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The last version of Windows I used was Windows XP. I since switched to various Linux distros and macOS, now settling on a combination of Debian and Ubuntu as my

The last version of Windows I used was Windows XP. I since switched to various Linux distros and macOS, now settling on a combination of Debian and Ubuntu as my daily laptop/server OS’s. My initial reasons for my leaving the Microsoft world were because I didn’t agree with Microsoft’s ethics: it’s like being an exploitative, self-serving (as opposed to user-serving) conglomerate is wired into its company structure. MS’s great work with VS Code got me thinking that maybe there’s some hope for them as an organization, but every time I peek back into the Microsoft world like this I’m even less inclined to ever go back. I mean, their customers are actively developing workarounds for their shitty dark UX patterns, and their response is basically: “sorry, we insist that you adhere to our dark UX patterns”. Fuck that. Life’s too short for that bullshit. Vote with your time, money and attention.

A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
I agree. My jump was from Windows 7, when MS announced requirements for Windows 11 that seemed to try the trusted computing thing again. I have Windows 10 in a VM. It is not horrible once debloated, but my daily driver at this point is PopOS, which I can happily recommend. If only we could now get linux phone done ( and no, mobile ubuntu does not count ) to where desktop is today, I think I would be content.
- fsflover 5y ago
  > ( and no, mobile ubuntu does not count ) How about Librem 5: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5 https://puri.sm/products/librem-5?
  - heywherelogingo 5y ago
    52 week wait and overpriced.
    - fsflover 5y ago
      If you want to change the industry, you have to vote with your wallet. There is no other way.
      - heywherelogingo 5y ago
        If you want to change the industry you have to provide the wanted product.
        fsflover 5y ago
        And for free please. /s
        heywherelogingo 5y ago
        /s usually means sarcasm, not stupidity.
        fsflover 5y ago
        Sarcasm is exactly what I wanted to show. You do not like the price as if there was a wide choice of options. In reality, this is the price of a change. Otherwise it's is akin to free, because the company would have to pay the difference for you.
    - mrpopo 5y ago
      Not to mention 32GB storage, that's a 10? year lag on technology. Well, that could work if their ecosystem isn't bloated.
      - fsflover 5y ago
        You can put a 2 TB microSD in it.
- Bobylonian 5y ago
  Not sure what is meant by where "desktop is today" unless you have a desktop that consists of thouchscreen display and no keyboard and mouse, but I would not want a phone that is operated as Linux desktop, because phone has to be phone first. There are some others - Sailfish OS, Pure OS, Plasma Mobile and Manjaro for ARM - there are a lot of Linux based phones nowadays(Android is one of them).
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
    By phrase reference to desktop, I mean that desktop experience on Linux for me is now comparable, if not noticeably better than Windows. I am genuinely more productive now despite certain gripes with Gnome. Stuff generally just works. The stuff that does not work, I can emulate or put in VM. Now when I try to compare my current linux phone ( Pine ) with default Ubuntu to a cheapest android phone, the experience is just lacking. I know other OSs are available, and they were still underwhelming at the time. Has it gotten any better? I would love to try Librem, but I can't justify dropping $1999 for US version ( the non-US version has heavy lead time now ). I am not saying the option is not there. It is just not ready for prime time.
buzzwords 5y ago
I have to agree stop using companies with shitty ethics. It's hard at first but over time most of the issues will be resolved. I feel the same about Facebook, people bitch about them endlessly but won't stop using WhatsApp or Instagram.
- IanSanders 5y ago
  It's not that easy. For example if your education establishment or employer uses it (google suite is a common one). You stop using WhatsApp, and undoubtedly lose contact with at least a few people unable or unwilling to switch to an obscure-to-them alternative of your choice. You order food from a restaurant which hosts its website on azure or aws? Supports them indirectly. Just living in a modern technological society has net negative ethical impact because you don't have control of the supply chain. The world is complicated. Solution must be systemic. You cannot rely on everyone doing the right thing.
- annadane 5y ago
  I don't think it's fair to place the blame on consumers when WA/IG were bought as competition killing moves (and it's hard for the average person to see that they are the same)
- speeder 5y ago
  I am from Brazil, before WhatsApp existed, some cellphone companies were charging what was at the time 1 USD per SMS message sometimes. When WhatsApp first shown (not owned by Facebook yet), some cellphone companies literally sued them (and lost), claiming all sorts of random bullshit. Now everyone here uses WhatsApp, some services are WhatsApp only, as in... the service is basically a bot on WhatsApp and you send commands to that bot using WhatsApp. I tried to not use WhatsApp, but when I saw the SMS fees... well, WhatsApp did forced them to bring fees down, but not by much. I also tried to convince people to use other software, it worked partially... 1. Telegram, people here use this whenever WhatsApp is down, then they delete it again. 2. Kik, I was using it to talk to some poeple in other countries, for various reasons slowly this failed, the most bizarre one was a friend that lived in Alabama in US, seemly her phone company (AT&T I think?) detected her Kik usage and charged every single video chat we had as if it was an international phone call... as you can imagine this killed our Kik usage quite fast, we now use only Discord and e-mail. 3. Discord, only young people use that. 4. Slack, only works for work. 5. Matrix, Irc, etc... nobody I know in person uses it, people just refuse to use "techie" stuff. 6. ICQ, MSN, AIM, etc...: these were wildly popular here, ICQ was kinda killed by MSN, that then was killed by MS themselves for some reason. Nothing replaced MSN here.
k8sToGo 5y ago
Yet the stock is doing better than ever.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  I’d invest in them too, but I’d never use them.
- mactavish88 5y ago
  And so am I.
- grishka 5y ago
  The stock market ruins everything for the consumers. Here, I said it. Somehow, privately-owned companies tend to actually give a shit about things beyond revenues and other practically meaningless numbers.
  - curryst 5y ago
    I don't think this is strictly true. There are 2 underlying factors: 1. Public companies have tons of disclosure requirements, which makes it far more likely that someone notices their misconduct. That's a really heavy bias in the data. 2. Private companies are typically smaller, so the range of ways to abuse customers is smaller. Nestle can buy out the water rights for entire regions; the median private company probably couldn't buy enough water to mess up a city.
mrpopo 5y ago
Android and iOS are just as anti-competitive, if not more, and get a lot less bad press for it. Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1118/ https://xkcd.com/1118/
- iamcurious 5y ago
  >Facebook, Apple, and Google all got away with their monopolist power grabs because they don't have any 'S's in their names for critics to snarkily replace with '$'s. Workaround: Fac€book, Appl€ and Googl€. It even works for the parent companies: M€ta, Alphab€t. The European union saves the internet again! Use case: remember when Googl€'s motto was "don't be evil" rumour says they changed it to "be €vil"
- mactavish88 5y ago
  Totally. Which is why I’d pay over $300 for a dumb phone like the Mudita Pure with its FreeRTOS-based, open source OS. Call me stupid, but I’d be far happier without Apple or Google in my life, and am willing to pay the price for that in terms of inconvenience. I’m way happier without Microsoft, that’s for sure.
  - codeulike 5y ago
    The stuff microsoft got hated for in the 90s is now standard operating procedure for giant tech companies. Not to defend MS, but perhaps 'create a monopoly and then agressively expand sideways into other areas to extinguish competitors" is the default behaviour of these behemoths and it wasn't anything specific about MS apart from them being the first one.
    - A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
      Not for nothing, it seems that various governing bodies are slowly waking up to the idea some of those giants have really gotten a little too big, so there is a chance of some real action similar to action taken on MS.
    - dotancohen 5y ago
qsort 5y ago
> MS’s great work with VS Code Yeah, there are effectively two Microsofts. The dev/tooling MS is awesome. VS Code is great, .NET is unsexy but very solid, their recent efforts on Python are commendable, I've also heard good things about Azure. The Windows/Office world, is, well... One of the saddest things I've ever seen is how they decided to put ads on the Solitaire app. Is the massive UX degradation such a move entails really worth the extra ad revenue? For real? They don't give a damn, they've never given a damn, and now they're even stopped pretending.
- romwell 5y ago
  >One of the saddest things I've ever seen is how they decided to put ads on the Solitaire app. That's why I still run the Windows 3.11 Solitaire. Yay backwards compatibility, it sill works on Win 10 :D
  - coldacid 5y ago
    You too? Thank goodness for winevdm on Windows!
    - romwell 5y ago
      Yup! And the original deck design by Susan Kare is still the best one ever.
- crrrw40 5y ago
  So true, i totally agree with the UX degradation point.
- diggan 5y ago
  > Yeah, there are effectively two Microsofts. The dev/tooling MS is awesome. VS Code is great, .NET is unsexy but very solid, their recent efforts on Python are commendable, I've also heard good things about Azure. The same goes for lots of organizations, which makes it really hard to vote with your attention, time and money. Facebook is another example. Yes, React was really cool when it launched, and great innovation comes from the Facebook engineering team. But is it worth supporting their engineering team when at large, the organization seems to contribute more bad to world than good? I'm torn myself and not sure what to think anymore. Same applies to Microsoft. I really want to like the new Microsoft, but it's hard to just forget the past and see past issues like this, and it makes my view on the rest of their tooling to be less favorable.
trey-jones 5y ago
Yes, this all rings true. I recently did a fresh install of Windows 10, the first fresh install I think I've done in about 13 years (XP at the time, later upgraded to 7 and eventually 10). I was struck by every step of the installation process: Can we have your information? Can we have your information please? Will you allow us to collect and sell your information? Please give Edge a try, it's great, really! And yet I can see that VS Code is great, though I don't use it myself. I use lsp-mode every day, and I think that's even more important than VS Code itself. And the LSP is brought to us by Micro$oft as well. Definitely a dichotomy. I will give credit where it may be due however - I did install WSL for the first time, and while not perfect, it's pretty good! Better than Cygwin for sure is my initial impression.
- mikepurvis 5y ago
  I know you probably know this, but Cygwin, WSL, and WSL2 are all very different from each other in approach despite the superficial similarity of purpose being to run Linux/POSIX applications on Windows. Cygwin is a source level API adaptor, so recompilation is required. WSL is an ABI adaptor like the reverse of WINE. WSL2 is an adapted Linux kernel running in a featherweight VM.
  - trey-jones 5y ago
    Perhaps I should have just said, "much, much easier than Cygwin."
raxxorrax 5y ago
MS dev communities slowly become wastelands if you look for an expert. Granted, you will find a massive amount of consultants, but if you have a specific technical problem you are often more or less alone. Perhaps they all hide somewhere, but I couldn't locate them. I think Windows is also slowly decaying. Windows 11 is basically a slightly changed UI with new requirements for TPM or that a laptop has a front facing HD camera. Many probably know the type that makes decisions like that in large companies...
jksmith 5y ago
Discovered Linux when I bought an old Dell i5 laptop from ebay. Loved it - it just doesn't get in my way and gave me some time back. Almost like I'm retiring from the world of working bullshit. Then bought a another old desktop with W10 on it and immediately repurposed as a Linux project box. Didn't even finish Win setup. Just immediately popped in a Mint cd and install was nothing to it. While Win now controls my computing experience like I'm some crofter on some clan chief's land, in 2021, linux actually handed back control and gave me more capacity to not have to deal with stupid windows shit. Time, time, time. Now I'm intent on getting rid of android. Google is starting to creep me out. Want to move to a linux phone. Just not quite there yet. Time, freedom, personal sovereignty.
nathias 5y ago
VS Code and TS are just MS vectors of attack
- coldacid 5y ago
  A bold claim, but can you back it up?
  - nathias 5y ago
    not until its too late, but it seems a fair assumption regarding the history and what corporations in general are doing
  - zeusflight 5y ago
    How about the fact that some extensions like Remote Development [1] and LiveShare [2] work only on proprietary builds of vscode, and not on code-oss or vscodium? I get it that those are proprietary extensions, but they still show up in the extension marketplace for OSS builds. And I don't see a technical reason why they wont run on OSS builds, other than that the extension builders want it that way. And these extensions are important enough that you will end up downloading the proprietary build while you are too busy solving something with your team mates. This is a very subtle way to push even privacy-aware developers to use the proprietary build with built-in telemetry. And how about the fact that the de-facto reference implementation of LSP client (most language servers are developed against vscode) uses many undocumented and non-standard extensions [3] that are hard for other clients to implement? These are dark patterns that claims to be FOSS-friendly. It could be that MS still has split-brains about their approach to open source [4], but that is still an indication that MS still has part of their old anti-user soul in them. Personally, I liked vscode, but I value my freedom even more. Emacs provides all the functionality and the freedom I crave. It is a bit harder to learn and modify - but I can live with that. [1] https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/issues/240#issuecomment-521692835 https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/issues/240#issuecomment... [2] https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/issues/128#issuecomment-723125375 https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/issues/128#issuecomment... [3] https://github.com/microsoft/python-language-server/issues/400 https://github.com/microsoft/python-language-server/issues/4... [4] https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/22/22740701/microsoft-dotnet-hot-reload-removal-decision-open-source https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/22/22740701/microsoft-dotne...
wonderwonder 5y ago
What makes me incredibly cautious is every time I log into teams from my personal (only) computer it presents me with the option (defaulted to yes) to "Allow My Organization To Manage My Device". Very creepy and regardless of what rights it grants to the company, I don't like it. If the company wants to have power over my device then give me a work laptop.
winternett 5y ago
I don't know why everyone's always so "wound up" about Microsoft's browsers being forced upon us so much, all of their browsers since IE 6 have been extremely useful, primarily in terms of downloading another (better) browser... :|
- vetinari 5y ago
  Nowaydas, you don't even need other browser to download Firefox. You can use winget -- granted, it is command-line, but the option is there.
SECProto 5y ago
> Fuck that. Life’s too short for that bullshit. Vote with your time, money and attention. As someone who really isn't the target audience for HN, this sentence has a different meaning than you likely think. I vote with my time, money, and attention - and that vote results in me still using Windows. I've tried various Linux flavours every ~2 years for the last 20 (starting with Knoppix), and every time, some component doesn't work and I'm into the terminal within an hour of booting. Usually something to do with sound or display or wife/ethernet. Back in 2007ish, I managed to put in the numerous hours to make it work, and used linux for several years before something arbitrarily broke during an upgrade and I moved back to windows. All that said, everything about Windows 11 looks terrible, and I'll not be downgrading to it. I haven't written them off entirely - I will stay on win10 ltsc for the time being. Did the same when windows vista and windows 8/8.1 were out (along with trying ubuntu, linux mint, kubuntu, etc)
- eMSF 5y ago
  Android users don't like iOS, and iPhone users don't dig Android. Are they both right, or wrong? "What on Earth are you talking about?" ... The point is, whether you like change or not is utterly uninteresting; most people don't. Vote whatever you like, and you have to suffer from Microsoft's BS forever (with only a hope that it sometimes eases). The alternative is that you could suffer from someone else's instead. The choice is yours. (No one really falls in love "trying out flavours" of alternative software; the little differences just get in the way. However, it works both ways: those who don't usually use Windows find the little differences in Windows annoying.)
  - SECProto 5y ago
    > No one really falls in love "trying out flavours" of alternative software; the little differences just get in the way. As stated, I used linux for an ~3 year period, using only one distro (I forget now if it was Ubuntu or Mint). When I've tried again, it's not "the little differences" that bother me - it's that my HDMI port doesnt work, or my audio doesnt work, or my wifi doesn't work, or (in my most recent attempt, using ubuntu 20.04 with hardware released between 2016 and 2018) all three at the same time. > Android users don't like iOS, and iPhone users don't dig Android. Are they both right, or wrong? They're both right. There are legitimate concerns with both. Same with linux, and windows, and mac OS. The point is, with windows, I hack around to make things work in a way I like, but they work to begin with. With linux, in my experience, it takes hours of hacking to get things working at all, and then they arbitrarily break weeks to months down the line for no clear reason and require many more hours to figure out why.
moonchrome 5y ago
How is this different from Apple ? You can't even install a custom browser engine on iOS. If Microsoft forced everyone to use trident or whatever people would be up in arms, but when it's Apple then it's suddenly about "tailoring your experience". Meanwhile WebKit is the worst engine available and is intentionally gimping features to prevent you from bypassing app store tax.
- asciident 5y ago
  Agreed, Apple is far worse on being monopolistic and draconian, but people give them a pass because they have cool design. Everything they're doing with iMessage, the iOS and Mac App Stores, AirPods, Safari, etc. are all extend and embrace, without the trepidation that Microsoft has had.
  - vetinari 5y ago
    I don't think it is due to cool design. I think it is because using Apple is not mandatory. Apple is an aspirational brand, you use their products because you want to. Microsoft's products are not; they pushed hard their product everywhere, and were difficult to avoid, if you wanted something else. That itself caused a much friction, and when they start to steer you somewhere you don't want to go, their products are not exactly going to be your favorites.
- bun_at_work 5y ago
  > How is this different from Apple ? This is a desktop OS. You're comparing Windows 11 not letting users select which browser they'd prefer on a PC OS to iOS, which is a phone OS. A more apt comparison would obviously be to compare Windows 11 and macOS. macOS doesn't force you to use Safari, lets you specify which browser you'd like as a default, and respects that decision, only bothering you about it on major updates. Even then, only bothering you with a popup that asks if you'd like to try it.
  - moonchrome 5y ago
    This issue isn't about which browser you prefer it's which browser gets opened by built in search on start menu. Not a fan of the decision but I would never use this feature and turn it off anyway.
Mikeb85 5y ago
> MS’s great work with VS Code You mean the way they made it "open source" but still managed to include enough proprietary bits that most add-ons don't work on FOSS builds of Code?
tomxor 5y ago
> got me thinking that maybe there’s some hope for them as an organization I've gradually come to appreciate that it's a bit silly to anthropomorphise mega-corps like MS, Apple, etc as a single entities, where such thoughts make sense. At the top a lot of greedy self serving bullshit happens, which seems to be some sort of inevitable capitalistic or economic force of scale. But the effects of scale cuts both ways, hidden away individuals or whole teams will be doing their own thing based on a completely different set of principles and ideals. Although the umbrella they operate under burned my trust and patience long ago, I can still recognise the merit of tech that emerges from the individuals that work there.
NelsonMinar 5y ago
Windows has something like 88% market share of desktop OSes. https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share... It's very nice for you that you can tolerate a Linux desktop. But for an important product like Firefox, the discussion is about the monopolistic tactics that the dominant OS is doing.
- mactavish88 5y ago
  What would be interesting to know is what % of Windows users actually want to use Windows (as opposed to being forced to do so through corporate/organizational dictates).
tekstar 5y ago
Yesterday I signed my daughter up for her own minecraft account. It was maybe the worst computing experience I've ever had thanks to the Microsoft accounts. Made her a microsoft account with accurate 'kid' age, could not buy anything. Made myself a parent account, added her as a kid, still couldn't buy anything.. went to her account, added credit card, couldn't buy anything. 2 hours later of following tutorials around giving her enough "xbox / windows 10" permissions and eventually just disabling "request before making purchases" I was able to buy minecraft for her. Repeat the process (tutorials, guides to the microsoft preferences maze, jumping between accounts) to figure out how to let her join a local multiplayer game. Anyways, it was quite the insight into the level dysfunction that can ship when a company is that big, and I'm sure somewhere a manager is defending every step of that process and that it's my fault for not understanding it. Wild.

A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago

I agree. My jump was from Windows 7, when MS announced requirements for Windows 11 that seemed to try the trusted computing thing again. I have Windows 10 in a VM. It is not horrible once debloated, but my daily driver at this point is PopOS, which I can happily recommend. If only we could now get linux phone done ( and no, mobile ubuntu does not count ) to where desktop is today, I think I would be content.

fsflover 5y ago
> ( and no, mobile ubuntu does not count ) How about Librem 5: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5 https://puri.sm/products/librem-5?
- heywherelogingo 5y ago
  52 week wait and overpriced.
  - fsflover 5y ago
    If you want to change the industry, you have to vote with your wallet. There is no other way.
    - heywherelogingo 5y ago
      If you want to change the industry you have to provide the wanted product.
      - fsflover 5y ago
        And for free please. /s
        heywherelogingo 5y ago
        /s usually means sarcasm, not stupidity.
        fsflover 5y ago
        Sarcasm is exactly what I wanted to show. You do not like the price as if there was a wide choice of options. In reality, this is the price of a change. Otherwise it's is akin to free, because the company would have to pay the difference for you.
  - mrpopo 5y ago
    Not to mention 32GB storage, that's a 10? year lag on technology. Well, that could work if their ecosystem isn't bloated.
    - fsflover 5y ago
      You can put a 2 TB microSD in it.
Bobylonian 5y ago
Not sure what is meant by where "desktop is today" unless you have a desktop that consists of thouchscreen display and no keyboard and mouse, but I would not want a phone that is operated as Linux desktop, because phone has to be phone first. There are some others - Sailfish OS, Pure OS, Plasma Mobile and Manjaro for ARM - there are a lot of Linux based phones nowadays(Android is one of them).
- A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
  By phrase reference to desktop, I mean that desktop experience on Linux for me is now comparable, if not noticeably better than Windows. I am genuinely more productive now despite certain gripes with Gnome. Stuff generally just works. The stuff that does not work, I can emulate or put in VM. Now when I try to compare my current linux phone ( Pine ) with default Ubuntu to a cheapest android phone, the experience is just lacking. I know other OSs are available, and they were still underwhelming at the time. Has it gotten any better? I would love to try Librem, but I can't justify dropping $1999 for US version ( the non-US version has heavy lead time now ). I am not saying the option is not there. It is just not ready for prime time.

buzzwords 5y ago

I have to agree stop using companies with shitty ethics. It's hard at first but over time most of the issues will be resolved. I feel the same about Facebook, people bitch about them endlessly but won't stop using WhatsApp or Instagram.

IanSanders 5y ago
It's not that easy. For example if your education establishment or employer uses it (google suite is a common one). You stop using WhatsApp, and undoubtedly lose contact with at least a few people unable or unwilling to switch to an obscure-to-them alternative of your choice. You order food from a restaurant which hosts its website on azure or aws? Supports them indirectly. Just living in a modern technological society has net negative ethical impact because you don't have control of the supply chain. The world is complicated. Solution must be systemic. You cannot rely on everyone doing the right thing.
annadane 5y ago
I don't think it's fair to place the blame on consumers when WA/IG were bought as competition killing moves (and it's hard for the average person to see that they are the same)
speeder 5y ago
I am from Brazil, before WhatsApp existed, some cellphone companies were charging what was at the time 1 USD per SMS message sometimes. When WhatsApp first shown (not owned by Facebook yet), some cellphone companies literally sued them (and lost), claiming all sorts of random bullshit. Now everyone here uses WhatsApp, some services are WhatsApp only, as in... the service is basically a bot on WhatsApp and you send commands to that bot using WhatsApp. I tried to not use WhatsApp, but when I saw the SMS fees... well, WhatsApp did forced them to bring fees down, but not by much. I also tried to convince people to use other software, it worked partially... 1. Telegram, people here use this whenever WhatsApp is down, then they delete it again. 2. Kik, I was using it to talk to some poeple in other countries, for various reasons slowly this failed, the most bizarre one was a friend that lived in Alabama in US, seemly her phone company (AT&T I think?) detected her Kik usage and charged every single video chat we had as if it was an international phone call... as you can imagine this killed our Kik usage quite fast, we now use only Discord and e-mail. 3. Discord, only young people use that. 4. Slack, only works for work. 5. Matrix, Irc, etc... nobody I know in person uses it, people just refuse to use "techie" stuff. 6. ICQ, MSN, AIM, etc...: these were wildly popular here, ICQ was kinda killed by MSN, that then was killed by MS themselves for some reason. Nothing replaced MSN here.

k8sToGo 5y ago

Yet the stock is doing better than ever.

Aeolun 5y ago
I’d invest in them too, but I’d never use them.
mactavish88 5y ago
And so am I.
grishka 5y ago
The stock market ruins everything for the consumers. Here, I said it. Somehow, privately-owned companies tend to actually give a shit about things beyond revenues and other practically meaningless numbers.
- curryst 5y ago
  I don't think this is strictly true. There are 2 underlying factors: 1. Public companies have tons of disclosure requirements, which makes it far more likely that someone notices their misconduct. That's a really heavy bias in the data. 2. Private companies are typically smaller, so the range of ways to abuse customers is smaller. Nestle can buy out the water rights for entire regions; the median private company probably couldn't buy enough water to mess up a city.

mrpopo 5y ago

Android and iOS are just as anti-competitive, if not more, and get a lot less bad press for it. Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1118/ https://xkcd.com/1118/

iamcurious 5y ago
>Facebook, Apple, and Google all got away with their monopolist power grabs because they don't have any 'S's in their names for critics to snarkily replace with '$'s. Workaround: Fac€book, Appl€ and Googl€. It even works for the parent companies: M€ta, Alphab€t. The European union saves the internet again! Use case: remember when Googl€'s motto was "don't be evil" rumour says they changed it to "be €vil"
mactavish88 5y ago
Totally. Which is why I’d pay over $300 for a dumb phone like the Mudita Pure with its FreeRTOS-based, open source OS. Call me stupid, but I’d be far happier without Apple or Google in my life, and am willing to pay the price for that in terms of inconvenience. I’m way happier without Microsoft, that’s for sure.
- codeulike 5y ago
  The stuff microsoft got hated for in the 90s is now standard operating procedure for giant tech companies. Not to defend MS, but perhaps 'create a monopoly and then agressively expand sideways into other areas to extinguish competitors" is the default behaviour of these behemoths and it wasn't anything specific about MS apart from them being the first one.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
    Not for nothing, it seems that various governing bodies are slowly waking up to the idea some of those giants have really gotten a little too big, so there is a chance of some real action similar to action taken on MS.
  - dotancohen 5y ago

qsort 5y ago

> MS’s great work with VS Code Yeah, there are effectively two Microsofts. The dev/tooling MS is awesome. VS Code is great, .NET is unsexy but very solid, their recent efforts on Python are commendable, I've also heard good things about Azure. The Windows/Office world, is, well... One of the saddest things I've ever seen is how they decided to put ads on the Solitaire app. Is the massive UX degradation such a move entails really worth the extra ad revenue? For real? They don't give a damn, they've never given a damn, and now they're even stopped pretending.

romwell 5y ago
>One of the saddest things I've ever seen is how they decided to put ads on the Solitaire app. That's why I still run the Windows 3.11 Solitaire. Yay backwards compatibility, it sill works on Win 10 :D
- coldacid 5y ago
  You too? Thank goodness for winevdm on Windows!
  - romwell 5y ago
    Yup! And the original deck design by Susan Kare is still the best one ever.
crrrw40 5y ago
So true, i totally agree with the UX degradation point.
diggan 5y ago
> Yeah, there are effectively two Microsofts. The dev/tooling MS is awesome. VS Code is great, .NET is unsexy but very solid, their recent efforts on Python are commendable, I've also heard good things about Azure. The same goes for lots of organizations, which makes it really hard to vote with your attention, time and money. Facebook is another example. Yes, React was really cool when it launched, and great innovation comes from the Facebook engineering team. But is it worth supporting their engineering team when at large, the organization seems to contribute more bad to world than good? I'm torn myself and not sure what to think anymore. Same applies to Microsoft. I really want to like the new Microsoft, but it's hard to just forget the past and see past issues like this, and it makes my view on the rest of their tooling to be less favorable.

trey-jones 5y ago

Yes, this all rings true. I recently did a fresh install of Windows 10, the first fresh install I think I've done in about 13 years (XP at the time, later upgraded to 7 and eventually 10). I was struck by every step of the installation process: Can we have your information? Can we have your information please? Will you allow us to collect and sell your information? Please give Edge a try, it's great, really! And yet I can see that VS Code is great, though I don't use it myself. I use lsp-mode every day, and I think that's even more important than VS Code itself. And the LSP is brought to us by Micro$oft as well. Definitely a dichotomy. I will give credit where it may be due however - I did install WSL for the first time, and while not perfect, it's pretty good! Better than Cygwin for sure is my initial impression.

mikepurvis 5y ago
I know you probably know this, but Cygwin, WSL, and WSL2 are all very different from each other in approach despite the superficial similarity of purpose being to run Linux/POSIX applications on Windows. Cygwin is a source level API adaptor, so recompilation is required. WSL is an ABI adaptor like the reverse of WINE. WSL2 is an adapted Linux kernel running in a featherweight VM.
- trey-jones 5y ago
  Perhaps I should have just said, "much, much easier than Cygwin."

raxxorrax 5y ago

MS dev communities slowly become wastelands if you look for an expert. Granted, you will find a massive amount of consultants, but if you have a specific technical problem you are often more or less alone. Perhaps they all hide somewhere, but I couldn't locate them. I think Windows is also slowly decaying. Windows 11 is basically a slightly changed UI with new requirements for TPM or that a laptop has a front facing HD camera. Many probably know the type that makes decisions like that in large companies...

jksmith 5y ago

Discovered Linux when I bought an old Dell i5 laptop from ebay. Loved it - it just doesn't get in my way and gave me some time back. Almost like I'm retiring from the world of working bullshit. Then bought a another old desktop with W10 on it and immediately repurposed as a Linux project box. Didn't even finish Win setup. Just immediately popped in a Mint cd and install was nothing to it. While Win now controls my computing experience like I'm some crofter on some clan chief's land, in 2021, linux actually handed back control and gave me more capacity to not have to deal with stupid windows shit. Time, time, time. Now I'm intent on getting rid of android. Google is starting to creep me out. Want to move to a linux phone. Just not quite there yet. Time, freedom, personal sovereignty.

nathias 5y ago

VS Code and TS are just MS vectors of attack

coldacid 5y ago
A bold claim, but can you back it up?
- nathias 5y ago
  not until its too late, but it seems a fair assumption regarding the history and what corporations in general are doing
- zeusflight 5y ago
  How about the fact that some extensions like Remote Development [1] and LiveShare [2] work only on proprietary builds of vscode, and not on code-oss or vscodium? I get it that those are proprietary extensions, but they still show up in the extension marketplace for OSS builds. And I don't see a technical reason why they wont run on OSS builds, other than that the extension builders want it that way. And these extensions are important enough that you will end up downloading the proprietary build while you are too busy solving something with your team mates. This is a very subtle way to push even privacy-aware developers to use the proprietary build with built-in telemetry. And how about the fact that the de-facto reference implementation of LSP client (most language servers are developed against vscode) uses many undocumented and non-standard extensions [3] that are hard for other clients to implement? These are dark patterns that claims to be FOSS-friendly. It could be that MS still has split-brains about their approach to open source [4], but that is still an indication that MS still has part of their old anti-user soul in them. Personally, I liked vscode, but I value my freedom even more. Emacs provides all the functionality and the freedom I crave. It is a bit harder to learn and modify - but I can live with that. [1] https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/issues/240#issuecomment-521692835 https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/issues/240#issuecomment... [2] https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/issues/128#issuecomment-723125375 https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/issues/128#issuecomment... [3] https://github.com/microsoft/python-language-server/issues/400 https://github.com/microsoft/python-language-server/issues/4... [4] https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/22/22740701/microsoft-dotnet-hot-reload-removal-decision-open-source https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/22/22740701/microsoft-dotne...

wonderwonder 5y ago

What makes me incredibly cautious is every time I log into teams from my personal (only) computer it presents me with the option (defaulted to yes) to "Allow My Organization To Manage My Device". Very creepy and regardless of what rights it grants to the company, I don't like it. If the company wants to have power over my device then give me a work laptop.

winternett 5y ago

I don't know why everyone's always so "wound up" about Microsoft's browsers being forced upon us so much, all of their browsers since IE 6 have been extremely useful, primarily in terms of downloading another (better) browser... :|

vetinari 5y ago
Nowaydas, you don't even need other browser to download Firefox. You can use winget -- granted, it is command-line, but the option is there.

SECProto 5y ago

> Fuck that. Life’s too short for that bullshit. Vote with your time, money and attention. As someone who really isn't the target audience for HN, this sentence has a different meaning than you likely think. I vote with my time, money, and attention - and that vote results in me still using Windows. I've tried various Linux flavours every ~2 years for the last 20 (starting with Knoppix), and every time, some component doesn't work and I'm into the terminal within an hour of booting. Usually something to do with sound or display or wife/ethernet. Back in 2007ish, I managed to put in the numerous hours to make it work, and used linux for several years before something arbitrarily broke during an upgrade and I moved back to windows. All that said, everything about Windows 11 looks terrible, and I'll not be downgrading to it. I haven't written them off entirely - I will stay on win10 ltsc for the time being. Did the same when windows vista and windows 8/8.1 were out (along with trying ubuntu, linux mint, kubuntu, etc)

eMSF 5y ago
Android users don't like iOS, and iPhone users don't dig Android. Are they both right, or wrong? "What on Earth are you talking about?" ... The point is, whether you like change or not is utterly uninteresting; most people don't. Vote whatever you like, and you have to suffer from Microsoft's BS forever (with only a hope that it sometimes eases). The alternative is that you could suffer from someone else's instead. The choice is yours. (No one really falls in love "trying out flavours" of alternative software; the little differences just get in the way. However, it works both ways: those who don't usually use Windows find the little differences in Windows annoying.)
- SECProto 5y ago
  > No one really falls in love "trying out flavours" of alternative software; the little differences just get in the way. As stated, I used linux for an ~3 year period, using only one distro (I forget now if it was Ubuntu or Mint). When I've tried again, it's not "the little differences" that bother me - it's that my HDMI port doesnt work, or my audio doesnt work, or my wifi doesn't work, or (in my most recent attempt, using ubuntu 20.04 with hardware released between 2016 and 2018) all three at the same time. > Android users don't like iOS, and iPhone users don't dig Android. Are they both right, or wrong? They're both right. There are legitimate concerns with both. Same with linux, and windows, and mac OS. The point is, with windows, I hack around to make things work in a way I like, but they work to begin with. With linux, in my experience, it takes hours of hacking to get things working at all, and then they arbitrarily break weeks to months down the line for no clear reason and require many more hours to figure out why.

moonchrome 5y ago

How is this different from Apple ? You can't even install a custom browser engine on iOS. If Microsoft forced everyone to use trident or whatever people would be up in arms, but when it's Apple then it's suddenly about "tailoring your experience". Meanwhile WebKit is the worst engine available and is intentionally gimping features to prevent you from bypassing app store tax.

asciident 5y ago
Agreed, Apple is far worse on being monopolistic and draconian, but people give them a pass because they have cool design. Everything they're doing with iMessage, the iOS and Mac App Stores, AirPods, Safari, etc. are all extend and embrace, without the trepidation that Microsoft has had.
- vetinari 5y ago
  I don't think it is due to cool design. I think it is because using Apple is not mandatory. Apple is an aspirational brand, you use their products because you want to. Microsoft's products are not; they pushed hard their product everywhere, and were difficult to avoid, if you wanted something else. That itself caused a much friction, and when they start to steer you somewhere you don't want to go, their products are not exactly going to be your favorites.
bun_at_work 5y ago
> How is this different from Apple ? This is a desktop OS. You're comparing Windows 11 not letting users select which browser they'd prefer on a PC OS to iOS, which is a phone OS. A more apt comparison would obviously be to compare Windows 11 and macOS. macOS doesn't force you to use Safari, lets you specify which browser you'd like as a default, and respects that decision, only bothering you about it on major updates. Even then, only bothering you with a popup that asks if you'd like to try it.
- moonchrome 5y ago
  This issue isn't about which browser you prefer it's which browser gets opened by built in search on start menu. Not a fan of the decision but I would never use this feature and turn it off anyway.

Mikeb85 5y ago

> MS’s great work with VS Code You mean the way they made it "open source" but still managed to include enough proprietary bits that most add-ons don't work on FOSS builds of Code?

tomxor 5y ago

> got me thinking that maybe there’s some hope for them as an organization I've gradually come to appreciate that it's a bit silly to anthropomorphise mega-corps like MS, Apple, etc as a single entities, where such thoughts make sense. At the top a lot of greedy self serving bullshit happens, which seems to be some sort of inevitable capitalistic or economic force of scale. But the effects of scale cuts both ways, hidden away individuals or whole teams will be doing their own thing based on a completely different set of principles and ideals. Although the umbrella they operate under burned my trust and patience long ago, I can still recognise the merit of tech that emerges from the individuals that work there.

NelsonMinar 5y ago

Windows has something like 88% market share of desktop OSes. https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share... It's very nice for you that you can tolerate a Linux desktop. But for an important product like Firefox, the discussion is about the monopolistic tactics that the dominant OS is doing.

mactavish88 5y ago
What would be interesting to know is what % of Windows users actually want to use Windows (as opposed to being forced to do so through corporate/organizational dictates).

tekstar 5y ago

Yesterday I signed my daughter up for her own minecraft account. It was maybe the worst computing experience I've ever had thanks to the Microsoft accounts. Made her a microsoft account with accurate 'kid' age, could not buy anything. Made myself a parent account, added her as a kid, still couldn't buy anything.. went to her account, added credit card, couldn't buy anything. 2 hours later of following tutorials around giving her enough "xbox / windows 10" permissions and eventually just disabling "request before making purchases" I was able to buy minecraft for her. Repeat the process (tutorials, guides to the microsoft preferences maze, jumping between accounts) to figure out how to let her join a local multiplayer game. Anyways, it was quite the insight into the level dysfunction that can ship when a company is that big, and I'm sure somewhere a manager is defending every step of that process and that it's my fault for not understanding it. Wild.