441–450 of 678 posts
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You can use Windows Firewall to block outbound connections from the Start bar. It would be nice if some basic features like calculator would still work, but no luck.
Wait... Windows calculator needs an internet connection to work?
The first time I needed to install Linux on my computer was last week because Wireshark didn’t support 802.11 packet capture on Windows or WSL. So, I installed Ubuntu on my Surface Laptop 3, and my experience had been quite terrible. (Disclaimer: I’m a former Windows engineer, but I’ve also been using Linux since Slackware 3 occasionally) * Setup started in 100% HiDPI scaling, making everything impossible to read. Ev…
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I agree with the sentiment but this particular website is so chokefull of ads, it’s hard to take the complaints seriously
Nothing electronic I own feels like mine anymore My Mac, iPhone, and Apple TV are owned by Apple. My Sony TV is owned by Sony and Google. My Windows PC is owned by Microsoft. My Quest 2 is owned by Meta. My Kindle is owned by Amazon. At best, the Mac and PC I could install Linux on to make them mine. The rest, not so much
You can replace the Kindle with Kobo. For the most part, Kobo just gets out of your way. Integrates tightly with Calibre. Easily hackable. Many extensions available with installation as simple as dropping a file on the device. Not a perfect device but good enough that I feel like I own it.
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There’s actually a few different glibc replacements available for Linux. And if you think OneDrive is essential for Windows then I’d suggest you do a little reading on the history of Microsoft and how they falsely claim dependencies on their own software stacks. Especially the court cases around debundling IE4 with Win98, and DR-DOS vs Windows 95.
Well, "technically" - it wasn't a false claim. It WAS dependent on IE and other things. It didn't have to be dependent - MS made it that way on purpose, so things would stop working without (even though the dependency didn't need to be baked in). It's akin to adding webview to your application to display a text file, even though you never would display an HTML file. It could have been done another way, but it wasn't.
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Yes you have to use what they ship. Because they force you to. You cannot turn off one drive nagging. You cannot turn off the start menu search. When installing windows these days you have to use a Microsoft account and so on. Yes there are work arounds, but that’s not for the average user. If I need to start tinkering and hack around in registries I might as well use Linux.
I confess I don't have a Microsoft account, and installed without one. I'm not sure how I did that, I guess I just passed on it. Every month or so it after a reboot it prompts me to "finish setting up my computer" and I just "remind me later". I haven't touched the registry, so that's not in play. OneDrive doesn't nag me. As I said earlier this is all anecdotal, clearly your experience is different to mine. This post…
Why do you ask them to remind you? It sounds like you're already set up?
About a year ago I dumped Windows from my personal PC for good. I ran a Linux desktop at work for a decade, but my Steam collection get me with at least a bit of a tether to Microsoft. But Valve finally made Linux gaming a reality. I hope more people can make the switch someday because I'm quite happy with the system (Pop!_OS is my distro of choice these days).
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Here are some things I found helpful using Windows at work (at home I use Fedora): Debloat / Software Management: https://github.com/ChrisTitusTech/winutil Command line software management (Scoop): https://pilabor.com/blog/2021/12/automate-windows-app-setup-... Comparison (Scoop/Chocolatey/Win-Get): https://daftdev.blog/2024/04/01/chocolatey-vs-scoop-vs-winge... I would also recommend starship ( https://starship.rs/…
Better yet - just switch to Linux Mint.
And no, this is not a reason to leave an otherwise perfectly fine job behind.
Amazing to me that people are still only just realising this a full 15 years after I made the switch. And I was by no means some kind of pioneer. I honestly don't think I'd still be doing computers if free software wasn't a thing. Get the shackles off and dump Microsoft for good! It feels great. Give it time and before long you'll start doing things that Microsoft/Apple etc won't let you do. Compute freely, my friend…
I can't even remove 'Recommended' from the start menu, not even on a Pro for Workstations. Every time I search on the start menu there is a web search, impossible to turn off. How is that acceptable? I install Edge Beta to test something, and the I uninstall it. All of the sudden my search provider in my normal Edge is reset. And the nagging everywhere. No I don't want 'back-up' my files (OneDrive is not backup, it's…
Presumably all the executives, PMs, and designers all use Macs.