3 ms·

The modern start menu (at least what I see) reminds me of the gnome and KDE equivalents. It's a simple little list of apps, a space to pin those I use a lot, an

by Kye 3y ago

The modern start menu (at least what I see) reminds me of the gnome and KDE equivalents. It's a simple little list of apps, a space to pin those I use a lot, and a snappy search box. Bing is there, but it's gotten less intrusive in 11. The search box is better about surfacing what I'm actually looking for and not showing web searches 99% of the time. So I can't imagine I'm seeing the same thing as what's got so many people up in arms about the start menu. Did I get a weird OEM configuration? It's a newish Lenovo Legion laptop. I haven't changed any start menu settings.

WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
> So I can't imagine I'm seeing the same thing as what's got so many people up in arms about the start menu. Did I get a weird OEM configuration? To answer that question, check out the screenshot in the article. If you have a similar spittoon-load of crapware installed, you have the same experience as ~everyone else and for some reason you aren't registering it. If you don't, something ethical happened.
- Kye 3y ago
  I guess it comes down to what you perceive as crapware. I accepted a long time ago that I'm not the target audience for anything aimed at the mainstream. There were some icons I unpinned for apps and tool installers I didn't need. None of them were actually installed. They just went to the MS store. No biggie. I'd expect a lot of people to appreciate links to install/access very mainstream things like Office or Instagram. They're trivial to remove and don't affect performance. When I think crapware, I think bloaty nonsense that no one needs or wants like Bonzi Buddy or 900 different browser toolbars. I don't see unpinning a few things on a fresh install as some great burden.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    It's a bit frightening that they've beaten you down to the point where you don't even recognize the ads and crapware on "your" computer for what they are. Spyware is still every bit as invasive and harmful as it was in the Bonzi Buddy days, but it looks a bit different and now ships as part of OS itself. You should try to unblind yourself to it because no matter how much you think you aren't affected by it you are absolutely being taken advantage of.
    - Kye 3y ago
      That's absurd. They're shortcuts like any other. Nothing is even pre-installed like when OEMs would ship computers with AOL or Compuserve when those were popular.
      - autoexec 3y ago
        They are ads if they link to an app store, and bloatware if they've actually installed that crap on your machine. The shortcuts on my machine are for things I personally chose and installed and none of them open an app store. I've had cell phones that came with apps pre-installed like facebook that couldn't even be uninstalled normally. Does that count as "just a shortcut" too? Those shortcuts weren't put there for you as a courtesy. Those are paid advertisements
        xethos 3y ago
        > ... apps pre-installed [...] that couldn't even be uninstalled normally. Does that count as "just a shortcut" too? I mean, logistically I'd expect parent to agree with that. They don't take up any additional space that you, the end-user, could take advantage of (because they were on the system partition). Personally, I agree that stating which programs are to be installed on your hardware is a good way to determine who actually owns the hardware, but if parent is logically consistent, then sure: it'd be "just a shortcut" that the average end-user will take advantage of.

by Kye 3y ago

WarOnPrivacy 3y ago

> So I can't imagine I'm seeing the same thing as what's got so many people up in arms about the start menu. Did I get a weird OEM configuration? To answer that question, check out the screenshot in the article. If you have a similar spittoon-load of crapware installed, you have the same experience as ~everyone else and for some reason you aren't registering it. If you don't, something ethical happened.

Kye 3y ago
I guess it comes down to what you perceive as crapware. I accepted a long time ago that I'm not the target audience for anything aimed at the mainstream. There were some icons I unpinned for apps and tool installers I didn't need. None of them were actually installed. They just went to the MS store. No biggie. I'd expect a lot of people to appreciate links to install/access very mainstream things like Office or Instagram. They're trivial to remove and don't affect performance. When I think crapware, I think bloaty nonsense that no one needs or wants like Bonzi Buddy or 900 different browser toolbars. I don't see unpinning a few things on a fresh install as some great burden.
- autoexec 3y ago
  It's a bit frightening that they've beaten you down to the point where you don't even recognize the ads and crapware on "your" computer for what they are. Spyware is still every bit as invasive and harmful as it was in the Bonzi Buddy days, but it looks a bit different and now ships as part of OS itself. You should try to unblind yourself to it because no matter how much you think you aren't affected by it you are absolutely being taken advantage of.
  - Kye 3y ago
    That's absurd. They're shortcuts like any other. Nothing is even pre-installed like when OEMs would ship computers with AOL or Compuserve when those were popular.
    - autoexec 3y ago
      They are ads if they link to an app store, and bloatware if they've actually installed that crap on your machine. The shortcuts on my machine are for things I personally chose and installed and none of them open an app store. I've had cell phones that came with apps pre-installed like facebook that couldn't even be uninstalled normally. Does that count as "just a shortcut" too? Those shortcuts weren't put there for you as a courtesy. Those are paid advertisements
      - xethos 3y ago
        > ... apps pre-installed [...] that couldn't even be uninstalled normally. Does that count as "just a shortcut" too? I mean, logistically I'd expect parent to agree with that. They don't take up any additional space that you, the end-user, could take advantage of (because they were on the system partition). Personally, I agree that stating which programs are to be installed on your hardware is a good way to determine who actually owns the hardware, but if parent is logically consistent, then sure: it'd be "just a shortcut" that the average end-user will take advantage of.