Microsoft has gone too far: including a Game Pass ad in the Settings app ushers in a whole new age of ridiculous over-advertising

Submitted ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨lemmee_in@lemm.ee⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.techradar.com/computing/windows/microsoft-has-gone-too-far-including-a-game-pass-ad-in-the-settings-app-ushers-in-a-whole-new-age-of-ridiculous-over-advertising

Windows 11 is getting out of hand with its push for advertisments, frankly - remember the recent full-screen pop-up to persuade users to install Edge or other Microsoft services? Then another advertisment was placed in the Start menu, and now Microsoft has finally worn my temper thin - with a new Game Pass ad coming to the Settings app.

This will likely arrive in the July update for Windows 11, or at least it’s almost certain to do so. It was present in the latest preview update Microsoft just released for the OS (and quickly paused due to a bug, but that’s another story). It’s also worth noting that the ad has been present in earlier test versions of Windows 11.

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Grippler@feddit.dk ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I wholeheartedly believe that all forma of unsolicited or public advertising should be completely banned. Nothing good comes from it, it is only a nuisance to everyone.

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- sunzu@kbin.run ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  But have you thought about a legal person's right to fuck your eyes and brains?!
  
  Also, what about their freedom of speech... Shit lord
  
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  - nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Ads are probably closer to brainwashing than they are to legitimate free speech. Things that are legal can also be problems.
    
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  - Crackhappy@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Shit lord
    
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- 9point6@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  They should, but that’s never going to happen unless political lobbying is made very illegal (like life ruining and business bankrupting illegal, not slap on the wrist, cost of business illegal)
  
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  - rottingleaf@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Life sentence. Solved.
    
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- chiliedogg@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  We should be able to charge them for ad time. You want to paint an advertisement on my car you have to pay me. Why should it be any different when you want to put ads on my work computer screen when I’m working with clients?
  
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  - CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I get what you’re saying but that still gives them unsolicited permission to post ads in the first place.
    
    I want an operating system, not an ad system that also happens to be an operating system
    
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- andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  And it’s not like w11 is free, the price of a PC with Windows installed comes with its’ license’s costs. It’s not told to the consumer so they won’t even know they are using a product they paid for, for them it’s what a clean basic PC looks like. And that’s what prevents many to care about it the same way they can be frustrated by a paid streaming plan with ads. To take is as a given, and shifting the Overtone’s window of fucked up services even further.
  
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  - rottingleaf@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I don’t like solving things with regulation, because that’s always a victory in one battle making the enemy stronger for all the following ones.
    
    But doing this EU-style, like browser choice, only with operating systems, can be a solution.
    
    People love cheap and easy things. That’s how social media won over normal web. Seeing the choice between “install Fedora for freeeeeee” and “install Windows for 20$” significant amount will choose the former.
    
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- umbrella@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  if i cant grafitti the walls why can corporations?
  
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  - PlexSheep@infosec.pub ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Because they own that wall. The owner of a wall (or poster space for that matter) can do whatever.
    
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- Nyanix@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Especially in a paid service, like why do I pay for these services if you’re still going to advertise, track, or datamine? I know the answer is greed, why profit off of one option when you can profit off of all of them, but I, the consumer, am fed up with the customer abuse.
  
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- NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  You probably agreed to all of this in the billion page TOS so it’s no unsolicited.
  
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  - Grippler@feddit.dk ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    A regulatory change would obviously need to prevent them from hiding that kind in intentionally too long legalese TOS. It has to be a clear single acknowledge, not obfuscated or bundled with functionality.
    
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- JovialMicrobial@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  But how will the wealth addled convince us pleblians to spend money on worthless garbage? Or convince us that we’re ugly and not good enough so we buy their products? Oh the humanity!
  
  In all seriousness, advertising has had way too much of an influence on our culture and it needs to be properly regulated. I’m sick of being negged by beauty product ads.
  
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- InternetUser2012@midwest.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  SoMeBoDy HaS tO tHiNk Of ThE sHaReHoLdErS!!!
  
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TacticsConsort@yiffit.net ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
They haven’t gone overboard with THIS one, because they already went way the fuck overboard years ago and never got back on board

Man I’m gonna have to bite the bullet and make my next machine a linux one

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- the_post_of_tom_joad@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Imma make the jump once they force me to 11. I’ve been saying this for years but they finally got something cooking i truly can’t abide. That screenshot of what you’re up to every ten seconds is fucking terrifying to me and that’s not even considering govt snooping. I ain’t about to leave a record of my porn consumption for my wife to see lol! Linux is finally juuuust about idiot proof and game friendly enough for me. Can’t wait to be one of those smug guys that says ‘just use linux lol’
  
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  - Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I recommend Linux Mint. It’s very beginner friendly and you don’t need to use the console too much if that kind of thing bothers you. The GUI even looks very similar to a Windows 10 environment.
    
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  - IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Microsoft has made the choice very easy for me. I still have an i7-7700k that works just fine. But that’s “too old”, so when Windows 10 hits end of life, I’ll be switching over to Linux.
    
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  - DaddleDew@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I didn’t wait. I did it earlier this year and haven’t booted from my Windows 10 drive since then. My entry drug was Linux Mint. But I quickly switched to OpenSUSE Tumbleweed after because I wanted something that ran the KDE Plasma 6 desktop environment (I prefer how it looks and handles multiple displays). It isn’t that hard to learn the basics you need to use Linux, as long as you use a decently stable distro that you won’t need to troubleshoot at every update.
    
    I can’t believe that Microsoft is expecting everyone to get rid of their computer to switch to 11 once the support for 10 expires next year. I even revived an 15 year old laptop that only had 4Gb or RAM by installing Mint on it (and switching its HDD with an SSD I had kicking around). It’s fast and perfectly usable for everything but modern games now
    
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  - homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I hear you. It’s been a burutal long slog of putting up with their crap for as-long-as-one-has-done-it no matter when anyone gets out. I made the switch to mac and linux many years ago and after a brief transition period, everything personal-computer-related became wonderful somehow. Well . . . “neat”, anyway. Leaving behind extensive and difficult experience with everything from 3.1 to 95, to 98, ME, XP, Vista, 7, and 10. (skipped 8 for obvious reasons.) It had its good times but they’re long gone. Good riddance. Best of luck to anyone still out there.
    
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- MintyFresh@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I switched to Linux mint. No ragrets. It takes a bit of fiddling and a teensie bit of a learning curve. But it’s way easier than Microsofts endless deluge of shit.
  
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- mesamunefire@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I’ve had a good track record with PopOS.
  
  Steam works with about 90 ish percent of my games and all the software I use, there’s a Linux version or proton can run it. Plus the OS is rock solid.
  
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  - sensiblepuffin@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    +1 to PopOS. My only gripe is that they and Nvidia still haven’t figured out how to move to Wayland, but once that happens (and we can all switch to cosmic), I’ll be a happy camper.
    
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- riquisimo@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I took the plunge about a week ago with Pop!_OS. It took a good 3 or 4 days before I started to feel really comfortable with things. (Which is probably because I’m really picky)
  
  If you have the time to try it out (and remember, always dual boot so you have a fall back and can switch back when you need to) I recommend it. The last remnant remaining for me is Photoshop, and there’s a GitHub page for downloading it with very few steps now.
  
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  - variants@possumpat.io ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Try out krita, rawtherapee, darktable, for photoshop stuffs, depending on what you need.
    
    The Adobe stuff always held me back before but I finally just started messing with linux and trying stuff out. I don’t need photoshop for professional use so I was fine spending the time trying to find alternatives for what I needed
    
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  - DaddleDew@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Another easy solution for Photoshop is to run a virtual machine.
    
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- Mechaguana@programming.dev ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  If you wanna game and want everything to work, get bazzite, i wanted to install arch, had huge probs with my nvdia card (i know, but it was gifted with the cudas in mind) so i used bazzite since i loved the steam OS look. I am so pleased, it works amazingly, and there was 0 problems during installation.
  
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  - Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    The only thing stopping me is stupid vanguard for league. I’m close to just getting a clean league only mini pc and having my main one be Linux. I’ll have to check out bazzite. I play the usual minecraft, terraria, ff14, indie games mostly so hopefully they run fine. I don’t think I’ve played a AAA game in like 7 years.
    
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- rottingleaf@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  Man I’m gonna have to bite the bullet and make my next machine a linux one
  
  Make a compressed backup and try with this one. You’ll feel good.
  
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HogsTooth@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
People are abusing Google’s ad distro platform to get malware onto people’s machines. I see Microsoft signed up for the same firestorm of possibilities.

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- DarkCloud@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I hope someone sues Microsoft.
  
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big_slap@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I updated my work laptop, and they put their shitty copilot button on the bottom right and TURNED OFF MY SHOW DESKTOP BUTTON.

nothing more to add, just wanted to vent with people who may understand my rage with windows lol

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- zaph@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  As tech support this has made my job a bit more annoying.
  
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- Scrollone@feddit.it ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  It’s time to ditch Windows and all move to macOS or (even better) Linux
  
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  - pumpkinseedoil@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    MacOS has different flaws but has major flaws nonetheless. Linux is the one that truly lets you own your computer, you decide everything.
    
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- asparagapple@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  If you have adapted to it, rejoice! They are changing it back. Copilot will be a button beside Start button now.
  
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- OrderedChaos@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I believe Win + D will do the same as that missing button.
  
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- purplemonkeymad@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yea it annoys me too, you can switch it back, but I can’t do that every time I’m working on someone’s computer.
  
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  - big_slap@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    yeah, I switched it back. for a split second, I just couldn’t believe they had the audacity to do that… lol
    
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- forgotaboutlaye@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I went with a Mac for my last work computer refresh. Had Windows before that. Don’t have a Linux option.
  
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DaddleDew@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Microsoft, stop. My computer can only be so switched to Linux.

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- Sabata11792@ani.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I have run out of things to install Lunix on without getting fired.
  
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  - SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Have you installed it on an NES yet? Because that kinda happened: tomshardware.com/…/you-can-sort-of-run-linux-on-a…
    
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  - sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I could probably install Linux on my work MBP, but my boss would make me test on macOS, so it would kind of defeat the point.
    
    At home, everything is Linux except my wife’s desktop, and that’s a job I’m unwilling to be fired from.
    
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- PumpkinEscobar@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Been 100% linux for like 6-9 months now, these stories make me thankful for finally making the switch.
  
  I’ve tried to make the switch 3-4 times in the past and was stopped by 2 main things:
  
  Drivers / Laptops were tough to get set up
  
  Gaming
  
  The experience was so much better this time and I really have no regrets. I don’t imagine I’ll ever run Windows again outside of a VM
  
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  - djsaskdja@reddthat.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I’ve been using Linux off and on for about 15 years now. It’s so much easier to use now compared to when I started. I understand why people might’ve avoided it in the past. But the list of excuses is getting pretty small these days.
    
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  - InternetUser2012@midwest.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I’ve been full time for a year and a half now. I tried switching a bunch of times before that and same problems as you. I love it now, it’s a pleasure to use my computer and know that it’s not doing any bullshit behind the scenes.
    
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  - sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I’ve kept Windows installed on a spare drive for years now. I don’t remember when I last booted into it on purpose, it was certainly more than a year ago, and was just to install Minecraft Bedrock to play with his friends (his friends bailed). My kids have only ever used Linux. :)
    
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tigerjerusalem@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The thing that irks me the most is that those things work. They’ll see a little complain from the most vocal ones, and that’s it. The revenue will increase, their shareholders will be pleased, the OS will be worse, and we’ll have no viable alternative. It’s only downhill from there.

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- sun_is_ra@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Why wont we have viable alternative ? We already have
  
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- saddlebag@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Agree with everything expect for the viable alternative. Linux is viable for many people
  
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- kescusay@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Regarding Linux, what commercial software are you dependent on? More and more, it’s all online, even Office.
  
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  - tigerjerusalem@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Adobe Creative Cloud, which despite the name is pretty much local.
    
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  - JackFrostNCola@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Autodesk for myself, apparently its super dependant on .net and other windows framework so its not like they are going to make it linux compatible any time soon.
    
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  - xavier666@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    Adobe Creative Suite. They will probably never release a Linux version
    
    Industry standard music production s/w
    
    Offbeat collection of educational/research s/w, creators of which don’t know that Linux exists. They sometimes don’t even support MacOS
    
    Office Suite which is compatible with MS Office shenanigans
    
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PenisWenisGenius@lemmynsfw.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Microsoft went too far in 2001 when they included a new online activation feature in Windows XP which spearheaded the future of drm and enshitification. All the most recent stuff is just mord icing on the shit cake.

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- raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Agreed, XP was the turning point - I decided I will never let such an intrusive software on my private computers, so I switched from Win2k to Linux.
  
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  - sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    People think I’m nuts when I say Win2k was my favorite Windows. I switched to Linux before Vista came out. People say WinXP was good, but really, it was just tolerable.
    
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- Pyrarrows@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I’d say that the ‘modern’ era of Microsoft Enshittification started with IE4 as well as Windows 98. The Channel bar put ads on the Windows 95 & 98 desktops. It was easily disabled, but even that far back, Microsoft was starting to work on making their stuff suck just that much more.
  
  Next was Windows ME blocking DOS access, while still running on DOS, making the OS a bit … unstable, followed by your point of Software Activation in XP.
  
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  - rottingleaf@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Windows 2000 was amazing, though. Something really inspiring belief in good corporations and bright capitalist future. LOL
    
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- PanArab@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Stallman warned us, we didn’t listen.
  
  I’m glad to see BadVista still up badvista.fsf.org/blog/view/?set_language=en
  
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Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’ve never actually seen an ad in Windows… Like, literally ever. The worst I’ve seen is Windows trying to trick me into making edge my default browser.

If I believed all the articles on Lemmy, every part of the OS now has embedded ads, and the OS itself is recording everything I ever do against my will and without my knowledge.

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CileTheSane@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It is bullshit, and people will complain while continuing to use Windows so why should Microsoft care?

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TeddE@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
What’s next Microsoft? Replace the windows os loading windows page with a 30s ad? Or have defender uninstall apps if a competitor pays enough? Maybe capture a screenshot of my screen every 3 seconds for AI analysis?

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DancingBear@midwest.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Our office uses windows, and egde feels like malware to me

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mtchristo@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Microsoft is so confident in its desktop marketshare that they allow themselves to push the overton window on what users will tolerate.

The only competitor they can lose users to is Apple. And even then not everyone can afford an Apple computer, especially in the rest of the world

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JCreazy@midwest.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I switched to Linux Mint Debian edition when the Reddit thing happened. I’m glad I did before Windows got this bad.

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octopus_ink@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

Microsoft has gone too far:

Just now, with this?

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GreenStar@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Tbh me switching to Debian (using the KDE desktop experience) is feeling better and better, my PC runs over 3x faster, I have way more control over my own device, and everything works better than ever!

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DarkCloud@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Hopefully they’ll end up with an incredible amount of user telemetry telling them that they’ve created the least adopted version of Windows in the history of the company.

That’s what Windows 11 deserves, they need a punch in the face from users.

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Th4tGuyII@fedia.io ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Win11 becomes a less and less appealing switch day by day... When I can no longer hold into Win10, I think I'll just have to jump ship to Linux.

Win10 is already quite privacy poor, but Win11 is straight up intolerable.

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laxe@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Solution is easy - just don’t use windows

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neclimdul@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Should I point out the irony of this complaint being posted on a site with ads every other sentence and doesn’t even show what the windows ads looks like?

It’s a valid complaint and all I just laughed as I scrolled past all the blank “ad here” blocks to read the article.

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Halosheep@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I think this community exists only to complain about Microsoft. Not sure I ever see anything else.

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rickdg@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Microsoft already knows that people keep windows around either because they want multiplayer games or are scared of linux.

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Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Lemmy: why aren’t people using Linux? It’s so easy

Also Lemmy: webp huh?

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v4ld1z@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Guys, I’ll switch in a heartbeat to a Linux OS if any one you can recommend a stable OS that works on a Surface Go 2. It should support its touchscreen, of course, and a Surface Pen. Plus, a FOSS alternative to Journal would be stellar

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rottingleaf@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
They are behaving as if someone promised them to outlaw FOSS operating systems.

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Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
If comsic desktop gets a perfect launch, it wouldn’t be an over exaggeration to say, some amount of people will switch

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RichieRich@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I hope they don’t show an ad on my doctor’s operating table computer while he’s performing surgery on my heart and watching through a camera image. 😱

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yesman@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

Are you going to have to deal with a full-screen ad when you’re trying to open File Explorer eventually?

I was literally reading this sentence when the whole page grayed out and a pop-up asking me to subscribe popped up.

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notanaltaccount@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
If you order the shit soup, don’t act surprised if it tastes bad.

These people are CHOOSING to use Windows. They need to just STFU and use Linux or enjoy the shit soup they keep ordering.

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helenslunch@feddit.nl ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
“Too far” is what they’re looking for. In other words, “How much bullshit can we cram down their throats before they’ll spend an absurd amount of money on a disposable Macbook or spend their days becoming a sysadmin so they can use Linux?” Doesn’t seem that they’ve found that line yet. They’re still looking.

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lvxferre@mander.xyz ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I know that this expression desensitises people to something serious, but it describes Microsoft - the “it”/corporation - perfectly: rapist mentality.

Microsoft as an it/corporation/thing doesn’t give a flying fuck about consent, and is eager to force itself over you as long as it gets some benefit out of doing so, even if the users of its products say “no, I don’t want it”.

Including new obnoxious advertisement slots into an already released product - one that you paid for - is only a result of that mentality.

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