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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 swi
by 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 agovery frustrating, gonna have to be on the lookout for this with family. Thanks for the tip.
- nightski 3y agoTo 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 agoThis 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.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- soraminazuki 3y agoApp stores are literally where you go to install third party apps. Meanwhile, people don't expect crucial system UI to push ads. It's not even comparable in terms of user hostility. Even more so when dark patterns are used to effectively conceal that it's an ad.