8 ms·

> ...it appears the company has transformed its email app into a surveillance tool for targeted advertising. It's not just Microsoft's email, it's all of Windo

by binkHN 3y ago

> ...it appears the company has transformed its email app into a surveillance tool for targeted advertising. It's not just Microsoft's email, it's all of Windows too. I tried Windows 11 for the first time not too long ago and it's an abomination of an ad delivery vehicle that makes ChromeOS look magnificent. After too many years of Windows, I finally bit the bullet and installed Linux on my desktop. Within a few weeks I was more productive than I was on Windows and my OS is no longer trying to sell me something constantly, and I should have done it sooner.

TheCleric 3y ago
Windows 11 looks like how IE6 would get after installing too many “toolbars”.
ljoshua 3y ago
I’m curious to know where your productivity boosts came from, as those are always a good motivating factor for me to try something new.
- binkHN 3y ago
  I feel my productivity boost comes from KDE/Plasma, a surprisingly good desktop environment (DE) that's almost too configurable. The ability to tweak almost every element of the DE, especially as it relates to shortcuts, has already allowed me to move around the environment faster and more readily. Also, *nix has always had the ability to do "Focus follows mouse," and I used something similar in Windows, but it just works better in not Windows. Combine this with a superior file manager in Dolphin and an extremely configurable launcher in KRunner and I'm flying around the desktop in ways that Windows just can't. There's more too, but these are probably the biggest.
  - moffkalast 3y ago
    Watching this "fall of Gnome" with KDE's recent popularity makes me feel strangely vindicated about liking a configurable OS.
  - PcChip 3y ago
    I've been using kubuntu for ~2 years now at work and I feel like I need to watch some KDE tutorial videos so that I can learn these tips and tricks too, because I love KDE and what you describe sounds wonderful
- samstave 3y ago
  EDIT: (For being downvoted about steam and now the ease of install games on linux - read my whole post. Also, I dont put steam on my linux machines specifically to have my own walled mental garden from my distraction proclivity ADHD game mind - Games are what built my career - and as much as I have loved them - as I get older, I can only play less and less) - For me; Its harder to fall into the "Oh - Ill just intall a bunch of these old games" distractions... or "what new games can this bitch run (slaps laptop's lid)" -- Also, since Linux has evolved to effectively run an F-ton % of the internet - thousands and thousands of devs, techs, ops, indies, etc have just made the experience so much better. When I first started with Linux in the mid-90s - I had to hire four promising consultants to help me transition a ETF process by FTP from SUN Microsystems to my company where I was head of IT, to build scripts to create manifests from SUN to us, via FTP - watch the directory, and parse the new-fangled XML that SUN was trying to establish. Ill never forget the first call with SUN and our execs (we physically manufactured all Software Box Sets of SUN's software, manuals etc - then packaged them and shipped it - so if you bought SUNos/Checkpoint or any Intuit or certain games' companies physical products - we manufactured and shipped it) So we were using flat files for the transfer or order information for SUN and had some wonky scripts on these four linux FTP servers. I was not to familiar with Linux at this time - but hired Dave Sifry, Chris DiBona and some others to re-do our FTP flat file ETF process to access SUNs new XML requirement. We didnt know what XML was at the time - and I infamously said on a call with SUN "OK let me understand. You have your current crappy etl process and you want us to rebuild our pipeline to support your new XML standard. (The sales people were jumping up and down at me on the call because I called SUNs current practice "crappy" while I was on the phone with a bunch of execs...) Anyway - I went to our Linux Consultants and I talked to Sifry and I said "If I were you, I'd take your team and start a Linux Support Company." A few weeks later Sifry and I have a sit-down, and he told me that him and team had created a new company - called "LinuxCare" to offer some of the first enterprise support.... We talked about me joining, but we never came to an agreement, and I believe Dave was one of the first 100-millionaires in the linux space on paper after LinuxCare took off a bit.... (they used to be in the Macromedia building's basement level in SF after that...). So back then, productivity came from the server side for workflows... Now - you can achieve exceptional productivity because you're not at the Childs Table when it comes to the UI-first (windows) vs UX-first (linux) utility platform that became a desktop. But that took decades and millions of people contributing to how Linux can be empowering. --- But if you just look at the productivity in technological evolution Linux has contributed to computing, I personally feel its a Tier-1 level contribution, and now you can just rely on FN awesome tools, for free, written by millions of smarter people than an induvidual, to make speed to deployment of anything (even if its to gaming) faster, easier and you arent spinning mental cycles on "what the fuck is /usr/sbin?" "Where the heck do I grab these dependencies from? What the FUCK is a make file? --- Neither of the people replying to me read my whole post.
- snailmailman 3y ago
  For me, i3wm makes me a lot more productive. Instead of mashing alt tab, I have dedicated hotkeys for every virtual desktop, which is dedicated to specific apps/workflows. With one hotkey I always go to the program I’m looking for. In windows I have to just mash alt+tab. But also if the window was in split screen it gets separated from whatever it was paired with, so I have to scramble to bring both windows into focus briefly so they are in front. It’s such a mess of window management. In Linux. If I had something setup on desktop 3, win+3 takes me to it every time. No matter if that’s one window or multiple. It’s always one hot key away. And then one to get back. I never get lost in a sea of applications that look identical in the alt+tab thumbnail. I haven’t found a way to replicate this in windows. The closest is “never group things on taskbar” so I can at least click specific firefox windows directly. But that no longer exists in windows 11, so I guess I won’t use 11.
  - angrysaki 3y ago
    I tried virtual desktops for a while and I'm pretty sure I was using this app for hotkeys to each desktop. https://github.com/hwtnb/SylphyHornPlusWin11 https://github.com/hwtnb/SylphyHornPlusWin11 (I don't use virtual desktops anymore so I don't remember that well)
  - deadbunny 3y ago
    I've always described i3 as like being efficient in vim. Once you've learned the hotkeys and settled on where things live it just gets out the way and muscle memory takes over.
za3faran 3y ago
Which distro are you using?
- binkHN 3y ago
  Currently running Debian (Trixie to handle new hardware), as it was the first distribution I played with many many years ago, but I don't know if it's my final destination (though I don't care to "distro hop" either so).
  - mike256 3y ago
    After Ubuntu began to use all those snaps I tried Debian in 2020. Switched to Debian Buster (10) and soon back to Ubuntu because it was not usable for me. In 2023 I tried again with Debian Bookworm (12) and I'm not missing anything. It's a great distro.
- eitally 3y ago
  In my experience with desktop Linux for a family set of users, only some of which are computer-savvy, LinuxMint was a really good option that provides a familiar UI/UX for Windows users, and generally "just works". I preferred mucking about with KDE and was also generally happy with Kubuntu.
wahnfrieden 3y ago
It’s for state surveillance too
- samstave 3y ago
  :%s/state/MIC/g
libraryatnight 3y ago
It just seems like a stupid move this late in the ad game when people are starting to figure out they hate it a lot. I've never heard more techno-laymen talking about privacy and advertising than now and MS is just hopping on the train. It's like they're drug dealers adding fentanyl as if it's a sales perk after everyone's learned about it killing the users.
- stravant 3y ago
  You know what people hate even more though? Paying for Windows.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    Very few people have ever paid for Windows in a way that was visible to them. The majority of Windows users have always just used the Windows that was pre-installed on a computer that they bought.
    - antfie 3y ago
      The cost of the Windows license was part of the overall laptop cost. So buying a new laptop with Windows installed means Microsoft gets some profit from that.
snarfy 3y ago
Windows is dead the day I can play all modern PC games with anticheat in Linux using Proton or similar, without also getting my account banned for 'hacking'.
- beebeepka 3y ago
  there are dozens of us. dozens! The big question is how are they going to do it without giving the vultures root access
- juujian 3y ago
  I hear about this all the time and it's yet to happen to me. Granted I don't play many triple A online multiplayer games, but those seems to have fallen off the cliff anyways.
- bastardoperator 3y ago
  If we look at Bethesda, Activision, and Xbox game studio, given the hundreds of titles combined with some of if not the largest franchises in video games, I would be doubtful that day is coming. Something drastic would need to occur. A part of me thinks think we're further away today then we were 10 years ago.
  - ok_dad 3y ago
    Once proton works on everything, the companies that make the software than bans you will fix their stuff to work in those confines as well. Valve makes the biggest, VAC (edit: I was told EAC was bigger below, but that it supports Linux), and they also make proton, and they own steam, so they’ll be able to force other companies to submit in any case. I’m more worried about peripherals myself, since there are some gaming peripherals that were made with windows in mind only. AAA game developers only have the power if people choose to load their launchers (EA's for example) but most people I know avoid those and use Steam or Epic stores or GOG or whatever for non AAA games. Edit: I am "posting too fast" it seems (a few messages per hour, I guess?), so here's a response to a comment below here about the mixed-OS household: I wouldn't mind using macOS or Linux, and I actually would pay if I could install macOS on my PC tower. I might be the idiot here, jumping out of the MS frying pan into the Apple fire, but I find macOS to be just fine for my use, and not too locked down overall when it comes to running the software I need on it and it's very well integrated with some of my other tech stuff. Sure, I can't tweak every aspect of the OS, but I don't mind how it works out of the box so I am cool with that. It would also be nice if I could use some of the macOS features on other platforms, like iCloud, Messages (whatever the blue-bubble messages are called), and iPhone integrations.
japanman185 3y ago
[dead]
ryan29 3y ago
Microsoft is betraying user trust with their Windows strategy. A lot of people trust Microsoft, but I wonder if there's a critical mass where the narrative switches to one where the default for most people is to distrust them. Their products behave too similar to those of bad actors. Recently I had a relative over and was helping them with some computer stuff. They had an odd PDF viewer on their laptop and, when I asked them about it, they called it Adobe. It was not Adobe Reader. I assumed it was the result of clicking through a paid search result and installing something from the internet, but they insisted they got it from Microsoft. I was confused for a while because it wasn't an app from the Microsoft Store. Then they explained to me how they got it. They clicked on start, searched for "PDF", and "installed Adobe Reader from Microsoft". The icon for the app they had was obviously made to look similar to Adobe Reader and they had no idea the start menu search is a free for all of Bing results. They're not stupid and I can't really blame them for misunderstanding. When they showed me, I could see how it would be reasonable to mistake the search result (or ad?) for an app recommendation. The result had an icon and everything. The weird thing is that I can't reproduce it on my PC. I don't get the same results that look too much like recommendations, so either I'm on a different release cadence for Windows or I've disabled some of those unwanted features. The user should be able to trust everything in the OS. A built-in search feature that exposes users to bad actors is extremely frustrating to see.
- jxramos 3y ago
  very frustrating, gonna have to be on the lookout for this with family. Thanks for the tip.
- nightski 3y ago
  To be fair, I've had similar things happen to my relatives with the iOS and Android app stores as well. Installed some random 3rd party app instead of what they wanted because it looked convincing.
  - int_19h 3y ago
    This is worse because the user in question had the "recommendation" pop up in the Start Menu - i.e.one of the most fundamental pieces of Windows UX - not even in the app store.
systems_glitch 3y ago
At a previous job, we used Macs to do Java and Ruby development, and I thought that was an OK compromise to not having to maintain a bunch of Linux workstations, but still a compromise. One time the shop took a subcontract for a bigger local shop. They were all Windows. Whenever we had to work with their devs, it seemed we fought Windows as a platform on which to run development tools as much as we did actual application problems. I know there's massive shops that live like that, but I know neither why nor how. (n.b. this was around 2014, I don't know how Windows has changed since then)
- RowanH 3y ago
  Ran a small software dev shop (~100 staff) inheriting windows. My god, never again... The amount of lost productivity was insane. Soon as went out to start my SaaS company, back to Mac, without a shadow of a doubt. I might actually reboot once every few months on Mac whereas my IT manager at the windows shop suggested as a solution to some problems shutting down everytime people were finished for the day ! The windows shop was non stop hardware, software issues. Laptops (whichever brand) are absolute junk with very short lifespans. Blue screens...
  - systems_glitch 3y ago
    Yeah, the inefficiency was incredible -- and not just on the actual development side. We exceeded their throughput goals by double on the first try, before even attempting to optimize anything. The dataset we were running on was actual production data from their historical busiest day. We managed this on three 2011 iMacs running as the "servers." Their stated throughput goal was 50% higher than the actual busiest day when their architects came up with the design spec. They were just barely able to keep up with their busiest day on a cluster of 100 Windows servers.
- cyberax 3y ago
  I did a contract gig for a Windows shop recently, and I was pleasantly surprised by how well everything worked. WSL2 made a lot of things soooo much easier.
AJ007 3y ago
Windows is dead. Most games can run on Linux fine ( https://www.protondb.com/ https://www.protondb.com/ ), some even run better. After some problems with pop-ups I nuked my parent's Windows install and put Linux on the machine. They had no problems using it. Between those two use cases, why use Windows at all? A strong warning, the direction Microsoft is going with Windows, Apple is heading in now. I'll put down money that by 2026 iOS and MacOS will no longer be usable. It's good that desktop Linux is now ready for prime time. We can win on mobile too.
- wetbaby 3y ago
  > why use Windows at all? I wish I had the same optimism. I have a Fedora partition that gets wiped and reinstalled every release and there's always some showstopper or things are slightly worse that make me unable to commit. I'm not settling for 'slightly worse'. The display server situation on Linux is depressing. I don't like were Microsoft is heading, but it's way too early to claim Windows is dead.
  - aembleton 3y ago
    Why do you keep reinstalling Fedora? It might be worth trying a different distribution, although whatever it is thats forcing you to reinstall every release might affect all distributions. Its not something I've experienced with Mandrake, Suse, Mint or Endeavour. I agree with your point though - Windows is not dead; for me its a lot of the photo editing applications that I want to use don't run well on Linux.
    - gerdesj 3y ago
      Mandrake - my third or fourth distro. Rather old school these days 8)
    - KETHERCORTEX 3y ago
      > Windows is not dead I think that's exactly the problem. It's too alive, so they can bastardize the experience in any way.
    - 3y ago
Arisaka1 3y ago
As someone having to write .NET Framework for his day job, I made the switch back to 10 when I started noticing the small things that affect my experience. Edge was aggressive when I would try to download Chrome, Windows 11 updates prompting you to reset your browser settings, lack of taskbar customization options from 10 (I like my system tray minimal). Everything shows a company too complacent and focused on their own business needs. C# and .NET are the exception because they fought hard to antagonize Java in the corporate world, and while they missed the "billion devices" train for being too forceful with pushing Windows Server instead of going multiplatform, they still won over a decent market share.
drbawb 3y ago
>After too many years of Windows, I finally bit the bullet and installed Linux on my desktop. Use Linux at home since 2020, and have recently switched to a Mac for work. Windows is gone from my life, relegated to doing maintenance-work from a VM for the poor saps still stuck on it. There's no separation of concerns at Microsoft: the allure of recurring revenue from ad-tech and online-services is polluting Windows and Office in a really bad way. I need my operating system and productivity software to (a) work, (b) function reliably offline (Office doesn't), and (c) work in perpetuity for as long as the hardware lives. (Windows hasn't since 10, arguably 8.) Apple seems to understand that the core stuff needs to be free, and the free stuff can't compromise on their privacy & security core-values to be free. They also come with apps that are reasonably worth using, and they use iCloud to sync and integrate that stuff seamlessly across their device-family. What Apple charges money for is actual value-added service. You want Music? They've got that, streaming or purchased. You want TV? Same deal. You like books? Yep, got that too. Want some curated news? They'll sell you that. - Signed up for all this stuff and have run out of storage? Predictably they'll sell you more of that, too. What's more is Apple understands _the meaning of no._ - I can turn that stuff off easily, and permanently, right when & where the nag occurred. No resorting to things like registry edits, group policy hacks, hacking the installer, etc. No gamification of the fucking Settings screen. No ads in my fucking Start menu. I can hide or remove their apps just like any other app. (As a concrete example: for ages I have had to hack Explorer to get rid of personal-OneDrive, which I don't/can't use since I am not even logged into a MSFT account. The equivalent to disable iCloud is a very clearly visible setting in Finder's settings.) I won't lie, it hasn't been perfect, but the amount of UI polish, the ease of cross-device integrations, and the feeling of Apple actually valuing the customer-relationship, are miles ahead of whatever the fuck Microsoft is doing. Modern Microsoft feels like a Facebook or a Google, and that's really not meant as a compliment. If Microsoft wants recurring revenue, they need to start providing real services. Windows isn't a service. Office isn't a service. I highly suggest they start emulating Apple, or they're going to get left behind. Redmond, start your photocopiers.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

by binkHN 3y ago

TheCleric 3y ago

Windows 11 looks like how IE6 would get after installing too many “toolbars”.

ljoshua 3y ago

I’m curious to know where your productivity boosts came from, as those are always a good motivating factor for me to try something new.

binkHN 3y ago
I feel my productivity boost comes from KDE/Plasma, a surprisingly good desktop environment (DE) that's almost too configurable. The ability to tweak almost every element of the DE, especially as it relates to shortcuts, has already allowed me to move around the environment faster and more readily. Also, *nix has always had the ability to do "Focus follows mouse," and I used something similar in Windows, but it just works better in not Windows. Combine this with a superior file manager in Dolphin and an extremely configurable launcher in KRunner and I'm flying around the desktop in ways that Windows just can't. There's more too, but these are probably the biggest.
- moffkalast 3y ago
  Watching this "fall of Gnome" with KDE's recent popularity makes me feel strangely vindicated about liking a configurable OS.
- PcChip 3y ago
  I've been using kubuntu for ~2 years now at work and I feel like I need to watch some KDE tutorial videos so that I can learn these tips and tricks too, because I love KDE and what you describe sounds wonderful
samstave 3y ago
EDIT: (For being downvoted about steam and now the ease of install games on linux - read my whole post. Also, I dont put steam on my linux machines specifically to have my own walled mental garden from my distraction proclivity ADHD game mind - Games are what built my career - and as much as I have loved them - as I get older, I can only play less and less) - For me; Its harder to fall into the "Oh - Ill just intall a bunch of these old games" distractions... or "what new games can this bitch run (slaps laptop's lid)" -- Also, since Linux has evolved to effectively run an F-ton % of the internet - thousands and thousands of devs, techs, ops, indies, etc have just made the experience so much better. When I first started with Linux in the mid-90s - I had to hire four promising consultants to help me transition a ETF process by FTP from SUN Microsystems to my company where I was head of IT, to build scripts to create manifests from SUN to us, via FTP - watch the directory, and parse the new-fangled XML that SUN was trying to establish. Ill never forget the first call with SUN and our execs (we physically manufactured all Software Box Sets of SUN's software, manuals etc - then packaged them and shipped it - so if you bought SUNos/Checkpoint or any Intuit or certain games' companies physical products - we manufactured and shipped it) So we were using flat files for the transfer or order information for SUN and had some wonky scripts on these four linux FTP servers. I was not to familiar with Linux at this time - but hired Dave Sifry, Chris DiBona and some others to re-do our FTP flat file ETF process to access SUNs new XML requirement. We didnt know what XML was at the time - and I infamously said on a call with SUN "OK let me understand. You have your current crappy etl process and you want us to rebuild our pipeline to support your new XML standard. (The sales people were jumping up and down at me on the call because I called SUNs current practice "crappy" while I was on the phone with a bunch of execs...) Anyway - I went to our Linux Consultants and I talked to Sifry and I said "If I were you, I'd take your team and start a Linux Support Company." A few weeks later Sifry and I have a sit-down, and he told me that him and team had created a new company - called "LinuxCare" to offer some of the first enterprise support.... We talked about me joining, but we never came to an agreement, and I believe Dave was one of the first 100-millionaires in the linux space on paper after LinuxCare took off a bit.... (they used to be in the Macromedia building's basement level in SF after that...). So back then, productivity came from the server side for workflows... Now - you can achieve exceptional productivity because you're not at the Childs Table when it comes to the UI-first (windows) vs UX-first (linux) utility platform that became a desktop. But that took decades and millions of people contributing to how Linux can be empowering. --- But if you just look at the productivity in technological evolution Linux has contributed to computing, I personally feel its a Tier-1 level contribution, and now you can just rely on FN awesome tools, for free, written by millions of smarter people than an induvidual, to make speed to deployment of anything (even if its to gaming) faster, easier and you arent spinning mental cycles on "what the fuck is /usr/sbin?" "Where the heck do I grab these dependencies from? What the FUCK is a make file? --- Neither of the people replying to me read my whole post.
snailmailman 3y ago
For me, i3wm makes me a lot more productive. Instead of mashing alt tab, I have dedicated hotkeys for every virtual desktop, which is dedicated to specific apps/workflows. With one hotkey I always go to the program I’m looking for. In windows I have to just mash alt+tab. But also if the window was in split screen it gets separated from whatever it was paired with, so I have to scramble to bring both windows into focus briefly so they are in front. It’s such a mess of window management. In Linux. If I had something setup on desktop 3, win+3 takes me to it every time. No matter if that’s one window or multiple. It’s always one hot key away. And then one to get back. I never get lost in a sea of applications that look identical in the alt+tab thumbnail. I haven’t found a way to replicate this in windows. The closest is “never group things on taskbar” so I can at least click specific firefox windows directly. But that no longer exists in windows 11, so I guess I won’t use 11.
- angrysaki 3y ago
  I tried virtual desktops for a while and I'm pretty sure I was using this app for hotkeys to each desktop. https://github.com/hwtnb/SylphyHornPlusWin11 https://github.com/hwtnb/SylphyHornPlusWin11 (I don't use virtual desktops anymore so I don't remember that well)
- deadbunny 3y ago
  I've always described i3 as like being efficient in vim. Once you've learned the hotkeys and settled on where things live it just gets out the way and muscle memory takes over.

za3faran 3y ago

Which distro are you using?

binkHN 3y ago
Currently running Debian (Trixie to handle new hardware), as it was the first distribution I played with many many years ago, but I don't know if it's my final destination (though I don't care to "distro hop" either so).
- mike256 3y ago
  After Ubuntu began to use all those snaps I tried Debian in 2020. Switched to Debian Buster (10) and soon back to Ubuntu because it was not usable for me. In 2023 I tried again with Debian Bookworm (12) and I'm not missing anything. It's a great distro.
eitally 3y ago
In my experience with desktop Linux for a family set of users, only some of which are computer-savvy, LinuxMint was a really good option that provides a familiar UI/UX for Windows users, and generally "just works". I preferred mucking about with KDE and was also generally happy with Kubuntu.

wahnfrieden 3y ago

It’s for state surveillance too

samstave 3y ago
:%s/state/MIC/g

libraryatnight 3y ago

It just seems like a stupid move this late in the ad game when people are starting to figure out they hate it a lot. I've never heard more techno-laymen talking about privacy and advertising than now and MS is just hopping on the train. It's like they're drug dealers adding fentanyl as if it's a sales perk after everyone's learned about it killing the users.

stravant 3y ago
You know what people hate even more though? Paying for Windows.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  Very few people have ever paid for Windows in a way that was visible to them. The majority of Windows users have always just used the Windows that was pre-installed on a computer that they bought.
  - antfie 3y ago
    The cost of the Windows license was part of the overall laptop cost. So buying a new laptop with Windows installed means Microsoft gets some profit from that.

snarfy 3y ago

Windows is dead the day I can play all modern PC games with anticheat in Linux using Proton or similar, without also getting my account banned for 'hacking'.

beebeepka 3y ago
there are dozens of us. dozens! The big question is how are they going to do it without giving the vultures root access
juujian 3y ago
I hear about this all the time and it's yet to happen to me. Granted I don't play many triple A online multiplayer games, but those seems to have fallen off the cliff anyways.
bastardoperator 3y ago
If we look at Bethesda, Activision, and Xbox game studio, given the hundreds of titles combined with some of if not the largest franchises in video games, I would be doubtful that day is coming. Something drastic would need to occur. A part of me thinks think we're further away today then we were 10 years ago.
- ok_dad 3y ago
  Once proton works on everything, the companies that make the software than bans you will fix their stuff to work in those confines as well. Valve makes the biggest, VAC (edit: I was told EAC was bigger below, but that it supports Linux), and they also make proton, and they own steam, so they’ll be able to force other companies to submit in any case. I’m more worried about peripherals myself, since there are some gaming peripherals that were made with windows in mind only. AAA game developers only have the power if people choose to load their launchers (EA's for example) but most people I know avoid those and use Steam or Epic stores or GOG or whatever for non AAA games. Edit: I am "posting too fast" it seems (a few messages per hour, I guess?), so here's a response to a comment below here about the mixed-OS household: I wouldn't mind using macOS or Linux, and I actually would pay if I could install macOS on my PC tower. I might be the idiot here, jumping out of the MS frying pan into the Apple fire, but I find macOS to be just fine for my use, and not too locked down overall when it comes to running the software I need on it and it's very well integrated with some of my other tech stuff. Sure, I can't tweak every aspect of the OS, but I don't mind how it works out of the box so I am cool with that. It would also be nice if I could use some of the macOS features on other platforms, like iCloud, Messages (whatever the blue-bubble messages are called), and iPhone integrations.

japanman185 3y ago

[dead]

ryan29 3y ago

Microsoft is betraying user trust with their Windows strategy. A lot of people trust Microsoft, but I wonder if there's a critical mass where the narrative switches to one where the default for most people is to distrust them. Their products behave too similar to those of bad actors. Recently I had a relative over and was helping them with some computer stuff. They had an odd PDF viewer on their laptop and, when I asked them about it, they called it Adobe. It was not Adobe Reader. I assumed it was the result of clicking through a paid search result and installing something from the internet, but they insisted they got it from Microsoft. I was confused for a while because it wasn't an app from the Microsoft Store. Then they explained to me how they got it. They clicked on start, searched for "PDF", and "installed Adobe Reader from Microsoft". The icon for the app they had was obviously made to look similar to Adobe Reader and they had no idea the start menu search is a free for all of Bing results. They're not stupid and I can't really blame them for misunderstanding. When they showed me, I could see how it would be reasonable to mistake the search result (or ad?) for an app recommendation. The result had an icon and everything. The weird thing is that I can't reproduce it on my PC. I don't get the same results that look too much like recommendations, so either I'm on a different release cadence for Windows or I've disabled some of those unwanted features. The user should be able to trust everything in the OS. A built-in search feature that exposes users to bad actors is extremely frustrating to see.

jxramos 3y ago
very frustrating, gonna have to be on the lookout for this with family. Thanks for the tip.
nightski 3y ago
To be fair, I've had similar things happen to my relatives with the iOS and Android app stores as well. Installed some random 3rd party app instead of what they wanted because it looked convincing.
- int_19h 3y ago
  This is worse because the user in question had the "recommendation" pop up in the Start Menu - i.e.one of the most fundamental pieces of Windows UX - not even in the app store.

systems_glitch 3y ago

At a previous job, we used Macs to do Java and Ruby development, and I thought that was an OK compromise to not having to maintain a bunch of Linux workstations, but still a compromise. One time the shop took a subcontract for a bigger local shop. They were all Windows. Whenever we had to work with their devs, it seemed we fought Windows as a platform on which to run development tools as much as we did actual application problems. I know there's massive shops that live like that, but I know neither why nor how. (n.b. this was around 2014, I don't know how Windows has changed since then)

RowanH 3y ago
Ran a small software dev shop (~100 staff) inheriting windows. My god, never again... The amount of lost productivity was insane. Soon as went out to start my SaaS company, back to Mac, without a shadow of a doubt. I might actually reboot once every few months on Mac whereas my IT manager at the windows shop suggested as a solution to some problems shutting down everytime people were finished for the day ! The windows shop was non stop hardware, software issues. Laptops (whichever brand) are absolute junk with very short lifespans. Blue screens...
- systems_glitch 3y ago
  Yeah, the inefficiency was incredible -- and not just on the actual development side. We exceeded their throughput goals by double on the first try, before even attempting to optimize anything. The dataset we were running on was actual production data from their historical busiest day. We managed this on three 2011 iMacs running as the "servers." Their stated throughput goal was 50% higher than the actual busiest day when their architects came up with the design spec. They were just barely able to keep up with their busiest day on a cluster of 100 Windows servers.
cyberax 3y ago
I did a contract gig for a Windows shop recently, and I was pleasantly surprised by how well everything worked. WSL2 made a lot of things soooo much easier.

AJ007 3y ago

Windows is dead. Most games can run on Linux fine ( https://www.protondb.com/ https://www.protondb.com/ ), some even run better. After some problems with pop-ups I nuked my parent's Windows install and put Linux on the machine. They had no problems using it. Between those two use cases, why use Windows at all? A strong warning, the direction Microsoft is going with Windows, Apple is heading in now. I'll put down money that by 2026 iOS and MacOS will no longer be usable. It's good that desktop Linux is now ready for prime time. We can win on mobile too.

wetbaby 3y ago
> why use Windows at all? I wish I had the same optimism. I have a Fedora partition that gets wiped and reinstalled every release and there's always some showstopper or things are slightly worse that make me unable to commit. I'm not settling for 'slightly worse'. The display server situation on Linux is depressing. I don't like were Microsoft is heading, but it's way too early to claim Windows is dead.
- aembleton 3y ago
  Why do you keep reinstalling Fedora? It might be worth trying a different distribution, although whatever it is thats forcing you to reinstall every release might affect all distributions. Its not something I've experienced with Mandrake, Suse, Mint or Endeavour. I agree with your point though - Windows is not dead; for me its a lot of the photo editing applications that I want to use don't run well on Linux.
  - gerdesj 3y ago
    Mandrake - my third or fourth distro. Rather old school these days 8)
  - KETHERCORTEX 3y ago
    > Windows is not dead I think that's exactly the problem. It's too alive, so they can bastardize the experience in any way.
  - 3y ago

Arisaka1 3y ago

As someone having to write .NET Framework for his day job, I made the switch back to 10 when I started noticing the small things that affect my experience. Edge was aggressive when I would try to download Chrome, Windows 11 updates prompting you to reset your browser settings, lack of taskbar customization options from 10 (I like my system tray minimal). Everything shows a company too complacent and focused on their own business needs. C# and .NET are the exception because they fought hard to antagonize Java in the corporate world, and while they missed the "billion devices" train for being too forceful with pushing Windows Server instead of going multiplatform, they still won over a decent market share.

drbawb 3y ago

>After too many years of Windows, I finally bit the bullet and installed Linux on my desktop. Use Linux at home since 2020, and have recently switched to a Mac for work. Windows is gone from my life, relegated to doing maintenance-work from a VM for the poor saps still stuck on it. There's no separation of concerns at Microsoft: the allure of recurring revenue from ad-tech and online-services is polluting Windows and Office in a really bad way. I need my operating system and productivity software to (a) work, (b) function reliably offline (Office doesn't), and (c) work in perpetuity for as long as the hardware lives. (Windows hasn't since 10, arguably 8.) Apple seems to understand that the core stuff needs to be free, and the free stuff can't compromise on their privacy & security core-values to be free. They also come with apps that are reasonably worth using, and they use iCloud to sync and integrate that stuff seamlessly across their device-family. What Apple charges money for is actual value-added service. You want Music? They've got that, streaming or purchased. You want TV? Same deal. You like books? Yep, got that too. Want some curated news? They'll sell you that. - Signed up for all this stuff and have run out of storage? Predictably they'll sell you more of that, too. What's more is Apple understands _the meaning of no._ - I can turn that stuff off easily, and permanently, right when & where the nag occurred. No resorting to things like registry edits, group policy hacks, hacking the installer, etc. No gamification of the fucking Settings screen. No ads in my fucking Start menu. I can hide or remove their apps just like any other app. (As a concrete example: for ages I have had to hack Explorer to get rid of personal-OneDrive, which I don't/can't use since I am not even logged into a MSFT account. The equivalent to disable iCloud is a very clearly visible setting in Finder's settings.) I won't lie, it hasn't been perfect, but the amount of UI polish, the ease of cross-device integrations, and the feeling of Apple actually valuing the customer-relationship, are miles ahead of whatever the fuck Microsoft is doing. Modern Microsoft feels like a Facebook or a Google, and that's really not meant as a compliment. If Microsoft wants recurring revenue, they need to start providing real services. Windows isn't a service. Office isn't a service. I highly suggest they start emulating Apple, or they're going to get left behind. Redmond, start your photocopiers.

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