18 ms·

Microsoft Is Putting Ads on the Mail App in Windows 10

293 points by cgtyoder 8y ago

ppeetteerr 8y ago
I don't see a problem with this. People mention how you "pay" for windows, but the cost of windows is not a fixed price, it's a recurring price thanks to Microsoft's support system and backend services. Putting an ad into the email client is no different than what Google does, minus the small upfront cost that Windows charges. Don't want ads, pay for Outlook or use a Mac/Linux. Easy.
aw3c2 8y ago
So, my uncle needs a new computer and he needs Windows 10 on it. How can I make sure that he is not being spied on and psychologically manipulated by ads right from the beginning? Is there a professional version of Windows 10 with none of those shenanigans I keep hearing about?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- slivanes 8y ago
  I'm curious as to why he needs Windows 10?
- burntcookie90 8y ago
  I'm wondering the same. My dad got a Surface Pro 6 last week and I had to go and make sure every toggle I could turn off was turned off. It's insane.
- garaetjjte 8y ago
  There is LTSC, but available only in volume licensing.
  - crankylinuxuser 8y ago
    Volume license is slang for "Torrent", right?
- cheeseomlit 8y ago
  Not really, at least not for consumers. There are 'decrapifier' scripts you can run, but all that shit just gets re-installed on the next major build update anyways in my experience. https://community.spiceworks.com/scripts/show/4378-windows-10-decrapifier-1803-1809 https://community.spiceworks.com/scripts/show/4378-windows-1...
- smacktoward 8y ago
  You can’t and there isn’t.
- Someone1234 8y ago
  After installing Windows 10: Go to Settings -> Privacy, and slide many (most?) things to off. Including Diagnostic & Usage Data to Basic. Settings > Personalization > Start and slide "Occasionally show suggestions in start" to off. Settings -> Personalization -> Lock Screen and slide "Get fun facts, tips, and more from Windows and Cortana on your lock screen" to off. Settings -> System -> Notifications & actions -> "Get tip, tricks, and suggestions as you use Windows" and "Show me the Windows welcome experience after updates and occasionally when I sign in to highlight what's new and suggested" to off. Go to Cortana (Taskbar) -> Settings (Gear Icon) -> "Taskbar tidbits" to off I wouldn't use the built in "Mail" app with or without ads, it is terrible. Just have him simply not use it.
  - otippat 8y ago
    And then do it again after most updates to the system.
    - Someone1234 8y ago
      Fortunately they stopped doing that. It was definitely a problem with the first two-ish feature updates for Windows 10 however.
  - vezycash 8y ago
    Just use Spybot Anti-Beacon software and do most of the above steps in a click. Edit: Sorry. It's now a paid software. Checking for free alternatives. Found one: shutup10 Lastly, install Unchecky. It'll automatically uncheck options for additional unwanted programs, adware, toolbars... when installing software.
    - Someone1234 8y ago
      Be careful with those scripts/software. Many of them essentially break Windows 10 by design. If you stay within the Settings UI then you are working within Windows 10's supported design. When you run a script that disables a system service (e.g. Cortana) things start to get quirky/broken. Several of those break Windows Update for example.
- PascLeRasc 8y ago
  Does he need 10? Windows 7 still works fine, so does Elementary OS if that works.
  - einr 8y ago
    If you use Windows 7 on modern processors (Ryzen/Skylake), Windows Update stops working so you won't get security updates.
    - kakarot 8y ago
      I have an Intel 6700K and WU works fine for me.
  - aw3c2 8y ago
    Yes of course, otherwise I would not have asked.
- swebs 8y ago
  https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop
airstrike 8y ago
I miss Windows 8.1. There, I said it.
- hiccuphippo 8y ago
  What was good about it compared to Windows 7?
  - iaml 8y ago
    Here's unpopular opinion: start menu really did need a remake and I like the designs 8.1 had compared to 10. Also, IIRC 8 has some optimizations (including some tweaks to better support ssds).
  - keypress 8y ago
    Not the biggest fan of 8 series, but the best thing about it was some of the energy optimisations - as they were going to target mobile. The kernel hibernation is good, for quicker start up. But sadly that's at the expense of hibernating proper. 8.1 brought back things like the closing button on metro apps, and some other fudging, to make it a bit more Win 7, and it just felt like even more of an abomination. The control panel/metro settings mixed UI - is the thing that killed Windows for me. In Windows 10, I can't find anything setting wise particularly easily. And on a recent new laptop start up, I cringed at all the options that I had to turn off, and at the apps I tried to remove.
- keypress 8y ago
  My poor old computer got stuck on that release. I'll look at it in a more positive light now.
- jawilson2 8y ago
  Windows 2000 for 4life
  - vbezhenar 8y ago
    I wonder if it's possible to use it with modern hardware. May be someone will make a modern Windows 2000 distribution with backported drivers and fixed vulnerabilities. Source code was leaked, so should be possible.
Meai 8y ago
This wouldn't be bad if I could uninstall that app but the button is gray on my machine. Same for the Xbox apps that I am guaranteed to never need. Weird feeling.
- bdz 8y ago
  https://www.howtogeek.com/224798/how-to-uninstall-windows-10s-built-in-apps-and-how-to-reinstall-them/ https://www.howtogeek.com/224798/how-to-uninstall-windows-10... Open the PowerShell as admin and copy: Get-AppxPackage * windowscommunicationsapps * | Remove-AppxPackage (remove space at the two asterisks, HN turns the text into italicized) voilà, Mail and Calendar uninstalled. You can do this with all of the preinstalled stuff (Xbox as well), see the link above.
  - swiley 8y ago
    >Open the PowerShell as admin and copy: Having to do this has in the past been the main argument I've seen used against using Linux based OSes. If you have to do it anyway you might as well actually own your computer.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
ocdtrekkie 8y ago
Microsoft continues to demonstrate that it's worst enemy is itself. There's no way that throwing ads in the default Mail app is going to make them more money than it costs them in the long run.
- rhexs 8y ago
  While the ads and bloatware Microsoft was specifically trying to get away from in the 2000-2010ish era coming back, but this time packaged by Microsoft themselves, is absolutely baffling, the Cortana voice playing when you install Windows 10 has me even more confused. How did that get integrated? Is there some sort of Microsoft VP who decided to stake their career on Cortana and overrode everyone to merge that awful design decision into the installer, or do Microsoft employees like it as well? Who ever wanted to run a Windows installer via voice? Has anyone ever actually used the voice installer?
  - binarycrusader 8y ago
    You may wish to consider that the voice in the installer is beneficial for accessibility purposes.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - rhexs 8y ago
      Fair enough. I did not consider that aspect. I'd still hope there would be a slightly less annoying way to accomplish that though.
      - binarycrusader 8y ago
        As someone who's heard Cortana many times during initial setup, I understand. However, I also understand the tradeoff in favor of accessibility. For larger deployments, there's a registry key and other options: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/customize/desktop/cortana-voice-support https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/customize/... For other cases, I'd consider filing feedback requesting an easier way to mute during the setup process (if there isn't one already; I don't remember looking for that option and instead just muting the device using a hardware switch).
jklinger410 8y ago
Pay for Windows, get bloatware and ads. Pay for Mac OS...don't. Use Google, get everything for free subsidized by ads. Pay for Windows, still get ads? Hmmmmm
- zitterbewegung 8y ago
  You don’t pay for macOS though. EDIT: yes you can argue you pay for it with your purchase of hardware but you don’t pay for future revisions.
  - azinman2 8y ago
    You do implicitly with your purchase of Apple hardware.
  - AsyncAwait 8y ago
    You do, but it's included in the hardware price.
  - tobyhinloopen 8y ago
    Please let me know how I can get macOS for free :) Edit: You also don't get free updates if you don't have an Apple machine. Still not free.
    - beeneuf 8y ago
      Sure you do. I get free updates on my hackintosh, I just have to be very careful about actually installing them.
    - excalibur 8y ago
      https://saintlad.com/install-macos-sierra-in-virtualbox-on-windows-10/ https://saintlad.com/install-macos-sierra-in-virtualbox-on-w...
- AsyncAwait 8y ago
  Get Linux for free, still don't get ads.
reading-at-work 8y ago
What does HN recommend as a better Win10 email client? I'm familiar with Thunderbird and I'll probably switch to it if nothing else, but I'm not a huge fan of the UI/UX.
- Someone1234 8y ago
  This might sound glib, but as someone who has used both Thunderbird and Outlook extensively, I don't recommend any desktop email client. Email clients were designed for a whole different era, and only work well in that context. Gmail, Outlook.com/O365/etc, are designed for you to "keep everything." Problem is that all desktop email clients aren't designed that way, they want you to have a very small limited subset of email that they can index and constantly have in memory. When these two worlds converge desktop clients choke and choke hard. Outlook is so terrible that it almost needs to be completely retired. They've barely updated it in ten years. Best case scenario right now is full webmail (with anyone) and browser notifications for new email etc if you need that.
  - jcelerier 8y ago
    > Problem is that all desktop email clients aren't designed that way, they want you to have a very small limited subset of email that they can index and constantly have in memory. with large amounts of mail (~90k in one of my inboxes - and if someone asks just yesterday I had to go and fetch some info from a 2007 mail), GMail chokes much more than thunderbird, e.g. it takes 2/3 minutes and sometimes does not work to mark a large set of email as read/archived/whatever while this is almost instant with TB.
  - modzu 8y ago
    clients still make sense for users with multiple accounts. and modern clients only sync a subset of the db but still permit online search and retrieval. also for certain tasks the web clients aren't much better (gmails interface is garbage for working with multiple messages for example) the default answer to op's question in enterprise land (where windows is still treading for relevancy) is Outlook. thunderbird suffers the issues the comment mentions above -- barfs with large dbs, no support for exchange, not sure if it even supports push notifications, etc it should be noted that mail on mac works well and the win 10 mail app this article is all about works pretty well too, which is why its a travesty MS is going to ruin it.
andrewmunsell 8y ago
Is it at all ironic that I get a page that is trying to force me to turn off my ad blocker when I am trying to view a link about Microsoft putting ads in their Mail app?
- Semaphor 8y ago
  Weird, either you need to get a better adblocker, or they don't show that in EU.
  - dorianm 8y ago
    I am in EU, I got the adblocker pop-up
  - andrewmunsell 8y ago
    That's probably true, I haven't touched the AdBlocker extension in a while and I get anti-ad block modals all the time. Probably time to look into an updated list with a working anti-ad block blocker
- disiplus 8y ago
  hmm, no adblock popup, usin ublock origin https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yRBphYeo3uUl5jFFQJufLMKPmup1KZ_k/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yRBphYeo3uUl5jFFQJufLMKPmup...
- ams6110 8y ago
  I get very few of those popups, using uBlock origin and a hosts file.
amyjess 8y ago
I currently use this on my Surface because it's more touch-friendly than Gmail's website, but it looks like I'll be moving on. Any recommendations for a touch-friendly (i.e. must be UWP) mail app for Windows?
- WorldMaker 8y ago
  The latest Gmail revamp is more touch-friendly than it used to be, especially in Edge (despite Gmail's increasingly obnoxious insistence that you should only use Chrome). The article suggests that the Mail app will never have ads for Office 365 users. Office 365 Home is often a good deal for a Surface owner anyway, as it boosts your OneDrive space, and gives you up to date copies of all the Office programs, and stuff like that.
  - robocat 8y ago
    > despite Gmail's increasingly obnoxious insistence that you should only use Chrome Fuck Edge touch support - they don't support the event API used by Safari/Chrome, instead you need to use an MS specific touch API. I support touch on IE11/Edge (because our business made a bet on Windows Phone) but I have wasted an obscene amount of time to do so (we have very few windows phone/laptop touch users). I hate supporting Edge more than IE11 - weird bugs and continual problems with the debugger and touch support.
    - WorldMaker 8y ago
      Are you talking about Pointer Events versus Touch Events? Edge supports both (and has for some time). IE supports only Pointer Events. (There is a polyfill for Touch Events on IE: https://github.com/WebReflection/ie-touch https://github.com/WebReflection/ie-touch) https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Touch_events#Browser_compatibility https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Touch_event... https://caniuse.com/#feat=pointer https://caniuse.com/#feat=pointer https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Pointer_events https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Pointer_eve... Both are W3C recommended standards. Pointer Events has more capabilities, and an easier abstraction for multi-modal input (ie, mouse and touch, or touch and pen). So I often see Pointer Events recommended over Touch Events if you can use Pointer Events. (React recently moved to recommending Pointer Events, as one example.) The big reason not to use Pointer Events is that Safari/WebKit has lagged far behind on Pointer Event adoption (it is finally in experimental preview in Safari, years after Firefox and Chrome/Blink, and seems to be part of the increasing Blink/WebKit split). There is a Pointer Event Polyfill for Safari (and other older browsers that support Touch Events but not Pointer Events): https://github.com/jquery/PEP https://github.com/jquery/PEP
tobyhinloopen 8y ago
OSX: Pay here. Not enough, we increased our prices! Oh, don't forget your dongles! Windows: Oh you want to rename a file that is opened by an application? Fuck you. We're not even capable of telling you what application. Have some ads instead! Linux: Ooh you thought you could use $APPLICATION_NAME? Sorry, that isn't available, but you can try $MEDIOCRE_ALTERNATIVE instead. I'm not a fanboy, I hate every major desktop OS.
- jimijazz 8y ago
  While OSX might be expensive it is such a pleasure to use!
  - tobyhinloopen 8y ago
    I agree. OSX user here as well. It's the "least bad" option IMO if budget isn't much of an issue. If OSX wouldn't exist, I would likely try Linux, get sick of it, try Windows, get even more frustrated, and get back to Linux. It is very likely I'd be using ElementaryOS or Ubuntu Desktop in the end.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - microcolonel 8y ago
    As a Linux user, I find macOS infuriating. As soon as you change a setting, your chances of something breaking increase dramatically. The window manager is sometimes okay, but other times infuriating (maximize vs. zoom vs. "fullscreen" vs. actual fullscreen), and has major bugs in every release ranging from funny (the underglow for windows in Exposé being somewhere other than under the window you're hovering over) to day-ruining (hard killing the application you're switching to, sometimes [saw this with 10.11 a few times]). Worst of all, they insist on changing everything every couple years, and given the kinds of bugs they tend to introduce while doing this, I suspect they are repeatedly rewriting the whole window manager, almost from scratch, for seemingly no reason. Now, that's not to say that X11 desktop environments are all sunshine and rainbows but at least a) if you like it the way it is, you can probably keep it exactly as it is with no consequences, and b) you can always choose something simpler, where there's less to go wrong. I went with option b here, I've been using mostly the same version of the same lightweight window manager since 2012, it is just fine, it isn't ever sluggish on any machine, and it isn't "too little" for my workstation. I use it on OpenBSD as well, and when I tried out MINIX 3 in 2013, it wasn't any effort to use exactly the same window manager. There are no commits in it (mine is a fork, but it didn't really need to be) since February 2016, because it didn't need to change.
matchbok 8y ago
So crazy how far behind Windows is to OS X. Even basic GUI stuff (animations, smoothness, etc) are not even a comparison. This is just another example. Ridiculous.
- kkarakk 8y ago
  os x can't show me what's happening(speed/time to complete transfers) when i'm copying multiple files, it's a shit os for most real world tasks for me
puranjay 8y ago
And I thought Windows 10 couldn't get any worse. After the latest update, my hard drive wheezes like an asthmatic climbing his 25th flight of stairs on startup. Just a long list of problems with Windows 10
- aaaaaaaaaab 8y ago
  >hard drive Found your problem!
  - crankylinuxuser 8y ago
    better than a micro soft! /har har har But seriously, I still refer to even SSDs as hard drives. Spinning rust or memory chips. They're interchangable right now, until spinning rust phases out completely.
jimmies 8y ago
Anyone remembers just 5 years ago, Microsoft had a huge campaign about how everyone got "scroogled" by Google? Especially this ad about Google reading your mail to devliver you ads? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iI1ominSL_c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iI1ominSL_c Oh, how the time has changed!
- jahabrewer 8y ago
  To be fair, from the article: > although these ads are interest-based, they do not look at your emails to display ads based on data from your email.
  - yebyen 8y ago
    Well, everyone thank Satya Nadella, it's a miracle we were able to draw the line somewhere! /s I'm sorry, this snark is not really directed at you, but how exactly are they determining your interests if they're not reading your e-mails? Where does that data come from? I'd be happy to take back my /s if someone can tell me it was all voluntarily collected, but I suspect the answer is really "they just found a different way to spy on you other than reading your email."
    - basil-rash 8y ago
      There are plenty of ways to spy besides email... Bing searches, for instance. I believe anything you type into the start menu is sent to Bing by default, so that could be more data than you think. I personally use Bing, but not Windows. Looking on my interests page for Bing, I see they have a decent chunk of info on me, nothing too crazy personal though.
- EduardoBautista 8y ago
  There is still no evidence that they are reading your emails so it's not the same. I am fine with ads, just as long as they don't mine my data and follow me around.
  - 8y ago
jammygit 8y ago
All I want is to be able to give companies my money in exchange for not being spied on, manipulated, or locked into some walled garden. I can't for my OS - I have to use free gnu/Linux because everyone else treats me like crap. Is my money not good enough for them? This is getting absurd
- contravariant 8y ago
  It seems like they can get people to sell their privacy and autonomy cheaply if they can convince them it's the normal thing to do. Having an option that doesn't do any of those things would undermine the illusion.
- mav3rick 8y ago
  The money you would likely pay would be less than what they can make by selling you ads (as a whole). If you were willing to pay > $1000 for software and services there was no reason for companies to maintain an Ad business.
  - yebyen 8y ago
    Is that really true? I feel like they would need _everyone_ to be willing to pay that much, and on a recurring basis somehow to make support sustainable. The value of marketing to Windows users is in the network effect. If one Windows user can pay $1000 to avoid advertising and change nothing else, the other users will probably hear about this and take notice. But if every Windows user is subjected to ads, I very much doubt that Microsoft is making $1000 in advertising revenue from just one person. Microsoft would never convert 100% of users to "ad-free" paid subscriptions, at any price. But they can make money directly from advertising to 100% of their users, and there is no "loss" except from attrition (which I would guess is still probably quite a bit smaller than their numbers for overall user-base growth.)
  - aikah 8y ago
    > The money you would likely pay would be less than what they can make by selling you ads (as a whole). If you were willing to pay > $1000 for software and services there was no reason for companies to maintain an Ad business. So people used the same argument with games and loot boxes. But even if videogames cost $500 a copy, there is so much money to be made with loot boxes that they would still exist in these games at that price.
coltonv 8y ago
Amazon has lately been putting ads on prime video for other prime video shows. I have a feeling we're rapidly going towards most paid services having ads. Also, on prime video, occasionally, pressing the fast forward button won't skip the ad. I'm sure it's one of those "bugs" that just happens to force the user to do something the company wants but the user doesn't but I have a feeling it might just stop working all the time and we'll be forced to sit through the whole ad on a paid service.
- abhiminator 8y ago
  >we're rapidly going towards most paid services having ads. Cable TV model isn't dead after all.
  - staplers 8y ago
    Also means piracy won't be dying anytime soon.
- ryanianian 8y ago
  This is infuriating. I'm paying for the service--that's supposedly what's sustaining it--why are there ads? If you (Amazon) decide you want more money, let me decide to pay more to eliminate ads. Similar things abound with Hulu. Even the more expensive "ad free" version has some ads for certain shows/movies due to "licensing agreements" (read: Hulu wanting more money).
  - benologist 8y ago
    Once these companies decide their best path to new profits doesn't include new or improved products or growth it's just a question of who they are going to fuck, their employees or users.
    - thfuran 8y ago
      What do you mean "or"?
  - 8y ago
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
neurobashing 8y ago
when someone says "let's monetize X", what they're really asking is, "how can we burn all that developer goodwill we've worked really hard to earn". So maybe go looking for another revenue channel?
AngeloAnolin 8y ago
They also do this on the web version of Outlook. [1]. And you could see that the ads are littered all over the place. And their ads don't really make sense anyway, as for example, the ads that I see are something that: - I am not interested - Irrelevant as the products have no use for me - Unable to purchase as the products themselves are not available locally where I am located. They should probably train their algorithms for ads to ensure that it is something interesting (or at least would compel the consumer to look). For example, I noticed that in Instagram, the ads are more targeted, and they usually remind you of stuff that you have recently searched. [1] https://imgur.com/a/fcmyMMf https://imgur.com/a/fcmyMMf
- hadrien01 8y ago
  Outlook.com is also a mail provider, so it's not really a proper comparison. Outlook Web App (OWA), the Web client for Exchange and Office 365, and Outlook on the desktop have no ads.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
genidoi 8y ago
After Equifax why would they not? Seems like when it comes to actual tech scandals, nobody cares. Frightening stuff.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
Dear Microsoft, As a vocal critic of the Linux Desktop, your horrifically misguided attempts to "improve" Windows since Windows 10 have so degraded the experience of using it that I am now only 2 reasons[0] away from switching anyway, so at least I don't have to pay for the privilege of using crappy software. I would ask you kindly to cease your endeavors to kill off the Windows Desktop and personal computing in general, but having dealt with you I know that it is your policy to ignore user feedback. [0] 1. I hate package managers as an application installation paradigm, and 2. GPU drivers still perform worse for my card, if you must know.
- craftyguy 8y ago
  > GPU drivers still perform worse for my card Which GPU?
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
    nVidia GTX 1080ti In addition to the performance degradation, nVidia and the kernel maintainers don't currently get along so I'd also have to deal with that.
    - craftyguy 8y ago
      Ah, yes. nvidia is a thorn. In other news, the AMD and Intel drivers are as good as, if not better, than their windows counterparts!
      - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
        Shame their hardware isn't as good. Especially Intel's.
      - Karunamon 8y ago
        Legitimately asking; does AMD still do that thing where they unceremoniously drop support for an older card on newer kernels - so you do a apt-get upgrade at some point and reboot to a black screen, and your options are either never upgrade your kernel or get a new GPU?
extesy 8y ago
I suppose this is a consequence of making all future versions of Windows essentially free by adopting "Windows as a Service" release process. When everyone upgrades to Windows 10 there won't be anyone left to buy it anymore so they need a new source of income to replace that.
- aikah 8y ago
  > I suppose this is a consequence of making all future versions of Windows essentially free by adopting "Windows as a Service" release process. When everyone upgrades to Windows 10 there won't be anyone left to buy it anymore so they need a new source of income to replace that. OEM Licenses are bound to a single computer AFAIK. You change computers you need to pay for Windows again. So it's not like people will never buy Windows anymore as long as they buy computers installed with Windows on it. Before one would get a separate Windows CD with his computer and be able to install it on many different machines, one activation at a time.
  - einr 8y ago
    But it also used to be that new Windows versions came out around every three years so by the time you needed a new computer, you'd be paying the Windows tax again anyway. In practice, not a lot of difference.
TheRealDunkirk 8y ago
Just another step towards the inevitable announcement of a "free," "promotion-supported" version of Windows. For decades, the beige-box industry was supported by doing things like including trialware antivirus, browser search bars, and shareware games on top of the OS. Why shouldn't Microsoft put the crapware on the machine directly, and eliminate the middle man? I would hope that this would allow them to split the codebase, and make other, paid versions (professional, enterprise) that didn't have ANY of the tracking or advertising -- and didn't require extensive GPO manipulation to turn off -- but that's probably too much to ask.
- hakfoo 8y ago
  What's funny is that there was definitely a point where Microsoft themselves realized this business model by OEMs was undermining their platform. They actually promoted "signature" PCs which were supposed to come without crapware. I can recall buying a Windows 8 tablet from a brick-and-mortar Microsoft store because I knew it would come with a hassle-free clean install.
danielor 8y ago
Soon, I will have targeted ads on my coffee mugs... This is getting out of control.
- swiley 8y ago
  Hasn't McDonald's been doing that since forever?
  - danielor 8y ago
    So, true. :)
dagaci 8y ago
I only read personal mail in the web browser, its too much to maintain a mail app if you have to do more than enter much more than enter your username and password.
- wlll 8y ago
  I think "entering in a few details about 10 years ago into Mail.app" is a little hard to describe as "maintain". I have to go to far more effort for my email accounts that are still web based, having to sign in every so often and do the 2fa dance.
alkonaut 8y ago
Seriously you can charge for a piece of software or you can put ads in it. I'm fine with either. But don't do both. Exactly how many dollars more would I have to pay for the Win10 license to not see ads? I'd like that thanks.
rayvy 8y ago
Slight tangent, but @jammygit mentioned in this thread: > "All I want is to be able to give companies my money in exchange for not being spied on, manipulated, or locked into some walled garden....Is my money not good enough for them? Can someone elaborate a bit on this idea? Are we at a point where there is something more valuable than money itself? Data? Is this the point where Google et al can say "Nah, we actually don't want your flat out subscription fee cause that's pennies on the dollar compared to what we can get with our data collection efforts" I've made snarky remarks to this kind of thinking in the past but I didn't take it too seriously. Does anyone else see this becoming a real problem? If company XYZ offers service/product A, should I be able to buy that product/service flat out, (if I'm financially able) without bells and whistles even if company XYZ insists on adding bells and whistles? (i.e., data collection). Is that somehow a sort of right as a consumer?
- Santosh83 8y ago
  Well, as it stands, most companies can collect both money and data. Most of the software we pay for also collects data. We're stuck with them because of lock-in, inertia or lack of alternatives. Why would you give up a situation where you can have your cake and eat it too? As for your last question, I don't believe you can expect privacy just because you pay for a program. It is up to the developers. If they still want to collect your data (with your consent of course) even though you're a paying customer, it may not be ethically exemplary, but it is their call. All you can do is switch software, which as I mentioned, is problematic in many important cases. Hence the borderline abuse.
- wtallis 8y ago
  In most cases, the product sans spying is sold, but only to other large corporations. The people in charge of selling products like Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB/LTSC won't return your calls if you are just buying for yourself. Since most consumers aren't demanding these options, there isn't a critical mass of individual customers who are willing to pay a price that makes it worth Microsoft's time to pursue those sales. Consumers get stuck with the spyware/adware editions unless they are savvy enough to pirate the no-BS editions.
- inetknght 8y ago
juststeve 8y ago
another reason not to install windows 10
shanselman 8y ago
Not happening. https://twitter.com/fxshaw/status/1063518498104664064 https://twitter.com/fxshaw/status/1063518498104664064
- SilasX 8y ago
  >This was an experimental feature that was never intended to be tested broadly and it is being turned off. "The trial balloon revealed too much backlash, we're going to pretend we never had to plan to roll it out universally."
- fredsanford 8y ago
  That it even got to this stage is disappointing at best.
jbigelow76 8y ago
I wish we could see a breakout of what Microsoft estimates the advertising revenue of littering their OS with ads (I'm leaving internal quality related telemetry separate) is versus the brand value loss for those that don't want to use something like ChromeOS for privacy reasons. I don't care if you can turn it off, if ad revenue is now meaningful enough to MS that it will be interleaved throughout the OS then it's now a non-option for me.
wpdev_63 8y ago
I am currently using mailspring[0] and it might be the best email client I've ever used. Highly recommend it, it blows window's built in client out the water. [0]: https://getmailspring.com/ https://getmailspring.com/
temporallobe 8y ago
Stuff like this is why I have moved to Mint and macOS for my personal everyday computing. I used to love “classic” Windows (XP and 7, even Vista to some degree). I still use Windows 10 Enterprise on one of my government-issued project laptops, but that’s almost a completely different OS in many ways. I don’t think you can even buy the Enterprise version for personal use, because if I could, I would.
- malshe 8y ago
  If you don't mind my asking, what's Mint?
  - danbolt 8y ago
    I think the author is speaking about Linux Mint[1], which is a flavour of Ubuntu with some quality-of-life additions. [1] https://linuxmint.com/ https://linuxmint.com/
    - temporallobe 8y ago
      Yes indeed, Linux Mint! I have even put it on my daughter's laptop and she really likes it (she had endless problems with Windows 10 constantly updating and being extremely slow, sometimes she'd have to wait for hours for an update to complete, disrupting her homework). It's a pretty darn good user-centric Linux distro based on Ubuntu.
progetpro 8y ago
that's not a big deal for me, I know how Microsoft going to play ads. I have put all the ips of ads and microsoft in hosts file. I don't see ads in skype more. If this day would come I will dump all microsoft store app. I am using dws lite for disable all uwp grabage in my windows 10
thrower123 8y ago
Well, there's one more reason not to use that piece of garbage. It's not like it was usable to begin with, so splattering it with ads is sort of like if a tree falls alone in the woods. It's breathtaking how bad the Windows Store and the apps available there remain, what, four or five years now after the start of this Modern Windows/UWP push. Complete miscalculation.

293 points by cgtyoder 8y ago

I don't see a problem with this. People mention how you "pay" for windows, but the cost of windows is not a fixed price, it's a recurring price thanks to Microsoft's support system and backend services. Putting an ad into the email client is no different than what Google does, minus the small upfront cost that Windows charges. Don't want ads, pay for Outlook or use a Mac/Linux. Easy.

aw3c2 8y ago

So, my uncle needs a new computer and he needs Windows 10 on it. How can I make sure that he is not being spied on and psychologically manipulated by ads right from the beginning? Is there a professional version of Windows 10 with none of those shenanigans I keep hearing about?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
slivanes 8y ago
I'm curious as to why he needs Windows 10?
burntcookie90 8y ago
I'm wondering the same. My dad got a Surface Pro 6 last week and I had to go and make sure every toggle I could turn off was turned off. It's insane.
garaetjjte 8y ago
There is LTSC, but available only in volume licensing.
- crankylinuxuser 8y ago
  Volume license is slang for "Torrent", right?
cheeseomlit 8y ago
Not really, at least not for consumers. There are 'decrapifier' scripts you can run, but all that shit just gets re-installed on the next major build update anyways in my experience. https://community.spiceworks.com/scripts/show/4378-windows-10-decrapifier-1803-1809 https://community.spiceworks.com/scripts/show/4378-windows-1...
smacktoward 8y ago
You can’t and there isn’t.
Someone1234 8y ago
After installing Windows 10: Go to Settings -> Privacy, and slide many (most?) things to off. Including Diagnostic & Usage Data to Basic. Settings > Personalization > Start and slide "Occasionally show suggestions in start" to off. Settings -> Personalization -> Lock Screen and slide "Get fun facts, tips, and more from Windows and Cortana on your lock screen" to off. Settings -> System -> Notifications & actions -> "Get tip, tricks, and suggestions as you use Windows" and "Show me the Windows welcome experience after updates and occasionally when I sign in to highlight what's new and suggested" to off. Go to Cortana (Taskbar) -> Settings (Gear Icon) -> "Taskbar tidbits" to off I wouldn't use the built in "Mail" app with or without ads, it is terrible. Just have him simply not use it.
- otippat 8y ago
  And then do it again after most updates to the system.
  - Someone1234 8y ago
    Fortunately they stopped doing that. It was definitely a problem with the first two-ish feature updates for Windows 10 however.
- vezycash 8y ago
  Just use Spybot Anti-Beacon software and do most of the above steps in a click. Edit: Sorry. It's now a paid software. Checking for free alternatives. Found one: shutup10 Lastly, install Unchecky. It'll automatically uncheck options for additional unwanted programs, adware, toolbars... when installing software.
  - Someone1234 8y ago
    Be careful with those scripts/software. Many of them essentially break Windows 10 by design. If you stay within the Settings UI then you are working within Windows 10's supported design. When you run a script that disables a system service (e.g. Cortana) things start to get quirky/broken. Several of those break Windows Update for example.
PascLeRasc 8y ago
Does he need 10? Windows 7 still works fine, so does Elementary OS if that works.
- einr 8y ago
  If you use Windows 7 on modern processors (Ryzen/Skylake), Windows Update stops working so you won't get security updates.
  - kakarot 8y ago
    I have an Intel 6700K and WU works fine for me.
- aw3c2 8y ago
  Yes of course, otherwise I would not have asked.
swebs 8y ago
https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop

airstrike 8y ago

I miss Windows 8.1. There, I said it.

hiccuphippo 8y ago
What was good about it compared to Windows 7?
- iaml 8y ago
  Here's unpopular opinion: start menu really did need a remake and I like the designs 8.1 had compared to 10. Also, IIRC 8 has some optimizations (including some tweaks to better support ssds).
- keypress 8y ago
  Not the biggest fan of 8 series, but the best thing about it was some of the energy optimisations - as they were going to target mobile. The kernel hibernation is good, for quicker start up. But sadly that's at the expense of hibernating proper. 8.1 brought back things like the closing button on metro apps, and some other fudging, to make it a bit more Win 7, and it just felt like even more of an abomination. The control panel/metro settings mixed UI - is the thing that killed Windows for me. In Windows 10, I can't find anything setting wise particularly easily. And on a recent new laptop start up, I cringed at all the options that I had to turn off, and at the apps I tried to remove.
keypress 8y ago
My poor old computer got stuck on that release. I'll look at it in a more positive light now.
jawilson2 8y ago
Windows 2000 for 4life
- vbezhenar 8y ago
  I wonder if it's possible to use it with modern hardware. May be someone will make a modern Windows 2000 distribution with backported drivers and fixed vulnerabilities. Source code was leaked, so should be possible.

Meai 8y ago

This wouldn't be bad if I could uninstall that app but the button is gray on my machine. Same for the Xbox apps that I am guaranteed to never need. Weird feeling.

bdz 8y ago
https://www.howtogeek.com/224798/how-to-uninstall-windows-10s-built-in-apps-and-how-to-reinstall-them/ https://www.howtogeek.com/224798/how-to-uninstall-windows-10... Open the PowerShell as admin and copy: Get-AppxPackage * windowscommunicationsapps * | Remove-AppxPackage (remove space at the two asterisks, HN turns the text into italicized) voilà, Mail and Calendar uninstalled. You can do this with all of the preinstalled stuff (Xbox as well), see the link above.
- swiley 8y ago
  >Open the PowerShell as admin and copy: Having to do this has in the past been the main argument I've seen used against using Linux based OSes. If you have to do it anyway you might as well actually own your computer.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

ocdtrekkie 8y ago

Microsoft continues to demonstrate that it's worst enemy is itself. There's no way that throwing ads in the default Mail app is going to make them more money than it costs them in the long run.

rhexs 8y ago
While the ads and bloatware Microsoft was specifically trying to get away from in the 2000-2010ish era coming back, but this time packaged by Microsoft themselves, is absolutely baffling, the Cortana voice playing when you install Windows 10 has me even more confused. How did that get integrated? Is there some sort of Microsoft VP who decided to stake their career on Cortana and overrode everyone to merge that awful design decision into the installer, or do Microsoft employees like it as well? Who ever wanted to run a Windows installer via voice? Has anyone ever actually used the voice installer?
- binarycrusader 8y ago
  You may wish to consider that the voice in the installer is beneficial for accessibility purposes.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - rhexs 8y ago
    Fair enough. I did not consider that aspect. I'd still hope there would be a slightly less annoying way to accomplish that though.
    - binarycrusader 8y ago
      As someone who's heard Cortana many times during initial setup, I understand. However, I also understand the tradeoff in favor of accessibility. For larger deployments, there's a registry key and other options: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/customize/desktop/cortana-voice-support https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/customize/... For other cases, I'd consider filing feedback requesting an easier way to mute during the setup process (if there isn't one already; I don't remember looking for that option and instead just muting the device using a hardware switch).

jklinger410 8y ago

Pay for Windows, get bloatware and ads. Pay for Mac OS...don't. Use Google, get everything for free subsidized by ads. Pay for Windows, still get ads? Hmmmmm

zitterbewegung 8y ago
You don’t pay for macOS though. EDIT: yes you can argue you pay for it with your purchase of hardware but you don’t pay for future revisions.
- azinman2 8y ago
  You do implicitly with your purchase of Apple hardware.
- AsyncAwait 8y ago
  You do, but it's included in the hardware price.
- tobyhinloopen 8y ago
  Please let me know how I can get macOS for free :) Edit: You also don't get free updates if you don't have an Apple machine. Still not free.
  - beeneuf 8y ago
    Sure you do. I get free updates on my hackintosh, I just have to be very careful about actually installing them.
  - excalibur 8y ago
    https://saintlad.com/install-macos-sierra-in-virtualbox-on-windows-10/ https://saintlad.com/install-macos-sierra-in-virtualbox-on-w...
AsyncAwait 8y ago
Get Linux for free, still don't get ads.

reading-at-work 8y ago

What does HN recommend as a better Win10 email client? I'm familiar with Thunderbird and I'll probably switch to it if nothing else, but I'm not a huge fan of the UI/UX.

Someone1234 8y ago
This might sound glib, but as someone who has used both Thunderbird and Outlook extensively, I don't recommend any desktop email client. Email clients were designed for a whole different era, and only work well in that context. Gmail, Outlook.com/O365/etc, are designed for you to "keep everything." Problem is that all desktop email clients aren't designed that way, they want you to have a very small limited subset of email that they can index and constantly have in memory. When these two worlds converge desktop clients choke and choke hard. Outlook is so terrible that it almost needs to be completely retired. They've barely updated it in ten years. Best case scenario right now is full webmail (with anyone) and browser notifications for new email etc if you need that.
- jcelerier 8y ago
  > Problem is that all desktop email clients aren't designed that way, they want you to have a very small limited subset of email that they can index and constantly have in memory. with large amounts of mail (~90k in one of my inboxes - and if someone asks just yesterday I had to go and fetch some info from a 2007 mail), GMail chokes much more than thunderbird, e.g. it takes 2/3 minutes and sometimes does not work to mark a large set of email as read/archived/whatever while this is almost instant with TB.
- modzu 8y ago
  clients still make sense for users with multiple accounts. and modern clients only sync a subset of the db but still permit online search and retrieval. also for certain tasks the web clients aren't much better (gmails interface is garbage for working with multiple messages for example) the default answer to op's question in enterprise land (where windows is still treading for relevancy) is Outlook. thunderbird suffers the issues the comment mentions above -- barfs with large dbs, no support for exchange, not sure if it even supports push notifications, etc it should be noted that mail on mac works well and the win 10 mail app this article is all about works pretty well too, which is why its a travesty MS is going to ruin it.

andrewmunsell 8y ago

Is it at all ironic that I get a page that is trying to force me to turn off my ad blocker when I am trying to view a link about Microsoft putting ads in their Mail app?

Semaphor 8y ago
Weird, either you need to get a better adblocker, or they don't show that in EU.
- dorianm 8y ago
  I am in EU, I got the adblocker pop-up
- andrewmunsell 8y ago
  That's probably true, I haven't touched the AdBlocker extension in a while and I get anti-ad block modals all the time. Probably time to look into an updated list with a working anti-ad block blocker
disiplus 8y ago
hmm, no adblock popup, usin ublock origin https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yRBphYeo3uUl5jFFQJufLMKPmup1KZ_k/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yRBphYeo3uUl5jFFQJufLMKPmup...
ams6110 8y ago
I get very few of those popups, using uBlock origin and a hosts file.

amyjess 8y ago

I currently use this on my Surface because it's more touch-friendly than Gmail's website, but it looks like I'll be moving on. Any recommendations for a touch-friendly (i.e. must be UWP) mail app for Windows?

WorldMaker 8y ago
The latest Gmail revamp is more touch-friendly than it used to be, especially in Edge (despite Gmail's increasingly obnoxious insistence that you should only use Chrome). The article suggests that the Mail app will never have ads for Office 365 users. Office 365 Home is often a good deal for a Surface owner anyway, as it boosts your OneDrive space, and gives you up to date copies of all the Office programs, and stuff like that.
- robocat 8y ago
  > despite Gmail's increasingly obnoxious insistence that you should only use Chrome Fuck Edge touch support - they don't support the event API used by Safari/Chrome, instead you need to use an MS specific touch API. I support touch on IE11/Edge (because our business made a bet on Windows Phone) but I have wasted an obscene amount of time to do so (we have very few windows phone/laptop touch users). I hate supporting Edge more than IE11 - weird bugs and continual problems with the debugger and touch support.
  - WorldMaker 8y ago
    Are you talking about Pointer Events versus Touch Events? Edge supports both (and has for some time). IE supports only Pointer Events. (There is a polyfill for Touch Events on IE: https://github.com/WebReflection/ie-touch https://github.com/WebReflection/ie-touch) https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Touch_events#Browser_compatibility https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Touch_event... https://caniuse.com/#feat=pointer https://caniuse.com/#feat=pointer https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Pointer_events https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Pointer_eve... Both are W3C recommended standards. Pointer Events has more capabilities, and an easier abstraction for multi-modal input (ie, mouse and touch, or touch and pen). So I often see Pointer Events recommended over Touch Events if you can use Pointer Events. (React recently moved to recommending Pointer Events, as one example.) The big reason not to use Pointer Events is that Safari/WebKit has lagged far behind on Pointer Event adoption (it is finally in experimental preview in Safari, years after Firefox and Chrome/Blink, and seems to be part of the increasing Blink/WebKit split). There is a Pointer Event Polyfill for Safari (and other older browsers that support Touch Events but not Pointer Events): https://github.com/jquery/PEP https://github.com/jquery/PEP

tobyhinloopen 8y ago

OSX: Pay here. Not enough, we increased our prices! Oh, don't forget your dongles! Windows: Oh you want to rename a file that is opened by an application? Fuck you. We're not even capable of telling you what application. Have some ads instead! Linux: Ooh you thought you could use $APPLICATION_NAME? Sorry, that isn't available, but you can try $MEDIOCRE_ALTERNATIVE instead. I'm not a fanboy, I hate every major desktop OS.

jimijazz 8y ago
While OSX might be expensive it is such a pleasure to use!
- tobyhinloopen 8y ago
  I agree. OSX user here as well. It's the "least bad" option IMO if budget isn't much of an issue. If OSX wouldn't exist, I would likely try Linux, get sick of it, try Windows, get even more frustrated, and get back to Linux. It is very likely I'd be using ElementaryOS or Ubuntu Desktop in the end.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- microcolonel 8y ago
  As a Linux user, I find macOS infuriating. As soon as you change a setting, your chances of something breaking increase dramatically. The window manager is sometimes okay, but other times infuriating (maximize vs. zoom vs. "fullscreen" vs. actual fullscreen), and has major bugs in every release ranging from funny (the underglow for windows in Exposé being somewhere other than under the window you're hovering over) to day-ruining (hard killing the application you're switching to, sometimes [saw this with 10.11 a few times]). Worst of all, they insist on changing everything every couple years, and given the kinds of bugs they tend to introduce while doing this, I suspect they are repeatedly rewriting the whole window manager, almost from scratch, for seemingly no reason. Now, that's not to say that X11 desktop environments are all sunshine and rainbows but at least a) if you like it the way it is, you can probably keep it exactly as it is with no consequences, and b) you can always choose something simpler, where there's less to go wrong. I went with option b here, I've been using mostly the same version of the same lightweight window manager since 2012, it is just fine, it isn't ever sluggish on any machine, and it isn't "too little" for my workstation. I use it on OpenBSD as well, and when I tried out MINIX 3 in 2013, it wasn't any effort to use exactly the same window manager. There are no commits in it (mine is a fork, but it didn't really need to be) since February 2016, because it didn't need to change.

matchbok 8y ago

So crazy how far behind Windows is to OS X. Even basic GUI stuff (animations, smoothness, etc) are not even a comparison. This is just another example. Ridiculous.

kkarakk 8y ago
os x can't show me what's happening(speed/time to complete transfers) when i'm copying multiple files, it's a shit os for most real world tasks for me

puranjay 8y ago

And I thought Windows 10 couldn't get any worse. After the latest update, my hard drive wheezes like an asthmatic climbing his 25th flight of stairs on startup. Just a long list of problems with Windows 10

aaaaaaaaaab 8y ago
>hard drive Found your problem!
- crankylinuxuser 8y ago
  better than a micro soft! /har har har But seriously, I still refer to even SSDs as hard drives. Spinning rust or memory chips. They're interchangable right now, until spinning rust phases out completely.

jimmies 8y ago

Anyone remembers just 5 years ago, Microsoft had a huge campaign about how everyone got "scroogled" by Google? Especially this ad about Google reading your mail to devliver you ads? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iI1ominSL_c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iI1ominSL_c Oh, how the time has changed!

jahabrewer 8y ago
To be fair, from the article: > although these ads are interest-based, they do not look at your emails to display ads based on data from your email.
- yebyen 8y ago
  Well, everyone thank Satya Nadella, it's a miracle we were able to draw the line somewhere! /s I'm sorry, this snark is not really directed at you, but how exactly are they determining your interests if they're not reading your e-mails? Where does that data come from? I'd be happy to take back my /s if someone can tell me it was all voluntarily collected, but I suspect the answer is really "they just found a different way to spy on you other than reading your email."
  - basil-rash 8y ago
    There are plenty of ways to spy besides email... Bing searches, for instance. I believe anything you type into the start menu is sent to Bing by default, so that could be more data than you think. I personally use Bing, but not Windows. Looking on my interests page for Bing, I see they have a decent chunk of info on me, nothing too crazy personal though.
EduardoBautista 8y ago
There is still no evidence that they are reading your emails so it's not the same. I am fine with ads, just as long as they don't mine my data and follow me around.
- 8y ago

jammygit 8y ago

All I want is to be able to give companies my money in exchange for not being spied on, manipulated, or locked into some walled garden. I can't for my OS - I have to use free gnu/Linux because everyone else treats me like crap. Is my money not good enough for them? This is getting absurd

contravariant 8y ago
It seems like they can get people to sell their privacy and autonomy cheaply if they can convince them it's the normal thing to do. Having an option that doesn't do any of those things would undermine the illusion.
mav3rick 8y ago
The money you would likely pay would be less than what they can make by selling you ads (as a whole). If you were willing to pay > $1000 for software and services there was no reason for companies to maintain an Ad business.
- yebyen 8y ago
  Is that really true? I feel like they would need _everyone_ to be willing to pay that much, and on a recurring basis somehow to make support sustainable. The value of marketing to Windows users is in the network effect. If one Windows user can pay $1000 to avoid advertising and change nothing else, the other users will probably hear about this and take notice. But if every Windows user is subjected to ads, I very much doubt that Microsoft is making $1000 in advertising revenue from just one person. Microsoft would never convert 100% of users to "ad-free" paid subscriptions, at any price. But they can make money directly from advertising to 100% of their users, and there is no "loss" except from attrition (which I would guess is still probably quite a bit smaller than their numbers for overall user-base growth.)
- aikah 8y ago
  > The money you would likely pay would be less than what they can make by selling you ads (as a whole). If you were willing to pay > $1000 for software and services there was no reason for companies to maintain an Ad business. So people used the same argument with games and loot boxes. But even if videogames cost $500 a copy, there is so much money to be made with loot boxes that they would still exist in these games at that price.

coltonv 8y ago

Amazon has lately been putting ads on prime video for other prime video shows. I have a feeling we're rapidly going towards most paid services having ads. Also, on prime video, occasionally, pressing the fast forward button won't skip the ad. I'm sure it's one of those "bugs" that just happens to force the user to do something the company wants but the user doesn't but I have a feeling it might just stop working all the time and we'll be forced to sit through the whole ad on a paid service.

abhiminator 8y ago
>we're rapidly going towards most paid services having ads. Cable TV model isn't dead after all.
- staplers 8y ago
  Also means piracy won't be dying anytime soon.
ryanianian 8y ago
This is infuriating. I'm paying for the service--that's supposedly what's sustaining it--why are there ads? If you (Amazon) decide you want more money, let me decide to pay more to eliminate ads. Similar things abound with Hulu. Even the more expensive "ad free" version has some ads for certain shows/movies due to "licensing agreements" (read: Hulu wanting more money).
- benologist 8y ago
  Once these companies decide their best path to new profits doesn't include new or improved products or growth it's just a question of who they are going to fuck, their employees or users.
  - thfuran 8y ago
    What do you mean "or"?
- 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

neurobashing 8y ago

when someone says "let's monetize X", what they're really asking is, "how can we burn all that developer goodwill we've worked really hard to earn". So maybe go looking for another revenue channel?

AngeloAnolin 8y ago

They also do this on the web version of Outlook. [1]. And you could see that the ads are littered all over the place. And their ads don't really make sense anyway, as for example, the ads that I see are something that: - I am not interested - Irrelevant as the products have no use for me - Unable to purchase as the products themselves are not available locally where I am located. They should probably train their algorithms for ads to ensure that it is something interesting (or at least would compel the consumer to look). For example, I noticed that in Instagram, the ads are more targeted, and they usually remind you of stuff that you have recently searched. [1] https://imgur.com/a/fcmyMMf https://imgur.com/a/fcmyMMf

hadrien01 8y ago
Outlook.com is also a mail provider, so it's not really a proper comparison. Outlook Web App (OWA), the Web client for Exchange and Office 365, and Outlook on the desktop have no ads.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

genidoi 8y ago

After Equifax why would they not? Seems like when it comes to actual tech scandals, nobody cares. Frightening stuff.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago

Dear Microsoft, As a vocal critic of the Linux Desktop, your horrifically misguided attempts to "improve" Windows since Windows 10 have so degraded the experience of using it that I am now only 2 reasons[0] away from switching anyway, so at least I don't have to pay for the privilege of using crappy software. I would ask you kindly to cease your endeavors to kill off the Windows Desktop and personal computing in general, but having dealt with you I know that it is your policy to ignore user feedback. [0] 1. I hate package managers as an application installation paradigm, and 2. GPU drivers still perform worse for my card, if you must know.

craftyguy 8y ago
> GPU drivers still perform worse for my card Which GPU?
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
  nVidia GTX 1080ti In addition to the performance degradation, nVidia and the kernel maintainers don't currently get along so I'd also have to deal with that.
  - craftyguy 8y ago
    Ah, yes. nvidia is a thorn. In other news, the AMD and Intel drivers are as good as, if not better, than their windows counterparts!
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
      Shame their hardware isn't as good. Especially Intel's.
    - Karunamon 8y ago
      Legitimately asking; does AMD still do that thing where they unceremoniously drop support for an older card on newer kernels - so you do a apt-get upgrade at some point and reboot to a black screen, and your options are either never upgrade your kernel or get a new GPU?

extesy 8y ago

I suppose this is a consequence of making all future versions of Windows essentially free by adopting "Windows as a Service" release process. When everyone upgrades to Windows 10 there won't be anyone left to buy it anymore so they need a new source of income to replace that.

aikah 8y ago
> I suppose this is a consequence of making all future versions of Windows essentially free by adopting "Windows as a Service" release process. When everyone upgrades to Windows 10 there won't be anyone left to buy it anymore so they need a new source of income to replace that. OEM Licenses are bound to a single computer AFAIK. You change computers you need to pay for Windows again. So it's not like people will never buy Windows anymore as long as they buy computers installed with Windows on it. Before one would get a separate Windows CD with his computer and be able to install it on many different machines, one activation at a time.
- einr 8y ago
  But it also used to be that new Windows versions came out around every three years so by the time you needed a new computer, you'd be paying the Windows tax again anyway. In practice, not a lot of difference.

TheRealDunkirk 8y ago

Just another step towards the inevitable announcement of a "free," "promotion-supported" version of Windows. For decades, the beige-box industry was supported by doing things like including trialware antivirus, browser search bars, and shareware games on top of the OS. Why shouldn't Microsoft put the crapware on the machine directly, and eliminate the middle man? I would hope that this would allow them to split the codebase, and make other, paid versions (professional, enterprise) that didn't have ANY of the tracking or advertising -- and didn't require extensive GPO manipulation to turn off -- but that's probably too much to ask.

hakfoo 8y ago
What's funny is that there was definitely a point where Microsoft themselves realized this business model by OEMs was undermining their platform. They actually promoted "signature" PCs which were supposed to come without crapware. I can recall buying a Windows 8 tablet from a brick-and-mortar Microsoft store because I knew it would come with a hassle-free clean install.

danielor 8y ago

Soon, I will have targeted ads on my coffee mugs... This is getting out of control.

swiley 8y ago
Hasn't McDonald's been doing that since forever?
- danielor 8y ago
  So, true. :)

dagaci 8y ago

I only read personal mail in the web browser, its too much to maintain a mail app if you have to do more than enter much more than enter your username and password.

wlll 8y ago
I think "entering in a few details about 10 years ago into Mail.app" is a little hard to describe as "maintain". I have to go to far more effort for my email accounts that are still web based, having to sign in every so often and do the 2fa dance.

alkonaut 8y ago

Seriously you can charge for a piece of software or you can put ads in it. I'm fine with either. But don't do both. Exactly how many dollars more would I have to pay for the Win10 license to not see ads? I'd like that thanks.

rayvy 8y ago

Slight tangent, but @jammygit mentioned in this thread: > "All I want is to be able to give companies my money in exchange for not being spied on, manipulated, or locked into some walled garden....Is my money not good enough for them? Can someone elaborate a bit on this idea? Are we at a point where there is something more valuable than money itself? Data? Is this the point where Google et al can say "Nah, we actually don't want your flat out subscription fee cause that's pennies on the dollar compared to what we can get with our data collection efforts" I've made snarky remarks to this kind of thinking in the past but I didn't take it too seriously. Does anyone else see this becoming a real problem? If company XYZ offers service/product A, should I be able to buy that product/service flat out, (if I'm financially able) without bells and whistles even if company XYZ insists on adding bells and whistles? (i.e., data collection). Is that somehow a sort of right as a consumer?

Santosh83 8y ago
Well, as it stands, most companies can collect both money and data. Most of the software we pay for also collects data. We're stuck with them because of lock-in, inertia or lack of alternatives. Why would you give up a situation where you can have your cake and eat it too? As for your last question, I don't believe you can expect privacy just because you pay for a program. It is up to the developers. If they still want to collect your data (with your consent of course) even though you're a paying customer, it may not be ethically exemplary, but it is their call. All you can do is switch software, which as I mentioned, is problematic in many important cases. Hence the borderline abuse.
wtallis 8y ago
In most cases, the product sans spying is sold, but only to other large corporations. The people in charge of selling products like Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB/LTSC won't return your calls if you are just buying for yourself. Since most consumers aren't demanding these options, there isn't a critical mass of individual customers who are willing to pay a price that makes it worth Microsoft's time to pursue those sales. Consumers get stuck with the spyware/adware editions unless they are savvy enough to pirate the no-BS editions.
inetknght 8y ago

juststeve 8y ago

another reason not to install windows 10

shanselman 8y ago

Not happening. https://twitter.com/fxshaw/status/1063518498104664064 https://twitter.com/fxshaw/status/1063518498104664064

SilasX 8y ago
>This was an experimental feature that was never intended to be tested broadly and it is being turned off. "The trial balloon revealed too much backlash, we're going to pretend we never had to plan to roll it out universally."
fredsanford 8y ago
That it even got to this stage is disappointing at best.

jbigelow76 8y ago

I wish we could see a breakout of what Microsoft estimates the advertising revenue of littering their OS with ads (I'm leaving internal quality related telemetry separate) is versus the brand value loss for those that don't want to use something like ChromeOS for privacy reasons. I don't care if you can turn it off, if ad revenue is now meaningful enough to MS that it will be interleaved throughout the OS then it's now a non-option for me.

wpdev_63 8y ago

I am currently using mailspring[0] and it might be the best email client I've ever used. Highly recommend it, it blows window's built in client out the water. [0]: https://getmailspring.com/ https://getmailspring.com/

temporallobe 8y ago

Stuff like this is why I have moved to Mint and macOS for my personal everyday computing. I used to love “classic” Windows (XP and 7, even Vista to some degree). I still use Windows 10 Enterprise on one of my government-issued project laptops, but that’s almost a completely different OS in many ways. I don’t think you can even buy the Enterprise version for personal use, because if I could, I would.

malshe 8y ago
If you don't mind my asking, what's Mint?
- danbolt 8y ago
  I think the author is speaking about Linux Mint[1], which is a flavour of Ubuntu with some quality-of-life additions. [1] https://linuxmint.com/ https://linuxmint.com/
  - temporallobe 8y ago
    Yes indeed, Linux Mint! I have even put it on my daughter's laptop and she really likes it (she had endless problems with Windows 10 constantly updating and being extremely slow, sometimes she'd have to wait for hours for an update to complete, disrupting her homework). It's a pretty darn good user-centric Linux distro based on Ubuntu.

progetpro 8y ago

that's not a big deal for me, I know how Microsoft going to play ads. I have put all the ips of ads and microsoft in hosts file. I don't see ads in skype more. If this day would come I will dump all microsoft store app. I am using dws lite for disable all uwp grabage in my windows 10

thrower123 8y ago

Well, there's one more reason not to use that piece of garbage. It's not like it was usable to begin with, so splattering it with ads is sort of like if a tree falls alone in the woods. It's breathtaking how bad the Windows Store and the apps available there remain, what, four or five years now after the start of this Modern Windows/UWP push. Complete miscalculation.