TLDR: Windows now pushes all kinds of unsolicited content on you and your family: news articles; social media apps like TikTok, Instagram, and Whatsapp; in-app purchases for Solitaire; ads for Microsoft 365.
The day Windows died
721–730 of 925 posts
Re: The day Windows died
#722Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure. But the article here is specifically about someone who wants their child to learn about computers by tinkering and trial and error.
Uh, the article isn't about that at all. It's about how cluttered, user-hostile, and specifically kid-unfriendly Windows has become in the latest iteration. Linux isn't the answer because it replaces those "features" with different kinds of user-hostility (everything is geared towards people who are on the road to becoming software developers, or are close friends with someone who is).
No, there are quite a few distributions geared towards working out of the box, and being easy for new users.
Re: The day Windows died
#723I just bought a Lenovo Ideapad from Costco for about $500. The last time I bought a computer preloaded with Windows was about a decade ago. My experience so far: I turn it on, there's a license agreement. Actually, there's two. One is from Microsoft, and it's rather long but I guess it's about par for the course. Then there's the Lenovo license agreement, which is actually a bunch of other license agreements concaten…
I don't understand how Microsoft can cheapen their main OS that much. If they really wanted to emulate Apple, they wouldn't fill their OS with trash in every corner. This also extends to the default landing page of Edge. This is the worst form of bullvard, it is a tiny bit better than directly advocating for penis enlargement on the internet. But not by much at all. There should be no ads on the OS level. Especially…
>I don't understand how Microsoft can cheapen their main OS that much. If they really wanted to emulate Apple, they wouldn't fill their OS with trash in every corner.
One of the benefits of entrenched monopoly power is you don't have to care about quality.
Re: The day Windows died
#724Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you could do a better job of trying to empathise with people who are not like yourself and who do not conform to the norms of your social class.
"I think you could do a better job of trying to empathise with people who are not like yourself and who do not conform to the norms of your social class." This statement is extremely ironic. You are scolding someone about not empathizing more. Do you see it?
I think if you empathized more with the scolder, you would see that they DID empathize with the shovel-eating-class-hater, and realized, via empathy-bond, that person was not empathizing downstream enough.
But... I totally empathize with you.
Re: The day Windows died
#725Earlier quoted context omitted.
Something I try to spread general awareness for whenever someone posts a local account workaround: The easiest and most foolproof workaround to get a local account is to attempt to use a banned account. Someone conveniently got "no@thankyou.com" banned so if you attempt to log in with it (use anything for the password, you're not actually trying to succeed in logging in) it'll dump you straight to the local account s…
Out of curiosity, how does one get an account banned?
If my experience is anything to go by it's enough to refuse to give them 2FA credentials and attempt to stick to only using a password (since I don't give a shit about a Microsoft account and didn't store any personal info there).
Re: The day Windows died
#726It's really sad that there is no where for us to go in the desktop OS space right now. I, weirdly, daily drive all 3 OSes. MacOS; Work issued laptop and longish-time user (about 6 years with it). Windows; Desktop PC mostly for games. I've been using Windows since I could walk. Fedora; Desktop PC, dual booted which I use for most everything else. I cannot believe how much of a dumpster fire Windows has become. From th…
> but no matter how much I love it, Linux is janky. To be honest though, so is Windows (in certain aspects). I believe that someone who works with Linux every day, gets used to certain stuff being janky and no longer notices it - just like someon working with Windows every day gets used to the jank found there, and no longer notices it. It's only when you are used to one system and switch over to the other, that you…
> > but no matter how much I love it, Linux is janky.
> To be honest though, so is Windows (in certain aspects).
Stockholm syndrome. I think people are so inured to Windows now, that people don't see the problems.
Re: The day Windows died
#727Awful, agreed. But..
> I want him to be able to dig deeper. To explore. To try things out, misconfigure, crash, fix, and re-install. To get a feeling for how things work below the surface and how they do not work. To learn how to type fast and efficiently. To create things. Maybe, one day, even to learn how to code if he's interested.
Just get him a Linux, all above and so much more to learn and benefit from in the future.
Re: The day Windows died
#728Use the education edition, problem solved. I'm pretty sure most schools have a VL for it and can give discounts for you to buy that version.
Yes, having to remove the adware is obnoxious but anything you use nowadays needs to be sanitized for kids and that includes Ipads. I'm just glad there are some built in ways to do that.
Re: The day Windows died
#729Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I guess I'll crawl back into my cave and keep using Linux for the foreseeable future. I’d been using Windows for so long, dealing with all the issues, random installs, shutdowns and all the crap. Then one fateful day 3 years ago I installed linux, and I haven’t had to think about my computer ever since. It’s absurd.
I'm one the verge. I switched all my secondary devices to Linux and all of a sudden, I hardly heard fans running any more. I literally had enough with Russian roulette like Windows Update, all kinds of spyware for a long time but it's really really hard to find substitution for some of the stuffs I use also the drives were not that good on Linux.
Switched over ~10 years ago. Was rough then -- pretty dang easy now.
Fedora 36 is pretty smooth. Only issue was a nvidia driver update a couple of years ago, but was easy enough to unwind. Otherwise no issues.
It's like that Neil Stephenson passage where he compares BeOS to the Batmobile, MacOS to a Lexus, Windows to a station wagon, and Linux to a tank, with the problem being that people are scared to learn how to drive a tank -- even though it's free.
Re: The day Windows died
#730I just bought a Lenovo Ideapad from Costco for about $500. The last time I bought a computer preloaded with Windows was about a decade ago. My experience so far: I turn it on, there's a license agreement. Actually, there's two. One is from Microsoft, and it's rather long but I guess it's about par for the course. Then there's the Lenovo license agreement, which is actually a bunch of other license agreements concaten…
> I guess I'll crawl back into my cave and keep using Linux for the foreseeable future. Yeah you could do that, but now even Ubuntu includes ads when invoking apt. There is no escape from the ads, and it will only get worse. Even flatpak must be immediately removed, and snaps for that matter. As it is adware clutter for the system.
>now even Ubuntu includes ads when invoking apt
Not saying this is wrong but I haven't encountered any ads when I use Ubuntu on WSL2 through a terminal. Does it happen only in the "proper" desktop version? What do the ads look like?