it seems that the technology will rollout without problem and will end up being force fed into all consumer devices with bullshit excuses.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#389

Post by WorldMaker »

breakingcups wrote: post #304
IlikeKitties wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is also a real potential for abusing TPMs or cryptographic co-processors to enforce remote attestation. People here REALLY need to start understanding this issue. Remote Attestation is the kind of tech that if abused will end free computing over night.

There's a reason Microsoft is aggressively deprecating "older" CPU's that work perfectly fine. Heck, I have one laptop with Windows 11 that worked great, but won't update from 22h2 to 24h2 because CPU support was dropped between versions, leaving me with only the glib suggestion from the Windows Update UI to "Buy a new device". Ironically, installing Windows 10 and activating ESU would lead to longer hardware life. O…

TPM wasn't the only reason older CPUs were dropped. The biggest reasons where the line in the sand Microsoft chose would not be supported in Windows 11 was Spectre/Meltdown [0] mitigation. Windows 10 added a bunch of intentional slowdowns to mitigate that disaster and people incorrectly blamed Windows 10 for being slow and not the CPUs and their CVEs. Windows 11 seems to have wanted a clean slate without needing to have any of those slowdown mitigations in the codebase and eliminate some classes of "Windows 11 is slow on my machine" complaints.

I'm not sure Microsoft took the best approach. I might have opted into a "Windows 11 Slow CPU" SKU if it was marketed right. That might have been a little kinder than "all these CPUs with this awful series of bugs are trash, even though we have had a successful workaround".

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectre_(security_vulnerabilit...

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#390

Post by Havoc »

BatteryMountain wrote: post #245

The best path forward for home users and small business for non-technical users: Install Fedora with KDE. Install Firefox, Thunderbird and Chrome. Install uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger. Install LibreOffice & bookmark Google Docs. Install multimedia support, h264/h265, VLC/mpv/ffmpeg, enable DRM in browser. Install Steam if applicable. If they have a printer, connect it and show them how to print a page. Configure & t…

FYI last guidance is saw said privacy badger provides no additional benefit if already using ublock
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