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Windows is just full of hostile, anti-user patterns these days. I've considered building a windows box just to have a gaming rig multiple times over the last fe
by frob 3y ago
Windows is just full of hostile, anti-user patterns these days. I've considered building a windows box just to have a gaming rig multiple times over the last few years, but every time an article like this or their crusade against Chrome reminds me that Bill Gates is still the same anti-trust monster he was in the 90s.
- creshal 3y agoGaming on Linux is a joy these days. Less driver bugs than in Win10/11 in my experience.
- postalrat 3y agoWell at least Microsoft allows you to install other browsers. Apple only allows skins for their mobile browser.
- jeltz 3y agoThat is on iOS, on MacOS they allow other browsers and respect the systemwide defaults. Personally I use Linux unless forced to use something else by my employer.
- Analemma_ 3y ago> That is on iOS, on MacOS they allow other browsers and respect the systemwide defaults. Why is that in any way exonerating? Most people do most of their actual computing on their phones now, it is not an irrelevant toy platform. We should be more, not less, hard on Apple than Microsoft for pulling this shit on their mobile platform.
- hospitalJail 3y agoApple sells the ability to be part of an 'in-group'. People don't buy their phones for their computing abilities, they do it to have access to other Apple users. Its a psychology trick that took decades of marketing to pull off, but they are deeply entrenched as someone's identity. These users have a religious devotion and will defend them, because an attack on Apple is an attack on them and their group. If you don't care about a corporate in-group, you are most likely wanting a quality computing platform. Which is why people are so hard on Google an Microsoft when they restrict computing.
- splendor_spoon 3y agoThis is such a funny take I see so often parroted by the self proclaimed ‘out-crowd’. Your need to feel different and therefore superior clouds your judgment. Some users like iPhones since they are reliable and consistent, exactly like a phone should be.
- monsieurgaufre 3y agoI'm in that group. I like the "openness" of Android more. But the iphone 7 gifted from my mother is still supported while the samsung i bought in 2019 is not anymore. I don't really care particularly about the icloud/imessage ecosystem but all close people around me have iphones (the network effect was not the primary reason for the switch).
- hospitalJail 3y ago>Some users like iPhones since they are reliable and consistent, exactly like a phone should be. That is just the bare minimum. Its 2023, every phone is like this. Anyway, any teenager can tell you what its like to have the wrong kind of bubbles. They are extremely susceptible to in-group bias. Heck I wore Abercrombie and American Eagle, it wasn't because the clothes fit. I even had a single buddy, age 30, recently get peer pressured into getting an iphone because his sister said "I don't date green bubbles". He took it to heart. At some point, its denialism to think in-group bias doesnt exist. Not that someone exploited can easily admit to it, its far too difficult to imagine your brain being incorrect about something. Much easier to say things like "they are reliable and consistent" than to accept that marketers have exploited us.
- noisy_boy 3y ago> I even had a single buddy, age 30, recently get peer pressured into getting an iphone because his sister said "I don't date green bubbles". All the people she didn't date thank her.
- woodruffw 3y agoI don't think it makes sense to confuse the preferences of teenagers (a market group who, overwhelmingly, don't buy their own phones) with adults. In other words: the fact that teenagers prefer the same kind of free devices as their friends have is not particularly strong evidence that adults make purchasing decisions based on just chat bubble colors.
- briffle 3y agoIn many families, ipads have replaced computers for kids as well.
- shepherdjerred 3y ago> Why is that in any way exonerating? I think you're reading into the parent too much. They were simply stating a fact.
- scarface_74 3y agoCan I I stalk another browser on ChromeOS?
- kernal 3y agoOpen the Play Store on ChromeOS and pick any browser you want.
- trampi 3y agois it? tell me how to configure the play button on the keyboard to open spotify instead of apple music :)
- CharlesW 3y agohttps://github.com/beardedspice/beardedspice https://github.com/beardedspice/beardedspice
- FireBeyond 3y ago> on MacOS they allow other browsers and respect the systemwide defaults on a new install of MacOS, when you have installed Chrome and explicitly set it as the default browser, MacOS will still ask you, albeit once, whether you really want to open that resource in Chrome, or Safari. And Chrome isn't the default option.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- e-shrdlu 3y agoAre you saying all ios browsers are just safari with a different UI?
- Bootvis 3y agoYes, they must be because Apple doesn't allow a Javascript JIT engine to be released in the app store.
- scintill76 3y agoDoesn’t that mean alternative browser engines are permitted, albeit they might perform slowly?
- janoc 3y agoHave you seen a viable "alternative browser engine" that doesn't require javascript support these days? It is not about "performing slowly" but about getting your app rejected from the App store because it violates an Apple policy of scripting languages/interpreters not being allowed. And also another one that forbids you from competing/replacing the Apple applications, i.e. Safari. So if you want to display a web page you have to use webview (i.e. Safari behind the scenes).
- CrimsonRain 3y agoYes and it is common knowledge!
- subtypefiddler 3y ago
- moss2 3y agoYou don't need Windows for gaming any more. Ubuntu 22.04 comes with graphics drivers. Steam has Steam Play and Lutris has a huge library of install scripts, so everything is handled for you. The one thing you will need to do occasionally is experiment with different Wine distributions. This means you will need to right click on your game and select the distribution from a drop-down box. Exhausting, I know.
- jjoonathan 3y agoDid linux eventually get HDR support or is it still one (of many) sacrifices you make to game on linux?
- creshal 3y agoIt's far from being ready, but as usually Valve is making the most progress: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/HDR_monitor_support https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/HDR_monitor_support
- happymellon 3y agoHDR is currently experimental. Red Hat is working on getting it integrated, and Valve have it in their display manager. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/HDR_monitor_support https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/HDR_monitor_support But for general users, out of the box, no.
- hulitu 3y agoFunny that SGI some 20 years ago supported more than 32bpp.
- Filligree 3y agoThere’s no AutoHDR at all, so yeah.
- COGlory 3y agoIt's in progress, but it's one of very few sacrifices you make. Anti-cheat is really the only other one of note, and many games are now supporting anti-cheat on Linux.
- wongarsu 3y agoGoogle has an equally annoying crusade against anything that isn't Chrome. Visit google.com with Edge (on desktop) and you immediately get a popup on the top right "Google recommends using Chrome. Built for Windows. Easily search on Google with the fast, secure browser". As if there was any material difference between the browsers. We need a comeback of antitrust enforcement with teeth to get both Microsoft and Google to do honest competition, instead of backhanded methods.
- goosedragons 3y agoI like that they do that for Windows for ARM too (admittedly niche) but can't be bothered to produce a native ARM Windows port of Chrome (you can get Chromium though) so the experience is just absolutely dreadful.
- hospitalJail 3y agoIts so weird that one company isnt mentioned, but will straight up not allow you to run any programs they want. These have dark patterns, but freedom still. (Not M$ anymore, they restore defaults with each update)
- post-it 3y agoWhich company? You can run an unsigned .app on Mac with a ctrl+click, and there's also a system flag to change the block to a click-through popup. Apple is generally good at providing hidden flags to permanently turn off nanny mode, with a few exceptions (the context menu translation feature will happily tell you that a language isn't supported instead of letting you use Google Translate).
- rationalist 3y agoIs Bill Gates still involved with Microsoft, I thought he retired to run his foundation?
- kjellsbells 3y agoHe's completely gone from Microsoft. To invoke Gates now on a anti-Microsoft screed would be missing the point. If anyone has beef with Microsoft about Windows, their ire is better directed at Panos Panay and Satya Nadella.
- jkaplowitz 3y agoEverything you said is accurate except for the word "completely". He's no longer on the MS board of directors or in any officer role, but there is this bit of ongoing involvement: > In 2020, Bill Gates left the board of directors of Microsoft, the tech giant he cofounded in 1975. But he still spends about 10% of his time at its Redmond, Washington headquarters, meeting with product teams, he says. https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2023/02/06/bill-gates-openai-microsoft-ai-hottest-topic-2023/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2023/02/06/bill-gate... (article is from early February of this year) Still, agreed, that doesn't really make him responsible for MS's current decisions.
- 7373737373 3y agoEventually, only the owners are responsible. Every second they don't kick the managers that implement this crap to the curb is a moral failure on their part. Gates owns 100x more shares than Nadella - about 1% of all shares - and thus has 100x the responsibility. They are both guilty of greed and disrespecting their customers through their actions, or their willful or negligent ignorance and inaction. I don't know how they can live with this, they are already rich, why not try to be better even if you earn less money in the short term? Disrespecting your customers will get you nowhere in the long term.
- EMM_386 3y agoPublic companies are out for one thing, and one thing only. Shareholder returns. It has nothing to do with CEOs "already being rich", their job is literally to run the company properly so that the shareholders make more money. Like it or not, that's how it is. Now, if this "crap" actually hurts the brand and the bottom line, they shouldn't implement it. If they are seeing more profits, and not many complaints, it's likely it will stay. Moral faiure does not come into play.
- shortrounddev2 3y agoThey're frickin killing it these days with devtools though.
- gochi 3y agoThis is a niche but effective reason to get a console. Alternatively, a Windows box locked down to LTSC.
- ho_schi 3y agoDear European-Union! How about enforcing direct control about Microsoft business? Not just another “low” fine in the ten to twenty billion range. Just stopping Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon. Enforcing AT&T to not enter any new business worked well. In consequence we got UNIX, C, open-source and documentation and finally the TCP/IP-stack of BSD, GNU and Linux. This had a positive effect for the complete computing industry and society. Reagan relaxed all rules, allowed AT&T to split up - the results were bad. No IT company had to fear any regulation afterwards, either politics didn’t want regulate or didn’t understand computing at all. We don’t need this companies with too much power using incompatibility, vendor lock-in and storing away our data (the newest approach). Chances for regulation Europe seem a little better? Less lobbyists and less tax money involved and people don’t believe in capitalism. Too late (10xtimes) and too little but at least they react.
- aerzen 3y agoHmmm, interesting. How would this be implemented in practice? EU passing laws about specific things that Microsoft should and shouldn't do?
- hutzlibu 3y agoEU can only implement laws regarding companies doing buisness in europe. EU cannot tell Microsoft in general what to do.
- marcosdumay 3y agoIt can tell what Microsoft does in Europe. But, of course, MS can always decide to abandon the region instead of complying too.
- hutzlibu 3y agoThat "region" is a very big market. So that is not really an option for them. On the other hand large parts of the economy and government in the EU are totally dependant on Microsoft products and would be screwed if they would pull the plug.
- pawelduda 3y agoWindows + 3rd party game launchers + shitty buggy games on release is triple the nightmare, better reserve 2h of your time for surprises if it's first time in a while you turn on your PC to play something on Windows. Probably reason #1 I love PS5, it has it's flaws but never takes longer than 5 minutes to go from power off to playing the game.
- ExoticPearTree 3y agoIt feels like we're back in the '90s during the browser wars: our website only works with IE.
- marcosdumay 3y agoYou seem to have lost the memo. We have standards wars, a stale browser that just woke-up and became a bit less stale (but no promises for the future), anticompetitive practices all around. We are right inside a browser war.
- Longlius 3y agoWindows has basically already been relegated to an OS I run on a PC dedicated just for gaming. I do all my serious computing on a mac now and my windows PC is a glorified game console.
- shepherdjerred 3y agoI recently switched from Windows to Kubuntu for my gaming machine. It works pretty well, and all of the games that I want to play are supported. Proton gets you pretty far, and many games these days even have native Linux versions.
- squarefoot 3y agoNot to defend in any way his past stances against Open Source, but Bill Gates has nothing to do with today's Microsoft choices. About the Windows gaming machine, you can surely build one just for gaming; just never put any personal data on it, never use it for surfing or doing anything that is not gaming, never give it any unfiltered access to your LAN, assume it contains malicious software then put it on dedicated Ethernet port on the firewall, setting up rules that allow only very restricted storage sharing so that it can't read or write anywhere but directories set up to contain exclusively what one would want to be readable/writeable by that machine. Yes, it's a nightmare, but I don't see alternatives, save for giving Windows the middle finger for good also wrt gaming, which might end up easier than expected given the recent development with Proton and DXVK.
- rileyphone 3y agoGates set up the (toxic) culture that continues today, and still provides high-level input. Definitely has something to do with their choices in the same way Jobs still does at Apple.
- bombolo 3y agojobs died
- autoexec 3y agoYou've basically described my plan for a windows gaming machine, but these days I'm thinking it won't even be needed. I think the steam deck has shown that linux can run plenty of games without much issue. I'll start there at least and if that +consoles isn't enough for me I'll go down the road of turning a windows machine into a locked down game console.
- Aerbil313 3y agoLookingGlass is an alternative.
- pndy 3y ago> Windows is just full of hostile, anti-user patterns these days. I wonder since the initial "free" W10 upgrade, where the hell are the regulators? The browser selection window happen these years ago and seems they call job well done both for themselves and MS.
- skeaker 3y agoI wonder why in these threads nobody ever says to just pirate Windows. It's not hard to do. Sometimes people will float security concerns but it's a safe process if you just load an official ISO and then crack it, and even if it were questionable on the security front it's not like you're doing anything that really needs that sort of security if you're just playing video games. If Windows is going to make itself mandatory for some games but they're also going to pull nonsense like in the OP, piracy seems like a reasonable option to voice your objections without abstaining completely. And yes there are also ways to stop data collection if you're concerned about giving that to them.
- bilegeek 3y agoBecause that's not objecting; you're still feeding into the power Windows has over computing. Bill Gates said so himself in 2007: "It's easier for our software to compete with Linux when there's piracy than when there's not,"[1] I'm not pretending that the intervening 16 years hasn't changed things; I am happily gaming exclusively on Linux after all, something most people didn't truly expect back then. But that statement remains true regardless. [1]https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/07/23/100134488/ https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007...
- skeaker 3y agoI think at some point the onus lies with the games that have Windows as a requirement. Them having that mandate at all is what's feeding the power Windows has over computing. Of course that also relies on people playing those games so you could still in some way blame them, but gaming has hit such a critical mass that certain games will always be sustainable regardless of how predatory they are. At that point if you want to, for example, play with friends and not be left out, the least wrong option for you would be to pirate Windows to deny Microsoft of everything else.
- philistine 3y agoWith Valve finally managing to make fetch happen, any large company starting a project today must consider the value of releasing on Linux for Steam Deck. The problem is the games coming in the next years started development five years ago.
- barbariangrunge 3y agoBill Gates doesn't run the company any more. It's the new ceo, who everybody on hn is such a gushing fan of, who has been transforming windows lately
- gigel82 3y agoMore like abandoning it to the wolves.
- lost_tourist 3y agoWhat? Bill Gates doesn't set policy at Microsoft anymore.
- DAMunzy 3y ago[flagged]
- racl101 3y agoIs Bill Gates even making decisions at this point? It's weird. When Microsoft does something good it's credited to Satya Nadella but when they do bad shit, it seems to be blamed on Ballmer or Gates. lol Shouldn't it all, good or bad, be attributed to Satya Nadella at this point? Or does the great CEO lack agency? Even weirder, for some reason people have no issues blaming Google's sorry state directly on Sundar Pichai. shrug
- guerilla_prgrmr 3y agoI have a windows gaming rig. You can download windows for free (11, 12, 13 or whatever the latest one is I can’t remember) on the official website. That’s what I use. It comes with some missing features like not being able to change certain personalised settings and a weird background but it’s 99% the same and more than enough for steam and gaming. Enjoy!