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I’m going to go with a privacy centered Linux machine (https://puri.sm https://puri.sm). Since most of the problems I have with MacOS/iOS are related to Apple l

I’m going to go with a privacy centered Linux machine (https://puri.sm https://puri.sm). Since most of the problems I have with MacOS/iOS are related to Apple locking the user out of controlling their own machine. Microsoft and Android machine manufacturers do something similar by locking users into bloatware and update policies, it’s just a general business trend of profiting from restricting user control. Until consumers begin to punish this behavior with their wallets, it will keep getting worse.

sedatk 7y ago
> locking users into bloatware. microsoft doesn’t lock you in anything. you can uninstall all bloatware and they don’t come back ever.
- OGWhales 7y ago
  Windows gives you a lot of control, but some of the stuff requires going to the registry to stop windows bs. But, we have a registry.
  - Bud 7y ago
    I don't see how the Windows registry is markedly different from dwrites in macOS. And on the Mac, there's about an order of magnitude less BS to begin with. Maybe two orders.
- heyoni 7y ago
  This is a joke right?
- yakshaving_jgt 7y ago
  It's not quite that simple: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150812/11395231925/lenovo-busted-stealthily-installing-crapware-via-bios-fresh-windows-installs.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150812/11395231925/lenov...
- transcriptase 7y ago
  That is simply untrue. You can uninstall approximately half of the bloatware, and on occasion they do reappear after 'feature updates'. Win 10 Pro comes with the following, all of which have the "Uninstall" disabled: Xbox Game Bar Your Phone Maps Camera And this is after removing many other apps that are objectively bloatware. Myself and many others I've spoken to simply want Win10Pro to be closer to LTSB than Home. It doesn't need to be stable enough to run unattended for years at a time, it just needs to be lightweight and without the Start Menu being populated with dozens of things a power user will never touch. I'm sure if I cared enough there's some hacky way to remove them (at least superficially), but I've been down that road enough times only to have it all reversed after an update.
  - JBiserkov 7y ago
    You can remove those by saving the below in a cleanup.ps1 file and running it via Powershell after the feature updates every six months. Get-AppxPackage *XboxGamingOverlay* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *YourPhone* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *WindowsMaps* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *WindowsCamera* | Remove-AppxPackage To get the names of other apps, run Get-AppxPackage > Apps.txt and inspect the resulting file. I agree completely that it would be better if they didn't include the bloatware in the first place, but removing it is pretty straightforward.
    - pvorb 7y ago
      Straightforward only if you know these commands. I've never heard of the Get/Remove-AppxPackage commands before, but thanks for the tip!
      - klodolph 7y ago
        The modern style for shell commands on Windows is to name them exactly “Verb-Noun”, where neither “Verb” nor “Noun” have hyphens. If you are interested in what is possible, spend some time investigating the available nouns in whatever problem domain you are working with.
- tyfon 7y ago
  Have you ever tried to permanently uninstall microsoft teams or the xbox app or onedrive? Guess not :) Back when I still had windows I had a powershell script just for deleting the apps it kept reinstalling after each update.
  - naikrovek 7y ago
    Old info. Teams doesn't ever come back after uninstallation, and you have to install it yourself to have it in the first place. It isn't bundled. For about two years now, with any OS upgrade or patch, bundled apps are not installed if you've uninstalled them prior to that OS upgrade or patch. It's important to keep your complaints up to date with new information, or at least admit that your information is old.
    - tyfon 7y ago
      I guess you missed the "Back when I still had windows" text in my comment, but I could quantify this. I removed windows a year ago from my last machine and it still had this behaviour. If they now allow uninstalling all bundled apps easily without them coming back after updates then props to them. It's not what I hear from colleagues that still have windows though.
    - erichurkman 7y ago
      Very literally just went through fixing Teams on a family member's laptop. They kept uninstalling it, and upon next boot, their computer was unresponsive for 10+ minutes as Teams reinstalled itself. After some digging, it turns out there's a separate installer you have to uninstall. Since when do you have to uninstall installers? This was on a fully up to date, modern Windows laptop.
allset_ 7y ago
Only 802.11n and no TB3 unfortunately are deal breakers for me, otherwise I'd consider this option. Thankfully both Lenovo Thinkpads and Dell XPS machines work well with Linux.
- emerongi 7y ago
  Thinkpads are still good, however it annoys me that even the T series is being pushed towards the Mac design, when they already have other lines like the Mac (X1 being most notable). Don't mess with the formula, please!
  - throw_xyzyz 7y ago
    The last usable t series laptop is the t420 or the t430 with heavy modification.
  - stcredzero 7y ago
    Thinkpads are still good, however it annoys me that even the T series is being pushed towards the Mac design Long ago, the marketing across the computer industry started to push changes that made many things less comfortable for developers. A certain company on a turnaround, willing to do things different embraced the needs of developers. This was part of their "in" to winning over the technorati and becoming "cool." Now, that company has achieved dominance in their chosen markets, and the kind of "cool" which results from catering to developers is no longer their priority. If anything, they have developers dancing to their tune. Certain Thinkpads also long catered to programmers and certain kinds of content creators. Now the same forces from marketing departments are at play once again, and yet another company on a turnaround is looking to win over the technorati by prioritizing a developer-centric kind of "cool."
- vincent-toups 7y ago
  Can you elaborate?
- PascLeRasc 7y ago
  Maybe other models are different, but I was never able to get my XPS 9550’s TB3 to work in Ubuntu or Arch. If I could I’d have kept it but like you that was a dealbreaker for me.

sedatk 7y ago

> locking users into bloatware. microsoft doesn’t lock you in anything. you can uninstall all bloatware and they don’t come back ever.

OGWhales 7y ago
Windows gives you a lot of control, but some of the stuff requires going to the registry to stop windows bs. But, we have a registry.
- Bud 7y ago
  I don't see how the Windows registry is markedly different from dwrites in macOS. And on the Mac, there's about an order of magnitude less BS to begin with. Maybe two orders.
heyoni 7y ago
This is a joke right?
yakshaving_jgt 7y ago
It's not quite that simple: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150812/11395231925/lenovo-busted-stealthily-installing-crapware-via-bios-fresh-windows-installs.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150812/11395231925/lenov...
transcriptase 7y ago
That is simply untrue. You can uninstall approximately half of the bloatware, and on occasion they do reappear after 'feature updates'. Win 10 Pro comes with the following, all of which have the "Uninstall" disabled: Xbox Game Bar Your Phone Maps Camera And this is after removing many other apps that are objectively bloatware. Myself and many others I've spoken to simply want Win10Pro to be closer to LTSB than Home. It doesn't need to be stable enough to run unattended for years at a time, it just needs to be lightweight and without the Start Menu being populated with dozens of things a power user will never touch. I'm sure if I cared enough there's some hacky way to remove them (at least superficially), but I've been down that road enough times only to have it all reversed after an update.
- JBiserkov 7y ago
  You can remove those by saving the below in a cleanup.ps1 file and running it via Powershell after the feature updates every six months. Get-AppxPackage *XboxGamingOverlay* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *YourPhone* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *WindowsMaps* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *WindowsCamera* | Remove-AppxPackage To get the names of other apps, run Get-AppxPackage > Apps.txt and inspect the resulting file. I agree completely that it would be better if they didn't include the bloatware in the first place, but removing it is pretty straightforward.
  - pvorb 7y ago
    Straightforward only if you know these commands. I've never heard of the Get/Remove-AppxPackage commands before, but thanks for the tip!
    - klodolph 7y ago
      The modern style for shell commands on Windows is to name them exactly “Verb-Noun”, where neither “Verb” nor “Noun” have hyphens. If you are interested in what is possible, spend some time investigating the available nouns in whatever problem domain you are working with.
tyfon 7y ago
Have you ever tried to permanently uninstall microsoft teams or the xbox app or onedrive? Guess not :) Back when I still had windows I had a powershell script just for deleting the apps it kept reinstalling after each update.
- naikrovek 7y ago
  Old info. Teams doesn't ever come back after uninstallation, and you have to install it yourself to have it in the first place. It isn't bundled. For about two years now, with any OS upgrade or patch, bundled apps are not installed if you've uninstalled them prior to that OS upgrade or patch. It's important to keep your complaints up to date with new information, or at least admit that your information is old.
  - tyfon 7y ago
    I guess you missed the "Back when I still had windows" text in my comment, but I could quantify this. I removed windows a year ago from my last machine and it still had this behaviour. If they now allow uninstalling all bundled apps easily without them coming back after updates then props to them. It's not what I hear from colleagues that still have windows though.
  - erichurkman 7y ago
    Very literally just went through fixing Teams on a family member's laptop. They kept uninstalling it, and upon next boot, their computer was unresponsive for 10+ minutes as Teams reinstalled itself. After some digging, it turns out there's a separate installer you have to uninstall. Since when do you have to uninstall installers? This was on a fully up to date, modern Windows laptop.

allset_ 7y ago

Only 802.11n and no TB3 unfortunately are deal breakers for me, otherwise I'd consider this option. Thankfully both Lenovo Thinkpads and Dell XPS machines work well with Linux.

emerongi 7y ago
Thinkpads are still good, however it annoys me that even the T series is being pushed towards the Mac design, when they already have other lines like the Mac (X1 being most notable). Don't mess with the formula, please!
- throw_xyzyz 7y ago
  The last usable t series laptop is the t420 or the t430 with heavy modification.
- stcredzero 7y ago
  Thinkpads are still good, however it annoys me that even the T series is being pushed towards the Mac design Long ago, the marketing across the computer industry started to push changes that made many things less comfortable for developers. A certain company on a turnaround, willing to do things different embraced the needs of developers. This was part of their "in" to winning over the technorati and becoming "cool." Now, that company has achieved dominance in their chosen markets, and the kind of "cool" which results from catering to developers is no longer their priority. If anything, they have developers dancing to their tune. Certain Thinkpads also long catered to programmers and certain kinds of content creators. Now the same forces from marketing departments are at play once again, and yet another company on a turnaround is looking to win over the technorati by prioritizing a developer-centric kind of "cool."
vincent-toups 7y ago
Can you elaborate?
PascLeRasc 7y ago
Maybe other models are different, but I was never able to get my XPS 9550’s TB3 to work in Ubuntu or Arch. If I could I’d have kept it but like you that was a dealbreaker for me.