4 ms·

This might be obvious, but all of those things have a single common denominator: Microsoft, over you, getting to decide what your computer is doing. This is the

This might be obvious, but all of those things have a single common denominator: Microsoft, over you, getting to decide what your computer is doing. This is the biggest generalized danger in computing today: That OS (and device) manufacturers have gotten it in their heads that it's OK for them to have a strong say in what your computer runs. User doesn't want X, Y, or Z running on his computer? TOUGH. We are going to run it and make it really hard or impossible for user to turn it off. As a user, I no longer feel like I'm driving the car--I'm just a passenger. "Where do you want to go today?" has turned into "You're going here today, whether you want to or not!"

hn_acc1 7mo ago
It's more: you want to go to location A? Sure, but we're going to make a quick stop at locations B, C and D first, and the only available car is a known-to-be-dangerous self-driving robotaxi with no steering wheel or pedals.
- m_mueller 7mo ago
  ... which in the middle of the route decides to instead drive onto a container ship and bring you to a robotic island? ah no wait, that's the announced next update.
ctoth 7mo ago
All true, and yet: Windows accessibility actually works. I use a screen reader daily. Linux a11y is complete dogshit — AT-SPI2 is unreliable, Orca is barely maintained, Wayland broke what little existed. I need something that actually works. When Linux goes off and decides it'll rewrite its working desktop stack and it's still, ten years later, not useable? ADHD-Driven development might be fine if you can see your system. When you can't, being at the whims of some teenager chasing the new shiny is just frustrating.
- jorvi 7mo ago
  I mean, why are you even on Windows then? Apple is the accessibility king by far. Both Windows and Android are aeons behind.
  - jmspring 7mo ago
    I'm not completely sure I would call Apple the accessibility king. It's UI gets worse with each release. Modal dialogues with no keyboard options to make a choice in the window at times, etc.
  - Atlas26 7mo ago
    Eh, no. My experience working in web accessibility, it seems most visually impaired individuals have a preference for windows, seemingly because it has the most mature set of accessibility/screen reader tools around largely because of how long windows has been around and how much of a requirement it is for enterprise environments.
    - jorvi 7mo ago
      As far as I know, accessibility has been built into macOS since the early days, and with great care. Which then propagated to application built for macOS, and later on, iOS. iOS is rather magnificent for (visually) impaired people. In contrast, Windows has had its accessibility features bolted on, and the best ones are third-party which makes it even more bolted-on. And then you have twenty different frameworks to make Windows applications, all with varying (but usually mediocre) levels of accessibility support built in.
- roenxi 7mo ago
  > When Linux goes off and decides it'll rewrite its working desktop stack and it's still, ten years later, not useable? In fairness it wasn't just the rewrite that was the problem, but it looks for all the world like there was a large faction in the Linux UI world around Wayland that believes accessibility is insecure and designed the new systems to make it impossible. It has been an interesting if unfortunate situation that seems to be slowly being fixed.
  - LtWorf 7mo ago
    All of this in the name of being able to run proprietary malware like you do on android.
    - MrDrMcCoy 7mo ago
      What on earth are you referring to?
      - LtWorf 7mo ago
        That the security model on Unix (and Linux) is to trust your applications and mistrust other users of the same machine. While now the security model is that your applications are closed source and you cannot trust them, which is why you need wayland.
        simoncion 7mo ago
        > [T]he security model on Unix (and Linux) is to trust your applications If that were true, httpd (and all other system daemons) would be run as root and neither the 'nobody' user and group nor the various security-related X11 extensions would exist. Anyone who has worked in this field for more than a few years (regardless of their era of entry) knows that nontrivial programs are faulty and can happen to or be induced to do things that are harmful in varying degrees to the operation of the computer that runs them.
        LtWorf 7mo ago
- LoganDark 7mo ago
  macOS supports VoiceOver even in the boot disk selection screen. That's the real king of accessibility.
  - Atlas26 7mo ago
    macOS has some strengths and is certainly ahead of Linux in terms of a11y but my experience working in web accessibility, it seems most visually impaired individuals have a preference for windows, seemingly because it has the most mature set of accessibility/screen reader tools around largely because of how long windows has been around and how much of a requirement it is for enterprise environments.
- lll-o-lll 7mo ago
  Question. In this new weird age of agentic everything. Does running your system from an agent TUI resolve much of the issues you’d otherwise have without a decent screen reader?
- smackeyacky 7mo ago
  What can be done to address this? Which project needs the most help do you think?
  - chickensong 7mo ago
    A fundraiser and/or financial grant to a foundation like gnome, or a distro that makes a11y a priority, is probably the best way to approach it. Without the financial investment, many contributors just aren't considering or even aware of issue. The distributed best-effort approach works ok for some things, but is at a disadvantage for supporting holistic standards across independent apps.
- legacynl 7mo ago
  > When Linux goes off and decides it'll rewrite You're acting as if Linux is a single entity that can just decide to improve this or the other. The phrase "Linux should do X" is as useful as "Society should do X". It's not useful unless you can state what needs to change specifically, or you're talking to the right people. > When you can't, being at the whims of some teenager chasing the new shiny is just frustrating. Since most development on linux-related projects is based on volunteering, perhaps you can volunteer and organize for your own 'whims'? Personally I would love it if someone like you would get off their ass and use your knowledge about screenreaders to improve things for everyone.
rlpb 7mo ago
> This might be obvious, but all of those things have a single common denominator: Microsoft, over you, getting to decide what your computer is doing. Sure, but Microsoft have to strike a balance, too. If they push too hard in this direction, they'll lose their users to Macs on one side (probably the majority) and Linux on the other (a minority in number, but perhaps significant in expertise and clout). Once an exodus begins, it's much harder to stop. So where we are in that balance, and the state of user mindshare migration, is still interesting to discuss.
ekianjo 7mo ago
> Microsoft, over you, getting to decide what your computer is doing. Nothing new. Microsoft has been exactly like that since its inception. People are asleep at the wheel of they only realize it now.
cesarb 7mo ago
> all of those things have a single common denominator: Microsoft, over you, getting to decide what your computer is doing. [...] OS (and device) manufacturers have gotten it in their heads that it's OK for them to have a strong say in what your computer runs. As I've said before (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44923555 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44923555), in my opinion the starting point of this slide for Microsoft was WGA on Windows XP. It was the first time that they made the operating system treat the computer's administrator as hostile.
- brookst 7mo ago
  Not coincidentally, that was around when Microsoft really internalized that they are an enterprise company, not a consumer company. In enterprises, the local user IS hostile, or at least some percentage of them are. The ethos of “we can’t trust end users” leaked from enterprise fixation into general Microsoft culture.
  - abustamam 7mo ago
    Local user being hostile should be a user group setting in enterprise versions, not a default across all versions of them. But now that I think of it, I was pretty hostile to my computer when I was ten years old and running windows 2000. I don't think we ever saw so many pop-ups before. But even so, the admins of the computer system should have control over their computers. I can understand if my mom's user profile might have limitation, but the my admin profile should not.
    - TeMPOraL 7mo ago
      Security isn't an unqualified good. You're always secure something from some threat. Keeping the subject and the threat actor implicit is causing confusion in minds of many tech people, and is in part the reason how we land in situations like this. Windows is not just an operating system on your computer. It is a product (nowadays, a service) of Microsoft. Some security systems in it are meant to protect the PC/system/user from external threats. Others are meant to protect Microsoft, and Windows as a product/service, from the user. Being specific about what is being protected and from whom, is more important than specifics of the actual security technology. After all, depending on the answers to those two questions, the very same security technology is protecting you from a cyber-criminal installing a rootkit on your PC, protecting Microsoft from you pirating Windows, and protecting copyright interests from you trying to watch a movie in a geographic location they don't want you to watch it in.
jojobas 7mo ago
But Apple decides what your computer is doing even before it boots up, Microsoft is not even in the same league.
- eeixlk 7mo ago
  Curious about some examples of this. Consumer windows computers have historically had a lot more preinstalled garbage software. Do you mean app store restrictions or something else?
  - jojobas 7mo ago
    I mean Activation Lock Server Check.
    - brookst 7mo ago
      As someone who had a brand new M1 MBP stolen from a San Jose coworking space. I am 100% in favor of the this having at best some parts and not a working computer.
      - jojobas 7mo ago
        Yeah let's all surrender what remains of computer ownership to a software-hardware conglomerate, because theft.
        hughw 7mo ago
        You can turn it off.
        jojobas 7mo ago
        You think you can.
      - legacynl 7mo ago
        I do hope you understand that 'bad thing X happened to me, therefore any measure to prevent X is good' is a logical fallacy? "As someone who had a brand new mbp stolen from me, I'm personally 100% in favor of the remote-c4 installed in every mbp. Just imagine if he could have accessed my banking information?"
hluska 7mo ago
You’re exaggerating - my computer has never prevented me from doing what I want to do with it. There are some annoyances but that can be said about absolutely every system.
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]

hn_acc1 7mo ago

It's more: you want to go to location A? Sure, but we're going to make a quick stop at locations B, C and D first, and the only available car is a known-to-be-dangerous self-driving robotaxi with no steering wheel or pedals.

m_mueller 7mo ago
... which in the middle of the route decides to instead drive onto a container ship and bring you to a robotic island? ah no wait, that's the announced next update.

ctoth 7mo ago

All true, and yet: Windows accessibility actually works. I use a screen reader daily. Linux a11y is complete dogshit — AT-SPI2 is unreliable, Orca is barely maintained, Wayland broke what little existed. I need something that actually works. When Linux goes off and decides it'll rewrite its working desktop stack and it's still, ten years later, not useable? ADHD-Driven development might be fine if you can see your system. When you can't, being at the whims of some teenager chasing the new shiny is just frustrating.

jorvi 7mo ago
I mean, why are you even on Windows then? Apple is the accessibility king by far. Both Windows and Android are aeons behind.
- jmspring 7mo ago
  I'm not completely sure I would call Apple the accessibility king. It's UI gets worse with each release. Modal dialogues with no keyboard options to make a choice in the window at times, etc.
- Atlas26 7mo ago
  Eh, no. My experience working in web accessibility, it seems most visually impaired individuals have a preference for windows, seemingly because it has the most mature set of accessibility/screen reader tools around largely because of how long windows has been around and how much of a requirement it is for enterprise environments.
  - jorvi 7mo ago
    As far as I know, accessibility has been built into macOS since the early days, and with great care. Which then propagated to application built for macOS, and later on, iOS. iOS is rather magnificent for (visually) impaired people. In contrast, Windows has had its accessibility features bolted on, and the best ones are third-party which makes it even more bolted-on. And then you have twenty different frameworks to make Windows applications, all with varying (but usually mediocre) levels of accessibility support built in.
roenxi 7mo ago
> When Linux goes off and decides it'll rewrite its working desktop stack and it's still, ten years later, not useable? In fairness it wasn't just the rewrite that was the problem, but it looks for all the world like there was a large faction in the Linux UI world around Wayland that believes accessibility is insecure and designed the new systems to make it impossible. It has been an interesting if unfortunate situation that seems to be slowly being fixed.
- LtWorf 7mo ago
  All of this in the name of being able to run proprietary malware like you do on android.
  - MrDrMcCoy 7mo ago
    What on earth are you referring to?
    - LtWorf 7mo ago
      That the security model on Unix (and Linux) is to trust your applications and mistrust other users of the same machine. While now the security model is that your applications are closed source and you cannot trust them, which is why you need wayland.
      - simoncion 7mo ago
        > [T]he security model on Unix (and Linux) is to trust your applications If that were true, httpd (and all other system daemons) would be run as root and neither the 'nobody' user and group nor the various security-related X11 extensions would exist. Anyone who has worked in this field for more than a few years (regardless of their era of entry) knows that nontrivial programs are faulty and can happen to or be induced to do things that are harmful in varying degrees to the operation of the computer that runs them.
        LtWorf 7mo ago
LoganDark 7mo ago
macOS supports VoiceOver even in the boot disk selection screen. That's the real king of accessibility.
- Atlas26 7mo ago
  macOS has some strengths and is certainly ahead of Linux in terms of a11y but my experience working in web accessibility, it seems most visually impaired individuals have a preference for windows, seemingly because it has the most mature set of accessibility/screen reader tools around largely because of how long windows has been around and how much of a requirement it is for enterprise environments.
lll-o-lll 7mo ago
Question. In this new weird age of agentic everything. Does running your system from an agent TUI resolve much of the issues you’d otherwise have without a decent screen reader?
smackeyacky 7mo ago
What can be done to address this? Which project needs the most help do you think?
- chickensong 7mo ago
  A fundraiser and/or financial grant to a foundation like gnome, or a distro that makes a11y a priority, is probably the best way to approach it. Without the financial investment, many contributors just aren't considering or even aware of issue. The distributed best-effort approach works ok for some things, but is at a disadvantage for supporting holistic standards across independent apps.
legacynl 7mo ago
> When Linux goes off and decides it'll rewrite You're acting as if Linux is a single entity that can just decide to improve this or the other. The phrase "Linux should do X" is as useful as "Society should do X". It's not useful unless you can state what needs to change specifically, or you're talking to the right people. > When you can't, being at the whims of some teenager chasing the new shiny is just frustrating. Since most development on linux-related projects is based on volunteering, perhaps you can volunteer and organize for your own 'whims'? Personally I would love it if someone like you would get off their ass and use your knowledge about screenreaders to improve things for everyone.

rlpb 7mo ago

> This might be obvious, but all of those things have a single common denominator: Microsoft, over you, getting to decide what your computer is doing. Sure, but Microsoft have to strike a balance, too. If they push too hard in this direction, they'll lose their users to Macs on one side (probably the majority) and Linux on the other (a minority in number, but perhaps significant in expertise and clout). Once an exodus begins, it's much harder to stop. So where we are in that balance, and the state of user mindshare migration, is still interesting to discuss.

ekianjo 7mo ago

> Microsoft, over you, getting to decide what your computer is doing. Nothing new. Microsoft has been exactly like that since its inception. People are asleep at the wheel of they only realize it now.

cesarb 7mo ago

> all of those things have a single common denominator: Microsoft, over you, getting to decide what your computer is doing. [...] OS (and device) manufacturers have gotten it in their heads that it's OK for them to have a strong say in what your computer runs. As I've said before (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44923555 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44923555), in my opinion the starting point of this slide for Microsoft was WGA on Windows XP. It was the first time that they made the operating system treat the computer's administrator as hostile.

brookst 7mo ago
Not coincidentally, that was around when Microsoft really internalized that they are an enterprise company, not a consumer company. In enterprises, the local user IS hostile, or at least some percentage of them are. The ethos of “we can’t trust end users” leaked from enterprise fixation into general Microsoft culture.
- abustamam 7mo ago
  Local user being hostile should be a user group setting in enterprise versions, not a default across all versions of them. But now that I think of it, I was pretty hostile to my computer when I was ten years old and running windows 2000. I don't think we ever saw so many pop-ups before. But even so, the admins of the computer system should have control over their computers. I can understand if my mom's user profile might have limitation, but the my admin profile should not.
  - TeMPOraL 7mo ago
    Security isn't an unqualified good. You're always secure something from some threat. Keeping the subject and the threat actor implicit is causing confusion in minds of many tech people, and is in part the reason how we land in situations like this. Windows is not just an operating system on your computer. It is a product (nowadays, a service) of Microsoft. Some security systems in it are meant to protect the PC/system/user from external threats. Others are meant to protect Microsoft, and Windows as a product/service, from the user. Being specific about what is being protected and from whom, is more important than specifics of the actual security technology. After all, depending on the answers to those two questions, the very same security technology is protecting you from a cyber-criminal installing a rootkit on your PC, protecting Microsoft from you pirating Windows, and protecting copyright interests from you trying to watch a movie in a geographic location they don't want you to watch it in.

jojobas 7mo ago

But Apple decides what your computer is doing even before it boots up, Microsoft is not even in the same league.

eeixlk 7mo ago
Curious about some examples of this. Consumer windows computers have historically had a lot more preinstalled garbage software. Do you mean app store restrictions or something else?
- jojobas 7mo ago
  I mean Activation Lock Server Check.
  - brookst 7mo ago
    As someone who had a brand new M1 MBP stolen from a San Jose coworking space. I am 100% in favor of the this having at best some parts and not a working computer.
    - jojobas 7mo ago
      Yeah let's all surrender what remains of computer ownership to a software-hardware conglomerate, because theft.
      - hughw 7mo ago
        You can turn it off.
        jojobas 7mo ago
        You think you can.
    - legacynl 7mo ago
      I do hope you understand that 'bad thing X happened to me, therefore any measure to prevent X is good' is a logical fallacy? "As someone who had a brand new mbp stolen from me, I'm personally 100% in favor of the remote-c4 installed in every mbp. Just imagine if he could have accessed my banking information?"

hluska 7mo ago

You’re exaggerating - my computer has never prevented me from doing what I want to do with it. There are some annoyances but that can be said about absolutely every system.

deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]