5 ms·

Let's be honest, nobody is asking for android based desktops, google just wants to normalize rent seeking 30% of all software sales.

by malfist 11mo ago

mynameisash 11mo ago
For all the complaints against Windows, legit or not, I can't envision a world in which I want the world's largest advertiser to run my desktop OS.
- tomComb 11mo ago
  Pixels and Chromebooks have never had any ads. Windows 11 is plastered with them.
  - Ajakks 11mo ago
    That's hilarious. I never see ads on my Windows 11 PC.
    - SapporoChris 11mo ago
      Are you unaware that others do have issues with advertising in Windows 11? https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/windows-11/how-to-disable-annoying-ads-on-windows-11 https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/windows-11/how-... https://windowsforum.com/threads/how-to-disable-annoying-ads-in-windows-11.346772/ https://windowsforum.com/threads/how-to-disable-annoying-ads... https://www.howtogeek.com/windows-11-wont-show-any-ads-if-you-disable-these-settings/ https://www.howtogeek.com/windows-11-wont-show-any-ads-if-yo...
      - mertd 11mo ago
        The start menu cluster, incessant pushing of Edge and OneDrive are the reasons I installed Linux after about a decade of not using desktop Linux outside of work. I am genuinely shocked and impressed how clean and snappy the experience is (Arch + KDE Plasma). Thanks to Valve, Windows games run just fine, too. Not going back...
        dangus 11mo ago
        I’m on Linux too, but I still have a Windows 11 box…the reasons I still have it are just about gone but I’ve been too lazy to change it. I never see nags about Edge. Basically you can avoid those by never opening Edge. OneDrive can be fully uninstalled (this wasn’t always the case). It legit doesn’t even show up when I search for it anymore. The start menu cluster, I mean, it’s not the best interface on the planet, but the annoying recommendations can be easily removed…or you can just replace it entirely. I know this is a user choice and therefore way less egregious than being forced to endure it on the Microsoft side, but perhaps it’s even worth pointing out that running Steam on Linux as a respite from commercialization and ads of Windows is…not really accomplishing that goal. And you don’t really avoid the browser wars by switching to Linux either, as many of the top distributions have Firefox+Google Search as their default configuration.
    - danpalmer 11mo ago
      How!? Mine is full of ads, and that's after buying a "Pro" copy of Windows, registry hacks, declining every ToS I can find, rejecting all the "free" trials, etc. Do you have an enterprise install managed on a Windows domain where your admin has disabled all this stuff by any chance?
      - Rohansi 11mo ago
        Where? I don't see any other than the nagging to update settings after larger updates (couple times a year).
        danpalmer 11mo ago
        The installer has 3 free trials in it (photos sync, xbox, office 365), and then re-runs that part of the installer periodically. The start menu shows sponsored articles in it IIRC, although this was something I turned off as soon as I could. It also pushes apps like Candy Crush. The lock screen has ads literally "dotted" around, again pushing cloud services etc. I keep being prompted to turn on Copilot, and essentially the only options are "Yes" or "Not yet". Opt-outs aren't respected. I don't use Edge but the OS keeps advertising Edge, keeps telling me in various places and at various times that Edge is better and that Chrome is dangerous. These are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head, but it's truly pervasive throughout the whole product. Even just looking through Settings it's not hard to find upsells.
        MobiusHorizons 11mo ago
        I made my usb install media with Rufus and I it had some option to remove a bunch of frustrating behavior (this option was on by default). For instance it allowed me to create a local account. That seems to have completely removed advertising you mentioned. I had a lot of it in windows 10. Maybe the person you are replying to used Rufus (which is recommended if you want to make the install media from Linux or Mac) and didn’t realize it made changes.
        fmajid 11mo ago
  - pjmlp 11mo ago
    They already gateway everything through Google servers, especially Chromebooks.
  - Yizahi 11mo ago
    Pixels literally have unremovable Google ad right on the home screen. The search bar. Just because it has additional functionality, doesn't mean it's not an ad.
    - SpaghettiCthulu 11mo ago
      You can trivially install another launcher without that search bar and disable nearly all bundled apps on Pixels. Show me how easy it is to remove all the ads and bloatware from Windows.
      - Yizahi 11mo ago
        Note how you said "disable" :) . That's because it is impossible to remove bloatware from Android, praise be Google. I also have Chrome disabled on my phone for many years, but it is there still. And regarding Windows, first I want to tell that I'm not a fan of recent MS trends too. Second - I personally never had a single ad on my Win10 and current Win11, so I wouldn't know how to remove those :) . And third - to remove bloatware just uninstall it from the Programs and Features, like OneDrive or Office. LLM can be disabled in Settings. Some bloatware will remain due to deep integration, but that's the same issue as with Google or Apple. For instance I may not want to see Stocks app on iOS, but that's not my choice to make apparently :) .
        SpaghettiCthulu 11mo ago
        What benefit would there be to uninstalling those bundled apps entirely vs disabling them? It's a nice goal to aspire to, sure, but does it really matter?
- zer0zzz 11mo ago
  You don’t get a choice on that unless you’re running Linux/BSD or a Mac.
vbezhenar 11mo ago
I'm asking for Android-based desktop. Windows is so bad, that I've lost any hope for it to recover. MacOS is not that bad, but it's tied to Apple hardware and I don't like it. Also it's not getting better either, new releases bring more bloat and features I didn't ask for. Linux is what I use, but I also lost hope for it to ever become polished experience. Just recent months they introduced another bug to GNOME which probably will not be resolved in years. No big company wants to invest in desktop Linux and without investments it's just not good. I can navigate Linux bugs and workarounds, but I'd prefer not to. Expecting some new unknown operating system to appear and be ready is foolish, it won't happen. So Android is the only operating system that could realistically be ready in the foreseeable future. Linux have good support for desktop hardware. Android have good polished stack for applications. Developers know how to write apps for android. Security story for Android is miles ahead that of desktop Linux. So I totally see that Android Desktop could actually be a good thing, with Google sponsoring its development. And if Google will put too much bloat in it, its open source nature would allow for volunteers to build better distributions of it.
- KetoManx64 11mo ago
  It's pretty openly known that GNOME is hostile to its own userbase and their preferences,, why continue to use it instead of KDE or any of the other 10 DE environments?
  - lukaslalinsky 11mo ago
    I'm sorry, but there are MANY users of GNOME who are happy with the direction. I'd personally choose GNOME over any desktop environment on any OS.
  - vbezhenar 11mo ago
    I don't want extensible software. KDE is terrible in that regards. They have miriads of options, that's too much for me. I want opinionated software. I don't like GNOME, but it's the lesser evil and I learned to deal with its issues. Also I don't like that KDE does not have its native launcher. I need to install some SDDE stuff which works under Xorg or something like that and looks ugly. Pretty weird stuff all that. GNOME just have GDM which just works. My ideal environment would be Windows 95-like WM with zero configuration options which just works out of the box the way I want. It doesn't exist, unfortunately. May be I should try to write is, as I complain about it so much. Just have no idea about scale of such a project. There are no other 10 DE environments. GNOME and KDE are the only two mature ones. Rest are either obsolete, especially with Wayland conquering Linux desktop, or for weird use-cases, like tiling WMs. I'm used to traditional windows managers, I don't want tiling WMs.
sofixa 11mo ago
> google just wants to normalize rent seeking 30% of all software sales Most Android applications are free. Furthermore, Google allow you to install a separate store where you can buy from, allowing you to not have to pay those 30%, or to pay them to someone else other than Google. And if anyone is trying to normalise 30% rent seeking on desktops, it's the incumbents already directing you towards their store (Microsoft, Apple).
- fsflover 11mo ago
  > Google allow you to install a separate store where you can buy from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45017028 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45017028

Let's be honest, nobody is asking for android based desktops, google just wants to normalize rent seeking 30% of all software sales.

by malfist 11mo ago

Let's be honest, nobody is asking for android based desktops, google just wants to normalize rent seeking 30% of all software sales.

mynameisash 11mo ago

For all the complaints against Windows, legit or not, I can't envision a world in which I want the world's largest advertiser to run my desktop OS.

tomComb 11mo ago
Pixels and Chromebooks have never had any ads. Windows 11 is plastered with them.
- Ajakks 11mo ago
  That's hilarious. I never see ads on my Windows 11 PC.
  - SapporoChris 11mo ago
    Are you unaware that others do have issues with advertising in Windows 11? https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/windows-11/how-to-disable-annoying-ads-on-windows-11 https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/windows-11/how-... https://windowsforum.com/threads/how-to-disable-annoying-ads-in-windows-11.346772/ https://windowsforum.com/threads/how-to-disable-annoying-ads... https://www.howtogeek.com/windows-11-wont-show-any-ads-if-you-disable-these-settings/ https://www.howtogeek.com/windows-11-wont-show-any-ads-if-yo...
    - mertd 11mo ago
      The start menu cluster, incessant pushing of Edge and OneDrive are the reasons I installed Linux after about a decade of not using desktop Linux outside of work. I am genuinely shocked and impressed how clean and snappy the experience is (Arch + KDE Plasma). Thanks to Valve, Windows games run just fine, too. Not going back...
      - dangus 11mo ago
        I’m on Linux too, but I still have a Windows 11 box…the reasons I still have it are just about gone but I’ve been too lazy to change it. I never see nags about Edge. Basically you can avoid those by never opening Edge. OneDrive can be fully uninstalled (this wasn’t always the case). It legit doesn’t even show up when I search for it anymore. The start menu cluster, I mean, it’s not the best interface on the planet, but the annoying recommendations can be easily removed…or you can just replace it entirely. I know this is a user choice and therefore way less egregious than being forced to endure it on the Microsoft side, but perhaps it’s even worth pointing out that running Steam on Linux as a respite from commercialization and ads of Windows is…not really accomplishing that goal. And you don’t really avoid the browser wars by switching to Linux either, as many of the top distributions have Firefox+Google Search as their default configuration.
  - danpalmer 11mo ago
    How!? Mine is full of ads, and that's after buying a "Pro" copy of Windows, registry hacks, declining every ToS I can find, rejecting all the "free" trials, etc. Do you have an enterprise install managed on a Windows domain where your admin has disabled all this stuff by any chance?
    - Rohansi 11mo ago
      Where? I don't see any other than the nagging to update settings after larger updates (couple times a year).
      - danpalmer 11mo ago
        The installer has 3 free trials in it (photos sync, xbox, office 365), and then re-runs that part of the installer periodically. The start menu shows sponsored articles in it IIRC, although this was something I turned off as soon as I could. It also pushes apps like Candy Crush. The lock screen has ads literally "dotted" around, again pushing cloud services etc. I keep being prompted to turn on Copilot, and essentially the only options are "Yes" or "Not yet". Opt-outs aren't respected. I don't use Edge but the OS keeps advertising Edge, keeps telling me in various places and at various times that Edge is better and that Chrome is dangerous. These are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head, but it's truly pervasive throughout the whole product. Even just looking through Settings it's not hard to find upsells.
        MobiusHorizons 11mo ago
        I made my usb install media with Rufus and I it had some option to remove a bunch of frustrating behavior (this option was on by default). For instance it allowed me to create a local account. That seems to have completely removed advertising you mentioned. I had a lot of it in windows 10. Maybe the person you are replying to used Rufus (which is recommended if you want to make the install media from Linux or Mac) and didn’t realize it made changes.
        fmajid 11mo ago
- pjmlp 11mo ago
  They already gateway everything through Google servers, especially Chromebooks.
- Yizahi 11mo ago
  Pixels literally have unremovable Google ad right on the home screen. The search bar. Just because it has additional functionality, doesn't mean it's not an ad.
  - SpaghettiCthulu 11mo ago
    You can trivially install another launcher without that search bar and disable nearly all bundled apps on Pixels. Show me how easy it is to remove all the ads and bloatware from Windows.
    - Yizahi 11mo ago
      Note how you said "disable" :) . That's because it is impossible to remove bloatware from Android, praise be Google. I also have Chrome disabled on my phone for many years, but it is there still. And regarding Windows, first I want to tell that I'm not a fan of recent MS trends too. Second - I personally never had a single ad on my Win10 and current Win11, so I wouldn't know how to remove those :) . And third - to remove bloatware just uninstall it from the Programs and Features, like OneDrive or Office. LLM can be disabled in Settings. Some bloatware will remain due to deep integration, but that's the same issue as with Google or Apple. For instance I may not want to see Stocks app on iOS, but that's not my choice to make apparently :) .
      - SpaghettiCthulu 11mo ago
        What benefit would there be to uninstalling those bundled apps entirely vs disabling them? It's a nice goal to aspire to, sure, but does it really matter?
zer0zzz 11mo ago
You don’t get a choice on that unless you’re running Linux/BSD or a Mac.

vbezhenar 11mo ago

I'm asking for Android-based desktop. Windows is so bad, that I've lost any hope for it to recover. MacOS is not that bad, but it's tied to Apple hardware and I don't like it. Also it's not getting better either, new releases bring more bloat and features I didn't ask for. Linux is what I use, but I also lost hope for it to ever become polished experience. Just recent months they introduced another bug to GNOME which probably will not be resolved in years. No big company wants to invest in desktop Linux and without investments it's just not good. I can navigate Linux bugs and workarounds, but I'd prefer not to. Expecting some new unknown operating system to appear and be ready is foolish, it won't happen. So Android is the only operating system that could realistically be ready in the foreseeable future. Linux have good support for desktop hardware. Android have good polished stack for applications. Developers know how to write apps for android. Security story for Android is miles ahead that of desktop Linux. So I totally see that Android Desktop could actually be a good thing, with Google sponsoring its development. And if Google will put too much bloat in it, its open source nature would allow for volunteers to build better distributions of it.

KetoManx64 11mo ago
It's pretty openly known that GNOME is hostile to its own userbase and their preferences,, why continue to use it instead of KDE or any of the other 10 DE environments?
- lukaslalinsky 11mo ago
  I'm sorry, but there are MANY users of GNOME who are happy with the direction. I'd personally choose GNOME over any desktop environment on any OS.
- vbezhenar 11mo ago
  I don't want extensible software. KDE is terrible in that regards. They have miriads of options, that's too much for me. I want opinionated software. I don't like GNOME, but it's the lesser evil and I learned to deal with its issues. Also I don't like that KDE does not have its native launcher. I need to install some SDDE stuff which works under Xorg or something like that and looks ugly. Pretty weird stuff all that. GNOME just have GDM which just works. My ideal environment would be Windows 95-like WM with zero configuration options which just works out of the box the way I want. It doesn't exist, unfortunately. May be I should try to write is, as I complain about it so much. Just have no idea about scale of such a project. There are no other 10 DE environments. GNOME and KDE are the only two mature ones. Rest are either obsolete, especially with Wayland conquering Linux desktop, or for weird use-cases, like tiling WMs. I'm used to traditional windows managers, I don't want tiling WMs.

sofixa 11mo ago

> google just wants to normalize rent seeking 30% of all software sales Most Android applications are free. Furthermore, Google allow you to install a separate store where you can buy from, allowing you to not have to pay those 30%, or to pay them to someone else other than Google. And if anyone is trying to normalise 30% rent seeking on desktops, it's the incumbents already directing you towards their store (Microsoft, Apple).

fsflover 11mo ago
> Google allow you to install a separate store where you can buy from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45017028 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45017028