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I agree, the good thing about Apple and Microsoft is I know what they want to sell me. Apple want me to buy relatively expensive devices on a regular basis and

I agree, the good thing about Apple and Microsoft is I know what they want to sell me. Apple want me to buy relatively expensive devices on a regular basis and ideally a cloud subscription. Microsoft want me to buy subscriptions to their cloud services and ideally devices running their OS. In both cases the value for them is fairly clear and they have limited incentives to do anything that might jepordise those revenue flows. Companies like Google who (IIRC) get over 90% of their revenue from advertising, need to make money by selling information about me to 3rd parties for advert targeting, which I'm not so keen on. Personally I prefer to pay someone for a product/service directly.

roblabla 9y ago
And yet, microsoft started incorporating ads inside of windows 10. The business models helps, but if you can both sell a product and get ad revenue, why wouldn't you ? In apple's case, they have a fairly small but dedicated marketshare that cares deeply about those issue. That's why I trust them to not sabotage their product. Microsoft has a monopoly, they don't need to care.
- baldfat 9y ago
  > Microsoft has a monopoly How so anymore? There are clear paths to NOT use anything Microsoft if you want to. Microsoft even now has Linux offerings its a new era.
  - ginko 9y ago
    > Microsoft even now has Linux offerings its a new era. If they made a Linux version of Office and ported Direct3D to Linux, I'd be impressed. As such it's just embrace, extend extinguish again.
    - baldfat 9y ago
      You mean the monopoly is due to Office and DirectX? There are plenty of alternatives still. I only use Outlook due to work but I could also get around that through several ways. Maybe we just have a different definition of monopoly? Definition: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/monopoly https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/monopoly 1 :exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action 2 :exclusive possession or control no country has a monopoly on morality or truth —Helen M. Lynd 3 :a commodity controlled by one party had a monopoly on flint from their quarries —Barbara A. Leitch 4 :one that has a monopoly The government passed laws intended to break up monopolies.
      - Gaelan 9y ago
        I haven’t used OpenOffice much? But it feels much less polished than Office or iWork. I guess there’s Google Docs, but even that’s limited compared to even iWork. Is there anything actually decent that can be used for “Office” stuff on Linux?
        debaserab2 9y ago
        GDocs has been the primary office tool for the past several jobs I've had across the entire staff. What can it not do that office can do?
        deong 9y ago
        Within large organizations, I don't think there's any replacement for Excel. Google docs are great as a Word replacement, but Google's spreadsheet offering is a spreadsheet. Excel is an extremely sophisticated development environment.
        debaserab2 9y ago
        I hear this argument a lot and I still don't buy it. I use more advanced functionality than 90% of my coleagues and I don't find google spreadsheet stops me in any way. Tell me something excel can do that Google spreadsheet can't.
        dbattaglia 9y ago
        My guess is mainly legacy stuff (VBA macros) and .Net/COM based plugins that may be purchased or developed in-house at some businesses. For something brand new I would imagine Google Sheets can handle the vast majority of use cases.
        baldfat 9y ago
        Those companies need to hire programmers and use a programming language like R.
  - Aaargh20318 9y ago
    > There are clear paths to NOT use anything Microsoft if you want to. For a lot of people there isn't. Take my dad for example. He sells weight scales for retail (think butchers, greengrocers, cheese shops, etc). Those scales are pretty much embedded PC's nowadays, they connect to the internet and can be remotely accessed to update product prices, promotions, get the daily sales numbers but also things like changing the logos and text on the receipt and a million other things. The manufacturers of those scales sell a piece of software to do that, but it's always a 100% Windows app, held together with all kinds of (outdated) MS technology like Visual FoxPro. Often they have licenses that require hardware dongles, have bizarre drivers to communicate with the hardware and it feels like it's al held together with spit and ducktape. There is no Linux or OSS alternative, the protocols aren't even published and no one cares to reverse engineer them as the market is just tiny, and the target audience has no overlap with the techies that are interested in Linux and the like. And that's just one example, there are tons of crappy, outdated, proprietary apps like that out there. Apps with tiny user bases no one cares about so no OSS options will ever emerge.
    - RandVal30142 9y ago
      But all of that is not a monopoly by any stretch of the imagination. It speaks less of Microsoft and more of the vendors who find no need to change their ways. Yes it really is all held together with spit and tape, but nothing has forced them to change from it.
      - ethbro 9y ago
        It's a monopoly for those users * innumerable_similar_niches. Which translates into a pretty large part of the small business market that doesn't have any de facto choice. And WINE et al. aren't a scalable solution because invariably these things depend on odd Windows quirks and/or are generally terrible from a code/standards quality perspective. And there's functionally no way to address that because the historical-Windows-in-fact API is "every odd behavior every release of Windows has had over the years."
      - kbenson 9y ago
        Your example may be a monopoly (if there are no alternatives then Microsoft has a monopoly in that market, whether they actively pursued on or not, just as the first entry in a market has a monopoly until other entrants appear), but when talking about operating systems in general, Microsoft hasn't had close to a monopoly in a while. They still have significant market penetration and the majority of desktops, but credible alternatives exist in most cases, and more and more people are using them (thus the importance and interest in this MacOS release).
- raesene6 9y ago
  What markets is it that you feel Microsoft have a monopoly in? Desktop/Laptops is now a 3-way split between MS, Apple and Google with chromebooks. Mobile is a split between Apple and Google with MS out of it. Cloud is Amazon out in front with MS in second place. Office is the one area where MS could be considered to have a monopoly but even there I think cloud players are gaining ground and also (AFAIK) there's no advertising in paid for versions of MS Office.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >What markets is it that you feel Microsoft have a monopoly in? Desktop/Laptops is now a 3-way split between MS, Apple and Google with chromebooks In the US maybe (and I doubt even there). In the rest of the world it's 90% windows machines.
    - raesene6 9y ago
      In Europe Windows is down to 83% of desktop class machines http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/europe http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/europe and in overall "computing devices" including mobile it's down to 47% http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/all/europe http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/all/europe In certain markets like schools, windows is down to 22% in the US and 65% Worldwide (https://9to5mac.com/2017/03/02/apple-ios-market-share-k-12-education-chrome-os/ https://9to5mac.com/2017/03/02/apple-ios-market-share-k-12-e...) These don't really feel like monopoly numbers like we used to see around the 1995-2005 timeframe when Microsoft were at their most monopolistic.
      - coldtea 9y ago
        >In Europe Windows is down to 83% of desktop class machines http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/europe http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/europe and in overall "computing devices" including mobile it's down to 47% http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/all/europe* http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/all/europe* Yes, speaking of desktop/laptop machines. It's Windows, OS X around 12 or so and the others closer to statistical noise. Those even the 12% for OS X is in Western/Northern Europe mostly -- anywhere else it's closer to 95% Windows.
- pwdisswordfish 9y ago
  > And yet, microsoft started incorporating ads inside of windows 10. Using daily, only thing I've seen - notification about Edge (which came with the OS). what?
  - plopz 9y ago
    I've seen Office 365 ads in windows explorer
    - thecodefoundry 9y ago
      Yes, those were infuriating. Those can easily be disabled, though, via this method: http://www.thewindowsclub.com/turn-off-ads-notifications-explorer http://www.thewindowsclub.com/turn-off-ads-notifications-exp...
  - falcolas 9y ago
    Before disabling the ads, I saw ads for Halo, Cloud Drive, and prompts to install Office 365 on screensavers and interstitials. If you don't see them, you've likely disabled them.
    - nwah1 9y ago
      They also have suggested apps in the Store live tile, and on the top of the programs menu. Some of those are not directly from MS, but again at least half are at the moment (Minecraft, etc). Easy to turn off the live tiles and the suggested apps, and you can very quickly type to find any app so many people probably don't even look at the programs menu.
  - fhood 9y ago
    Candy crush showed up in my windows menu every day for a while.
    - EasyTiger_ 9y ago
      For me it continually installed unwanted games without my consent. This is with AIRQUOTES “Pro”
- hungerstrike 9y ago
  This is the most petty complaint about Windows that I've heard because every consumer-oriented OS has these type of "advertisements". Heck, on iOS not only am I forced to look at apps that I don't want, I am also forced to use them! On the Macintosh OS, whenever I want to see what updates are available, I have to first look at the featured apps in their store. Even Ubuntu installs a shit-load of crappy programs that I don't want. At least in Windows, you can disable them and pretty much never see them again. I've been on Windows 10 for years now and I think that I saw a Candy Crush launcher tile appear once and then it was gone forever.
  - dep_b 9y ago
    A part is removable, the rest you can hide. The ones you cannot remove are usually the ones the iOS SDK's are built on top of like Map Views or Web Views.
    - hungerstrike 9y ago
      Try clicking a hyperlink from Messages. You’re forced to use Safari. Try clicking an address in your contacts. You’re forced to use Apple Maps. Try replacing either one of them. You cannot.
      - valuearb 9y ago
        No, your not. Try copying the link and opening it in your preferred maps app and browsers. And what does that have to do with ads?
      - greggh 9y ago
        Wrong? I have it opening in Opera just fine?
  - roblabla 9y ago
    https://imgur.com/a/TthvX https://imgur.com/a/TthvX Every OS has this ? I mean, this is literally windows putting ads on the equivalent of the IOS launcher. No OS does that ! I don't really care about the built-in crapware (well, I do, but let's save this for another debate). That the OS actively fights for the user's attention is ridiculous. I don't really mind "ads" for their built-in products. The Edge popup[0] was almost cute, the OneDrive explorer ad[1] was understandable. But this[2] or this[3] ? That's just corporate greed at its finest. Sorry. [0] https://i.stack.imgur.com/l6JLb.jpg https://i.stack.imgur.com/l6JLb.jpg [1] https://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/File-Explorer-640x353.jpg https://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/File-... [2] https://www.digitalcitizen.life/sites/default/files/gdrive/win10_ads_turn_off/windows_ads_1.png https://www.digitalcitizen.life/sites/default/files/gdrive/w... [3] http://securitydaily.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/windows10-ads-lara-croft-game.png http://securitydaily.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/windows1...
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  Are those ads for 3rd party things, or for their own stuff?
  - nnutter 9y ago
    Both. Maybe, more their stuff. Comes installed with nagware for Office and Skype. Advertises their and third party cloud storage. Advertisements on screensaver. All can be disabled/removed. The ad I saw on screensaver was for a video game. Maybe Microsoft was the publisher or something but they definitely weren’t the creator.
- nnutter 9y ago
  Instead of saying “monopoly” just say “enough market lock-in” and people won’t get hung up on the semantics of “monopoly”.
  - roblabla 9y ago
    Too late to edit, but that's really what I meant. It's true that windows isn't a monopoly in the truest sense, but it feels like one because of the huge marketshare and vendor lock-in they have.
- komali2 9y ago
  Really ugly ads, too. There's just like 2 or three random cut-off strings of text randomly sprinkled around my login screen on my SP3, with little searchglass icons next to them. They're always totally incoherent and I'm not even sure how I would interact with them if I wanted to (clicking does nothing).
  - lozenge 9y ago
    I think those are information about where the login screen photo is taken.
- api 9y ago
  Apple: an imaginary version of you in the minds of it's design team is the customer. Microsoft: the OEM is the customer. Google: advertisers are the customer and you are the product. Linux: its own developers are the customers.
- jaxn 9y ago
  Apple also has an ad network on mobile. And they provide users with some opt-out functionality. I won't be surprised if this gets challenged for anti-trust.
  - alphonsegaston 9y ago
    I thought Apple killed iAds?
gruturo 9y ago
True for Apple, not for Microsoft. Windows 10 is stuffed with tracking and telemetry and puts ads in front of you (screen saver, start menu, etc). They are absolutely NOT famous for respecting your privacy or wishes.
- Delmania 9y ago
  You know you can turn those ads off, right?
  - jrcii 9y ago
    Why should you have to?
    - ksk 9y ago
      The default exists because not everyone has the same reaction to the telemetry as you. For those who do, they have some means of bypassing that (for now).
    - bocklund 9y ago
      Because Microsoft paid a lot of people to develop and maintain a software they gave away for free to users?
      - selectodude 9y ago
        If Microsoft let me buy Windows without that, I would have paid for it. Alas, If I spend $200 on Windows 10, I get the same tracking landmines than the person who spent 0 a few years ago.
      - jug 9y ago
        That they have given an ad ridden OS away for free is their problem, not something they were forced to.
      - fatbird 9y ago
        A free version with ads and telemetry isn't free, it's just monetized differently. And the vast majority of the cost of developing it is either sunk or defrayed by the paid versions.
mcv 9y ago
And yet, Apple has been pushing me in a direction I don't want to go with their recent OS X versions. I paid a lot of money for my mackbook and was quite happy with Lion, but was recently forced to upgrade because apparently Lion is way too out of date. So now I'm on Sierra, and I absolutely hate it. I thought it'd mostly just be uglier, but it bugs me with updates I don't want or need but am not allowed to ignore. And I hate their in-your-face notifications blocking an important part of my screen. (How about at the bottom next to the dock? Or in the menu bar? Just not over an active working window.)
- tomsmeding 9y ago
  Which notifications are you talking about? I have no such experience using Sierra.
  - deong 9y ago
    "Hey, have you tried Safari? It's pretty great. Why don't you give it a try?" "Umm, hey there...me again. You still haven't tried Safari? What's wrong? Want me to launch it for you?" "Ok, this is getting a little awkward. We worked pretty hard making Safari, and you won't even try it? I'm trying to not be insulted here, but you're not making it easy." "Listen motherfucker. You know that Keychain thing that you don't really pay much attention to. Well, I control that. If you want to see your Gmail password again, try motherfucking Safari. Clicky clicky, you lazy fuck."
    - kemayo 9y ago
      Interesting. I don't use Safari, and have never seen "try Safari" notifications. I wonder what the criteria for it are.
      - jdironman 9y ago
        Probably having chrome installed.
        9y ago
bitmapbrother 9y ago
Google doesn't sell user information. Also, Microsoft also has a search engine and ad business that do the exact same thing and just because it isn't successful that doesn't allow you to give them a free pass. Additionally, they preinstall third party bloatware on their OS and send tremendous amounts of telemetry back to their servers.
- larkost 9y ago
  Google absolutely sells access to "digested" user information. While your first sentence is technically correct since they don't directly give anyone the data, it is misleading at best. Google is in the business of selling selective eyeballs to advertisers, and has been a pioneer in using user data to try and target those add impressions.
  - euyyn 9y ago
    Google doesn't sell access to user information either, digested or not. I think it's misleading to say they do, "digestedly", or indirectly, or whatever.
    - ksk 9y ago
      That is true, if they sold the data, their company would probably be worthless!
    - bocklund 9y ago
      Google sells advertisers a promise to show their ads for razors to males 18-30 years old who have ever searched for 'razors' or 'shaving' or 'beard' or 'shaving cream'. Maybe they also look through your Google photos to find faces with beards... or check your email for references to beards or amazon orders with razors... and to show extra ads to people who live in the Portland area Some people are more okay with the facts (top paragraph) and the possibly exaggerated version (previous paragraph) and others.
      - euyyn 9y ago
Diederich 9y ago
> Companies like Google who (IIRC) get over 90% of their revenue from advertising According to, which references an official looking SEC form: https://www.quora.com/What-percent-of-Googles-revenue-comes-from-search-advertising https://www.quora.com/What-percent-of-Googles-revenue-comes-... "86.5% of Alphabet’s revenue still comes from their advertising business, which is driven by searches in web browsers" That's a hell of a lot. I wonder how quickly their other revenue sources are growing? A ton of companies are using Google products in a paid capacity. They're really very good.
- kyrra 9y ago
  https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204417000026/goog10-qq22017.htm#sAF7A9DBABC3C4E1B02AFCF5E827DD9A1 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204417... Check "other revenue" from the filing.
tresp 9y ago
agree WRT apple, but MS is super aggressive in terms of telemetry (maybe they want to target both groups of customers, advertisers and us)
lolatlogan 9y ago
I've never thought about it this way. I was wanting to transition to using all Google products and services from Apple but might just further invest in Apple and start using their cloud service as opposed to Google's.
vijaybritto 9y ago
"Personally I prefer to pay someone for a product/service directly." This wont work in our part of the world where access to tech is more important than ethics to a lot of people.
manigandham 9y ago
> Personally I prefer to pay someone for a product/service directly. Sure, but the vast majority of users do not want to pay for the vast majority of internet content.
- stutnh34tnnt 9y ago
  It sounds to me like you're saying that the vast majority of internet content isn't valuable. (And I agree!)
  - manigandham 9y ago
    Just because you don't want to pay directly doesn't mean it's not valuable. Value is hard to judge and people will definitely start to care if it all stopped.
gr3yh47 9y ago
> Microsoft want me to buy subscriptions to their cloud services and ideally devices running their OS. Microsoft pretty clearly wants 100% telemetry about everything you do on your computer - to the point where they will explicitly override user settings to the contrary - so you are underestimating the scope of their motivation
wstrange 9y ago
> Personally I prefer to pay someone for a product/service directly. You can. Gapps for business. $5 a month. No scanning of your email, etc.
- kyrra 9y ago
  Google stopped email scanning even for free Gmail. http://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/23/technology/gmail-ads.html http://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/23/technology/gmail-ads.ht...

roblabla 9y ago

And yet, microsoft started incorporating ads inside of windows 10. The business models helps, but if you can both sell a product and get ad revenue, why wouldn't you ? In apple's case, they have a fairly small but dedicated marketshare that cares deeply about those issue. That's why I trust them to not sabotage their product. Microsoft has a monopoly, they don't need to care.

baldfat 9y ago
> Microsoft has a monopoly How so anymore? There are clear paths to NOT use anything Microsoft if you want to. Microsoft even now has Linux offerings its a new era.
- ginko 9y ago
  > Microsoft even now has Linux offerings its a new era. If they made a Linux version of Office and ported Direct3D to Linux, I'd be impressed. As such it's just embrace, extend extinguish again.
  - baldfat 9y ago
    You mean the monopoly is due to Office and DirectX? There are plenty of alternatives still. I only use Outlook due to work but I could also get around that through several ways. Maybe we just have a different definition of monopoly? Definition: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/monopoly https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/monopoly 1 :exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action 2 :exclusive possession or control no country has a monopoly on morality or truth —Helen M. Lynd 3 :a commodity controlled by one party had a monopoly on flint from their quarries —Barbara A. Leitch 4 :one that has a monopoly The government passed laws intended to break up monopolies.
    - Gaelan 9y ago
      I haven’t used OpenOffice much? But it feels much less polished than Office or iWork. I guess there’s Google Docs, but even that’s limited compared to even iWork. Is there anything actually decent that can be used for “Office” stuff on Linux?
      - debaserab2 9y ago
        GDocs has been the primary office tool for the past several jobs I've had across the entire staff. What can it not do that office can do?
        deong 9y ago
        Within large organizations, I don't think there's any replacement for Excel. Google docs are great as a Word replacement, but Google's spreadsheet offering is a spreadsheet. Excel is an extremely sophisticated development environment.
        debaserab2 9y ago
        I hear this argument a lot and I still don't buy it. I use more advanced functionality than 90% of my coleagues and I don't find google spreadsheet stops me in any way. Tell me something excel can do that Google spreadsheet can't.
        dbattaglia 9y ago
        My guess is mainly legacy stuff (VBA macros) and .Net/COM based plugins that may be purchased or developed in-house at some businesses. For something brand new I would imagine Google Sheets can handle the vast majority of use cases.
        baldfat 9y ago
        Those companies need to hire programmers and use a programming language like R.
- Aaargh20318 9y ago
  > There are clear paths to NOT use anything Microsoft if you want to. For a lot of people there isn't. Take my dad for example. He sells weight scales for retail (think butchers, greengrocers, cheese shops, etc). Those scales are pretty much embedded PC's nowadays, they connect to the internet and can be remotely accessed to update product prices, promotions, get the daily sales numbers but also things like changing the logos and text on the receipt and a million other things. The manufacturers of those scales sell a piece of software to do that, but it's always a 100% Windows app, held together with all kinds of (outdated) MS technology like Visual FoxPro. Often they have licenses that require hardware dongles, have bizarre drivers to communicate with the hardware and it feels like it's al held together with spit and ducktape. There is no Linux or OSS alternative, the protocols aren't even published and no one cares to reverse engineer them as the market is just tiny, and the target audience has no overlap with the techies that are interested in Linux and the like. And that's just one example, there are tons of crappy, outdated, proprietary apps like that out there. Apps with tiny user bases no one cares about so no OSS options will ever emerge.
  - RandVal30142 9y ago
    But all of that is not a monopoly by any stretch of the imagination. It speaks less of Microsoft and more of the vendors who find no need to change their ways. Yes it really is all held together with spit and tape, but nothing has forced them to change from it.
    - ethbro 9y ago
      It's a monopoly for those users * innumerable_similar_niches. Which translates into a pretty large part of the small business market that doesn't have any de facto choice. And WINE et al. aren't a scalable solution because invariably these things depend on odd Windows quirks and/or are generally terrible from a code/standards quality perspective. And there's functionally no way to address that because the historical-Windows-in-fact API is "every odd behavior every release of Windows has had over the years."
    - kbenson 9y ago
      Your example may be a monopoly (if there are no alternatives then Microsoft has a monopoly in that market, whether they actively pursued on or not, just as the first entry in a market has a monopoly until other entrants appear), but when talking about operating systems in general, Microsoft hasn't had close to a monopoly in a while. They still have significant market penetration and the majority of desktops, but credible alternatives exist in most cases, and more and more people are using them (thus the importance and interest in this MacOS release).
raesene6 9y ago
What markets is it that you feel Microsoft have a monopoly in? Desktop/Laptops is now a 3-way split between MS, Apple and Google with chromebooks. Mobile is a split between Apple and Google with MS out of it. Cloud is Amazon out in front with MS in second place. Office is the one area where MS could be considered to have a monopoly but even there I think cloud players are gaining ground and also (AFAIK) there's no advertising in paid for versions of MS Office.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >What markets is it that you feel Microsoft have a monopoly in? Desktop/Laptops is now a 3-way split between MS, Apple and Google with chromebooks In the US maybe (and I doubt even there). In the rest of the world it's 90% windows machines.
  - raesene6 9y ago
    In Europe Windows is down to 83% of desktop class machines http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/europe http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/europe and in overall "computing devices" including mobile it's down to 47% http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/all/europe http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/all/europe In certain markets like schools, windows is down to 22% in the US and 65% Worldwide (https://9to5mac.com/2017/03/02/apple-ios-market-share-k-12-education-chrome-os/ https://9to5mac.com/2017/03/02/apple-ios-market-share-k-12-e...) These don't really feel like monopoly numbers like we used to see around the 1995-2005 timeframe when Microsoft were at their most monopolistic.
    - coldtea 9y ago
      >In Europe Windows is down to 83% of desktop class machines http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/europe http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/europe and in overall "computing devices" including mobile it's down to 47% http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/all/europe* http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/all/europe* Yes, speaking of desktop/laptop machines. It's Windows, OS X around 12 or so and the others closer to statistical noise. Those even the 12% for OS X is in Western/Northern Europe mostly -- anywhere else it's closer to 95% Windows.
pwdisswordfish 9y ago
> And yet, microsoft started incorporating ads inside of windows 10. Using daily, only thing I've seen - notification about Edge (which came with the OS). what?
- plopz 9y ago
  I've seen Office 365 ads in windows explorer
  - thecodefoundry 9y ago
    Yes, those were infuriating. Those can easily be disabled, though, via this method: http://www.thewindowsclub.com/turn-off-ads-notifications-explorer http://www.thewindowsclub.com/turn-off-ads-notifications-exp...
- falcolas 9y ago
  Before disabling the ads, I saw ads for Halo, Cloud Drive, and prompts to install Office 365 on screensavers and interstitials. If you don't see them, you've likely disabled them.
  - nwah1 9y ago
    They also have suggested apps in the Store live tile, and on the top of the programs menu. Some of those are not directly from MS, but again at least half are at the moment (Minecraft, etc). Easy to turn off the live tiles and the suggested apps, and you can very quickly type to find any app so many people probably don't even look at the programs menu.
- fhood 9y ago
  Candy crush showed up in my windows menu every day for a while.
  - EasyTiger_ 9y ago
    For me it continually installed unwanted games without my consent. This is with AIRQUOTES “Pro”
hungerstrike 9y ago
This is the most petty complaint about Windows that I've heard because every consumer-oriented OS has these type of "advertisements". Heck, on iOS not only am I forced to look at apps that I don't want, I am also forced to use them! On the Macintosh OS, whenever I want to see what updates are available, I have to first look at the featured apps in their store. Even Ubuntu installs a shit-load of crappy programs that I don't want. At least in Windows, you can disable them and pretty much never see them again. I've been on Windows 10 for years now and I think that I saw a Candy Crush launcher tile appear once and then it was gone forever.
- dep_b 9y ago
  A part is removable, the rest you can hide. The ones you cannot remove are usually the ones the iOS SDK's are built on top of like Map Views or Web Views.
  - hungerstrike 9y ago
    Try clicking a hyperlink from Messages. You’re forced to use Safari. Try clicking an address in your contacts. You’re forced to use Apple Maps. Try replacing either one of them. You cannot.
    - valuearb 9y ago
      No, your not. Try copying the link and opening it in your preferred maps app and browsers. And what does that have to do with ads?
    - greggh 9y ago
      Wrong? I have it opening in Opera just fine?
- roblabla 9y ago
  https://imgur.com/a/TthvX https://imgur.com/a/TthvX Every OS has this ? I mean, this is literally windows putting ads on the equivalent of the IOS launcher. No OS does that ! I don't really care about the built-in crapware (well, I do, but let's save this for another debate). That the OS actively fights for the user's attention is ridiculous. I don't really mind "ads" for their built-in products. The Edge popup[0] was almost cute, the OneDrive explorer ad[1] was understandable. But this[2] or this[3] ? That's just corporate greed at its finest. Sorry. [0] https://i.stack.imgur.com/l6JLb.jpg https://i.stack.imgur.com/l6JLb.jpg [1] https://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/File-Explorer-640x353.jpg https://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/File-... [2] https://www.digitalcitizen.life/sites/default/files/gdrive/win10_ads_turn_off/windows_ads_1.png https://www.digitalcitizen.life/sites/default/files/gdrive/w... [3] http://securitydaily.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/windows10-ads-lara-croft-game.png http://securitydaily.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/windows1...
s73ver_ 9y ago
Are those ads for 3rd party things, or for their own stuff?
- nnutter 9y ago
  Both. Maybe, more their stuff. Comes installed with nagware for Office and Skype. Advertises their and third party cloud storage. Advertisements on screensaver. All can be disabled/removed. The ad I saw on screensaver was for a video game. Maybe Microsoft was the publisher or something but they definitely weren’t the creator.
nnutter 9y ago
Instead of saying “monopoly” just say “enough market lock-in” and people won’t get hung up on the semantics of “monopoly”.
- roblabla 9y ago
  Too late to edit, but that's really what I meant. It's true that windows isn't a monopoly in the truest sense, but it feels like one because of the huge marketshare and vendor lock-in they have.
komali2 9y ago
Really ugly ads, too. There's just like 2 or three random cut-off strings of text randomly sprinkled around my login screen on my SP3, with little searchglass icons next to them. They're always totally incoherent and I'm not even sure how I would interact with them if I wanted to (clicking does nothing).
- lozenge 9y ago
  I think those are information about where the login screen photo is taken.
api 9y ago
Apple: an imaginary version of you in the minds of it's design team is the customer. Microsoft: the OEM is the customer. Google: advertisers are the customer and you are the product. Linux: its own developers are the customers.
jaxn 9y ago
Apple also has an ad network on mobile. And they provide users with some opt-out functionality. I won't be surprised if this gets challenged for anti-trust.
- alphonsegaston 9y ago
  I thought Apple killed iAds?

gruturo 9y ago

True for Apple, not for Microsoft. Windows 10 is stuffed with tracking and telemetry and puts ads in front of you (screen saver, start menu, etc). They are absolutely NOT famous for respecting your privacy or wishes.

Delmania 9y ago
You know you can turn those ads off, right?
- jrcii 9y ago
  Why should you have to?
  - ksk 9y ago
    The default exists because not everyone has the same reaction to the telemetry as you. For those who do, they have some means of bypassing that (for now).
  - bocklund 9y ago
    Because Microsoft paid a lot of people to develop and maintain a software they gave away for free to users?
    - selectodude 9y ago
      If Microsoft let me buy Windows without that, I would have paid for it. Alas, If I spend $200 on Windows 10, I get the same tracking landmines than the person who spent 0 a few years ago.
    - jug 9y ago
      That they have given an ad ridden OS away for free is their problem, not something they were forced to.
    - fatbird 9y ago
      A free version with ads and telemetry isn't free, it's just monetized differently. And the vast majority of the cost of developing it is either sunk or defrayed by the paid versions.

mcv 9y ago

And yet, Apple has been pushing me in a direction I don't want to go with their recent OS X versions. I paid a lot of money for my mackbook and was quite happy with Lion, but was recently forced to upgrade because apparently Lion is way too out of date. So now I'm on Sierra, and I absolutely hate it. I thought it'd mostly just be uglier, but it bugs me with updates I don't want or need but am not allowed to ignore. And I hate their in-your-face notifications blocking an important part of my screen. (How about at the bottom next to the dock? Or in the menu bar? Just not over an active working window.)

tomsmeding 9y ago
Which notifications are you talking about? I have no such experience using Sierra.
- deong 9y ago
  "Hey, have you tried Safari? It's pretty great. Why don't you give it a try?" "Umm, hey there...me again. You still haven't tried Safari? What's wrong? Want me to launch it for you?" "Ok, this is getting a little awkward. We worked pretty hard making Safari, and you won't even try it? I'm trying to not be insulted here, but you're not making it easy." "Listen motherfucker. You know that Keychain thing that you don't really pay much attention to. Well, I control that. If you want to see your Gmail password again, try motherfucking Safari. Clicky clicky, you lazy fuck."
  - kemayo 9y ago
    Interesting. I don't use Safari, and have never seen "try Safari" notifications. I wonder what the criteria for it are.
    - jdironman 9y ago
      Probably having chrome installed.
      - 9y ago

bitmapbrother 9y ago

Google doesn't sell user information. Also, Microsoft also has a search engine and ad business that do the exact same thing and just because it isn't successful that doesn't allow you to give them a free pass. Additionally, they preinstall third party bloatware on their OS and send tremendous amounts of telemetry back to their servers.

larkost 9y ago
Google absolutely sells access to "digested" user information. While your first sentence is technically correct since they don't directly give anyone the data, it is misleading at best. Google is in the business of selling selective eyeballs to advertisers, and has been a pioneer in using user data to try and target those add impressions.
- euyyn 9y ago
  Google doesn't sell access to user information either, digested or not. I think it's misleading to say they do, "digestedly", or indirectly, or whatever.
  - ksk 9y ago
    That is true, if they sold the data, their company would probably be worthless!
  - bocklund 9y ago
    Google sells advertisers a promise to show their ads for razors to males 18-30 years old who have ever searched for 'razors' or 'shaving' or 'beard' or 'shaving cream'. Maybe they also look through your Google photos to find faces with beards... or check your email for references to beards or amazon orders with razors... and to show extra ads to people who live in the Portland area Some people are more okay with the facts (top paragraph) and the possibly exaggerated version (previous paragraph) and others.
    - euyyn 9y ago

Diederich 9y ago

> Companies like Google who (IIRC) get over 90% of their revenue from advertising According to, which references an official looking SEC form: https://www.quora.com/What-percent-of-Googles-revenue-comes-from-search-advertising https://www.quora.com/What-percent-of-Googles-revenue-comes-... "86.5% of Alphabet’s revenue still comes from their advertising business, which is driven by searches in web browsers" That's a hell of a lot. I wonder how quickly their other revenue sources are growing? A ton of companies are using Google products in a paid capacity. They're really very good.

kyrra 9y ago
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204417000026/goog10-qq22017.htm#sAF7A9DBABC3C4E1B02AFCF5E827DD9A1 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204417... Check "other revenue" from the filing.

tresp 9y ago

agree WRT apple, but MS is super aggressive in terms of telemetry (maybe they want to target both groups of customers, advertisers and us)

lolatlogan 9y ago

I've never thought about it this way. I was wanting to transition to using all Google products and services from Apple but might just further invest in Apple and start using their cloud service as opposed to Google's.

vijaybritto 9y ago

"Personally I prefer to pay someone for a product/service directly." This wont work in our part of the world where access to tech is more important than ethics to a lot of people.

manigandham 9y ago

> Personally I prefer to pay someone for a product/service directly. Sure, but the vast majority of users do not want to pay for the vast majority of internet content.

stutnh34tnnt 9y ago
It sounds to me like you're saying that the vast majority of internet content isn't valuable. (And I agree!)
- manigandham 9y ago
  Just because you don't want to pay directly doesn't mean it's not valuable. Value is hard to judge and people will definitely start to care if it all stopped.

gr3yh47 9y ago

> Microsoft want me to buy subscriptions to their cloud services and ideally devices running their OS. Microsoft pretty clearly wants 100% telemetry about everything you do on your computer - to the point where they will explicitly override user settings to the contrary - so you are underestimating the scope of their motivation

wstrange 9y ago

> Personally I prefer to pay someone for a product/service directly. You can. Gapps for business. $5 a month. No scanning of your email, etc.

kyrra 9y ago
Google stopped email scanning even for free Gmail. http://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/23/technology/gmail-ads.html http://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/23/technology/gmail-ads.ht...