9 ms·

Windows 11's default mail client will show ads starting 2024

148 points by Farbklex 3y ago

Farbklex 3y ago
"Mail" on Windows notified me that starting with 2024, Outlook will replace it as the new default Mail client on Windows. It also asked me if I want to switch now. I decided to try it out and during setup of the new free Outlook I got asked how I want to see my ads: As a banner above the mail window or in my inbox. This took my by surprise since it essentially means, that the default mail client for Windows now will start serving ads. Tweet for reference: https://twitter.com/Farbklex91/status/1716847430510023000 https://twitter.com/Farbklex91/status/1716847430510023000
- eschneider 3y ago
  Note to self: the market for 3rd party windows mail clients is going to grow next year.
  - roywashere 3y ago
    I have the idea that most people use browser-based email clients anyway?
    - HumblyTossed 3y ago
      Why? Then you have to open your browser. I use Evolution.
      - hhh 3y ago
        I don't think I am saying something controversial when I say that the majority of people have a browser open at almost all times...
        bravetraveler 3y ago
        Indeed, browsers are open a lot. It's nice to consolidate your needs to just tabs in there. I use Slack and plenty of other things that way too. I will say, however, a proper email client is nice for archival purposes. (note: not the person you're replying to, just a random passerby)
        johannes1234321 3y ago
        Considering changes in communication, where mail is less relevant compared to discord, slack, WhatsApp, ... I guess many people can meanwhile live quite some time without looking at a mail app at all. While browser is needed regularly.
      - saghm 3y ago
        > Why? Then you have to open your browser. To me, the question isn't "why use my browser", it's "why use something else when I already have a browser and it's always open"?
        Karellen 3y ago
        For me, the answer is "because native mail clients are so much snappier and responsive". As well as being able to choose my client based on the interface I prefer, rather than whatever UI the webmail provider decides to give me. And my mail client is also always open. And it uses less memory than a typical browser tab.
        zgk7iqea 3y ago
        The reality I think is, the average user probably doesn't care about snappyness as long as it is not too bothersome. The path of least resistance is opening the webmail (no setup required).
        HumblyTossed 3y ago
        Fair. I just don't always have a browser open. I don't need it when I'm coding and such. If I need to look something up I'll make a note and come back to it. Breaks my flow to just stop and look something up when I can just stub something out and fix it proper later.
      - reustle 3y ago
        Many folks, including myself, live (nearly) entirely within the browser. Pinned tabs, multiple windows, as big improvements in JS / wasm make this pretty smooth.
    - baz00 3y ago
      New Outlook is a browser based email client strangely. It runs roughly the same code on the desktop as on outlook.com. It's Edge underneath.
      - Banditoz 3y ago
        Which sucks, because the new Outlook is less performant than the native one.
    - danpla 3y ago
      > I have the idea that most people use browser-based email clients anyway? Indeed, but it's not an option if you have more than one email account on the same service.
      - coremoff 3y ago
        firefox containers can help there
  - firebaze 3y ago
    Just switch to Linux already. It's really there. Some compromises required, sure, but they are already far and between. Keep it for gaming if you need. But give Proton a try first. My almost 75yo dad switched recently. I swear I'm telling the truth: his main complaint was, after buying a new printer, he couldn't find the matching drivers. I told him just to print, and that was that.
    - Farbklex 3y ago
      I only use Windows on my gaming desktop and would go Linux first next time I upgrade. Only a few games I play still need Windows and I could still use dual boot for them.
    - runjake 3y ago
      > Just switch to Linux already. I did this. Again. After running Linux as my main desktop OS from about 1992 - 1999, and some years since then. > It's really there. Some compromises required, sure, but they are already far and between. I'm not sure about that, and borderline disagree. There are a lot of compromises: - The Linux desktop is far flakier and far less elegant than Windows and especially macOS. KDE's a little less flakey than GNOME, I suppose. - A lot of the apps you love don't exist on Linux. - The Linux replacements for the apps you love are way less functional. - Keyboard shortcuts are chaotic unless you spend a lot of time deep diving on how to configure them coherently across applications. - Odd behaviors with snap/flatpak apps, but those will get worked out with time. Pluses: - The underlying Linux OS is rock stable with compatible hardware. - You can customize your desktop pretty much infinitely, if that's your thing. - Everything is free. - Logging is, compared to macOS and Windows, excellent. - If you're a developer, everything is more compatible on Linux. Anyways, after a year, I went crawling back to my Mac. I still have a Linux desktop SSD in the PC, ready to go, but I rarely pop in anymore. That said, if you live the terminals plus browser lifestyle, you won't miss much switching to Linux desktop. Edit: for context, I used UNIX and Linux way before I ever used Windows or DOS. I have, in the past, done deep dives on Windows, Windows kernel, Windows and .net programming, etc. I just prefer *NIX.
      - firebaze 3y ago
- saghm 3y ago
  > I decided to try it out and during setup of the new free Outlook I got asked how I want to see my ads: As a banner above the mail window or in my inbox It's absurd of them to even imply that anyone wants to see the ads at all. They clearly know that given the option, pretty much everyone would answer the question "where do you want to see your ads in your mail client" with "nowhere". There are certainly products where I grudgingly recognize that ads are the only way they're able to provide the product at all, but I can't see how they possibly could claim that here when they're literally going out of their way to move people towards using it.
- Aardwolf 3y ago
  I've been out of the loop due to using Linux the last 20 years, but back when I was using Windows XP, the default mail client was also called Outlook (well, Outlook Express). So apparently I missed some time period where it was called "Mail" instead. But now it'll be Outlook again. Full circle!
  - pmontra 3y ago
    Full circle twice: there was a Microsoft Mail well before Microsoft Outlook https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Mail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Mail
whelp_24 3y ago
It would be nice of this sort of thing could be made illegal.
- cvccvroomvroom 3y ago
  In my view, they're committing a crime by unfairly leveraging a monopoly (Windows) to violate antitrust by pushing Bing, Edge, Office 365, and OneDrive. MSFT-ActivisionBlizzard also shouldn't happen.
fx1994 3y ago
There's Thunderbird, much better solution than mail or outlook.
- Farbklex 3y ago
  Installed it again today. I use Windows only for gaming and therefore didn't care much about mail on it.
- Karellen 3y ago
  Also Claws Mail for Windows: https://www.claws-mail.org/win32/ https://www.claws-mail.org/win32/ (The URL is /win32/, but there are 64-bit builds there too)
- jwells89 3y ago
  Thunderbird is alright but I think it's in need of what Firefox was to Mozilla Suite – a lean and mean cross platform IMAP client with a nice UI, and that's it. I don't want an Outlook-style client that's full of things that aren't email (calendar etc).
- benhurmarcel 3y ago
  Recently I've had delivery issues with Thunderbird. That makes me rethink my use of it. I sent the same email from the same address to the same recipient once with Thunderbird on Windows, once with Apple Mail on iOS. The one with Thunderbird was silently dropped (not even reaching the spam folder), the one sent with Apple Mail reached the inbox without issue. I've had that same issue with 2 different recipient companies. And yes, my address passes SPF, DKIM, has a strict DMARC, and isn't in any blacklist (uses iCloud+ as host).
MrRolleyes 3y ago
[dead]
nerdjon 3y ago
Microsoft seems determined to make all of the wrong choices for Windows. I tried the New Outlook after having issues with the default mail app. I was greeted with a message "To add your iCloud account to Outlook, we need to sync your emails, contacts, and events to the Microsoft Cloud." I'm sorry WHAT?!? You're telling me that to use a local email service I need to sync with Microsoft servers? Someone here please tell me that this is just because it was in beta and all of the features didn't exist yet? Otherwise what the hell is Microsoft thinking? For the record I just did not do this and any chance of using Windows for productivity tasks went completely out the Window. Windows was always just primarily for gaming but having email there would have been nice.
- lstamour 3y ago
  Acompli, the mobile mail app Microsoft bought and rebranded as Outlook, was like Newton and other email apps of its day - it used OAuth and cloud APIs to check messages on its servers and then created a combined inbox by sending push notifications to your phone as it received new emails on your behalf in the cloud. It sort of sounds like maybe the same infrastructure was borrowed here to set up the iCloud account in the local Outlook app. Presumably the local app is now based on the prior Acompli infrastructure. That said… it really doesn’t pass the sniff test, it feels like Microsoft wants your contacts the same way LinkedIn (also Microsoft) wants your contacts. Personally, I wish I hadn’t trusted Google, Meta and LinkedIn as much with my contacts as I did in the past. Live and learn, I suppose.
  - dylan604 3y ago
    the entire concept of having the users provide their credentials to a third party for them to access their accounts to provide a service is one of those things that should be included in the anti-phishing training. i don't care if the service doesn't provide a proper API for third party access or not ESPECIALLY if it is for a cloud provided service. if it was a locally running app, i might consider it only slightly less egregious.
- icehawk219 3y ago
  I had this exact same reaction less than a week ago and it prompted me to switch to Thunderbird. For years I've fallen into the "if not for gaming ..." camp of Windows users. But I'm getting closer and closer to just not caring about that any more and switching to Mac or Linux instead just to get away from Windows.
daft_pink 3y ago
I never imagined myself using a Linux desktop everyday, but I don't want to pay Apple for 64gb of RAM and an acceptable number of monitors via my docking station, and Microsoft is just becoming terrible. Going to have to figure out what to switch to... Yikes!
- jacquesm 3y ago
  I use a $300 second hand W540 maxed out on RAM (32G, I don't think it would take 16G modules but I haven't looked into that, this is sufficient) with two external monitors attached. Uses a tiny bit of power compared to the desktop that it replaced (when I switched the house over to solar power I did a conservation exercise first and my desktop was one of the worst offenders) and everything works as far as I can tell. This box has been up and running for two years non-stop now, the only big change I made to the original is to put a nice fat SSD in it and to remove the battery because it never gets unplugged anyway. As OS I use Ubuntu Studio which makes for a nice development platform for music related software.
  - runjake 3y ago
    What is your general distro of choice? I saw another comment mentioning Debian. If that, which branch?
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      I'm using Ubuntu Studio because it has a ton of audio and music related stuff built in.
  - daft_pink 3y ago
    I have a recent XPS 15 with nvidia graphics, 64gb of ram and 2tb ssd. That cost me about $1,500 including upgraded drives myself. But spec out a 14" Macbook Pro this way and it's easily 3,800-4,000. I don't need something second hand cheap, but I don't want to pay $4,000 either.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
Zufriedenheit 3y ago
Good that thunderbird just had some big releases recently. Ready to take over the role i guess.
- augustk 3y ago
  Still waiting for Movemail support to be restored though. When using apticron it's nice to get upgrade notifications (and other local mail) in Thunderbird rather than when I invoke a command in xterm (which I find very distracting). https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1802145 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1802145
Macha 3y ago
I guess we can expect the nag notifications when people install Thunderbird, or open gmail.com in Edge soon then
MiddleEndian 3y ago
I actually like Windows Mail (more than web gmail at least lol) so I am bummed out about this development. Gonna have to find some other minimal mail client.
cvccvroomvroom 3y ago
Windows 11... now with more AOL!
xnx 3y ago
Seems like a lot of companies are aiming for the trifecta of: subscription payments + increasingly worse product + show ads
- cvccvroomvroom 3y ago
  It's in the spirit of preloaded crapware, Yahoo, and AOL.
  - gosub100 3y ago
    It's coming full circle with NetZero and Juno from 25 years ago! "Hey we'll give you this free thing (then: internet/now: mail, OS, apps) in exchange for ads!
- thiht 3y ago
  You’re paying, AND you’re the product. Great days to come!
Propelloni 3y ago
The linked article says nothing about showing ads in "New Outlook." It certainly is not below MS to do so and I believe the submitter, but the linked article does not say a word about it.
- humps 3y ago
  New Outlook does have ads, and this move replaces Mail with Outlook therefore the default mail client will now have ads because it's Outlook. You can remove them with a 365 subscription. So while the article doesn't mention it, the statement is true.
NotYourLawyer 3y ago
Windows just keeps getting worse. 7 was pretty good, 10 is ok, 11 is trash. Maybe 2024 will be the year of Linux on my desktop.
- thiht 3y ago
  7 was great, 8 was trash, 10 was great, now 11 is trash. Maybe they’ll see the light with Windows 12
  - NotYourLawyer 3y ago
    Ha, I forgot 8 even existed. I never installed it.
  - init2null 3y ago
    There's no doubt that Microsoft is going to stuff ads in every corner of the OS at this point. Ads on the start menu, in Edge, in Solitaire, and now the replacement for Outlook Express. I don't think the good-bad-good cycle will hold for Windows this time. This seems to be a downward spiral.
jszymborski 3y ago
When I switched to Linux in university, it was as an idle curiosity and the pleasure of knowing my OS was FOSS. I knew I was sacrificing a bit of practicality, but like the person that works on their vintage motorcycle in the garage, the hassle was part of the fun. I would often run Windows on a second machine or at work though, I felt equally productive in both Linux and Windows. Fast-forward a decade and the Linux desktop situation has improved and the Windows situation has gotten worse, such that switching to Windows 11 is a total non-starter for me. I dual-boot Windows 10 w/ Ubuntu because of the odd game or two that is beyond Proton's reach, but that happens less and less each day. I'd be willing to bet that I won't need that Windows partition at all soon.
- peppercat10 3y ago
  I'd really like to see Linux desktop become a popular platform for games and game development. Proton is great, but Windows is still too mainstream.
- mkasberg 3y ago
  Same thing happened to me. 10 years ago using Linux on the Desktop was tricky but worth it for me. Now it's almost the opposite, my Linux desktop feels smooth and unobtrusive compared to Windows, and rarely has any problems!
- IshKebab 3y ago
  I'm not sure how much the Linux situation has improved really. I used to use Linux in the early 2000s when I was a student and had time to burn. Quickly switched back to Windows/Mac when I got a job and needed stuff to "just work". However recently I started working for a company that provides Linux laptops. I was curious how much things had improved in 20 years. My conclusion is: not much. Here are some of the issues I've had: * Linux memory management is still really bad. On OOM it kills a completely random process and 90% of the time for me that means it hard-reboots my laptop. Maybe this is partly because they didn't set it up with any swap for some reason, but I'm unsure that would help (in 2003 it didn't; the system would just grind to an unresponsive halt... but we didn't have SSDs then). * If you set a WiFi network to automatically connect to a VPN, then delete that VPN, it means the WiFi connection will always just instantly fail with no error message. Even dmesg didn't help. You can imagine how fun that was to figure out. * For some reason half of the network settings are not in the network settings. They're in some third party app you have to run from the console. It isn't even linked via an "advanced" button in the gnome settings. * Gnome's desktop notifications are hilariously subtle. We're talking dark grey window that disappears if you touch it with the mouse and there's no notification history. I ended up fixing the colour to make it red by hacking some CSS. It was a simple 27 step process. Couldn't fix the other issues though. * Somewhat hilariously if you click a truncated link in a notification, the URL it takes you to will also be truncated! * Screen capture doesn't work in Wayland. Not that I regularly need to share my screen with coworkers or anything... Fortunately switching to X was easy and doesn't seem to have any downsides at all. * I haven't done this but multiple coworkers have accidentally uninstalled Gnome while trying to upgrade Python. HN mentality will be to blame them but that is the unthinking response. * It takes ages to wake up. I sometimes have to absolutely mash escape for about 10 seconds. * Battery life is of course hilarious. Never had issues like this with Mac or Windows (though I haven't used Windows laptops really).
rekabis 3y ago
What an excellent reason to rip that app out using Win10Privacy, and run with something more privacy-friendly like Thunderbird.
jwells89 3y ago
One of the things I’ve appreciated a lot about macOS and iOS is that the stock Mail app is focused more on being a good generic email client than it is on trying to sell iCloud or be a profit center. It’s served me very well for the handful of IMAP addresses I use, with exception to Gmail (which has a dodgy IMAP implementation). The Windows Mail client was on its way to becoming a close analogue to Mail.app but I guess those days are over.
- hbn 3y ago
  I wish I wasn't tied to Gmail because it means I can't really use any other clients if I want instant notifications. And their official app has ads that look like emails. I assume they must do that on purpose, right? Make their IMAP implementation bad so people will use their clients with ads? I'd kinda hope regulators would step in on something like that for a case like Gmail where they're practically the default email provider for most people.
  - jwells89 3y ago
    It might not have been on purpose originally but it's certainly convenient and in their best interest to leave their IMAP support in that state.
  - bananapub 3y ago
    > I wish I wasn't tied to Gmail because it means I can't really use any other clients if I want instant notifications. what? it's supported IMAP IDLE for longer than some of the posters in HN have been alive. > I'd kinda hope regulators would step in on something like that for a case like Gmail where they're practically the default email provider for most people. ... you chose to use some random company's domain for your email address, that's been an obvious problem for thirty years now. there's jillions of things to criticise google about, this is absolutely not one of them.
    - hbn 3y ago
      Look - I don't know much about email standards but I know if I try to use Gmail on the Apple Mail client it doesn't give me notifications. Everyone I've talked to has the same issue, they get a dumping of notifications once per week with every email they got in the past 7 days. No solutions to be found online either, if you have one I'd be more than happy to hear it. > ... you chose to use some random company's domain for your email address, that's been an obvious problem for thirty years now. I was 13 when I made the account. I obviously wouldn't have tied so many things to it if I knew what I know now back then. I'll try to be born earlier next time, and then maybe I can buy a house before 2008 and some 90s Apple stocks while I'm at it.
dmitrygr 3y ago
At this point in time, Apple should be paying microsoft for bringing new people to the Apple ecosystem.
overgard 3y ago
How many people actually use a desktop email app? I use Outlook for work (mostly because the web client is awful), but outside of that I always access my email in a browser. Weird decision by Microsoft in my opinion. It seems like the only people that'd bother to setup Windows mail in the first place are power users, and that's the last people you want to piss off with annoying ads.
- pmontra 3y ago
  I do use Thunderbird. My mailbox is a POP3 account. I download mail and move it to folders with per sender filters. That said, 9,999 other people are about to reply that they use GMail or something like that. Maybe 99,999.
javcasas 3y ago
Of course, ¿what did you expect? (yeah, yeah, knee-jerk reaction, but the trend on Windows becoming user-hostile can be seen at this point from the other side of the Milky Way)
dist-epoch 3y ago
I've already opt-in to the new app and it's already showing the ads. It's one small text ad, formatted to look like an email message card. I quickly learned to ignore it. And no one is forcing anyone to use this app. You can use webmail, Thunderbird, etc... I still prefer this app with the ad to opening gmail in the browser.
- hobs 3y ago
  It's funny because you are saying they are STARTING with an insanely bad dark pattern and you're ok with it - where to next?
  - dist-epoch 3y ago
    I'm not sure whats the dark pattern - that the ad looks like an email? I consider that a good thing since it makes it unobtrusive and invisible. Just like google text ads. I consider it a small price to pay for a nice app.
- Farbklex 3y ago
  It would be better without an add. Free Outlook will become the default mail app pre installed with Windows, a commercial product that costs actual money. It is just shouldn't have ads. Just like Apple's Mail app doesn't have ads. Having ad free software should be the norm.
ktosobcy 3y ago
Team Thunderbird, gladly supporting and donating.
- callalex 3y ago
  I would be hesitant to donate money to Mozilla, almost none of the money goes to software development.
  - ktosobcy 3y ago
    After thunderbird got dumped by mozilla they picked up development on their own and likewise they collect donations as well. please don't spread FUD...
jrockway 3y ago
Why does Microsoft even bother with a desktop OS these days? They have moved on to The Cloud like everyone else, so people can buy Word and not their OS. All Windows really has is a long tail of legacy apps (many of which are very good, and people don't want to give up) and games, and that has to look like a dying business model. (Unfortunately, games are pretty sticky, because they own a game console, and everyone wants access to the console. So if Microsoft says "if you port your game to Linux, you can't be on Xbox", Windows is on indefinite life support.)
- crop_rotation 3y ago
  Because it prints money without much effort.
  - jrockway 3y ago
    Only if it remains tolerable, though. I think they're playing around with something pretty risky; they don't integrate with any mobile devices, they don't have a web browser that any sites support, etc. and thus there is not much to keep users from switching away. They're objectively no better than Apple for most use cases, except for games and very niche software. It's a very different world than the late 90s, when they had an OS and a browser monopoly. (Games might not even be a thing for them for much longer. Mobile games are the most accessible, and again Microsoft is not in any position to get revenue from that trend. People that buy consoles or $1900 graphics cards are not nearly as numerous.) I am surprised that more corporate IT departments haven't switched to Linux. They can still supply the same $300 laptops, lock them down to the point of unusability, and everyone can use Word in the cloud. I'd be scared if I were Microsoft, and wouldn't want to make switching away look attractive to anyone. No ad revenue from untargeted ads in an email client could possibly be worth losing Windows as the "default" OS.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      >Mobile games are the most accessible, and again Microsoft is not in any position to get revenue from that trend. Have you been living under a rock that you missed Microsoft's acquisition of Activision-Blizzard, owners of Candy Crush, one of the most popular mobile games? Microsoft isn't stupid, it knows the future revenue makers are software subscription services and IP and not hardware, which is why it's buying up all the IP it can and building a SW service ecosystem around the likes of Azure and ChatGPT based copilots.
ChrisLTD 3y ago
I wonder if the eventual plan is to make Windows free for "home" users, and monetize it through ads. In that world, ads in every corner of the OS would be less annoying.
- crop_rotation 3y ago
  Why would they do that? OEMs already pay for it via agreements and at this point Windows seems to make no effort to do anything if the copy is not activated, so M$FT doesn't care about the few people not paying. Making it free would make no differnece other than killing a revenue source for no benefit. So it is very unlikely to happen.
crop_rotation 3y ago
Microsoft seem to be the worst of all the big companies that is surviving just because of extremely hard to dislodge monopolies. Consumer products come with windows, and enterprises opt for windows due to lock in. Office is so entrenched that most companies have little choice but to buy it. And Windows seems to be adding the shittiest features of almost any modern operating system. I use https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 for disabling windows telemetry and the amount of flags for data tracking is insane. M$FT have used the Office monopoly to push teams and AD to push Azure, both of which are subpar products. It is hard to find one good product they have made in the last 20 years (and yes VSCode is not it).
delta_p_delta_x 3y ago
There are two Microsofts. The first one is extremely developer-friendly, and regularly pushes out superb, high-quality tools and frameworks—many of which are free of charge and open-source—and gives nice deep dives into tech. They also develop pretty interesting alternatives to the UNIX ecosystem. Some examples: - the .NET ecosystem and languages (VB.NET, C#, F#); - PowerShell (technically this is also a .NET language, but it has made Windows scripting so easy that it deserves a mention on its own); - ASP.NET Core (again, part of the .NET ecosystem, but it is very far ahead of almost all other web backends (in terms of functionality, performance, and ease-of-development) that it also deserves a separate mention) - TypeScript; - Visual Studio Code; - Visual Studio Community, the MSVC C++ STL, and the MSVC compiler, `cl.exe`; - Direct3D and DirectXMath; - WSL - the Windows API, the Windows driver model, and the Windows ACL model. Many more that I can't recall off the top of my head. And there's the pain-in-the-arse, bean-counting Microsoft that justifies adding advertisements, crapware, and generally enshittifying what used to be a superb OS, pushing for software-as-a-service, changing the UX of Office programs every version, not being able to settle on and develop one nice unified UI toolkit for Windows, and (probably therefore) pushing laggy Electron apps like the XBox store, Teams, etc over well-programmed native/.NET ones. I use and develop on Windows because I grew up on it. I don't want 'an OS as an IDE'. I want an IDE that does an IDE's job well, and I haven't found anything better than Visual Studio's debugger and profiler. I am torn. Linux is still broken for even slightly edge-case use cases (laptop + monitor of very different pixel densities, and hence different scaling ratios; both X and Wayland fail horribly at this whereas Windows eats it up in a heartbeat). I game regularly and am not keen on virtualising or using Wine/Proton (I am convinced there is a performance drop in the general case), and MacOS is a non-starter for me.
dudul 3y ago
I dread the day where my windows 10 machine will automatically upgrade to 11. So far I've been able to decline - even though the "no" button seems to get a bit smaller and better hidden every time. One day I know I'll wake up and it will be windows 11. It will always have been 11. There was no versions before 11.
- CyberDildonics 3y ago
  Part of using windows at this point is learning how to turn off all the bait and switch nonsense and user hostile stuff going on under the hood. There are a lot of programs and scripts out there to turn off telemetry, ads, forced updates and more. Unfortunately it is required to not be at the mercy of your OS updating under you or selling your data behind the scenes.
  - dudul 3y ago
    When I installed my system I literally had to unplug the ethernet to skip the "cloud user" creation. Maybe I was dumb and missed the "no thank you" button, but it looked like there was no option. Want to create a user, has to be managed online. Thanks and fuck you. I had to unplug internet, click next, wait 2min for the thing to time out and say "oh well let's create a local user for now we'll try again later". I haven't seen another"try" since but who knows. It probably happened automatically one day as a background task.
Crontab 3y ago
Windows needs new management.
baz00 3y ago
It'll only show ads if you don't pay for O365. And Google do the same with GMail. I am paying for O365 family so none of my family get that. And I think I paid £59 for it last time with some voucher scamming. That gives everyone, 6 people in my case, 1TB storage, all the office desktop apps. I don't think that's a bad deal, especially compared to the shafting you get from Apple these days for icloud.
- izzydata 3y ago
  So they are trying to strong arm people into paying for a subscription by giving them a worse experience with ads until they do. Paying for it at that point is just letting Microsoft know that they were successful and should continue to implement more ads into things.
  - baz00 3y ago
    Well I was going to pay for it anyway because I want Excel, Word and OneNote and the storage so shrug. Stuff isn't free!
    - izzydata 3y ago
      There are other business models that aren't ads though.
Dennip 3y ago
Is this 'free' outlook different to the version that ships with O365?
alberth 3y ago
OS ad revenue? Can anyone find how much revenue is generated in ads from Windows? All I can find is revenue for Bing. I'm curious to know if the revenue Windows ads are generating is even worth the reduction in UX and consumer sentiment.
khana 3y ago
[dead]
stalfosknight 3y ago
Why do so many Windows users tolerate shit like this while refusing to consider a much better designed platform that is far more respectful of its users like macOS?
- pmontra 3y ago
  Because you can go to a shop and buy a Windows laptop for 300 dollars. No Mac is as cheap as that. And subjectively the UI of a Mac is worse than Window's. I liked the menu at the top only on the original Mac with the builtin 9" screen. It started to be a bad choice on the next models with a larger separate monitor. And Windows' UI is worse than the customized Gnome desktop I've been using since 2009.
- andrewrust30 3y ago
  I can't tell if this is sarcasm...
- glimshe 3y ago
  I use Windows as my personal OS (1-2 hours a day) and macOS as my work OS (8 hours a day, M2 Mac). I would never have macOS as my personal OS because exactly it has a poorly designed UI for my use cases. I need to spend a higher cognitive load with the UI and my day-to-day activities require more clicks or UI interaction time. Additionally, I have less screen real estate and some applications simply won't work on a Mac. I like the hardware, though, just not enough.
bananapub 3y ago
it's just bizarre that there isn't more embarrassment about how much worse we've made our industry. you've fucked up the economics of your global business desktop OS monopoly so badly that now you're adding ads to your free, bundled-with-the-OS-to-kill-Eudora mail client? what in shit?
methou 3y ago
Before switching to Fastmail, I started seeing ads on Outlook for windows, Mac, and OWA since a while back ago as a paying customer, then there’s them on gmail, while paying for google one. I mean they don’t even care if you are paying.
glimshe 3y ago
I've used Windows 11 and the new Outlook for a while now, but I've never seen a single ad. Not one. Is it because I have Office 365? If that's the case, Microsoft's strategy is that one way or another it wants some money from you: either the subscription, or the ad revenue. I'd be concerned if I had to see ads while being a paying customer.

148 points by Farbklex 3y ago

"Mail" on Windows notified me that starting with 2024, Outlook will replace it as the new default Mail client on Windows. It also asked me if I want to switch now. I decided to try it out and during setup of the new free Outlook I got asked how I want to see my ads: As a banner above the mail window or in my inbox. This took my by surprise since it essentially means, that the default mail client for Windows now will start serving ads. Tweet for reference: https://twitter.com/Farbklex91/status/1716847430510023000 https://twitter.com/Farbklex91/status/1716847430510023000

eschneider 3y ago
Note to self: the market for 3rd party windows mail clients is going to grow next year.
- roywashere 3y ago
  I have the idea that most people use browser-based email clients anyway?
  - HumblyTossed 3y ago
    Why? Then you have to open your browser. I use Evolution.
    - hhh 3y ago
      I don't think I am saying something controversial when I say that the majority of people have a browser open at almost all times...
      - bravetraveler 3y ago
        Indeed, browsers are open a lot. It's nice to consolidate your needs to just tabs in there. I use Slack and plenty of other things that way too. I will say, however, a proper email client is nice for archival purposes. (note: not the person you're replying to, just a random passerby)
      - johannes1234321 3y ago
        Considering changes in communication, where mail is less relevant compared to discord, slack, WhatsApp, ... I guess many people can meanwhile live quite some time without looking at a mail app at all. While browser is needed regularly.
    - saghm 3y ago
      > Why? Then you have to open your browser. To me, the question isn't "why use my browser", it's "why use something else when I already have a browser and it's always open"?
      - Karellen 3y ago
        For me, the answer is "because native mail clients are so much snappier and responsive". As well as being able to choose my client based on the interface I prefer, rather than whatever UI the webmail provider decides to give me. And my mail client is also always open. And it uses less memory than a typical browser tab.
        zgk7iqea 3y ago
        The reality I think is, the average user probably doesn't care about snappyness as long as it is not too bothersome. The path of least resistance is opening the webmail (no setup required).
      - HumblyTossed 3y ago
        Fair. I just don't always have a browser open. I don't need it when I'm coding and such. If I need to look something up I'll make a note and come back to it. Breaks my flow to just stop and look something up when I can just stub something out and fix it proper later.
    - reustle 3y ago
      Many folks, including myself, live (nearly) entirely within the browser. Pinned tabs, multiple windows, as big improvements in JS / wasm make this pretty smooth.
  - baz00 3y ago
    New Outlook is a browser based email client strangely. It runs roughly the same code on the desktop as on outlook.com. It's Edge underneath.
    - Banditoz 3y ago
      Which sucks, because the new Outlook is less performant than the native one.
  - danpla 3y ago
    > I have the idea that most people use browser-based email clients anyway? Indeed, but it's not an option if you have more than one email account on the same service.
    - coremoff 3y ago
      firefox containers can help there
- firebaze 3y ago
  Just switch to Linux already. It's really there. Some compromises required, sure, but they are already far and between. Keep it for gaming if you need. But give Proton a try first. My almost 75yo dad switched recently. I swear I'm telling the truth: his main complaint was, after buying a new printer, he couldn't find the matching drivers. I told him just to print, and that was that.
  - Farbklex 3y ago
    I only use Windows on my gaming desktop and would go Linux first next time I upgrade. Only a few games I play still need Windows and I could still use dual boot for them.
  - runjake 3y ago
    > Just switch to Linux already. I did this. Again. After running Linux as my main desktop OS from about 1992 - 1999, and some years since then. > It's really there. Some compromises required, sure, but they are already far and between. I'm not sure about that, and borderline disagree. There are a lot of compromises: - The Linux desktop is far flakier and far less elegant than Windows and especially macOS. KDE's a little less flakey than GNOME, I suppose. - A lot of the apps you love don't exist on Linux. - The Linux replacements for the apps you love are way less functional. - Keyboard shortcuts are chaotic unless you spend a lot of time deep diving on how to configure them coherently across applications. - Odd behaviors with snap/flatpak apps, but those will get worked out with time. Pluses: - The underlying Linux OS is rock stable with compatible hardware. - You can customize your desktop pretty much infinitely, if that's your thing. - Everything is free. - Logging is, compared to macOS and Windows, excellent. - If you're a developer, everything is more compatible on Linux. Anyways, after a year, I went crawling back to my Mac. I still have a Linux desktop SSD in the PC, ready to go, but I rarely pop in anymore. That said, if you live the terminals plus browser lifestyle, you won't miss much switching to Linux desktop. Edit: for context, I used UNIX and Linux way before I ever used Windows or DOS. I have, in the past, done deep dives on Windows, Windows kernel, Windows and .net programming, etc. I just prefer *NIX.
    - firebaze 3y ago
saghm 3y ago
> I decided to try it out and during setup of the new free Outlook I got asked how I want to see my ads: As a banner above the mail window or in my inbox It's absurd of them to even imply that anyone wants to see the ads at all. They clearly know that given the option, pretty much everyone would answer the question "where do you want to see your ads in your mail client" with "nowhere". There are certainly products where I grudgingly recognize that ads are the only way they're able to provide the product at all, but I can't see how they possibly could claim that here when they're literally going out of their way to move people towards using it.
Aardwolf 3y ago
I've been out of the loop due to using Linux the last 20 years, but back when I was using Windows XP, the default mail client was also called Outlook (well, Outlook Express). So apparently I missed some time period where it was called "Mail" instead. But now it'll be Outlook again. Full circle!
- pmontra 3y ago
  Full circle twice: there was a Microsoft Mail well before Microsoft Outlook https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Mail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Mail

whelp_24 3y ago

It would be nice of this sort of thing could be made illegal.

cvccvroomvroom 3y ago
In my view, they're committing a crime by unfairly leveraging a monopoly (Windows) to violate antitrust by pushing Bing, Edge, Office 365, and OneDrive. MSFT-ActivisionBlizzard also shouldn't happen.

fx1994 3y ago

There's Thunderbird, much better solution than mail or outlook.

Farbklex 3y ago
Installed it again today. I use Windows only for gaming and therefore didn't care much about mail on it.
Karellen 3y ago
Also Claws Mail for Windows: https://www.claws-mail.org/win32/ https://www.claws-mail.org/win32/ (The URL is /win32/, but there are 64-bit builds there too)
jwells89 3y ago
Thunderbird is alright but I think it's in need of what Firefox was to Mozilla Suite – a lean and mean cross platform IMAP client with a nice UI, and that's it. I don't want an Outlook-style client that's full of things that aren't email (calendar etc).
benhurmarcel 3y ago
Recently I've had delivery issues with Thunderbird. That makes me rethink my use of it. I sent the same email from the same address to the same recipient once with Thunderbird on Windows, once with Apple Mail on iOS. The one with Thunderbird was silently dropped (not even reaching the spam folder), the one sent with Apple Mail reached the inbox without issue. I've had that same issue with 2 different recipient companies. And yes, my address passes SPF, DKIM, has a strict DMARC, and isn't in any blacklist (uses iCloud+ as host).

MrRolleyes 3y ago

[dead]

nerdjon 3y ago

Microsoft seems determined to make all of the wrong choices for Windows. I tried the New Outlook after having issues with the default mail app. I was greeted with a message "To add your iCloud account to Outlook, we need to sync your emails, contacts, and events to the Microsoft Cloud." I'm sorry WHAT?!? You're telling me that to use a local email service I need to sync with Microsoft servers? Someone here please tell me that this is just because it was in beta and all of the features didn't exist yet? Otherwise what the hell is Microsoft thinking? For the record I just did not do this and any chance of using Windows for productivity tasks went completely out the Window. Windows was always just primarily for gaming but having email there would have been nice.

lstamour 3y ago
Acompli, the mobile mail app Microsoft bought and rebranded as Outlook, was like Newton and other email apps of its day - it used OAuth and cloud APIs to check messages on its servers and then created a combined inbox by sending push notifications to your phone as it received new emails on your behalf in the cloud. It sort of sounds like maybe the same infrastructure was borrowed here to set up the iCloud account in the local Outlook app. Presumably the local app is now based on the prior Acompli infrastructure. That said… it really doesn’t pass the sniff test, it feels like Microsoft wants your contacts the same way LinkedIn (also Microsoft) wants your contacts. Personally, I wish I hadn’t trusted Google, Meta and LinkedIn as much with my contacts as I did in the past. Live and learn, I suppose.
- dylan604 3y ago
  the entire concept of having the users provide their credentials to a third party for them to access their accounts to provide a service is one of those things that should be included in the anti-phishing training. i don't care if the service doesn't provide a proper API for third party access or not ESPECIALLY if it is for a cloud provided service. if it was a locally running app, i might consider it only slightly less egregious.
icehawk219 3y ago
I had this exact same reaction less than a week ago and it prompted me to switch to Thunderbird. For years I've fallen into the "if not for gaming ..." camp of Windows users. But I'm getting closer and closer to just not caring about that any more and switching to Mac or Linux instead just to get away from Windows.

daft_pink 3y ago

I never imagined myself using a Linux desktop everyday, but I don't want to pay Apple for 64gb of RAM and an acceptable number of monitors via my docking station, and Microsoft is just becoming terrible. Going to have to figure out what to switch to... Yikes!

jacquesm 3y ago
I use a $300 second hand W540 maxed out on RAM (32G, I don't think it would take 16G modules but I haven't looked into that, this is sufficient) with two external monitors attached. Uses a tiny bit of power compared to the desktop that it replaced (when I switched the house over to solar power I did a conservation exercise first and my desktop was one of the worst offenders) and everything works as far as I can tell. This box has been up and running for two years non-stop now, the only big change I made to the original is to put a nice fat SSD in it and to remove the battery because it never gets unplugged anyway. As OS I use Ubuntu Studio which makes for a nice development platform for music related software.
- runjake 3y ago
  What is your general distro of choice? I saw another comment mentioning Debian. If that, which branch?
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    I'm using Ubuntu Studio because it has a ton of audio and music related stuff built in.
- daft_pink 3y ago
  I have a recent XPS 15 with nvidia graphics, 64gb of ram and 2tb ssd. That cost me about $1,500 including upgraded drives myself. But spec out a 14" Macbook Pro this way and it's easily 3,800-4,000. I don't need something second hand cheap, but I don't want to pay $4,000 either.
  - jacquesm 3y ago

Zufriedenheit 3y ago

Good that thunderbird just had some big releases recently. Ready to take over the role i guess.

augustk 3y ago
Still waiting for Movemail support to be restored though. When using apticron it's nice to get upgrade notifications (and other local mail) in Thunderbird rather than when I invoke a command in xterm (which I find very distracting). https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1802145 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1802145

Macha 3y ago

I guess we can expect the nag notifications when people install Thunderbird, or open gmail.com in Edge soon then

MiddleEndian 3y ago

I actually like Windows Mail (more than web gmail at least lol) so I am bummed out about this development. Gonna have to find some other minimal mail client.

cvccvroomvroom 3y ago

Windows 11... now with more AOL!

xnx 3y ago

Seems like a lot of companies are aiming for the trifecta of: subscription payments + increasingly worse product + show ads

cvccvroomvroom 3y ago
It's in the spirit of preloaded crapware, Yahoo, and AOL.
- gosub100 3y ago
  It's coming full circle with NetZero and Juno from 25 years ago! "Hey we'll give you this free thing (then: internet/now: mail, OS, apps) in exchange for ads!
thiht 3y ago
You’re paying, AND you’re the product. Great days to come!

Propelloni 3y ago

The linked article says nothing about showing ads in "New Outlook." It certainly is not below MS to do so and I believe the submitter, but the linked article does not say a word about it.

humps 3y ago
New Outlook does have ads, and this move replaces Mail with Outlook therefore the default mail client will now have ads because it's Outlook. You can remove them with a 365 subscription. So while the article doesn't mention it, the statement is true.

NotYourLawyer 3y ago

Windows just keeps getting worse. 7 was pretty good, 10 is ok, 11 is trash. Maybe 2024 will be the year of Linux on my desktop.

thiht 3y ago
7 was great, 8 was trash, 10 was great, now 11 is trash. Maybe they’ll see the light with Windows 12
- NotYourLawyer 3y ago
  Ha, I forgot 8 even existed. I never installed it.
- init2null 3y ago
  There's no doubt that Microsoft is going to stuff ads in every corner of the OS at this point. Ads on the start menu, in Edge, in Solitaire, and now the replacement for Outlook Express. I don't think the good-bad-good cycle will hold for Windows this time. This seems to be a downward spiral.

jszymborski 3y ago

When I switched to Linux in university, it was as an idle curiosity and the pleasure of knowing my OS was FOSS. I knew I was sacrificing a bit of practicality, but like the person that works on their vintage motorcycle in the garage, the hassle was part of the fun. I would often run Windows on a second machine or at work though, I felt equally productive in both Linux and Windows. Fast-forward a decade and the Linux desktop situation has improved and the Windows situation has gotten worse, such that switching to Windows 11 is a total non-starter for me. I dual-boot Windows 10 w/ Ubuntu because of the odd game or two that is beyond Proton's reach, but that happens less and less each day. I'd be willing to bet that I won't need that Windows partition at all soon.

peppercat10 3y ago
I'd really like to see Linux desktop become a popular platform for games and game development. Proton is great, but Windows is still too mainstream.
mkasberg 3y ago
Same thing happened to me. 10 years ago using Linux on the Desktop was tricky but worth it for me. Now it's almost the opposite, my Linux desktop feels smooth and unobtrusive compared to Windows, and rarely has any problems!
IshKebab 3y ago
I'm not sure how much the Linux situation has improved really. I used to use Linux in the early 2000s when I was a student and had time to burn. Quickly switched back to Windows/Mac when I got a job and needed stuff to "just work". However recently I started working for a company that provides Linux laptops. I was curious how much things had improved in 20 years. My conclusion is: not much. Here are some of the issues I've had: * Linux memory management is still really bad. On OOM it kills a completely random process and 90% of the time for me that means it hard-reboots my laptop. Maybe this is partly because they didn't set it up with any swap for some reason, but I'm unsure that would help (in 2003 it didn't; the system would just grind to an unresponsive halt... but we didn't have SSDs then). * If you set a WiFi network to automatically connect to a VPN, then delete that VPN, it means the WiFi connection will always just instantly fail with no error message. Even dmesg didn't help. You can imagine how fun that was to figure out. * For some reason half of the network settings are not in the network settings. They're in some third party app you have to run from the console. It isn't even linked via an "advanced" button in the gnome settings. * Gnome's desktop notifications are hilariously subtle. We're talking dark grey window that disappears if you touch it with the mouse and there's no notification history. I ended up fixing the colour to make it red by hacking some CSS. It was a simple 27 step process. Couldn't fix the other issues though. * Somewhat hilariously if you click a truncated link in a notification, the URL it takes you to will also be truncated! * Screen capture doesn't work in Wayland. Not that I regularly need to share my screen with coworkers or anything... Fortunately switching to X was easy and doesn't seem to have any downsides at all. * I haven't done this but multiple coworkers have accidentally uninstalled Gnome while trying to upgrade Python. HN mentality will be to blame them but that is the unthinking response. * It takes ages to wake up. I sometimes have to absolutely mash escape for about 10 seconds. * Battery life is of course hilarious. Never had issues like this with Mac or Windows (though I haven't used Windows laptops really).

rekabis 3y ago

What an excellent reason to rip that app out using Win10Privacy, and run with something more privacy-friendly like Thunderbird.

jwells89 3y ago

One of the things I’ve appreciated a lot about macOS and iOS is that the stock Mail app is focused more on being a good generic email client than it is on trying to sell iCloud or be a profit center. It’s served me very well for the handful of IMAP addresses I use, with exception to Gmail (which has a dodgy IMAP implementation). The Windows Mail client was on its way to becoming a close analogue to Mail.app but I guess those days are over.

hbn 3y ago
I wish I wasn't tied to Gmail because it means I can't really use any other clients if I want instant notifications. And their official app has ads that look like emails. I assume they must do that on purpose, right? Make their IMAP implementation bad so people will use their clients with ads? I'd kinda hope regulators would step in on something like that for a case like Gmail where they're practically the default email provider for most people.
- jwells89 3y ago
  It might not have been on purpose originally but it's certainly convenient and in their best interest to leave their IMAP support in that state.
- bananapub 3y ago
  > I wish I wasn't tied to Gmail because it means I can't really use any other clients if I want instant notifications. what? it's supported IMAP IDLE for longer than some of the posters in HN have been alive. > I'd kinda hope regulators would step in on something like that for a case like Gmail where they're practically the default email provider for most people. ... you chose to use some random company's domain for your email address, that's been an obvious problem for thirty years now. there's jillions of things to criticise google about, this is absolutely not one of them.
  - hbn 3y ago
    Look - I don't know much about email standards but I know if I try to use Gmail on the Apple Mail client it doesn't give me notifications. Everyone I've talked to has the same issue, they get a dumping of notifications once per week with every email they got in the past 7 days. No solutions to be found online either, if you have one I'd be more than happy to hear it. > ... you chose to use some random company's domain for your email address, that's been an obvious problem for thirty years now. I was 13 when I made the account. I obviously wouldn't have tied so many things to it if I knew what I know now back then. I'll try to be born earlier next time, and then maybe I can buy a house before 2008 and some 90s Apple stocks while I'm at it.

dmitrygr 3y ago

At this point in time, Apple should be paying microsoft for bringing new people to the Apple ecosystem.

overgard 3y ago

How many people actually use a desktop email app? I use Outlook for work (mostly because the web client is awful), but outside of that I always access my email in a browser. Weird decision by Microsoft in my opinion. It seems like the only people that'd bother to setup Windows mail in the first place are power users, and that's the last people you want to piss off with annoying ads.

pmontra 3y ago
I do use Thunderbird. My mailbox is a POP3 account. I download mail and move it to folders with per sender filters. That said, 9,999 other people are about to reply that they use GMail or something like that. Maybe 99,999.

javcasas 3y ago

Of course, ¿what did you expect? (yeah, yeah, knee-jerk reaction, but the trend on Windows becoming user-hostile can be seen at this point from the other side of the Milky Way)

dist-epoch 3y ago

I've already opt-in to the new app and it's already showing the ads. It's one small text ad, formatted to look like an email message card. I quickly learned to ignore it. And no one is forcing anyone to use this app. You can use webmail, Thunderbird, etc... I still prefer this app with the ad to opening gmail in the browser.

hobs 3y ago
It's funny because you are saying they are STARTING with an insanely bad dark pattern and you're ok with it - where to next?
- dist-epoch 3y ago
  I'm not sure whats the dark pattern - that the ad looks like an email? I consider that a good thing since it makes it unobtrusive and invisible. Just like google text ads. I consider it a small price to pay for a nice app.
Farbklex 3y ago
It would be better without an add. Free Outlook will become the default mail app pre installed with Windows, a commercial product that costs actual money. It is just shouldn't have ads. Just like Apple's Mail app doesn't have ads. Having ad free software should be the norm.

ktosobcy 3y ago

Team Thunderbird, gladly supporting and donating.

callalex 3y ago
I would be hesitant to donate money to Mozilla, almost none of the money goes to software development.
- ktosobcy 3y ago
  After thunderbird got dumped by mozilla they picked up development on their own and likewise they collect donations as well. please don't spread FUD...

jrockway 3y ago

Why does Microsoft even bother with a desktop OS these days? They have moved on to The Cloud like everyone else, so people can buy Word and not their OS. All Windows really has is a long tail of legacy apps (many of which are very good, and people don't want to give up) and games, and that has to look like a dying business model. (Unfortunately, games are pretty sticky, because they own a game console, and everyone wants access to the console. So if Microsoft says "if you port your game to Linux, you can't be on Xbox", Windows is on indefinite life support.)

crop_rotation 3y ago
Because it prints money without much effort.
- jrockway 3y ago
  Only if it remains tolerable, though. I think they're playing around with something pretty risky; they don't integrate with any mobile devices, they don't have a web browser that any sites support, etc. and thus there is not much to keep users from switching away. They're objectively no better than Apple for most use cases, except for games and very niche software. It's a very different world than the late 90s, when they had an OS and a browser monopoly. (Games might not even be a thing for them for much longer. Mobile games are the most accessible, and again Microsoft is not in any position to get revenue from that trend. People that buy consoles or $1900 graphics cards are not nearly as numerous.) I am surprised that more corporate IT departments haven't switched to Linux. They can still supply the same $300 laptops, lock them down to the point of unusability, and everyone can use Word in the cloud. I'd be scared if I were Microsoft, and wouldn't want to make switching away look attractive to anyone. No ad revenue from untargeted ads in an email client could possibly be worth losing Windows as the "default" OS.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    >Mobile games are the most accessible, and again Microsoft is not in any position to get revenue from that trend. Have you been living under a rock that you missed Microsoft's acquisition of Activision-Blizzard, owners of Candy Crush, one of the most popular mobile games? Microsoft isn't stupid, it knows the future revenue makers are software subscription services and IP and not hardware, which is why it's buying up all the IP it can and building a SW service ecosystem around the likes of Azure and ChatGPT based copilots.

ChrisLTD 3y ago

I wonder if the eventual plan is to make Windows free for "home" users, and monetize it through ads. In that world, ads in every corner of the OS would be less annoying.

crop_rotation 3y ago
Why would they do that? OEMs already pay for it via agreements and at this point Windows seems to make no effort to do anything if the copy is not activated, so M$FT doesn't care about the few people not paying. Making it free would make no differnece other than killing a revenue source for no benefit. So it is very unlikely to happen.

crop_rotation 3y ago

Microsoft seem to be the worst of all the big companies that is surviving just because of extremely hard to dislodge monopolies. Consumer products come with windows, and enterprises opt for windows due to lock in. Office is so entrenched that most companies have little choice but to buy it. And Windows seems to be adding the shittiest features of almost any modern operating system. I use https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 for disabling windows telemetry and the amount of flags for data tracking is insane. M$FT have used the Office monopoly to push teams and AD to push Azure, both of which are subpar products. It is hard to find one good product they have made in the last 20 years (and yes VSCode is not it).

delta_p_delta_x 3y ago

There are two Microsofts. The first one is extremely developer-friendly, and regularly pushes out superb, high-quality tools and frameworks—many of which are free of charge and open-source—and gives nice deep dives into tech. They also develop pretty interesting alternatives to the UNIX ecosystem. Some examples: - the .NET ecosystem and languages (VB.NET, C#, F#); - PowerShell (technically this is also a .NET language, but it has made Windows scripting so easy that it deserves a mention on its own); - ASP.NET Core (again, part of the .NET ecosystem, but it is very far ahead of almost all other web backends (in terms of functionality, performance, and ease-of-development) that it also deserves a separate mention) - TypeScript; - Visual Studio Code; - Visual Studio Community, the MSVC C++ STL, and the MSVC compiler, `cl.exe`; - Direct3D and DirectXMath; - WSL - the Windows API, the Windows driver model, and the Windows ACL model. Many more that I can't recall off the top of my head. And there's the pain-in-the-arse, bean-counting Microsoft that justifies adding advertisements, crapware, and generally enshittifying what used to be a superb OS, pushing for software-as-a-service, changing the UX of Office programs every version, not being able to settle on and develop one nice unified UI toolkit for Windows, and (probably therefore) pushing laggy Electron apps like the XBox store, Teams, etc over well-programmed native/.NET ones. I use and develop on Windows because I grew up on it. I don't want 'an OS as an IDE'. I want an IDE that does an IDE's job well, and I haven't found anything better than Visual Studio's debugger and profiler. I am torn. Linux is still broken for even slightly edge-case use cases (laptop + monitor of very different pixel densities, and hence different scaling ratios; both X and Wayland fail horribly at this whereas Windows eats it up in a heartbeat). I game regularly and am not keen on virtualising or using Wine/Proton (I am convinced there is a performance drop in the general case), and MacOS is a non-starter for me.

dudul 3y ago

I dread the day where my windows 10 machine will automatically upgrade to 11. So far I've been able to decline - even though the "no" button seems to get a bit smaller and better hidden every time. One day I know I'll wake up and it will be windows 11. It will always have been 11. There was no versions before 11.

CyberDildonics 3y ago
Part of using windows at this point is learning how to turn off all the bait and switch nonsense and user hostile stuff going on under the hood. There are a lot of programs and scripts out there to turn off telemetry, ads, forced updates and more. Unfortunately it is required to not be at the mercy of your OS updating under you or selling your data behind the scenes.
- dudul 3y ago
  When I installed my system I literally had to unplug the ethernet to skip the "cloud user" creation. Maybe I was dumb and missed the "no thank you" button, but it looked like there was no option. Want to create a user, has to be managed online. Thanks and fuck you. I had to unplug internet, click next, wait 2min for the thing to time out and say "oh well let's create a local user for now we'll try again later". I haven't seen another"try" since but who knows. It probably happened automatically one day as a background task.

Crontab 3y ago

Windows needs new management.

baz00 3y ago

It'll only show ads if you don't pay for O365. And Google do the same with GMail. I am paying for O365 family so none of my family get that. And I think I paid £59 for it last time with some voucher scamming. That gives everyone, 6 people in my case, 1TB storage, all the office desktop apps. I don't think that's a bad deal, especially compared to the shafting you get from Apple these days for icloud.

izzydata 3y ago
So they are trying to strong arm people into paying for a subscription by giving them a worse experience with ads until they do. Paying for it at that point is just letting Microsoft know that they were successful and should continue to implement more ads into things.
- baz00 3y ago
  Well I was going to pay for it anyway because I want Excel, Word and OneNote and the storage so shrug. Stuff isn't free!
  - izzydata 3y ago
    There are other business models that aren't ads though.

Dennip 3y ago

Is this 'free' outlook different to the version that ships with O365?

alberth 3y ago

OS ad revenue? Can anyone find how much revenue is generated in ads from Windows? All I can find is revenue for Bing. I'm curious to know if the revenue Windows ads are generating is even worth the reduction in UX and consumer sentiment.

khana 3y ago

[dead]

stalfosknight 3y ago

Why do so many Windows users tolerate shit like this while refusing to consider a much better designed platform that is far more respectful of its users like macOS?

pmontra 3y ago
Because you can go to a shop and buy a Windows laptop for 300 dollars. No Mac is as cheap as that. And subjectively the UI of a Mac is worse than Window's. I liked the menu at the top only on the original Mac with the builtin 9" screen. It started to be a bad choice on the next models with a larger separate monitor. And Windows' UI is worse than the customized Gnome desktop I've been using since 2009.
andrewrust30 3y ago
I can't tell if this is sarcasm...
glimshe 3y ago
I use Windows as my personal OS (1-2 hours a day) and macOS as my work OS (8 hours a day, M2 Mac). I would never have macOS as my personal OS because exactly it has a poorly designed UI for my use cases. I need to spend a higher cognitive load with the UI and my day-to-day activities require more clicks or UI interaction time. Additionally, I have less screen real estate and some applications simply won't work on a Mac. I like the hardware, though, just not enough.

bananapub 3y ago

it's just bizarre that there isn't more embarrassment about how much worse we've made our industry. you've fucked up the economics of your global business desktop OS monopoly so badly that now you're adding ads to your free, bundled-with-the-OS-to-kill-Eudora mail client? what in shit?

methou 3y ago

Before switching to Fastmail, I started seeing ads on Outlook for windows, Mac, and OWA since a while back ago as a paying customer, then there’s them on gmail, while paying for google one. I mean they don’t even care if you are paying.

glimshe 3y ago

I've used Windows 11 and the new Outlook for a while now, but I've never seen a single ad. Not one. Is it because I have Office 365? If that's the case, Microsoft's strategy is that one way or another it wants some money from you: either the subscription, or the ad revenue. I'd be concerned if I had to see ads while being a paying customer.