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Windows 10 taskbar is now pushing Microsoft Edge web apps
- whalesalad 5y agoApple gives an OS away for free - users never see advertisements. Microsoft charges $100 for Windows 10, virtually every corner of the experience is riddled with advertisements and marketing crap.
- VWWHFSfQ 5y agoapple doesnt give their os away for free
- whalesalad 5y agoI haven't paid for an OS upgrade since Snow Leopard in 2009. For all intents and purposes their OS is free - the consumer does not ever need to worry about upgrade costs.
- VWWHFSfQ 5y agoare you running their os on an apple computer
- Toutouxc 5y agoI don't get the question. You can only run macOS legally on a Mac, there's no other option. And any new-ish (ten years or so) Mac is able to download the latest supported macOS completely for free. So the OS is basically included in the product (just like a washing machine or a car) and upgrades are free.
- wayneftw 5y agoLegally, you can run macOS anywhere you want. Apple cannot and has not stopped anyone from doing that. There is no court of law anywhere which will prevent an end-user from doing what they want with macOS. However, you most certainly are paying for the OS whenever you buy Apple's overpriced hardware. Perhaps the receipt does not state this fact, but we all know that the only way anyone will get macOS is if someone gives Apple money. So, the people giving Apple money are all paying for macOS... And if you're one of those people, you've paid for macOS. Saying that you're not paying for the OS is like saying that you're not paying for solar panels when you sign a 15 year deal with some energy company middle-man. It's like saying that you're not paying the full price of a smartphone when you buy it subsidized from the phone carrier. You actually end up paying more for the solar panels and the smart phone in those cases. In this case, you're most likely paying more for the OS as well. If you want to play games with semantics, anything you want can be true.
- Toutouxc 5y ago> Legally, you can run macOS anywhere you want. Apple cannot and has not stopped anyone from doing that. There is no court of law anywhere which will prevent an end-user from doing what they want with macOS. I think you'll quickly find out that's not the case if you, for example, start a macOS VPS hosting company that doesn't use Macs or that lends them for shorter time periods than one day. > Apple's overpriced hardware This meme needs to die, now more than ever (because of Apple Silicon).
- tpxl 5y ago>> Apple's overpriced hardware >This meme needs to die, now more than ever (because of Apple Silicon). This meme is relevant more than ever with the butterfly keyboards breaking all over the place.
- wayneftw 5y ago> ...for example, start a macOS VPS hosting company that doesn't use Macs or that lends them for shorter time periods than one day. That's not an end-user doing whatever they want, that's a company providing macOS to end-users. End users can do whatever they want. > Apple's overpriced hardware...This meme needs to die, now more than ever (because of Apple Silicon). Apple Silicon has nothing to do with overpriced base systems, SSD/RAM upgrades and overpriced accessories. Everybody knows Apple hardware is overpriced. The fact that you actually get less functionality out of Apple hardware adds to the cost. For instance, I have an old 2012 Mac Pro among many other machines in my home/office. The amount of time, money and effort I had to spend to keep this thing running was ridiculous. I had to buy an RX580 to be able to upgrade it to the latest OS and then I had to spend time researching how to fix their locked down piece of shit UEFI loader so I could boot into a better OS (that would be Manjaro). After that I had to spend hours working around all sorts of little Apple-specific oddities like accessing settings that would be in a BIOS on a better computer. Apple Silicon adds to the cost too because it's incompatible with everything. Now you can do even less stuff with your Mac, but you can do it really fast! Any other PC in the house would have just worked. This one looks cool though and it's built like a tank so I spent my time figuring it out.
- agloeregrets 5y agoI would argue that macOS does have some advertisements , mostly for Apple services, they just tend to be cleaner and better integrated. (Also the free bit is a little fuzzy as the costs are baked into the hardware.) Microsoft is far more guilty however. Imagine how nice Windows 10 would be if Microsoft didn't own Bing, Xbox, and Office.
- anonymousiam 5y agoGiven how much Microsoft has monetized Windows these days, they could probably give it away free and still make money.
- nguyenkien 5y agoMy laptop come with Windows 7. I never pay for Windows 10. And I still get free update in last 5 years.
- fanatic2pope 5y agoAt this point they pretty much do. You can download an ISO of Windows 10 Pro, install it and never pay or register it and it will work fine indefinitely with no real restrictions. Last time I tried it, it just prevented setting the background image.
- masklinn 5y ago> Also the free bit is a little fuzzy as the costs are baked into the hardware. For well over a decade that didn't make OS X free. I 'member when upgrading OS X meant forking $129.
- blowski 5y agoExactly. Apple Music, Apple Maps, Apple iPhone, Apple Watch, Apple iPad, Apple iCloud, Apple Facetime, Apple TV, etc. I'm pretty sure I see adverts for all these things on my "advert-free" Macbook.
- Jcowell 5y ago
- hnnameblah365 5y agoIf Windows devices started charging Apple prices for hardware, would they now be giving the OS away for free too?
- j0hnml 5y agoI mean if you buy a surface book you get windows 10 pro installed and activated, so they’re kinda already doing this
- _nickwhite 5y agoThis may be true for Surface Book- an uber-high-end device. But almost any other Surface device you buy through consumer channels has "Windows 10 Home" edition on it. If you want to use it for business to join a domain, you still have to pay the $100 "Microsoft Tax" to upgrade the edition to Pro. The last 20+ Surface devices I've purchased were all this way.
- zamadatix 5y agoYou've been ordering the wrong SKU then, look for "Surface Go 2 for Business" as an example (the lowest end Surface) and it comes with Pro for less than the cost of upgrading from the Home version. If you're a Microsoft partner or resell there are also options available for ordering for use with Enterprise volume licensing.
- weird-eye-issue 5y agoFor free... Only after you buy their (overpriced) proprietary hardware. Where could I download a copy of their OS, for free, to install on my non-Apple desktop? Okay now do you see why that isn't a fair comparison?
- i_have_an_idea 5y agoIt's pretty fair. You pay money - you get a product. In Windows, you pay money - you get ads and tracking. edit: To make it clear to people not reading the comment carefully, I'm not saying MacOS is "free". I'm merely saying that once you pay for the computer, the OS is included in the price. And there is no additional monetization under the form of ads or tracking. Unlike in the Windows world, where you pay for the license, yet you are still being tracked and served ads.
- boomboomsubban 5y agoI'm not defending Windows here, but you buy an Apple computer, you get the computer and their software. You can't get either independently without paying for the other, but neither could be considered "free."
- tester756 5y ago> In Windows, you pay money - you get ads and tracking. Where do I have to click to get those ads?
- ohgodplsno 5y agoSomething something Apple makes a bit over 40% in margin on $1000+ devices, and growing even higher for their higher priced devices. They can afford to not have advertisements.
- zdragnar 5y agoApple's EULA prohibits you from installing their OS on anything but their own hardware- so they make their money there. Microsoft trying that would absolutely kill the company- either by lawsuit or people getting up in arms over anti-competitive behavior. They make a small amount every few years when you buy a new computer, and hope you'll also pay for their other software (or give them data, which is tantamount to the same thing).
- supercanuck 5y ago> ... so they make their money there. Microsoft, literally, sells Windows 10... for money.
- zamadatix 5y agoDo you say the auto dealership has free gas because new cars come with a full tank? Apple sells MacOS for money just not à la carte.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- zdragnar 5y agoGiven the upgrade cycle for computers, they are making substantially less (and OEM gets a massive discount over the store shelf price of windows). Since they arent getting a massive markup on very well integrated, mediocre hardware, they need to sell more than just Windows. Office, SharePoint, etc are where the real money is at for them.
- tester756 5y agoI have Windows 10 Pro and I don't see any ads. I don't have win app store / one drive too, removed that on the first day.
- klausjensen 5y agoSame for me - but the problem is we have to continue jumping through hoops to hide all the garbage MS is pushing in our face in Windows. Once every x months, I have to install a larger Windows update - which has me click through a bunch of screens AGAIN, having to avoid accepting some kind of ad-pushing nonsense and tracking.
- tester756 5y agoGenerally there's a few lines script that disable a lot of stuff like onedrive, app stores, blabla and that's almost all I did when it comes to those things I did it after fresh instal and didn't have to do anything for years. I agree that sometimes there's that privacy settings screen once a few months
- whalesalad 5y agowin 10 pro is $200
- d1zzy 5y agoI also have Win 10 pro. How have you disabled ads and app store/one drive?
- tester756 5y agoI ran script that uninstalls a lot of those stuff years ago Probably it was this https://gist.github.com/matthewjberger/2f4295887d6cb5738fa34e597f457b7f https://gist.github.com/matthewjberger/2f4295887d6cb5738fa34...
- ziml77 5y agoI've seen ads in the form of notifications. And Apple Music and Apple News tried to guide me to subscribe to those services even though both do have functionality that doesn't require subscribing. Also the OS isn't free. When you buy an Apple computer, you're also purchasing a license to use macOS on that machine.
- neogodless 5y agoAs others have pointed out, it's more accurate to say that Apple includes an OS with their hardware. Similarly, Microsoft includes an OS with the hardware they sell, but they also sell the OS to hardware vendors (their customer) or direct to consumer. Now to say "virtually every corner of the experience" seems like a massive overreach. When you first install Windows, or buy hardware with Windows, you are likely to find some advertisements, i.e. programs pre-installed, and start menu tiles that offer other things they want you to install. And there is this obnoxious taskbar notification, which I abhor! It happens once after a major software update. That doesn't cover nearly all corners of the Windows experience, though. It's just two items, and you can uninstall or dismiss the notification and it mostly never shows up again (except next time they release a major update.) About 363 days of the year, I will see zero advertisements in my Windows 10 experience from Microsoft. Now, I'm not saying we give them a pass. We should absolutely be critical of these user hostile moves, but we should describe the experience using accurate terms and phrases.
- ccouzens 5y agoMacs show an advert for iCloud after most large updates. Maybe it doesn't show up if you're signed in. And "search with google" keeps pushing you to safari https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17935301/how-to-force-mac-os-to-open-search-with-google-in-chrome https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17935301/how-to-force-ma...
- vbezhenar 5y agoiOS Music app regularly asks me about Apple Music subscription. Every corner of my Windows 10 experience is not riddled with advertisements. All I have to do is to remove few built-in partner apps after Windows install which I'm doing every few years. You're really exaggerating it. I don't like that Microsoft tries to monetize already sold Windows. But it's not that bad. Open web browser with a typical website and you'll have every corner of the experience riddled with advertisements. That's truly embarrassing.
- d1zzy 5y agoMore like $200 if you want Pro (retail) license and still get the same ads. I find it completely unacceptable.
- agloeregrets 5y agoInteresting. Don't you all think there is a site missing in the recommendation list that most average PC users would prefer? Perhaps a way to search the web?
- Arigato 5y agoThere's Bing in the recommendation lolol and MSN news feed too
- agloeregrets 5y agoThat's my point, You don't pin Bing first however. After you pin the first set of sites it then shows the option to pin the search engine that does less than 5% of searches in the US. ;). My point here is that it pretends to be neutral and allows Reddit, Fb, and Youtube...But google is nowhere to be found.
- inetknght 5y agoI've been avoiding Google for a while. Its search results have become significantly less quality than DuckDuckGo -- which I hear is a rebranded Bing anyway.
- agloeregrets 5y agoDuckDuckGo isn't related to bing at all.
- Arigato 5y agoRelated: Microsoft Edge’s user numbers are continuing to grow while Firefox's, which at one point was the second-most popular browser behind Chrome, keeps falling: https://www.techspot.com/news/89180-mircosoft-edge-user-numbers-keep-growing-firefox-falls.html https://www.techspot.com/news/89180-mircosoft-edge-user-numb... Advertisements or recommendations in Windows 10 are definitely helping Edge
- Someone1234 5y agoIronically Firefox's privacy orientated features may make it appear artificially unpopular in certain rankings. For example Wikimedia shows Firefox at 12%~ of desktop browser usage whereas W3Counter has it at only 6.1% and StatCounter 7.95%. With the latter two being JavaScript based.
- voidfunc 5y agoIve been using Edge for the last few months and very happy with it. The new vertical tabs feature is great.
- leokennis 5y agoAlso, I love the collections feature.
- OnlyOneCannolo 5y agoI don't understand the vertical tabs. The top bar still takes up just as much space. But now I also have less horizontal space too.
- kumarharsh 5y agoI think they mentioned that they're going to remove the top bar for vertical tabs
- Scharkenberg 5y agoThey won't remove it outright but we will get the option to collapse it. I've been using this mode on Canary ever since it landed and I honestly love it. Currently it's hidden behind a flag in pre-release builds but Stable should get it too in a matter of weeks.
- MattGaiser 5y agoMy poor taskbar is already cluttered.
- ChrisSD 5y agoThe are a number of Windows settings for turning off what it calls "suggestions". Do a search in the Settings app for "suggest", click "Show all results" and see what comes up. Amongst them are: * Show suggestions occasionally in Start * Show suggestions in your timeline * Suggest ways I can finish setting up my device to get the most out of Windows * Get tips, tricks and suggestions as you use Windows * Turn off suggested content in the Settings app Changing these settings can greatly reduce Windows 10 spam.
- swiley 5y agoA much simpler task if you're going to bother with administrating your machine: just install an OS that treats you like a human.
- isoprophlex 5y agoImagine paying money for an os and having to go through this song and dance to not have your productivity tool become an ad infested unproductivity tool
- nightski 5y agoI use it every day and tbh I haven't had to touch the settings in years. I never encounter this stuff. And reading the article it explicitly says they will only show users this feature if edge is their default browser.
- Semaphor 5y ago> And reading the article it explicitly says they will only show users this feature if edge is their default browser. That’s not what it says. It says "even when Microsoft Edge is the default browser".
- armoredkitten 5y agoNo, it says "the pop-up will appear even when Microsoft Edge is the default browser... The company is not targeting people who use Google Chrome and Firefox as default browsers." I.e., it shows up for everyone, not just people who aren't using Edge already. They aren't specifically targeting Chrome and Firefox users; they are just also included in the group.
- livre 5y agoWhile this is likely yet another bad move by Microsoft I hope this pushes web devs to start focusing on web apps and puts a stop to all those websites packaged with a browser that are around 200MB each.
- Ashanmaril 5y agoI really don't see a tooltip having that much pull on the web development zeitgeist
- nojito 5y agoHow is this a bad move? They are promoting the ability to pin websites on the taskbar.
- livre 5y agoI think I used the wrong word, I meant to say this is likely going to become another wasted effort for something people aren't going to use much or at all.
- Zren 5y agoProviding an Electron app probably has the same reasons behind it as providing an app instead of improving the website.
- thrower123 5y agoI don't know how anybody uses the stock Windows start menu. Classic Shell is the first thing I install on a new image. Don't even get me started on that ill-starred generation of Windows Server that used the touch-screen influenced Start Screen instead of a Start Menu...
- jonatron 5y agoI spent hours at the weekend making a windows 10 image with as much bloat disabled as possible. It looks like after just a few days, Microsoft have given me more stuff to remove. I only use it for gaming, so maybe my efforts would be better spent on getting games to work on Linux?
- inetknght 5y agoMost games work! Notably, if the game you're playing doesn't have an anti-cheat that's deeply tied to the kernel then there's a good chance it will work with Wine (or Steam Play's version of it) out of the box. The anti-cheats that are deeply tied to the Windows kernel are usually dumpster fires of remote code execution so I don't think there's much of a loss there.
- krapht 5y agoThings I never liked - spending hours debugging WINE issues or browsing the wine compatibility website trying to get things to work to play a video game, which I'm already using to get away from doing tedious work.
- andrewzah 5y agoThese days, most games run fine out of the box with proton. As the parent comment stated, it's mostly games that rely on invasive anti-cheats that don't work. For example, PUBG, Due Process, Valorant, etc... aka competitive multiplayer games. If one really wants to they can dual-boot with windows, but I've found the better option is to just play games that do run well on linux, like tf2, etc.
- d1zzy 5y agoHaving to use something like Steam (Internet based DRM) to play games effortlessly on Linux seems to beat the purpose. At that point I'd rather just have a separate Windows 10 install where all I do is just gaming.
- 5y ago
- Justsignedup 5y agoHere's whats so odd here: - google can push chrome on people in their search results. and google pushed HARD. So hard they dominate the browser market and chrome is unfortunately not known for privacy. - google pretty much makes it impossible to get away from chrome entirely in android. Example being that you MUST use chrome webview when using the google search app. Even though everything else uses firefox for me. - ms doesn't have search results. sure they try with bing but its not nearly as good or widespread. MS does have windows itself though, so they push where they can. I'm not entirely unsympathetic to MS at the moment. And this is coming from the pitchforks and torches guy against IE6/7/8/9 back in the day.
- notRobot 5y ago"Google does this wrong thing so MS should be able to too!" No, that's not how this works. If it's wrong, stop Google from doing it, instead of letting others do it too.
- Justsignedup 5y agoNot disagreeing with you on it. But to stop google we'd need acts of legislature from multiple countries. At best we'll see results in 5 years. MS can't wait that long for a maybe sort of kind of. Just being practical here.
- nashashmi 5y agoI think in monopoly playbook 2.0, it’s not a monopoly if it’s free. And it’s not a monopoly if your public relations are terrific.
- eli 5y agoI'd bet that we see a serious US antitrust investigation into Google within the next year. No new legislation needed.
- wdn 5y agoNo there won’t. The only reason why there was an anti-trust case against MSFT back in the day was because MSFT was too busy making and neglected to do political “contributions”. Silicon Valley took noticed and now they are the top political “contributors”.
- nerdponx 5y agoIs this any different from the scenario in the 90s antitrust case? Or is it now somehow OK because both Microsoft and Apple are doing it?
- luke2m 5y agoI don’t want random A/B tests in my OS. This is why I use Linux.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- majkinetor 5y agoThis kind of thing was on Ubuntu since years ago.
- moron4hire 5y agoI've been using Edge's pinned web apps feature for quite a while now. I love it. I've got pinned "apps" for a number of different PaaS portals, a number of different API documentation sites, a couple of internal apps at work, SoundCloud, YouTube Music, Teamwork, Twitter, etc. It's about 50/50 web-apps vs native apps. It's pretty great.
- rubyist5eva 5y agoIt took a lot of resistance but I switched to Fedora after years of hating desktop Linux because this kind of BS is even worse to me.
- wvenable 5y agoSo Microsoft is advertising an existing feature of the Edge browser to people who are using Edge. What's the controversy here? I have many apps that do that when a new version is pushed out and they have new features.
- CivBase 5y ago> It’s worth noting that the pop-up will appear even when Microsoft Edge is the default browser and you’ve already pinned sites to the taskbar. The company is not targeting people who use Google Chrome and Firefox as default browsers. That statement implies to me that they are also advertising to people who aren't using Edge.
- oehpr 5y agoCan you walk me through how you're reading that? I don't understand how you have reached that conclusion.
- CivBase 5y agoSure. I think the key to my interpretation is "even when". > the pop-up will appear *even when* Microsoft Edge is the default browser "Even when" says to me that this scenario is in addition to some other scenario, which must inevitably be when Edge isn't the default browser.
- oehpr 5y agoAh. I see how you are reading that now. Now I'm not sure how to take that sentence.
- 0-_-0 5y agoRead the next sentence you quoted. This is how the first sentence should read with correct parenthesization: "It’s worth noting that the pop-up will appear even (when Microsoft Edge is the default browser AND you’ve already pinned sites to the taskbar)"
- modzu 5y agowindows is such a wasteland. if youre out there, come join us on mac or linux island. the weather is great here!
- majkinetor 5y agoMac and linux bundled in the same sentence regarding control? Amazing :S
- modzu 5y agoyes. mac is at least predictable. i have never booted up to some random shit in my task bar..
- zeta0134 5y agoJust this week, I discovered that even after installing Python from the official website, if you happen to run a script that executes "python3" instead of "python", you'll instead trigger an unhelpful link to the Microsoft Store suggesting to install python from there. Yes, the command line itself has ads for the store sprinkled throughout it. Later, when I needed to pull down the Rust compiler, I discovered that the C++ redistributable package, despite not including Visual Studio, helpfully adds an explorer shell link to "Open in Visual Studio" which I suspect is meant to open the Store again, though on my system it appears to do nothing. So that's another ad. Clearly I'm not the target audience for this kind of stuff, being a Linux administrator and using that as my daily driver, but there's still something inherently creepy about all of this. I don't trust marketers, or the advertising industry at large, and while I understand Microsoft is a business and is necessarily going to engage in some marketing, there's a time and a place. Basic features of my operating system are not it.
- EE84M3i 5y agoDoes OSX do this with the xcode tools?
- arminiusreturns 5y agoYes, and as a linux admin and user who is stuck on MacOS for work, it drives me absolutely nuts, even more so when people defend apple or microsoft with justifications that the other does it. They both suck.
- Shank 5y agoI don't really think being told to run `xcode-select --install` is worse than being thrown into the Microsoft Store, because one is a flow-breaking action, and the other is not. If I'm at a Terminal and I don't have something installed, the fastest way to resolve the problem is with a Terminal command.
- arminiusreturns 5y ago
- refracture 5y agoEverytime I boot into Windows at home it just seems worse..
- nojito 5y agoHN is regularly mad that PWAs aren't more common and now that windows is actually promoting their use and they are getting vilified. This entire thread is very humorous. Personally I have Hackernews/reddit/Youtube/Stackoverflow as taskbar pins.
- Causality1 5y agoWhen I was a kid I remember Windows getting better every time it updated, and especially when new versions came out. Was I just ignorant? Why does the last five years feel like a whole new type of fuckery?
- Ashanmaril 5y agoBecause it was about 5 years ago Windows 10 launched and they switched from a model of getting people to buy copies of their OS, to making Windows into an ever-evolving service that exists to get people into the Microsoft ecosystem.
- Animats 5y agoNow I remember why I never converted to Windows 10. I still have a Windows 7 machine, but it hasn't been powered up in the last month. Wine 6 on Linux is doing most of what I need in running old Windows software.
- cybert00th 5y agoEvery time there's a major Windows update, I trawl through ALL the settings disabling marketing profile-enhancing 'features' like this. I find my online life is considerably less cluttered without them.
- Shadonototro 5y agoMicrosoft love implementing features that make me want to disable everything including Windows Update How many people doesn't get updates today because they got sick with the way they were doing windows updates back in the "forced restarted" early days This bloat culture at microsoft has to stop, please!
- Beached 5y agoI'm so lost. I see these "ms adding shit feature" to windows articles all the time, I go looking for the feature and I can't find it for the life of me. I have auto updates turned on, and the only "modification" I have is I disable bing suggestions in search. why is it that some people see all this crap, and I'm just sitting here thinking win10 is working perfect and is the best os to date
- BugWatch 5y agoraises hand sheepishly All my auto-updates are off. I only update "manually" and one thing for the duration, so that I can isolate any eventual issues. And Microsoft Updates specifically are banned for at least 6 months. I wasn't affected when it occurred, but I sure as hell won't let them exercise their incompetence of the "update deletes your data, users are our testers in production" kind upon me. (INB4: Yes, I do backup.)
- modeitsch 5y agoWhen someone is pushing is stuff it’s probably garbage
- throwawaysea 5y agoI am really disappointed in how Microsoft has managed Windows 10. It started with forced windows updates. Then it went to searches in the start menu triggering Bing web searches (which seems like a massive privacy/security issue). And now this. Windows occupies a space where it is more geared for power users than MacOS but easier to use than Linux. Instead of capitalizing on that identity, it is turning into something more like ad-supported spamware. I really want to give Linux a shot for daily driver use on a laptop and desktop, and have avoided it thus far because it seems intimidating and potentially tricky to get right (for example I worry about getting security right). Are there any trustworthy guides that introduce newer users to using Linux as a daily driver?