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Microsoft is slowly rolling out ads in the Windows 11 start menu
- WWLink 4y agoBut that's ok, you can change it in group policy. And if you aren't an enterprise customer, here's a bunch of random registry edits you can do to disable it! See? No reason to consider alternatives! Continue to buy Windows! /s
- Nextgrid 4y agoThe availability of a group policy to disable it shouldn't be an acceptable excuse - it still means your IT admin needs to keep on top of those and preemptively toggle group policy settings every few updates - this is ultimately still a cost.
- madelyn 4y agoMore proof that "if you're not paying, you're the product" doesn't hold up. Companies will put an ad anywhere the market will tolerate it.
- actionfromafar 4y agoVery few end users pay for Windows.
- qbasic_forever 4y agoThey're paying for it with a slightly more expensive laptop/computer price. The manufacturers don't get Windows for free, they ultimately pass that cost on to the consumer.
- actionfromafar 4y agoYes, of course, but I think it's a slightly shallow perspective. It's a push-pull between the hardware vendor and Microsoft. You can bet that a hardware vendor with large numbers can get a better deal on the Windows license. Why? Because the vendor effectively "sells" you, the customer to Microsoft.
- raverbashing 4y agoVery few? Most machines sold have an OEM version, which I'm sure was paid for by the OEM (Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc)
- hef19898 4y agoOne thing I just cannot wrap my head around is this: Where does all the money to make the ad business viable come from? Are all those ads resulting in a profit down the line? Or is it all just just a pointless waste of money to begin with?
- Nextgrid 4y agoIndeed, advertising and data collection is ultimately there to drive a profit in real money - at some point, someone still has to put actual money into the system - in advertising, this is typically from consumers buying the advertised products. If everything turns into an advertising platform with no actual way for real money (as opposed to "engagement") to get into the system, it will fall apart. However, the same kind of people who are willing to sacrifice long-term brand trustworthiness of a previously-reputable OS supplier in exchange for some quick "engagement" metrics to justify their salary and/or promotion will be in other companies paying for these ads and then finding a way to coerce the data/metrics to justify that ad spend, even though in the long term none of those ads may actually bring net profits to the company. As long as there is enough money being available from previous profits and/or other sources, both of these camps will independently cooperate with each other to further their own careers at the expense of their respective companies' long-term outlooks.
- kwertyoowiyop 4y agoEven when you pay, you’re still the product.
- tpxl 4y agoPaying for something means you have money. People with money make more valuable ad targets.
- croes 4y agoWrong conclusion, just because if you're are not paying, you're the product doesn't mean, if you are paying, you aren't the product. It's just: you are the product, no matter if you pay or don't pay.
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y agoExcept that that's not actually true either; I don't pay for Debian.
- kneebonian 4y agoThis is why I use and will hold onto Linux forever. With Linux it is my machine I own, I control I can do what I want. You can take your "more secure" walled gardens, and you're "just works" OSes and shove 'em. I own my machine I control what runs on it, I can turn this crap off, I am not licensing, leasing, or renting. I have purchased and I own it. The Free in FOSS was never about money it was always about ensuring the user controlled their device and this is why.
- jfghi 4y agoI’d be quite glad if snap disappeared from Ubuntu.
- timbit42 4y agoThat's what Linux Mint and Pop!_OS are for.
- deely3 4y agoDo you use phone with Linux too?
- kevin_thibedeau 4y agoGlobal majority of smartphones run Linux.
- deely3 4y agoSo, is it ok for you to use proprietary, not open source OS that actively restricts your possibilities, shows ads for you, logs most of your actions, etc. etc and created by profit driven giant corporation when this OS is based on Linux kernel?
- kevin_thibedeau 4y agoYou can install open source Android if you want.
- LeanderK 4y agoMy girlfriend recently had a popup from microsoft urging her to use bing instead of google for a few days in return for a few bucks (I think it was amazon credit). I was simply astonished, windows really didn't seem like a tool anymore but just someone trying to sell you something or get your data. Also it's tacky. As I personally haven't used windows for years I really was in disbelief seeing it. How can you work professionally with something like this? EDIT: seems I remember it correctly https://www.howtogeek.com/269793/how-to-earn-earn-amazon-credit-by-using-bing-and-edge-thanks-to-microsoft-rewards/ https://www.howtogeek.com/269793/how-to-earn-earn-amazon-cre...
- GalenErso 4y agoI'm down for corporations offering to pay me to use their products, ngl. For $25 a month I'd set Bing as my default search engine.
- croisillon 4y agoand search "google" 25 times a day with it :D
- speed_spread 4y agoAnd I'd be scared of what they thought was worth more than 25$ to them.
- somerandomqaguy 4y agoProbably same way as usual. By IT disabling those those popups via group policy. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/deployedge/microsoft-edge-policies#showrecommendationsenabled https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/deployedge/microsoft-edge-...
- LeanderK 4y agothis is truly absurd. I bet there are quite a few small businesses/self employed people getting popups all the time. I really can't believe how you can damage your product this much, it's like if they have no respect for windows. I can't that IT has to disable those ads via group policy.
- Dowwie 4y agohttps://ubuntu.com https://ubuntu.com or https://debian.org https://debian.org
- add-sub-mul-div 4y agoI have to manually remove ads from the Ubuntu server motd.
- nullcaution 4y agoWhat is the motd?
- lax4ever 4y agoMessage of the day, usually displayed at login.
- hef19898 4y agoSerious question. How comes I din't get any of those on desktop? And never did?
- Un1corn 4y agoI'm pretty sure MOTD is only shown on server installations
- fathyb 4y agoIt gets displayed right after logging in, either directly through `login` or indirectly through something like SSH. If you're using a desktop environment that's likely the reason: the message is hidden by your DE, and starting a terminal emulator does not cause a login. You might be able to see it by switching off your DE and logging in manually through the virtual console.
- executesorder66 4y agoYou won't see it on a graphical session. If you ssh into a server (or remotely onto your pc) it will get printed. Or switch to another vitual terminal (Ctrl + Alt + F8) and log in, and it should print whatever is in /etc/motd
- lionkor 4y ago... The year of the Linux Desktop...! I can't understand why MS does this. Is it that much profit? How is nobody at MS telling someone "people hate this, this is toxic, this is a paid OS already"? From all the metrics they collect, does none of them tell them what their powerusers are disabling? Im guessing not many people are disabling the ads because the menus are so convoluted. Metrics then probably say "X million ad views per month, 3 people disabled it", so it must be good? I don't get it, please enlighten me. They could even do a subscription model for Windows and it'd be more reasonable and probably more profitable.
- kornhole 4y agoI believe the new licensing of Windows 11 is similar to what you suggest. The so called free edition is adware, whereas the paid license has less. MS made big investments in Xandr and OpenAI. With all the rich data they can glean from their properties, they could become the new king of ad tech.
- actionfromafar 4y agoThe Corporate, Policy version has no ads.
- hef19898 4y agoWhat ever it was called the day, this was the only Windows version to get since at least Windows NT. Everytime I see something other than a commercial Windows, I am at shock of what it looks like. And I'm already shocked by the difference between commercial Windows 10 and Ubuntu. By now, so, I accepted the fact that I am a technological Luddite who is stuck in the early 2000s and doesn't want to move a secind forward. On software that is, I take new processors and graphic cards in a heart beat. And RAM, anf mainboards...
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago> By now, so, I accepted the fact that I am a technological Luddite who is stuck in the early 2000s and doesn't want to move a secind forward. On software that is, I take new processors and graphic cards in a heart beat. And RAM, anf mainboards... To quote somebody on a forum I read: > It's not that I hate new things. It's just that all new things are objectively terrible.
- qbasic_forever 4y agoI would love to hear Steve Jobs' thoughts on this if he were still alive. He famously was quoted as saying Microsoft has "no taste", and I can't help but think this commercialization of the core OS interface is the epitome of tasteless and cheap. It's hard to imagine a company like Microsoft with so many billions in the bank is so hard up for cash that they're effectively putting billboards up for sale on their primary product. I'm sure Jobs would have had some colorful things to say, if not outright gloating at the vindication.
- nightski 4y agoDoesn't Apple offer backup services in OSX? From what I can tell that's all this is, it's offering the ability to backup via OneDrive for a cost...
- actionfromafar 4y agoWrong thread?
- lostlogin 4y ago*macOS. Yes, iCloud is offered across platforms and OneDrive would be the Microsoft equivalent.
- actionfromafar 4y agoYeah... that too. I came here to point out the contrast between the technical marvel that is Windows, and the sheer obscenity of the tracking hell it enables.
- cm2187 4y agoI don't like it any more than you, but my biggest beef is iOS nagging me all the time with modal dialog boxes to sell me apple paid services. It won't be Apple lecturing Microsoft on this topic.
- zmk5 4y agoIt's a pain in Apple Photos that continually nags you about running out of space or buying more. They also have persistent notification badges for settings if you don't turn on iCloud.
- suddenclarity 4y agoI find the headline quite misleading. Microsoft are pushing a Microsoft feature. I highly dislike it but actually pushing banner ads would be ten times worse.
- lax4ever 4y agoI'm imagining some exec at Microsoft who went and saw Ready Player One in theatres, got to the scene where Nolan Sorrento says "We estimate that we can sell up to 80% of a user's visual field before inducing seizures" and going, "Sounds great, we'll get started!"
- mentos 4y agoMaybe they can start tattooing ads on all their employees bare skin think of the untapped potential
- josteink 4y agoReading things like this makes me realize just how “over” using Windows I’ve gotten the last few years. I’m not going to decry Linux as the superior, flawless option in every way which everyone should use. It has rough edges, bugs and issues too, but those are your bugs and issues, which you can actually do something about. It’s not going to be fundamentally abusive in nature and there’s not going to be anything running on your machine which you didn’t put there. God I’m so glad I don’t have to put up with Windows on a daily basis anymore.
- spudlyo 4y agoOnce Windows 10 is no longer supported, this may be the thing that drives me to Proton/Wine for my next gaming rig when GTA-6 finally ships for PC.
- gareth_untether 4y agoWindows did an update today and I found myself dreading what I would find when I logged in. I did have to confirm or skip a bunch of setting that I’m sure I skipped before, but was relieved to find my minimal layout kept in tact. Made me think more deeply about the lack of control I have over the device I spend most of my time using.
- nanidin 4y agoI use a program to disable Windows updates called Wu10Man. I am then able to apply the updates according to my own schedule, which works for me because it's a computer in my house that isn't in a DMZ. I got sick of coming back to my PC rebooted with windows closed and context lost.
- _hao 4y agoYou can use O&O ShutUp10++ to disable all the shit that every update re-enables.
- sberens 4y agoI think the fundamental problem with OS-level ads is that they're by design irrelevant. I don't mind Google search ads because I'm searching for something related. But in the OS, if I'm opening the start menu, my intention could be anything. Microsoft is then forced to serve the most generic ad possible, which is going to be irrelevant 99% of the time.
- rationalfaith 4y ago[dead]
- tric 4y agoPromotions for other Microsoft services. Article is click-bait.
- SpacePortKnight 4y agoI took the bullet and completely Microsoft-ied my Windows experience, once. It wasn't great to say the least. 1. Onedrive - File management i.e. deleting / renaming / moving a large number of files is awful. Things break all the time. Deleted files come back up. 2. Edge - What's up with the side panel? The browser gets in the way of web-browing. 3. Bing - shows tabloid news, ads and rewards. 4. Microsoft Store - UI feels like as if it was built for smartphones. Everything is expanded with lots of wasted space and the entire store seems like a scam. And laslty installing any app takes forever. 5. Settings App vs Control Panel - What takes precedence? 6. File Explorer - Windows XP's FE performed better than Windows 11's. These promotions would've been acceptable if there was a straight forward way to disable it and if the promoted products actually lived up to the copywrite. Now that I've bought a PlayStation & a Steam Deck, I no longer need a Windows machine. I hope Macbook Air M2 with 16GB wasn't so expensive.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- netsharc 4y agoSwitzerland has 3 languages, but they're quite region-specific. I live in the German region. The Windows Store always shows up for me in French. Geniuses. Hey Microsoft, you can probably geo-locate me, if not that, maybe you could at least honour the language I've chosen for the OS? Also, Windows 7 reliably shows you what your current keyboard language is. This has not worked reliably since the beginning of Windows 10, it would often show "Layout is US-English" but pressing the key between T and U would give me Z (because in the German layout it is Z, and there are other differences). Or the other way around. Even more fun if you have German (Germany) and German (Switzerland), and you can't even use iterate through the layouts to find the correct one, because many times the control panel would lose all your keyboard layouts and the layout is in some undefined state. Fucking joke of an OS.
- Tommstein 4y ago> Switzerland has 3 languages . . . . Y'all ditch Romansh?
- pupppet 4y agoThanks for letting us know you're not proud of your work, Microsoft. I wouldn't plaster anything I built and respected with tabloid ads.
- Toutouxc 4y agoSimilar sentiment like in the “Jobs said MS had no taste” top level comment. Putting tabloid ads in the most sacred part of your most famous product ever is the exact opposite of making the bottom of your laptop or the back of your desktop beautiful.
- BigCryo 4y agoMicrosoft is cruising for a bruisin on this.. now we have laptops or rather Chromebooks that are half the price or less, and then we have Android devices that are under $100 now..
- everybodyknows 4y agoAre Chromebooks still ad-free? Even if so, I wonder how long we can count on that to last.
- nullcaution 4y agoI am already served that google "Discover" trash on Android Chrome. I switched to Firefox mobile for that reason.
- beached_whale 4y agoMicrosoft is slowly alienating their proponents and turning them into advocates for other systems like Macos, ios, Android, and Linux. Windows 10 has so much potential, but MS changed the game and turned us into the product. But so many of the tactics in the early 2000’s that MS faught other companies to prevent they are doing now.
- andybee 4y agoOh please. Where was the article about the "Buy iCloud" "Buy AppleTV" "Buy Apple Fitness" nagging. The only thing driving here are senseless people who treat Steve Jobs, Apple like some kind of religion. There are tons of issues with MacOS and no one talks about them, or even when they do they get steamrolled by Apple lovers. It's a toxic place to be. Considering Apple is basically a China company that slaps a made in USA sticker on it, it explains the culture pretty well.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- executesorder66 4y agoI'm loving the new Microsoft.
- Izkata 4y agoWeren't they already doing this? I swear I remember hearing complaints about this in Windows 8 or 10...
- tracker1 4y agoI saw it last year on an insiders build for Win11 pro... switched to using Linux drive as my daily driver since.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- 51Cards 4y agoI will continue to use Open Shell as a replacement until it no longer works.
- beloch 4y agoIt is still being updated here: https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu I'd love to hear about other alternatives people are enjoying, but this has reliably shielded me from what MS has done to their start menu for several years now. ------------------------------- Edit: I just wanted to add that I'm a little shocked that a discussion of Open Shell or other alternatives to the default Windows menu isn't higher in this thread. Windows has always been an OS that was meant to be customized. If Microsoft makes a poor choice for the default start menu, then change it. This isn't OSX. Yes, Linux is great, but Windows is highly customizable too. MS may be trying to look more like Apple these days, but the roots are still there. Graft whatever you want onto them. Sometimes you need to use Windows, so you might as well learn how to make yourself comfortable with it.
- dmitrygr 4y agoLast i tried it, it had no support for Win10-on-ARM64 :(
- at-fates-hands 4y agoI've read a few articles where you can turn these off. Is there any truth to that, or are you unable to turn these ads off? Some of the articles: https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-remove-annoying-ads-from-windows-11 https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-remove-annoying-ads-from... https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/windows-11/how-to-disable-annoying-ads-on-windows-11 https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/windows-11/how-...
- MisterBastahrd 4y agoI use my start menu about 3 times a month on my windows machine, and I both game and develop on it. Everything that I use often gets pinned to the taskbar. Virtually everything else is run from a command line. I went to inspect my start menu just now because I was so unfamiliar with actually looking at it. I haven't found it to be useful past the search feature in years.
- jmspaggi 4y agoWow! Lucky me I never got that but this is the typical MS policy for the last 20 years to abuse the fact they have almost no competition :-/ It's like buy a car coming with ads already painted all over.... Sad.
- abraxas 4y agoOh I bet that it won't be long before you get cars plastered with ads. Add free paint coat will be an extra $6000. Absolutely see it coming.
- CatWChainsaw 4y agoWell in the future cars will drive themselves and dealerships will rent them out, since you aren't doing anything in the car you might as well be forced to watch ads.
- AdamH12113 4y agoAre the ads in the Pro version too, or just Home? I paid extra for Win10 Pro because I wanted the hypervisor features. Having to pay extra just to avoid ads would be quite annoying.
- tracker1 4y agoYeah, they're pretty much there. You can replace parts of the start menu and shell, which helps some. There are apps/scripts you can run to remove some of the annoyances. Large businesses get the enterprise version which is the only noise-free out of the box version I know of. I switched to Linux for my general use early last year.
- gumballindie 4y agoGlad i am 100% linux. No ms or apple nonsense.
- Zuiii 4y agoI don't know why, but this comment made me realize just how good we have it. To me, what microsoft is doing feels "not real", like how you would feel reading a dystopian novel. Sure, you know the events that happen in it are bad but you also know that they don't really effect you. You're isolated and safe. There are hundreds of millions of real people who are about to live this particular novel. I think we, full-time linux users, should dust our linux fanboy hats and start spreading the good word once more. I'm sure there are many people who would gladly jump upon learning that greener affordable options exist.
- openplatypus 4y agoInterestingly, there is no such thing as Windows 11. There is Windows 11 Home Windows 11 Pro Windows 11 Business Windows 11 Enterprise Only one of these is seeing ads. Not great, but this disingenuous reporting is pitiful.
- handoflixue 4y ago> this disingenuous reporting is pitiful What's disingenuous here? There are in fact ads in the Windows 11 start menu, and "Windows 11" is how everyone I know refers to what you'd call "Windows 11 Home." The actual article explicitly states that only a small number of users are affected, to the point that the author was unable to personally reproduce the issue.
- openplatypus 4y ago> "Windows 11" is how everyone I know refers to what you'd call "Windows 11 Home." Very poor anecdotal evidence. I know not a single person with Windows 11 Home, but I am not making swooping generalizations.
- koromak 4y agoGaming is literally the only reason to own a Windows these days. The experience is genuinely miserable.
- timbit42 4y agoLinux gaming is growing. At some point I expect most home users to switch to Mac or Linux and Windows will become a primarily business OS.
- psyclobe 4y agoSo glad I dropped windows finally, kfe plasma is a breath of fresh air
- albertopv 4y agoI recently tried Windows 11 for the first time, run in vbox VM. I'm not going to talk about performance, it was a VM, but UX should change much and, god, it has been awful! I know I'm not really smart, but I use Win10 every day, and it really took me a while to get used to new Win11 UI, imagine a non technical user. This time, if you are not into gaming, just ditch Windows and use OSX or Linux.
- tracker1 4y agoFirst time I saw an ad in a search result in my start menu was the day I made my linux HD the default in my BIOS and never really looked back. It's really the step too far imo.
- bediger4000 4y agoAd supported media eventually gets corrupted by the advertisers. We've seen this time and again. If MSFT makes money off the ads, they will degrade the entire OS to support their ad addiction. This is only a problem because Windows is the Standard Corporate Operating System, and Word is the Standard Word Processor.
- timbit42 4y agoMSO will outlive MSW.
- friend_and_foe 4y agoWhy anyone would willfully subject themselves to this is beyond me.
- npteljes 4y agoI frankly don't care that they have a version like this - my aunt would be probably better off, if the cat pictures were backed up in case of a hard drive failure. What I can't tolerate is that they don't offer a straightforward power user version of the system. I need the platform, because I need software that was made for this platform, and that's it. And the amount of disrespect is just aggravating. Second-guessing my settings, obscuring or infantilizing errors, updates and security updates being used to push unwanted settings and features - nonsense.