7 ms·

I hear this "Google is worse" talking point so much in defense of Windows 10 mucking around with people's settings that I'm starting to assume it's astroturfing

I hear this "Google is worse" talking point so much in defense of Windows 10 mucking around with people's settings that I'm starting to assume it's astroturfing. You consider your wife a passive computer user who doesn't know what a browser is. Say you switched her browser to Firefox so she could more effectively block ads, and then MS switched it back to Edge with this mechanism. They are being malicious in the same way you say Google is, except it's worse because it's malicious behavior running on her own machine instead of malicious behavior running on someone else's servers. I have spent so much time disabling all these ads on my Windows 10 Pro machine. And it did actually leave me alone through the end of 2018 I think, maybe early 2019. Then they started coming up with new bizarre ways to try to fuck with my system. I paid for this laptop, it should do what I say and otherwise leave me alone. Google being a bad actor is not an excuse for Microsoft to be a bad actor.

soylentnewsorg 5y ago
I won't switch her browser to firefox. I'm not her tech support although I am in tech. Welcome to 90% of users. If I was her tech support, and I wanted to prevent the browser being changed by the user, I would.. Explain it to the user. And if they still changed it after that - guess what, that's their choice. But I could, just like you, prevent that with group policy. And when you do that, you won't get prompted to change it, just like my work laptop doesn't prompt me to change it. So what is the issue? The fact that if you do your customization and don't complete the full power user process, the OS can't tell if it was a random web page that did it? Maybe MS should collect some more telemetry on your laptop and run a compute-heavy AI to figure it out? >I have spent so much time disabling all these ads on my Windows 10 Pro machine. and why in the world would you do that? it literally takes two clicks in many different pieces of software that are available. for the 90% of users - guess what, they wouldn't know about 1drive if windows didn't display an ad for it. What you call an ad, my wife calls helpful suggestions. When you're grocery shopping and you see a banner "apples 10% off today" that is also an "ad." Microsoft is not a bad actor. The "google is worse" talking point is one I never stated, and a strawman you made up. What you call "Ads" are simply defaults. And you can disable them in about a minute with one click in an app. You don't like edge at all? Guess what - there are fifty things you can do to completely disable or remove it - like change security on its folder or run a single powershell command to uninstall it. Windows is an OS that is tailored to its users. That's not you - don't use it if you don't want. Here in the real world though, any power user simply changes the defaults in a couple of minutes, and at work there's a corporate image with all those turned off already.
- MiddleEndian 5y ago
  You justify Microsoft's actions because of Google's similar actions, you say "Google is a bad player," the implication is clearly "Google is worse." There is no strawman here. I have disabled all the promotion for one drive and the browser and similar garbage. Yet no matter what, they change the OS to come up with new ways to advertise at me, even if it's only a few times a year. It's an ad even if MS claims they think it well help users. I've heard non-technical users complain about this shit too. They just want their computers to work and not bother them. Given that people are annoyed by Windows 10's promotions, I would say they are mostly taking advantage of their situation. Some of their actions are helpful to their users, some are not-so-helpful. People tolerate ads if they have to, they do not like them. Regarding apples 10% off, when I am home with my apples, the grocery store does not break into my house to tell me about more apples.
  - watermelon0 5y ago
    He never justified Microsoft's action because of whatever Google does, nor does he say that Google is worse than MS.
    - MiddleEndian 5y ago
      Saying it's beneficial to 90% of users in response to a complaint about how bad something is sounds like a justification to me.
  - soylentnewsorg 5y ago
    I don't get why you keep making things up that people never said. Every time you apply windows update, you're "going to the grocery store." If you have non-technical users who complain about the browser changing, or knowing how to set a default browser, they're pretty technical. The browser has a back button and a url bar. regular people click the back button. they don't know what a url bar is. they are presented with a start page, which is by default google or bing, and get to a site that way. my wife for example, while speaking many languages, will type "ycombinator.com" into a google search to get to this site. >Given that people are annoyed by Windows 10's promotions two people, and most non-tech people. go to walmart, look at the people buying netbooks in the computer section. those are the 90% of consumers those are optimized for. they were happy to find out about onedrive from those "ads," and now store stuff there instead of emailing it to themselves. but there is no point in debating anything with you. it appears your brain has painted a new reality for you, and you're not even responding to what people write - you're making up easier arguments for yourself to defeat. have a good day, have a nice life, enjoy your apples. just don't throw them out when you bring the bag to your house and see a little "dole" advertisement sticker on each apple. it's not a conspiracy theory for bob dole to get inside your house. he's already there. he broke in while you were at the store.
trulyme 5y ago
This is a bit beside the point, but I have trouble understanding why someone who is willing to put some work into configuring their computer still uses Windows. Just use Ubuntu/Xubuntu/Kubuntu and stay away from those ads. Compatibility with MS Office might be a plausible explanation, but even then you can throw it in a VM until you find a way to get rid of it.
- MiddleEndian 5y ago
  Honestly I like the application selection of Windows better, although I don't use MS Office at all. The Adobe suite (particularly Photoshop, After Effects) is pretty unparalleled, despite Adobe's irritating behavior overall. I like Notepad++ better than other GUI text editors, I like Ditto better than other clipboard managers (although Klipper is pretty good). WSL allows me to do Linux style development reasonably well, handles about everything except systemd. I'm releasing a game (eventually, life got in the way!) for Windows and potentially some future games for Windows. They'll also support Linux of course, but Linux on Windows is an easier task than the other way around. Windows also has very good UI scaling and pen support in the form of their tablets. That being said, after I no longer need to do video editing so my Adobe Suite usage will be back to just Photoshop, I'll investigate switching back to Linux as my primary OS again with my next laptop.

soylentnewsorg 5y ago

I won't switch her browser to firefox. I'm not her tech support although I am in tech. Welcome to 90% of users. If I was her tech support, and I wanted to prevent the browser being changed by the user, I would.. Explain it to the user. And if they still changed it after that - guess what, that's their choice. But I could, just like you, prevent that with group policy. And when you do that, you won't get prompted to change it, just like my work laptop doesn't prompt me to change it. So what is the issue? The fact that if you do your customization and don't complete the full power user process, the OS can't tell if it was a random web page that did it? Maybe MS should collect some more telemetry on your laptop and run a compute-heavy AI to figure it out? >I have spent so much time disabling all these ads on my Windows 10 Pro machine. and why in the world would you do that? it literally takes two clicks in many different pieces of software that are available. for the 90% of users - guess what, they wouldn't know about 1drive if windows didn't display an ad for it. What you call an ad, my wife calls helpful suggestions. When you're grocery shopping and you see a banner "apples 10% off today" that is also an "ad." Microsoft is not a bad actor. The "google is worse" talking point is one I never stated, and a strawman you made up. What you call "Ads" are simply defaults. And you can disable them in about a minute with one click in an app. You don't like edge at all? Guess what - there are fifty things you can do to completely disable or remove it - like change security on its folder or run a single powershell command to uninstall it. Windows is an OS that is tailored to its users. That's not you - don't use it if you don't want. Here in the real world though, any power user simply changes the defaults in a couple of minutes, and at work there's a corporate image with all those turned off already.

MiddleEndian 5y ago
You justify Microsoft's actions because of Google's similar actions, you say "Google is a bad player," the implication is clearly "Google is worse." There is no strawman here. I have disabled all the promotion for one drive and the browser and similar garbage. Yet no matter what, they change the OS to come up with new ways to advertise at me, even if it's only a few times a year. It's an ad even if MS claims they think it well help users. I've heard non-technical users complain about this shit too. They just want their computers to work and not bother them. Given that people are annoyed by Windows 10's promotions, I would say they are mostly taking advantage of their situation. Some of their actions are helpful to their users, some are not-so-helpful. People tolerate ads if they have to, they do not like them. Regarding apples 10% off, when I am home with my apples, the grocery store does not break into my house to tell me about more apples.
- watermelon0 5y ago
  He never justified Microsoft's action because of whatever Google does, nor does he say that Google is worse than MS.
  - MiddleEndian 5y ago
    Saying it's beneficial to 90% of users in response to a complaint about how bad something is sounds like a justification to me.
- soylentnewsorg 5y ago
  I don't get why you keep making things up that people never said. Every time you apply windows update, you're "going to the grocery store." If you have non-technical users who complain about the browser changing, or knowing how to set a default browser, they're pretty technical. The browser has a back button and a url bar. regular people click the back button. they don't know what a url bar is. they are presented with a start page, which is by default google or bing, and get to a site that way. my wife for example, while speaking many languages, will type "ycombinator.com" into a google search to get to this site. >Given that people are annoyed by Windows 10's promotions two people, and most non-tech people. go to walmart, look at the people buying netbooks in the computer section. those are the 90% of consumers those are optimized for. they were happy to find out about onedrive from those "ads," and now store stuff there instead of emailing it to themselves. but there is no point in debating anything with you. it appears your brain has painted a new reality for you, and you're not even responding to what people write - you're making up easier arguments for yourself to defeat. have a good day, have a nice life, enjoy your apples. just don't throw them out when you bring the bag to your house and see a little "dole" advertisement sticker on each apple. it's not a conspiracy theory for bob dole to get inside your house. he's already there. he broke in while you were at the store.

trulyme 5y ago

This is a bit beside the point, but I have trouble understanding why someone who is willing to put some work into configuring their computer still uses Windows. Just use Ubuntu/Xubuntu/Kubuntu and stay away from those ads. Compatibility with MS Office might be a plausible explanation, but even then you can throw it in a VM until you find a way to get rid of it.

MiddleEndian 5y ago
Honestly I like the application selection of Windows better, although I don't use MS Office at all. The Adobe suite (particularly Photoshop, After Effects) is pretty unparalleled, despite Adobe's irritating behavior overall. I like Notepad++ better than other GUI text editors, I like Ditto better than other clipboard managers (although Klipper is pretty good). WSL allows me to do Linux style development reasonably well, handles about everything except systemd. I'm releasing a game (eventually, life got in the way!) for Windows and potentially some future games for Windows. They'll also support Linux of course, but Linux on Windows is an easier task than the other way around. Windows also has very good UI scaling and pen support in the form of their tablets. That being said, after I no longer need to do video editing so my Adobe Suite usage will be back to just Photoshop, I'll investigate switching back to Linux as my primary OS again with my next laptop.