6 ms·

windows feels more and more like adware these days, kind of hard to beat the performance you get w/ a mac, not to mention a consistent ux

by kspyy 3y ago

LegitShady 3y ago
I recently installed windows 11 and explorerpatcher on a desktop and it doesn't feel like adware at all. Aside from yet another revamp of the settings menus it feels more or less like windows. The gripes about the start bar and start menu are valid but fixable. Only thing is closing down some widgits the first time that I never saw again and uninstalling a few applications.
- falcolas 3y ago
  Counter data point: I maintain a windows 11 PC for gaming, and there are ads everywhere. Most of the ads point back to Microsoft products, but not all. Launcher ads. Live desktop ads. News ads. Weather ads. Settings page ads. Game bar ads. Lock screen ads. I turn them off as I run across them, but I can never seem to catch them all.
  - orangepurple 3y ago
    Remove 11 and install Windows 10 LTSC IOT edition until the equivalent for 11 drops. Make Windows shut up for good with Tinywall (https://tinywall.pados.hu/ https://tinywall.pados.hu/) and whitelist applications as needed.
  - maxbaines 3y ago
    Same for me.
  - LegitShady 3y ago
    I don't see any of that, on a plain old windows 11 home license. Not sure why the experience is so different. If you have the ability to install explorerpatcher I'd recommend it.
    - mostlysimilar 3y ago
      Perhaps you're in an A/B test. Hardly surprising the experience isn't consistent from person to person.
      - LegitShady 3y ago
        mine is also a retail license rather than an oem included license, but I don't know if that matters.
  - andyjohnson0 3y ago
    Is this Windows 11 Home? I have a Windows 11 Pro machine and the only intrusive thing I've ever seen was the small weather box on the taskbar, which I immediately turned off. I've never seen any of the others you mention. If its relevant I use Firedox and Kagi rather than Edge and Bing/Google.
- wombat-man 3y ago
  Windows being adware is such a meme now. Meanwhile macos and iOS push tv+, music and icloud storage all the time.
  - maleldil 3y ago
    > Meanwhile macos and iOS push tv+, music and icloud storage all the time I've never seen an ad for tv+, music or icloud on macOS.
    - wombat-man 3y ago
      It's not that heavy handed but if I hit the play button on my headphones/keyboard there's a pretty good chance it opens up the apple music app instead of just playing the open spotify app. Since I'm not a music member, front and center it wants me to sign up. I definitely remember seeing a tv+ signup with I first got my M2. After setting up the device. If you're not signed into icloud, well you still have all the apps that want you to sign in. Same goes with the tv app. I use the music app on iOS with mp3s and 3 of the 4 main app tabs are screens trying to sign me up for apple music.
  - HeckFeck 3y ago
    Unlike the start menu, I've yet to see advertising when I open the Launchpad or Spotlight. Also, I can complete setup on my Mac without having to create an Apple ID, and if I opt out the system respects that and is quite usable. Finally, I can easily put the dock (which W11 imitates, badly) on the left hand side of my screen if I wish. But I suppose Macs are less customisable?
    - wombat-man 3y ago
      Yeah that's true. I get nagged to backup stuff to iCloud or to sign up for apple music but windows has more stuff. I do see the windows stuff as more upselling to other microsoft apps like onedrive which to me doesn't seem so different form the icloud integration. I use both an haven't noticed much in win11 though.
  - 3y ago
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Wojtkie 3y ago
  The fact you have to install a separate patcher from a third party company to fix all the glaring issues with windows is telling. Don't have to do that with a Mac. I use both at work and Mac is less cumbersome and easier to work with than Windows, hands down. Windows is a fractured user experience; they're trying too hard to shove the whole "tiles" thing from W8 into everything else and having ads baked into the OS is appalling. Mac doesn't do that out of the box and I don't need to install anything to make it an enjoyable user experience.
  - LegitShady 3y ago
    I installed the patcher to restore the windows 10 style start menu and start bar. Microsoft's decisions on the "new" UI for 11 were super dumb. But after a month of running windows 11 with explorerpatcher for gaming, hobby programming, and music production (daw, vsts etc) everything is pretty flawless.
    - revscat 3y ago
      Most people will not install explorerpatcher. If it's installation is necessary to have a good experience with Win11, then most people will not have a good experience.
      - LegitShady 3y ago
        It’s not necessary to have a good experience - its purpose to restore the windows 10 style start bar.
- kemayo 3y ago
  "Windows doesn't feel like adware if you run fairly-scary third-party tools on it first" probably isn't the best sell to non-techy people. (Which I figure is who we have to be talking about, since we're responding to a market-trends article.)
  - LegitShady 3y ago
    The third party tool is just to restore a windows 10 style start bar and start menu, not anything else.
    - kemayo 3y ago
      Ah, I assumed it must be related to adware, since it seemed strange to call it out in your description otherwise.
- kspyy 3y ago
  I think the average user doesn't know or want to go out of their way for third party software to make the operating system actually usable
- pxc 3y ago
  If you feel the need to 'debloat' your OS or 'patch' it to remove ad-ridden UI components like live tiles or whatever, it's probably adware.
  - LegitShady 3y ago
    The patching is just to restore the windows 10 style start menu/bar at the bottom. Not debloating.
throw0101c 3y ago
> windows feels more and more like adware these days Which edition of Windows 11 is less/least/not ad-y? Is Pro in any ways better than Home? Is there an Enterprise edition that I, as a 'normal person' / non-corporate entity, can purchase and use on my personal system (or VM running under Linux/macOS)? I would think that corporations would not want ads on their employer-provided systems, and so they aren't present in the {Pro?, Enterprise?} releases.
- yourusername 3y ago
  >Which edition of Windows 11 is less/least/not ad-y? Is Pro in any ways better than Home? Pro is better than home as it supports domain join so it will "allow" local accounts (hidden in the OOBE UI under "domain join instead"). As it can domain join it should respect every setting you could set through GPO and allow you to configure a bunch of things the home version won't. But if you're not a windows admin that knows this stuff already do you really want to invest your time in wrangling a increasingly hostile OS? Enterprise is not really for sale to most people. Technically i suppose you could buy a M365 E3 subscription and use that to activate pro to enterprise, but again do you really want to?
  - throw0101a 3y ago
    > But if you're not a windows admin that knows this stuff already do you really want to invest your time in wrangling a increasingly hostile OS? Sometimes it's needed for certain applications, so one has to at least run it in a VM perhaps. I do Linux sysadmin stuff, but we have to deal with Windows clients, and so I many need it a (home) lab to play with things. I can do domain-y stuff with Samba 4 at least.
potatolicious 3y ago
Ditto. I have a self-built PC that has an install of Win11 Pro on it and it's full of adware and crapware like in the bad old Dell days - except this thing coming directly from Microsoft! It's absurd how badly the Windows customer experience has degraded in the name of bundling shitty Bejeweled clones - how much money could MSFT be possibly making on this kind of deal that makes the trade worthwhile?! Not to mention some of the less egregious but nonetheless annoying things - when I had my Win10 install the default Docs directory pointed at the cloud-synced container which then proceeded to pester me about upgrading to a paid plan. Not just once or twice and not in an unobtrusive way - literally on every single boot in the task bar.
Rhedox 3y ago
> hard to beat the performance you get w/ a mac Unless you need GPU performance. In that case it's very easy to beat the performance of most Macs unless you spend 60% more.
- mcphage 3y ago
  I'm not sure why you're being downvoted—what you said is absolutely true. And this is coming from someone deeply invested in the Apple ecosystem.
throw3836284 3y ago
I wish Mac or Linux had a really performant remote desktop application. One of the main reasons I stick with Windows on my personal PC is I can enable RDP and use a Linux or Mac RDP client to access my beefy computer.
- manuelabeledo 3y ago
  There are, and plenty. I'm pretty sure remote desktop apps aren't exclusive to Windows.
- pxc 3y ago
  I wouldn't characterize RDP as particularly fast or efficient. If you're interested in a turnkey alternative, consider NoMachine. If you are willing to play around with finicky stuff, Xpra and FreeNX easily outperformed RDP the last time I played with all this stuff (many years ago). For Linux to Linux X Forwarding-based solutions give you a much better, local-like experience with Linux than you can get without paying many thousands of dollars for Terminal Services on Windows.
swagmoney1606 3y ago
I know this isn't the most constructive comment ever, but I just want to vent. Windows is a piece of shit. It's honestly one of the worst pieces of software I have to use on a daily basis. I've always been some kind of a linux enthusiast, but I've always had to use windows as my daily driver due to either CAD software, ableton live, a certain game not playing nice with linux, etc. I've been using windows for 2 decades now, and I just can't believe it keeps getting worse and worse. It's slow, it's riddled with ads, it's constantly changing everything around for no good reason. I'm so sick of it, and I'm STILL stuck with it. If I could move autodesk inventor and ableton live over, I'd finally be free, but I've had no luck. I'm just really appalled by the garbage microsoft has pushed out
- gmkabro 3y ago
  Same boat. I went the VFIO route: my desktop runs headless Fedora, and I run desktop Linux, windows, and macOS in VMs. I bought an extra GPU so I can run two VMs at a time. 99% of the time I’m on desktop linux, but if I want to play a game I just switch my monitor input and hit my USB switch and I’m good to go. If I want to run ableton, I shut down windows, fire up macOS and bam. This lets me completely isolate windows and only use it for games. And ableton runs just fine in a vm, so I don’t have to have a separate Mac. Plus it makes it really easy to try out the new Linux flavor of the month! It was a bit of work to get it figured out but it’s been running smoothly like this for a few years now. I refuse to install windows as a first-class citizen on any computer I own, because as you said, it’s fucking garbage.

windows feels more and more like adware these days, kind of hard to beat the performance you get w/ a mac, not to mention a consistent ux

by kspyy 3y ago

windows feels more and more like adware these days, kind of hard to beat the performance you get w/ a mac, not to mention a consistent ux

LegitShady 3y ago

I recently installed windows 11 and explorerpatcher on a desktop and it doesn't feel like adware at all. Aside from yet another revamp of the settings menus it feels more or less like windows. The gripes about the start bar and start menu are valid but fixable. Only thing is closing down some widgits the first time that I never saw again and uninstalling a few applications.

falcolas 3y ago
Counter data point: I maintain a windows 11 PC for gaming, and there are ads everywhere. Most of the ads point back to Microsoft products, but not all. Launcher ads. Live desktop ads. News ads. Weather ads. Settings page ads. Game bar ads. Lock screen ads. I turn them off as I run across them, but I can never seem to catch them all.
- orangepurple 3y ago
  Remove 11 and install Windows 10 LTSC IOT edition until the equivalent for 11 drops. Make Windows shut up for good with Tinywall (https://tinywall.pados.hu/ https://tinywall.pados.hu/) and whitelist applications as needed.
- maxbaines 3y ago
  Same for me.
- LegitShady 3y ago
  I don't see any of that, on a plain old windows 11 home license. Not sure why the experience is so different. If you have the ability to install explorerpatcher I'd recommend it.
  - mostlysimilar 3y ago
    Perhaps you're in an A/B test. Hardly surprising the experience isn't consistent from person to person.
    - LegitShady 3y ago
      mine is also a retail license rather than an oem included license, but I don't know if that matters.
- andyjohnson0 3y ago
  Is this Windows 11 Home? I have a Windows 11 Pro machine and the only intrusive thing I've ever seen was the small weather box on the taskbar, which I immediately turned off. I've never seen any of the others you mention. If its relevant I use Firedox and Kagi rather than Edge and Bing/Google.
wombat-man 3y ago
Windows being adware is such a meme now. Meanwhile macos and iOS push tv+, music and icloud storage all the time.
- maleldil 3y ago
  > Meanwhile macos and iOS push tv+, music and icloud storage all the time I've never seen an ad for tv+, music or icloud on macOS.
  - wombat-man 3y ago
    It's not that heavy handed but if I hit the play button on my headphones/keyboard there's a pretty good chance it opens up the apple music app instead of just playing the open spotify app. Since I'm not a music member, front and center it wants me to sign up. I definitely remember seeing a tv+ signup with I first got my M2. After setting up the device. If you're not signed into icloud, well you still have all the apps that want you to sign in. Same goes with the tv app. I use the music app on iOS with mp3s and 3 of the 4 main app tabs are screens trying to sign me up for apple music.
- HeckFeck 3y ago
  Unlike the start menu, I've yet to see advertising when I open the Launchpad or Spotlight. Also, I can complete setup on my Mac without having to create an Apple ID, and if I opt out the system respects that and is quite usable. Finally, I can easily put the dock (which W11 imitates, badly) on the left hand side of my screen if I wish. But I suppose Macs are less customisable?
  - wombat-man 3y ago
    Yeah that's true. I get nagged to backup stuff to iCloud or to sign up for apple music but windows has more stuff. I do see the windows stuff as more upselling to other microsoft apps like onedrive which to me doesn't seem so different form the icloud integration. I use both an haven't noticed much in win11 though.
- 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Wojtkie 3y ago
The fact you have to install a separate patcher from a third party company to fix all the glaring issues with windows is telling. Don't have to do that with a Mac. I use both at work and Mac is less cumbersome and easier to work with than Windows, hands down. Windows is a fractured user experience; they're trying too hard to shove the whole "tiles" thing from W8 into everything else and having ads baked into the OS is appalling. Mac doesn't do that out of the box and I don't need to install anything to make it an enjoyable user experience.
- LegitShady 3y ago
  I installed the patcher to restore the windows 10 style start menu and start bar. Microsoft's decisions on the "new" UI for 11 were super dumb. But after a month of running windows 11 with explorerpatcher for gaming, hobby programming, and music production (daw, vsts etc) everything is pretty flawless.
  - revscat 3y ago
    Most people will not install explorerpatcher. If it's installation is necessary to have a good experience with Win11, then most people will not have a good experience.
    - LegitShady 3y ago
      It’s not necessary to have a good experience - its purpose to restore the windows 10 style start bar.
kemayo 3y ago
"Windows doesn't feel like adware if you run fairly-scary third-party tools on it first" probably isn't the best sell to non-techy people. (Which I figure is who we have to be talking about, since we're responding to a market-trends article.)
- LegitShady 3y ago
  The third party tool is just to restore a windows 10 style start bar and start menu, not anything else.
  - kemayo 3y ago
    Ah, I assumed it must be related to adware, since it seemed strange to call it out in your description otherwise.
kspyy 3y ago
I think the average user doesn't know or want to go out of their way for third party software to make the operating system actually usable
pxc 3y ago
If you feel the need to 'debloat' your OS or 'patch' it to remove ad-ridden UI components like live tiles or whatever, it's probably adware.
- LegitShady 3y ago
  The patching is just to restore the windows 10 style start menu/bar at the bottom. Not debloating.

throw0101c 3y ago

> windows feels more and more like adware these days Which edition of Windows 11 is less/least/not ad-y? Is Pro in any ways better than Home? Is there an Enterprise edition that I, as a 'normal person' / non-corporate entity, can purchase and use on my personal system (or VM running under Linux/macOS)? I would think that corporations would not want ads on their employer-provided systems, and so they aren't present in the {Pro?, Enterprise?} releases.

yourusername 3y ago
>Which edition of Windows 11 is less/least/not ad-y? Is Pro in any ways better than Home? Pro is better than home as it supports domain join so it will "allow" local accounts (hidden in the OOBE UI under "domain join instead"). As it can domain join it should respect every setting you could set through GPO and allow you to configure a bunch of things the home version won't. But if you're not a windows admin that knows this stuff already do you really want to invest your time in wrangling a increasingly hostile OS? Enterprise is not really for sale to most people. Technically i suppose you could buy a M365 E3 subscription and use that to activate pro to enterprise, but again do you really want to?
- throw0101a 3y ago
  > But if you're not a windows admin that knows this stuff already do you really want to invest your time in wrangling a increasingly hostile OS? Sometimes it's needed for certain applications, so one has to at least run it in a VM perhaps. I do Linux sysadmin stuff, but we have to deal with Windows clients, and so I many need it a (home) lab to play with things. I can do domain-y stuff with Samba 4 at least.

potatolicious 3y ago

Ditto. I have a self-built PC that has an install of Win11 Pro on it and it's full of adware and crapware like in the bad old Dell days - except this thing coming directly from Microsoft! It's absurd how badly the Windows customer experience has degraded in the name of bundling shitty Bejeweled clones - how much money could MSFT be possibly making on this kind of deal that makes the trade worthwhile?! Not to mention some of the less egregious but nonetheless annoying things - when I had my Win10 install the default Docs directory pointed at the cloud-synced container which then proceeded to pester me about upgrading to a paid plan. Not just once or twice and not in an unobtrusive way - literally on every single boot in the task bar.

Rhedox 3y ago

> hard to beat the performance you get w/ a mac Unless you need GPU performance. In that case it's very easy to beat the performance of most Macs unless you spend 60% more.

mcphage 3y ago
I'm not sure why you're being downvoted—what you said is absolutely true. And this is coming from someone deeply invested in the Apple ecosystem.

throw3836284 3y ago

I wish Mac or Linux had a really performant remote desktop application. One of the main reasons I stick with Windows on my personal PC is I can enable RDP and use a Linux or Mac RDP client to access my beefy computer.

manuelabeledo 3y ago
There are, and plenty. I'm pretty sure remote desktop apps aren't exclusive to Windows.
pxc 3y ago
I wouldn't characterize RDP as particularly fast or efficient. If you're interested in a turnkey alternative, consider NoMachine. If you are willing to play around with finicky stuff, Xpra and FreeNX easily outperformed RDP the last time I played with all this stuff (many years ago). For Linux to Linux X Forwarding-based solutions give you a much better, local-like experience with Linux than you can get without paying many thousands of dollars for Terminal Services on Windows.

swagmoney1606 3y ago

I know this isn't the most constructive comment ever, but I just want to vent. Windows is a piece of shit. It's honestly one of the worst pieces of software I have to use on a daily basis. I've always been some kind of a linux enthusiast, but I've always had to use windows as my daily driver due to either CAD software, ableton live, a certain game not playing nice with linux, etc. I've been using windows for 2 decades now, and I just can't believe it keeps getting worse and worse. It's slow, it's riddled with ads, it's constantly changing everything around for no good reason. I'm so sick of it, and I'm STILL stuck with it. If I could move autodesk inventor and ableton live over, I'd finally be free, but I've had no luck. I'm just really appalled by the garbage microsoft has pushed out

gmkabro 3y ago
Same boat. I went the VFIO route: my desktop runs headless Fedora, and I run desktop Linux, windows, and macOS in VMs. I bought an extra GPU so I can run two VMs at a time. 99% of the time I’m on desktop linux, but if I want to play a game I just switch my monitor input and hit my USB switch and I’m good to go. If I want to run ableton, I shut down windows, fire up macOS and bam. This lets me completely isolate windows and only use it for games. And ableton runs just fine in a vm, so I don’t have to have a separate Mac. Plus it makes it really easy to try out the new Linux flavor of the month! It was a bit of work to get it figured out but it’s been running smoothly like this for a few years now. I refuse to install windows as a first-class citizen on any computer I own, because as you said, it’s fucking garbage.