People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account • Hacker News Board

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#581

Post by Teckla » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 3:15 PM UTC

999900000999 wrote: post #29

spandrew wrote: post #13

I would never advise anyone buy a Microsoft Windows laptop these days — between the forced updates, the account and service-fee thirst, ads, and consumer unfriendly product release process (forced opt-in). Guess what? With Apple's new Neo laptop the price is also way way wayyy out to lunch. If MSFT gives a business a huge bulk discount to buy their laptops + Office360 + Teams... OK? But as a "consumer" it really suck…

The Neo is probably the best laptop for typical people. I have an RTX 5070TI laptop. 95% I use it with Tumbleweed. Unfortunately with work I don't have too much to play with LLM training and such. The ultra poor person system is a used 200$ Thinkpad ( something about 2 years old) + your Linux distro of choice.

The Neo is probably the best laptop for typical people.

I don't think traditional desktop operating systems are best for most people. I believe a Chromebook, or an iPad with a keyboard, is best.

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#582

Post by legacynl » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 3:17 PM UTC

eeixlk wrote: post #529

jojobas wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Apple decides what your computer is doing even before it boots up, Microsoft is not even in the same league.

Curious about some examples of this. Consumer windows computers have historically had a lot more preinstalled garbage software. Do you mean app store restrictions or something else?

Although prebuilts often come with preinstalled garbage, that is software that only runs after the whole OS has started and intialized. Before that there are several pieces of code that run.

When the motherboard first gets power, there's a chip that 'runs some code' that powers all devices connected to the motherboard, and loads the BIOS from another chip on the motherboard. Then once all components of your computer are powered and in a ready state, the BIOS takes over. Once the bios performs its checks, it loads the 'bootloader' from the harddrive. This is the first piece of MS code in a windows pc. The bootloader will locate the installation of the windows installation, and then load and run the actual windows install..

That's what the guy above you meant. Any motherboard can be used in any desktop, because the chip on the motherboard provides a standard way of loading a bios. The bios can be changed out, as long as it uses the same standard of talking to the motherboard, and it is able to load a bootloader, it should be able to function. The bootloader and the OS itself can be changed too. Basically the whole system is designed around standards that allow people to do whatever they want.

Apple on the other hand doesn't do this at all. The write every piece of code themselves, and all their chips are custom built to do whatever apple wants it to do. This is why it's hard to replace certain components, because there's code in some chip on the motherboard that runs way before the OS even starts, that checks if all your components are allowed by apple. And in contrast to whatever Microsoft this is something they build into the hardware, so it can never be disabled by the user.

That's the difference in control that you have between an apple and a (Microsoft) PC. If you install linux on a pc, there is nothing MS related left on your pc. If you install linux on a macbook, you will still have apple code running on your device.

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#583

Post by JTbane » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 3:20 PM UTC

varispeed wrote: post #155

Rapzid wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone with a sizeable background in Linux system engineering.. I prefer Windows to MacOS. It's IMHO a better desktop now with the edge snap tile layout and etc. Excellent device compatibility. And I get my linux environment needs satisfied via WSL2 these days. But damn if they don't get in their own way. I have my own Pro licenses, and even with Pro turning off ads and features is text book whack-a-mole: * Frequ…

Don't forget the search that doesn't work. You have app "X" installed? You type X and it doesn't find it, but gives you irrelevant results about X.

There is a definite disconnect, I cannot think of ANY scenario in which I (as a developer and power user) would want the Start menu to search the internet.

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#584

Post by anthk » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 3:26 PM UTC

LtWorf wrote: post #486

MrDrMcCoy wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What on earth are you referring to?

That the security model on Unix (and Linux) is to trust your applications and mistrust other users of the same machine. While now the security model is that your applications are closed source and you cannot trust them, which is why you need wayland.

9front tells me otherwise. It's security model with namespaces and rfork it's far more tuned to modern times than the GNU/Linux or BSD one where even wth mitigations and the like a good crafted NES sound file (6502 code in the end, as C64 MOD files) could cause mayhem on some buffer overflow executing x86 code.

rio(1) windows under plan9/9front have their own namespace and OFC you can restrict these per windows making these kind of attacks futile.

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#585

Post by LtWorf » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 3:33 PM UTC

simoncion wrote: post #501

LtWorf wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That the security model on Unix (and Linux) is to trust your applications and mistrust other users of the same machine. While now the security model is that your applications are closed source and you cannot trust them, which is why you need wayland.

> [T]he security model on Unix (and Linux) is to trust your applications If that were true, httpd (and all other system daemons) would be run as root and neither the 'nobody' user and group nor the various security-related X11 extensions would exist. Anyone who has worked in this field for more than a few years (regardless of their era of entry) knows that nontrivial programs are faulty and can happen to or be induce…

Protecting against accidental mistakes and expecting applications to steal data are different levels.

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#586

Post by tomwheeler » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 3:41 PM UTC

chii wrote: post #525

tomwheeler wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I'd imagine that this decline accelerates as _developers_ begin migrating to other platforms, since the applications they created are what made that platform appealing to non-developers. That's why Steve Ballmer was jumping up and down, shouting, in a sweaty fervor. Say what you want about pre-Nadella Microsoft, but they definitely recognized the importance of having lots of developers writing software for Window…

> decline accelerates as _developers_ begin migrating to other platforms developers don't control what platforms an enterprise would use. Vendors don't dictate the platform either - vendors sell to a customer, and so it makes sense that the customer dictates the platform. when migration to different platform happens, it's because there's something disruptive that enterprises need to move to, or a new class of enterpr…

> developers don't control what platforms an enterprise would use

They might not control it directly, but they absolutely influence it. Linux was on the losing end of this for many years, as common end-user enterprise software was native and only available for Windows (or in the case of Microsoft Office, nominally available for Mac OS but with fewer features and lots more bugs). That was Microsoft's moat and it started leaking when web applications became ubiquitous. That leak later accelerated when those web applications had to work on mobile operating systems (namely iOS and Android) that Microsoft did not own and could not control.

> Vendors don't dictate the platform either - vendors sell to a customer, > and so it makes sense that the customer dictates the platform.

There are plenty of counterexamples here. I used to have two legacy SGI machines in my cubicle at work precisely because a vendor dictated the platform to that Very Big Enterprise company many years earlier.

Similarly, many people buy Macs solely to run Logic Pro or Final Cut Pro, because the vendor (Apple) dictated the platform by discontinuing the Windows versions. Apple doesn't have the market share Microsoft has, but unlike Microsoft, they can maintain strong control because of their breadth (OS and hardware for desktop, tablet, and phone, plus high-end creative software) and because a lot of their customers are all-in on Apple's ecosystem.

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#587

Post by legacynl » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 3:46 PM UTC

ctoth wrote: post #319

ryandrake wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might be obvious, but all of those things have a single common denominator: Microsoft, over you, getting to decide what your computer is doing. This is the biggest generalized danger in computing today: That OS (and device) manufacturers have gotten it in their heads that it's OK for them to have a strong say in what your computer runs. User doesn't want X, Y, or Z running on his computer? TOUGH. We are going to…

All true, and yet: Windows accessibility actually works. I use a screen reader daily. Linux a11y is complete dogshit — AT-SPI2 is unreliable, Orca is barely maintained, Wayland broke what little existed. I need something that actually works. When Linux goes off and decides it'll rewrite its working desktop stack and it's still, ten years later, not useable? ADHD-Driven development might be fine if you can see your sy…

> When Linux goes off and decides it'll rewrite

You're acting as if Linux is a single entity that can just decide to improve this or the other. The phrase "Linux should do X" is as useful as "Society should do X". It's not useful unless you can state what needs to change specifically, or you're talking to the right people.

> When you can't, being at the whims of some teenager chasing the new shiny is just frustrating.

Since most development on linux-related projects is based on volunteering, perhaps you can volunteer and organize for your own 'whims'? Personally I would love it if someone like you would get off their ass and use your knowledge about screenreaders to improve things for everyone.

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#588

Post by spicySpy » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 3:47 PM UTC

aurareturn wrote: post #482

longislandguido wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not sure how Apple does it. They do it by prematurely wearing down the soldered SSD just in time for you to buy a new laptop.

As far as I know, there is no M1 8GB SSD wear down complaints in 2026.

There are - people are complaining about SSD health

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#589

Post by legacynl » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 3:50 PM UTC

nchmy wrote: post #542

Miraste wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also think Windows' native window tiling is one of its best features, but there's a fantastic program called Swish that implements tiling for MacOS in a very native-feeling way. It supports keyboard shortcuts, but it's built around really elegant touchpad gestures. Highly recommend if that's all that's keeping you on Windows. The other native Windows feature I really like is the clipboard manager, and I don't have…

I moved from Windows to Pop_Os! 6 months ago and am generally quite happy except for the window tiling. It really is fantastic in windows.

Idk which desktop environment you're using, but window tiling on KDE Plasma is quite good.

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#590

Post by tmtvl » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 3:57 PM UTC

anthk wrote: post #584

LtWorf wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That the security model on Unix (and Linux) is to trust your applications and mistrust other users of the same machine. While now the security model is that your applications are closed source and you cannot trust them, which is why you need wayland.

9front tells me otherwise. It's security model with namespaces and rfork it's far more tuned to modern times than the GNU/Linux or BSD one where even wth mitigations and the like a good crafted NES sound file (6502 code in the end, as C64 MOD files) could cause mayhem on some buffer overflow executing x86 code. rio(1) windows under plan9/9front have their own namespace and OFC you can restrict these per windows makin…

How's the a11y story under Plan 9? I always thought of Plan 9 as being very forward thinking for its time but unfortunately stuck in the past in various ways, but are there screen readers and voice input and everything?