[HN Gopher] WordPad Is Gettings Ads in Windows 10
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WordPad Is Gettings Ads in Windows 10
Author : pndy
Score : 273 points
Date : 2020-01-21 13:37 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (winaero.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (winaero.com)
| Animats wrote:
| This reminds me yet again why I don't run Windows 10.
| jon-wood wrote:
| Opening the article it seems like this has been more than a
| little overblown - I was expecting something like banner ads for
| random things, and it turns out to be small, dismissible, banner
| suggesting that you might like to use MS Office instead.
| Danieru wrote:
| My favorite part: "OpenOffice" is being used to refer to
| Microsoft Office.
|
| Only half the ads use this wording. And no doubt this was not
| 100% intentional. Still, could this be a viable tactic to de-
| value poorly constructed brand names?
| amarshall wrote:
| They say "Open Office", not "OpenOffice". "Open" there is a
| verb, not a noun (like in the "Open Word" variant). Never mind
| also that OpenOffice was discontinued in 2011.
| thayne wrote:
| > Never mind also that OpenOffice was discontinued in 2011.
|
| Not exactly. Ownership of the project moved from oracle to
| apache in 2011, but OpenOffice is still around and kicking.
| orra wrote:
| "Kicking" is perhaps a charitable way to describe AOO.
| Indeed, people who are drowning will flail (something
| rescuers need be ready for).
|
| The metrics show AOO development is moribund.
| Danieru wrote:
| Indeed AOO is not super-active, but in comparison to
| Wordpad development AOO is Tokyo.
| Danieru wrote:
| Yes, I do indeed understand the concept of a verb. In fact,
| that is why I directed people to look at the ad itself.
|
| As it happens OpenOffice was never discontinued, it is still
| an active Apache project.
| eiji wrote:
| "Open Office" as an action button. You make it sound very
| different.
|
| Is this an ad? When you read the title you think Windows will
| start to read your text and advertise diapers and dating sites
| to you. Perpetually.
|
| There must a be a different word, no pun intended, to
| differentiate a single time hint within a product family from
| vanilla banner ads.
| Danieru wrote:
| > product family
|
| Wordpad is a free application included in Windows. Microsoft
| Word is a pay to use application not included in Windows.
|
| Wordpad is not within the Office product family.
|
| In fact, before the divisions got semi-unified Wordpad was
| developed by an entirely different division from Office.
| Hence why Microsoft had multiple what you see is what you get
| word editors.
| wolfgke wrote:
| > Hence why Microsoft had multiple what you see is what you
| get word editors.
|
| Another one was Microsoft Works
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Works) - another
| office suite by Microsoft that existed until 2009.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| This leaves Apple to be the only ad-free platform, next to the
| opensource osses.
| LegitShady wrote:
| Notepad++
| klingonopera wrote:
| ...is a (great!) replacement for vanilla Notepad, but Wordpad
| and Notepad have very different use-cases.
|
| LibreOffice Writer!
| MikeTheGreat wrote:
| Close, but not quite the same
|
| WordPad is a rich text editor; Notepad++ is a text file editor.
|
| WordPad lets you do stuff like boldface/italicize/change the
| font size of the text you're looking at, and it does the
| WYSIWYG thing of actually showing you the nicely formatted
| document.
| djsumdog wrote:
| I wish Microsoft would just start working on Windows 11 instead
| of doing this Win10Forever+ads. None of us want this model. The
| general public doesn't seem to care (unless they do and can
| afford a Mac), so Microsoft will probably keep going down this
| route.
|
| It's bad enough I have to spend two hours digging through a new
| Android phone to turn off all the Google tracking (if there's no
| Lineage rom for it), but I also have do to it on my Win10 gaming
| rig. No one else seems to care about privacy.
| fapjacks wrote:
| Everybody defending Microsoft's actions is using some variation
| of "it's only a small ad for Office" but their Stockholm Syndrome
| is causing them to ignore that the word "ad" these days is a
| loaded term that also implies Microsoft is shipping your
| (WordPad) activity back to Microsoft to "improve user experience"
| and not just to tell you that Microsoft also happens to make
| software called Office, too. Get real.
| Zhyl wrote:
| A banner "advertising" a more feature rich version of the same
| application is a different kettle of fish to the actual paid
| advertisements that they are currently injecting onto lock
| screens and start menus. Granted, I wouldn't want annoying pop
| ups on any of the products I use, but I think at this stage
| "Microsoft are going to do anti-consumer things because nobody
| is going to stop them" is expected behaviour and if you don't
| like it your only real recourse is to buy a Mac or install
| Linux.
|
| Having made the switch to Linux myself I feel like I can look
| at these things a bit more objectively. I can say "recommending
| Word isn't that bad" not out of Stockholm syndrome, but instead
| as a tertiary observer, watching the house burn down from the
| outside.
| avian wrote:
| Some of the buttons on the ads say "Open Office" [1]. I guess the
| intended meaning is "Click here to open Microsoft Office", but
| the wording is suspiciously close to OpenOffice. I'm sure that
| will account for some clicks from people vaguely aware that
| there's a thing out there called OpenOffice.
|
| [1] https://winaero.com/blog/wp-
| content/uploads/2020/01/Wordpad-...
| Silhouette wrote:
| It would be mildly hilarious if Microsoft activated this, and
| then the EU issued an IE-style ruling that to avoid unfair
| competition it had to promote popular alternatives to Microsoft
| Office on an equal basis.
| withinrafael wrote:
| Original tweet owner here.
|
| This functionality is locked behind a feature control mechanism,
| in a pre-release version of Windows 10. The feature is named
| BlankDocOfficeUpsell. The feature control mechanism is used by
| Microsoft to gate potential features in public builds for various
| reasons (e.g. experimentation). Using tools I wrote
| (https://github.com/riverar/mach2), and public debugging symbols,
| they can be manipulated on/off and is usually a good indicator at
| what's coming in a future Windows release.
|
| This particular feature upsells Office online via a yellow bar,
| not unlike the Message Bar in full Office applications. The
| Message Bar is typically used for important security warnings and
| alerts [1], presumably one reason this particular design was
| chosen. At this time, the upsell notification can be closed but
| that action is not persisted -- the ad will re-appear at next
| WordPad launch. This could change but that's not a guaranteed
| pattern (see: permanent PowerShell Core ad in PowerShell).
|
| [1] https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Enable-or-
| disable-s...
| Krasnol wrote:
| > The Message Bar is typically used for important security
| warnings and alerts [1], presumably one reason this particular
| design was chosen.
|
| ...and which will continue to make this bar useless leading to
| people continue to ignore security warnings and drive on the
| train of vulnerabilities within word documents which has been
| so successful for decades now. Good job Microsoft.
|
| Thank you for finding this.
| tombert wrote:
| God, I hate when OS companies do this stuff. I remember back when
| Ubuntu had Unity as its default, it would send any app-search you
| had to Amazon to recommend stuff to you. Granted, it was trivial
| to disable it, but I really don't want to have my OS send a
| request to Amazon whenever I hit the Super key and search for Tor
| or something.
| companyhen wrote:
| Skype has ads now too, crazy.
| iamaelephant wrote:
| Ads on this webpage
|
| https://imgur.com/11hpqgN
| sandov wrote:
| A website is pretty different from the word processor that your
| OS comes with.
|
| Ads in a word processor are like ads in your house's wall.
|
| Ads in a website are like ads in a football stadium.
| eaandkw wrote:
| Don't even get me started with Windows. I am still mad the simple
| things like a calculator and picture viewer somehow got removed.
| vel0city wrote:
| That's strange. I still have a calculator on my Windows 10
| install. Its resizable, has a history, can do unit conversions,
| a quick shortcut to keep on top, and has a ton more features
| than the old one.
|
| The old Windows Photo Viewer still exists and is the default
| out of the box to open .TIF files. With a couple of short
| registry hacks you can make it the default for other photo
| types again. Other than multi-page TIF files, I usually do
| prefer the newer app as it once again offers a ton more
| features.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| Regarding the photo viewer... IrfanView
| eaandkw wrote:
| My biggest complaint is that I have to do anything. Viewing
| and picture and the calculator have been around forever. I
| should not have to do a registry hack to bring it back.
|
| I usually don't learn that anything has changed until I
| actually want to use it then I'm like WFT where did X app go?
| vel0city wrote:
| The calculator is included on any regular, unmodified
| install of Windows -- no registry hack required. There is
| still a photo viewing app available called Photos. Its
| different, but overall has a ton more features. Once again,
| no registry hack required.
|
| Or are you arguing that default apps in Windows should just
| never change to newer, more featured versions?
| ssully wrote:
| I honestly don't know what you are talking about, there is
| still a native calculator and photo viewer. I just verified I
| am on the latest professional version of windows.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| On my system, the calculator only comes up if I explicitly
| type "calc.exe". "calc" gets me LibreOffice Calc, and
| "calculator" gets me... nothing.
|
| I am forced to accept that either Microsoft's Windows
| division is so incompetent that they did this on purpose, or
| so incompetent that they did this by accident.
| harshreality wrote:
| What is the use case for WordPad? It implies:
|
| 1. You don't have MS Word proper, and you don't need perfect Word
| interop.
|
| 2. You want basic WYSIWYG, so neovim or emacs or equivalent, and
| even things like Notepad++, are out.
|
| 3. You don't have or can't use LibreOffice... because reasons?
|
| I suspect either people won't care about WordPad ads or they'll
| discover LibreOffice and won't look back.
| jmkb wrote:
| Wordpad is great for reading and authoring documents with text
| attributes but without page formatting. It's comparable to
| TextEdit on MacOS. And compared to Word or LibreOffice it
| produces extremely clean RTF code. (Or it used to, haven't used
| it in Windows 10.)
|
| And yes, it's handy for opening .doc and .docx files if no
| office suite is installed. ("Because reasons" often being that
| it's not a machine under your control.)
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| As a former magazine editor and still a freelance writer, I use
| TextEdit, the Mac equivalent, and have done for years.
|
| It's WYSIWYG; it's fast; it doesn't get in the way. It isn't a
| bloated behemoth like LibreOffice or MS Office or any other
| Office. It just pops up a window on the screen for you to type
| in. Any styling beyond bold and italic would be done by the
| designer in InDesign anyway.
| jsight wrote:
| I suspect that the other major scenario is that you opened it
| by accident and thought you were opening Word. Features like
| this aren't for techies who already know the difference.
| symfoniq wrote:
| This sort of tackiness in Windows 10 is one of the primary
| reasons I've switched back to macOS.
|
| Windows 10 is a great OS in many respects, and I like the
| hardware story more than in Apple world, but I just can't get
| over Microsoft's need to invade my workspace with tacky,
| distracting, irrelevant ads.
|
| The first time I saw a "Candy Crush" ad in the Start menu (of
| Windows 10 Professional, not Home), I hoped Microsoft would get
| enough negative feedback to see the error of their ways.
|
| But it seems like they're going the wrong direction.
|
| And yes, I'm aware of the LTSC version of Windows 10. I have no
| way to install it legally.
| pojntfx wrote:
| Use Linux.
| jerome-jh wrote:
| Shareware is back :D
| peatmoss wrote:
| I want to like the Microsoft that appears to be turning over a
| new leaf from their "evil" days. And their new hardware is
| legitimately exciting. However, between the telemetry collection
| in Windows 10, and straight up maddening stuff like ads in the
| OS, I just see red.
|
| The last time I clicked on a start menu my jaw nearly hit the
| floor due to all the extraneous and very much unwanted junk.
| Microsoft is clearly doing a lot right in terms of UX, but I
| lament that it feels like one step forward and two steps back.
|
| I can't imagine that corporations would allow Microsoft to market
| to their end-users. There must be some ultra-premium edition of
| Windows 10 that one can buy, where telemetry and ads are fully
| disabled? Do most PC enthusiasts figure out how to disable that
| stuff or buy professional editions? My experience is limited to
| occasionally seeing family and friends do things in Windows, so
| maybe I'm just unaware of what the Windows-using technorati have
| known all along.
| soupfordummies wrote:
| Not only the "ads" in the start menu but the fact that they're
| actually INSTALLED APPLICATIONS that are part of the update
| packages.
|
| Who knows how much bandwidth and time has been wasted at my job
| alone with folks' computers force-updating with included
| installations of Candy Crush, Spotify and Disney Kingdoms.
| nyuszika7h wrote:
| AFAIK these apps are not actually preinstalled, they're
| simply shortcuts to the Microsoft Store. But I never got any
| of those "preinstalled" apps even on Windows 10 Home.
| close04 wrote:
| I've had Pro installations where I got the shortcuts, and
| others where I didn't. All on OEM machines that were
| licensed automatically, all in the same location, and using
| the ISO from MS's website (maybe not always the same exact
| ISO so that may be it). I couldn't come up with a solid
| explanation on where the difference comes from.
| Silhouette wrote:
| _I can't imagine that corporations would allow Microsoft to
| market to their end-users. There must be some ultra-premium
| edition of Windows 10 that one can buy, where telemetry and ads
| are fully disabled?_
|
| More-or-less. The large organisation editions of Windows 10
| (Enterprise and Education) are basically a different product to
| the others, with most of the unpalatable junk able to be
| disabled. But you can only legally get them through the
| organisation-level licensing schemes, with all the extra cost
| and hassle that brings.
|
| The really surprising thing to me is that the Pro edition --
| the one that historically was aimed at power users and smaller
| businesses -- is basically dumped in with Home now, with little
| of that same flexibility even though these users probably have
| much the same concerns about controlling updates, telemetry,
| ads, etc.
|
| So for some of us working in small businesses, Windows 10
| remains a no-go area regardless of any attempts by Microsoft to
| promote it and demote anything else. It appears to be
| impossible to retain proper control of your system and the data
| on it, which leads to all kinds of concerns about reliability,
| security, statutory and contractual data protection
| obligations, etc. Presumably this is why various government
| regulators within the EU are already going after Microsoft on
| the basis that it's essentially impossible to be GDPR compliant
| if your organisation is using such an OS.
| 3xblah wrote:
| "I want to like the Microsoft that _appears_ to be turning over
| a new leaf from their "evil" days."
|
| What appears to be "turning over a new leaf" may actually be
| nothing more than adapting to changing conditions. Of course
| they were not the ones who set those changes in motion, other
| than perhaps through evolutionary pressure. What Microsoft has
| done in more recent times has been largely driven by what other
| companies were doing -- making money from selling advertising,
| collecting vast quantities of data about users, etc. Not to
| mention using open source software internally, publishing
| source code and giving away software, often as a means to
| collect more data. That is why, e.g., there are ads in WorpdPad
| and telemetry is on by default.
| Joeri wrote:
| Agreed on the start menu, that's an own goal. The telemetry in
| my opinion is a non-issue. To my knowledge nothing that's sent
| is actually harmful, and no harm has been demonstrated since
| they started gathering telemetry a decade ago.
|
| The more interesting point of criticism for me are the in-app
| ads. Not so sure on what is meaningfully different between ads
| in wordpad promoting word and ads in macOS and iOS music apps
| promoting apple music. Or, in the same vein, why it is fair to
| flame microsoft for integrating onedrive throughout the OS but
| nobody complains when apple does exactly the same with icloud
| (to the point where basically you have to really go out of your
| way not to get sucked into paying for icloud).
|
| Why is it ok for apple, but not for microsoft, to do these
| things?
| anticensor wrote:
| > nothing that's sent is actually harmful
|
| Except for your computer's colour:
| https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy/basic-
| level...
| darepublic wrote:
| yea windows 10 really flys in the face of all their rebranding.
| The windows experience is enough to stick with mac for the time
| being.
| hinkley wrote:
| Microsoft put the hounds in charge of the hen-house, but they
| only removed a few of the foxes.
|
| Every time the 'do better' people are busy looking at something
| else, stuff like this will slip through.
| dirkg wrote:
| The telemetry collection in Windows 10 has been reduced a lot.
| And MS are transparent about it and give you lots of control
| and switches in Settings/group policy to turn it off, unlike
| everyone else.
|
| Many other corps collect much more invasive telemetry and users
| have no clue - e.g Netflix is basically a data collection
| service with a side effect of video streaming. Same for FB,
| Google ads cookies etc, every retailer etc etc.
|
| But singling out MS has always been popular.
| vetinari wrote:
| The difference is, that Neflix/Google/Facebook had their
| _services_ with telemetry since start. If you didn 't agree
| to their terms, you simply didn't start using their services.
| They don't even have network effects like Windows has.
|
| Microsoft, on the other hand, added telemetry to already
| widely-used product, not giving the existing users any
| choice. Is it any wonder that Microsoft is being singled out?
| They deserve to be singled out.
| cryptozeus wrote:
| No ads in my work machine
| anonymfus wrote:
| Did you read the article? It's a currently disabled optional
| feature in the latest insider build.
| darkwater wrote:
| I think it was referring to GGP mention of "junk" in Win10
| start menu. AFAIK there are no ads in the Enterprise and
| Education versions of Win10
| penagwin wrote:
| But why ads at all in a $100 operating system?
| kofejnik wrote:
| because suckers are going to eat it, what else are they
| gonna do, install Linux?
|
| a somewhat less cynical answer: some division head
| decided it would look good on their performance review
| intopieces wrote:
| I think Win10 Pro is exempt for now - someone correct me if
| I'm wrong.
| peschkaj wrote:
| My install seems to have no ads at all (including on the
| Start Menu) and I am using Win 10 Pro that I installed
| straight from the Windows download page. Maybe I don't get
| ads because I'm on the Insiders Slow Ring.
| JorgeGT wrote:
| I get candy crush in my Win10 Enterprise, each major
| upgrade...
| mrgreenfur wrote:
| They've gotten a taste of the surveillance revenues and won't
| look back. When you install Win10 there is a nag screen to make
| sure you opt-in to all kinds of data collection.
| soupfordummies wrote:
| It's more than one screen. And the workarounds to not signing
| into a Microsoft account just to INSTALL the OS are becoming
| more and more tedious by the month.
| marmaduke wrote:
| The enterprise version lets admin disable all the crap, but
| it's really frustrating to buy pro version and still see that
| stuff.
| jhoechtl wrote:
| You do know that the amount of telemetry you do leave to google
| is an order of magnitude more sophisticated and subtile than
| what MS is doing?
| _underfl0w_ wrote:
| I fail to see how that's accurate justification - just
| because somebody else is doing worse. Blatant whataboutism,
| really.
| beagle3 wrote:
| But what about whataboutism?
| screye wrote:
| > ads in the OS,
|
| Yeah, I can't wrap my head around why they would do that.
|
| Is it really a big enough revenue stream to inconvenience the
| consumer to such a degree ?
|
| ______
|
| Maybe it is because the type of user that uses wordpad is also
| not concerned with advertisements or user experiences.
|
| I mean, for most people a computer is either a Netflix +
| Internet + Office machine (they live in these apps, so the rest
| of the OS doesn't really affect them) or a device which runs
| significantly worse OEM software,(in which case, good UX was a
| lost cause anyways.)
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > I mean, for most people a computer is either a Netflix +
| Internet + Office machine (they live in these apps, so the
| rest of the OS doesn't really affect them) or a device which
| runs significantly worse OEM software,(in which case, good UX
| was a lost cause anyways.)
|
| I really wish tech people would stop with this fantasizing
| that users don't have good reasons for the choices they make.
| This is why Linux Desktop has consistently failed for
| decades: the conception that it is "good enough" for "most
| non-technical people" because they've imagined some ultra-
| simplified usecase and then convinced themselves that they've
| made an appropriate replacement. Absolutely nothing good
| comes of this mentality.
| sansnomme wrote:
| It works if you have a massive enterprise sales team and a
| couple billions for hardware development. See Chromebook.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I don't see many people giving up their desktops for
| Chromebooks. Let's take a look at the stats [0]...
| Doesn't look like ChromeOS is significant. Hell, it
| doesn't even seem to beat Linux.
|
| Granted, there might be other sources (I found this with
| 1 minute of Google searching), but I doubt they'll paint
| a much different picture. Chromebooks are just big
| smartphones and are not a sufficient tool for the tasks
| which people actually use Desktop computers for.
|
| [0] https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-
| share/desktop/worldwide
| dirkg wrote:
| ChromeOS is a joke if you are offline or need to do any
| local work. Their 'file browser' has got to be an inside
| joke its so bad.
|
| Its a great device for browsing + youtube/netflix + FB +
| gdocs. Which is why its so popular in edu because they
| basically give it away. And its enough for most people.
| omaranto wrote:
| > ChromeOS is a joke if you are offline or need to do any
| local work.
|
| I used to feel that way until I learned that recent
| Chromebooks can run Android apps and come with a Linux in
| a VM, and I am now a very happy Chromebook user. All the
| software I need is a browser, Emacs, git, SBCL, LaTeX and
| a few standard Unix tools: I use Chrome and run
| everything else in the Linux VM.
|
| (And you're right that the file browser is very limited,
| fortunately I only need it ocasionally to move files
| between the Linux VM and the ChromeOS file system).
| dirkg wrote:
| Google has been making half hearted attempts to merge
| ChromeOs and Android or at least provide a proper Linux
| distro without resorting to chroot hacks or replacing the
| fw.
|
| I'm sure they have internal builds which are pure Linux
| with a compatibility layer to run ChromeOS legacy. There
| is absolutely no reason a Chromebook can't run that - but
| then its just another laptop and loses the marketability.
| omaranto wrote:
| I think I like the current Linux (Debian 9) in a VM
| approach: it's off by default, easy to turn on for people
| who want Linux, runs fast enough (for me at least), and
| is simultaneously fairly well integrated but isolated so
| you can't easily screw up your Chromebook: if you hose
| your Linux installation, Chrome OS is still fine and you
| can just delete the VM and start over.
| dirkg wrote:
| Crostini is still an esoteric dev only feature. No user
| is going to use it, or even be aware. When they need to
| run any apps or work with files, they don't have any
| options.
|
| Why can't ChromeOS be a standard Linux distro which runs
| apps in a flatpak (and validated by Google). That way you
| can't screw up your machine, you don't really lose any
| perf, and you have the best of both worlds.
| omaranto wrote:
| I think I agree with you if you change "dev only" to
| "prior Linux-user only" (I am a non-dev Linux-user and
| know plenty of others).
|
| Flatpak sounds worth exploring, although many of the
| cheaper Chromebook have pretty limited storage space.
| gettingsnarky wrote:
| > Yeah, I can't wrap my head around why they would do that.
|
| Investors before customers.
| dobleboble wrote:
| With 400,000,000 active Windows 10 users I would imagine that
| yes, it is quite worthwhile.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Big consumer techs offer experience, not products. The joyous
| Windows Experience of office work a la Job Simulator.
| shadow-banned wrote:
| I mean, they're wholesale knocking off Slack, calling it Teams
| - Slack is dead.
| davidy123 wrote:
| The vast majority of desktop users would be fine doing all
| their work (word processing, spreadsheets, email, browsing) in
| a browser. Thus a full operating system like Windows really
| isn't required. It's surprising more organizations haven't
| switched to this approach, it saves on costs and overhead.
| opan wrote:
| Windows 10 LTSC is common among some enthusiasts. No candy
| crush or start menu ads, but it still tries to trick you into
| using an online account during the install if you make the
| mistake of connecting to the internet when asked, and you still
| have to change a bunch of privacy toggles. I don't like or
| trust it, still, I just put it on my parents' machines since
| they probably would've resisted switching to GNU/Linux and
| Windows 7 lost support.
| compuguy wrote:
| Out of curiosity, how does one legally get a license for
| Windows 10 LTSC without a enterprise contract?
| dmitrygr wrote:
| Legally? No way. How do people actually do it? Same as they
| always have: thepiratebay.org
| 0xDEEPFAC wrote:
| Got mine on Ebay
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > I want to like the Microsoft that appears to be turning over
| a new leaf from their "evil" days.
|
| Embracing open source is just the first step of an old, old
| strategy of theirs. Maybe I'll be proven wrong on that, but
| you'd be a fool to forget their past. This the company that
| brought down IBM.
|
| > I can't imagine that corporations would allow Microsoft to
| market to their end-users.
|
| No real choice, unfortunately. Oh, I'm sure some clueless Linux
| Desktop evangelist will try to claim otherwise, but the reality
| is that Windows and Office run the business world. Microsoft
| put a lot of effort into delivering good products and keeping
| compatibility with old software, in addition to shady anti-
| competitive practices, to ensure that. Meanwhile, the Linux
| Desktop is still a fragmented mess that breaks every few years
| (at best). I really wish it weren't true, because Windows is a
| _painful_ experience these days, but Linux Desktop manages to
| still be worse.
|
| > There must be some ultra-premium edition of Windows 10 that
| one can buy, where telemetry and ads are fully disabled?
|
| That may be true of Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC, which can not
| be purchased individually and is expensive.
|
| > Do most PC enthusiasts figure out how to disable that stuff
| or buy professional editions?
|
| There are readily available tools to disable it, like O&O
| ShutUp 10.
| chx wrote:
| > Windows is a painful experience these days, but Linux
| Desktop manages to still be worse.
|
| I often ranted about this: after running Linux as my daily
| driver 2004-2017 (and a few years before that in dual boot
| and since 1993 on servers) I switched to Windows + WSL in
| early 2018 and I am OK with it.
|
| I use an eGPU. Now, of course, Linux does not even support
| changing the video card under X Windows. And I am not so sure
| about supporting hotplugging an nVidia card either.
|
| And when I was running Linux I ran into problems with
| enterprise wifi and VPN all the time and my multifunction
| devices and bluetooth.
|
| https://xkcd.com/619/ rings painfully true. Linux is a great
| server operating system with a desktop badly cobbled on top.
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| >Linux is a great server operating system with a desktop
| badly cobbled on top.
|
| Especially the most popular flavor, Ubuntu.
|
| Between releases which require reinstallations to get new
| features, hardware support, and bugfixes (bugfixes are
| supposed to be backported, but fresher DE versions have
| worked much better than old ones for me, so I'm skeptical)
| and the awkwardness of PPAs, it's sad it's the go-to
| assumed distro which everyone writes articles for and tests
| hardware/software against when rolling release is such a
| better model (that Windows now ostensibly uses with 10).
|
| Manjaro seems to be gaining popularity as a user-friendly,
| nerfed rolling distro which offers safety and fast
| features+hardware support+bugfixes and can use the AUR,
| where everything in the Universe is and can be browsed with
| a GUI package manager -- no PPA terminal imports needed.
| But so is MX Linux, a Debian-based, Xfce distro whose
| selling point seems to be "no systemd", which speaks to a
| misalignment of priorities between many Linux users and the
| average PC user... if "average PC user" means "vaguely
| technical person who games and wants fast drivers + new
| hardware support", which is already wrong.
|
| But FWIW, >>Windows is a painful experience these days, but
| Linux Desktop manages to still be worse.
|
| Disagree. Can't speak to exotic use cases though; I don't
| even know what an eGPU is. For me, there seems to be a
| magical effect of using Linux for a long time and then
| returning to Windows. Windows doesn't seem to work as well
| as it used to. There's permission problems with the new 10
| Settings interface when trying to access the core system
| apps like Device Manager. It can't connect to the Internet
| when I turn off my VPN, when Linux works fine on the same
| VPN. So many little things.
|
| Suddenly, Windows seems like the janky, ersatz OS I force
| myself to go to sometimes while Linux feels like the more
| intuitive "home" system. But I've been on it for like 2
| years now, so I'm probably brainwashed. And in 10 years
| Linux will get worse so I'll boomerang back to Windows like
| you? Or maybe something better will take over, like
| Fuchsia.
| Accacin wrote:
| Funny how things go! I had been using Arch Linux for
| about 4 years and recently I switched to PopOS.
|
| I never had problems with updates, but had a lot of
| problems with non-standard locations. For example,
| getting Vim to work inside of Tmux with eslint and auto
| complete just wouldn't work perfectly no matter what I
| tried.
|
| It's a different world with Gnome and PopOS, and I
| _really_ miss the AUR and Pacman but other than that I
| feel like I 'm spending more time on my system than
| before.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > Disagree. Can't speak to exotic use cases though;
|
| Windows desktop usage is somewhere north of 80%. Consider
| that Linux can't even do many common use cases right,
| it's just that it can do _your_ use cases.
| Miraste wrote:
| I have a Linux laptop and an eGPU. I dual boot Windows when
| I need to use it. I didn't even try to get it to work on
| Linux because that's a good way to lose a week and gain
| nothing. Switching between dedicated GPUs and integrated
| ones is still barely functional after heavy tweaking, and
| laptops have been doing that for I don't even know how
| long.
|
| That xkcd is extra painful because there are _still_ , 11
| years later, zero Linux browsers that support hardware-
| accelerated (i.e. smooth) video playback.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| > Embracing open source is just the first step of an old, old
| strategy of theirs.
|
| Sure if you ignore the fact that their major projects were
| not extensions, and they're MIT licensed. Their past tactics
| was to extend open standards and become the corporate
| standard.
| voodootrucker wrote:
| > Oh, I'm sure some clueless Linux Desktop evangelist will
| try to claim otherwise
|
| Non-evangelist here. I've been running Ubuntu as my daily
| driver for years, and mostly it just works. Not saying it's
| going to take over the business world, just saying it's not
| worse than Windows for me in any way.
| dirkg wrote:
| Its not worse. Not anymore. And arguably better in many
| desktop areas.
|
| But LOTD is not any easier for your average non techie.
|
| And it was never about ease of use, its about adoption,
| presence and marketing.
| vetinari wrote:
| > But LOTD is not any easier for your average non techie.
|
| For non-techies, it is actually a non-problem; they are
| already used to fact there are systems different than
| Windows (they know about Android, iOS or ChromeOS). This
| kind of users are so undemanding, that sitting them
| behind stock Ubuntu machine they will relatively quickly
| go their way and are able to do everything they need.
|
| It's Windows power-users who have it most troublesome.
| They learned something about one platform, and to move to
| another platform they have to start from scratch.
|
| > And it was never about ease of use, its about adoption,
| presence and marketing.
|
| Very true. I would add bizdev there too.
| dirkg wrote:
| Windows file management and UI is far superior to
| anything out there. Its a little ironic that NTFS isn't
| faster than ext3 (in fact its slower for many use cases)
| but Explorer is amazing - Finder is a joke and most Linux
| fm's are modeled after Explorer, so is taskbar and start
| menu.
| vetinari wrote:
| > Windows file management and UI is far superior to
| anything out there
|
| Ehm, no, you are just used to it. In my not-so-humble
| opinion, it is Finder > Nautilus > Explorer.
|
| In Linux, the taskbar and start menus are not a part of
| the file manager, but part the desktop shell. The most
| used one is Gnome, which doesn't have taskbar and start
| menu.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > Non-evangelist here. I've been running Ubuntu as my daily
| driver for years, and mostly it just works. Not saying it's
| going to take over the business world, just saying it's not
| worse than Windows for me in any way.
|
| Ok. But it is worse for me, and basically everyone else who
| uses Windows and says that Linux Desktop won't suit their
| needs.
|
| I don't have a problem with people who use the Linux
| Desktop. Hell, if I bother to count all the desktops in my
| house then I use it on 4/5 PCs myself. What I have a
| problem with are evangelists who believe that anyone not
| using a Linux Desktop is doing so for stupid reasons. I
| can't even count the number of times over the past 2
| decades I've had to listen to some Linux Desktop evangelist
| proclaim that there was literally no reason to use anything
| else, and then proceed to argue the case with no knowledge
| whatsoever of the needs of the person they're arguing
| against. It's these people who are being referred to when
| people talk about how the Linux Desktop community itself is
| the worst part of using the Linux Desktop.
|
| It is a mindset I really can't stand about tech people:
| assuming that because something works _for them_ that it
| therefore is the right choice for _everyone else_. That
| they are so superior to the rest of humanity that they can
| instantly understand everyone 's use cases, and anyone who
| claims otherwise is just being a stubborn fool.
| gradstudent wrote:
| > Ok. But it is worse for me, and basically everyone else
| who uses Windows and says that Linux Desktop won't suit
| their needs.
|
| The irony is delicious.
| p1necone wrote:
| As a dev, but not really an OS power user: I've tried
| switching to Linux (ubuntu and mint) full time before and
| I really don't see any major shortcomings vs windows for
| regular desktop use - I know anecdotal evidence is pretty
| useless but it's all you really can get about this on
| here.
|
| The _only_ reason I 'm not on Linux full time is video
| game compatibility.
|
| I suspect no retail PCs coming with Linux preinstalled,
| and general lack of knowledge that it even exists or what
| it is is just as big (if not more) of a contributor to
| it's lack of users for non techies as UX is.
| 0xDEEPFAC wrote:
| Windows 10 LTSC is great - it doesn't have Cortana or the
| Windows Store and it even has a nifty search icon beneath the
| Start menu which says "Start typing to search..."
|
| Not that I would recommend it but you can purchase LTSC on
| Ebay for about ~20 to 30$. That is where I got mine...
| Sketchy? Yes, but worth a chance in my book
| runn1ng wrote:
| LTSC can be purchased individually legally. But it is indeed
| expensive.
|
| Luckily, there are also all those shady eBay "key resellers".
| (They are all cracked of course, but they also work, so it's
| worth it.)
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| > No real choice, unfortunately. Oh, I'm sure some clueless
| Linux Desktop evangelist will try to claim otherwise, but the
| reality is that Windows and Office run the business world.
|
| Also mind that "professional" editions of windows contain
| less of the crapware than Home or similar editions...
| thiagomgd wrote:
| > Meanwhile, the Linux Desktop is still a fragmented mess
| that breaks every few years (at best). I really wish it
| weren't true, because Windows is a painful experience these
| days, but Linux Desktop manages to still be worse.
|
| In Brazil we used to say that the year of linux (desktop) was
| current year + 1. Because people who used it would always
| tell others that "next year is going to be the year of linux
| on desktop", only for that not to happen and then they adjust
| their prediction for the next year again...
| bitL wrote:
| Well, at least you had GoboLinux in Brazil...
| viraptor wrote:
| > I can't imagine that corporations would allow Microsoft to
| market to their end-users.
|
| They don't. It's not a ultra-premium edition that disables it.
| The extra apps installation is easy to turn off via registry
| and can be applied to new users. In better controlled corps,
| your apps whitelist will not allow you to run extras anyway.
| The ads are either not a present: if it's a corp, everyone has
| office, not wordpad. In a completely controlled environment,
| the network won't allow you to connect back either.
|
| I've set up a win10 pro laptop very recently and getting rid of
| the extra apps, disabling promotions, and most of ads takes
| maybe 30min. I'm not saying I'm ok with them, or that everyone
| can easily fix it - but if you have any kind of experience with
| windows, you can do it.
| jdsully wrote:
| I could maybe understand this for the home edition but people
| pay extra for Pro. The whole point is to not spend 30+
| minutes removing crap.
|
| Also those registry fixes frequently get reverted by updates.
| It's happened to me multiple times. Even if you succeed your
| greeted with a start menu that looks half broken.
| onceUponADime wrote:
| Im sure, there will be a nice little soundbook added, that
| allows everyone concerned to press alot of buttons and push a
| lot of levers, to not change a thing, but feel acomplished and
| back in control.
| Marsymars wrote:
| Agreed that candy crush as default is heinous, but it feels
| like "telemetry" is kind of brought up as a bogeyman. Clearly,
| there exist scenarios where device owners have a legitimate
| need for no (or minimal, considering updates) communication
| with MS regarding device activity, but that's not generally the
| case for the average PC user. I want my OS maker to get stack
| traces from stacks so that they can fix crashes. I want my OS
| maker to receive actionable data on highly-used features so
| that they can effectively prioritize what to improve and what
| can be culled. (And obviously, I want this data to be treated
| with appropriate security.)
|
| edit: To clarify, users _should_ be able to disable telemetry -
| it 's the anti-telemetry rhetoric I find to be overblown - in
| general what I hear isn't nearly as nuanced as the replies
| here, it's simply blanket opposition to _all_ telemetry.
| starsinspace wrote:
| To me, "telemetry" is a violation of boundaries. And I don't
| think it's necessary to provide legitimation scenarios for
| not wanting that.
|
| For decades I have used personal computers and it was my
| machine and nobody constantly observed what I was doing with
| it. With "telemetry" I'm not sure about the relation anymore
| - do I own the machine or does the machine own me? It's a
| loss of control, I'm not able to make the decisions anymore
| about what happens and what doesn't.
| toohotatopic wrote:
| It's not only device activity. If you are a company and you
| have contracts that guarantee privacy for the data that you
| process, how can you uphold those contracts if you cannot
| disable telemetry?
| Silhouette wrote:
| You can't. And even if you could, the automatic updates
| could change things later so you couldn't.
|
| Several governments and their regulators in the EU are
| currently at various stages of looking into this issue,
| because it may be literally impossible to be GDPR compliant
| if you're processing personal data on a system running a
| Windows 10 edition that requires this stuff. And that's
| just the literally-breaking-the-law part as it relates to
| personal data in general. You might also have contractual
| obligations like NDAs, or perhaps some more specific legal
| obligations to protect data if you work in healthcare,
| finance, national security, etc.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _I want my OS maker to get stack traces from stacks so that
| they can fix crashes_
|
| I want my OS maker to _ask_ for stack traces so they can fix
| crashes. I do not want this to be a default with no way to
| opt out. Even crash data is _my_ data, not Microsoft 's, and
| Microsoft should ask my permission each time it happens the
| way that MacOS does.
|
| Then again, that might make people aware of how often
| programs go sideways on Windows, which is not in Microsoft's
| interest.
| thrower123 wrote:
| The Windows Error Reporter has existed since forever. I
| don't understand why people are acting as though this is a
| new nefarious thing in Windows 10.
| jtdev wrote:
| Maybe consumers are simply becoming more aware.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| Windows Error Reporter doesn't record everything you
| click. Microsoft Telemetry does.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Because it's no longer optional. Even if you think you're
| turning it off, they'll just redefine or outright revert
| the preference setting whenever they feel like it,
| typically as part of a forced update.
|
| The user's opinions and desires are not on anybody's
| radar at MS, except to then extent that they coincide
| with the company's own desires.
| ghostbrainalpha wrote:
| That's funny, but they can only ask ONCE if they can always
| send crash data, not ask again every time the program
| crashes, which solves that problem.
| reaperducer wrote:
| I think it's (and should be) up to the operating system,
| not the vendor. When programs eat themselves on macOS I
| get the option to send debug information to the
| programmer each time. Sometimes twice if the program has
| its own crash reporting mechanism, too (Panic's Coda, for
| example).
|
| Maybe there's an "always remember my selection" checkbox,
| but I don't remember ever seeing it, except once a year
| when I install the new version of macOS.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| There's even a comment box where you can explain what you
| were doing when the error occurred. I like to think
| someone out there reads my helpful comments. I would love
| that as a client developer. :(
| jmull wrote:
| If MS were bound to only used telemetry in the way you
| suggest, it might be fine. But they specifically are not.
|
| Here's the first part under "How we use personal data" in
| their privacy statement:
|
| Microsoft uses the data we collect to provide you with rich,
| interactive experiences. In particular, we use data to:
|
| * Provide our products, which includes updating, securing,
| and troubleshooting, as well as providing support. It also
| includes sharing data, when it is required to provide the
| service or carry out the transactions you request. * Improve
| and develop our products. * Personalize our products and make
| recommendations. * Advertise and market to you, which
| includes sending promotional communications, targeting
| advertising, and presenting you with relevant offers.
|
| So, points one and two are nice. Three might be nice, but
| really depends on the motivation for the personalization and
| recommendations. Four is full on, deep advertising.
|
| BTW, you may want to make a distinction between your personal
| data and telemetry, but MS does not make any such
| distinction. Also, in the next section, MS notes they'll
| share your data with anyone they want.
|
| (https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement)
| ryanisnan wrote:
| This comment right here. Why anyone would give any
| corporation the benefit of the doubt when it comes to how
| telemetry data is used is beyond me. Especially in cases
| like Microsoft, where they are _very clearly_ using it for
| advertising.
|
| Talk about head in the sand.
| Marsymars wrote:
| I would be _thrilled_ if MS (and Apple, for that matter)
| would divest themselves of all advertising-related business
| units and declare themselves explicitly anti-user-
| advertising, but to me that seems largely orthogonal to
| telemetry, despite the fact that their current legalese has
| put the two into a blender.
|
| I can be anti-advertising and pro-privacy without being
| anti-telemetry.
| [deleted]
| tremon wrote:
| _Clearly, there exist scenarios where device owners have a
| legitimate need for no communication with MS regarding device
| activity, but that 's not generally the case for the average
| PC user_
|
| Do you really believe yourself to be the ultimate arbiter of
| that question, for all PC users? Or just for the average
| ones?
| Marsymars wrote:
| I meant that observationally, the average home user I see
| who is hell-bent against Windows telemetry doesn't have
| reasons for it that are comparable to organizations with
| well-reasoned processes and procedures regarding telemetry.
|
| I didn't mean to imply that said user shouldn't have the
| option to disable telemetry, even for no reason at all.
| vetinari wrote:
| > I want my OS maker to get stack traces from stacks so that
| they can fix crashes. I want my OS maker to receive
| actionable data on highly-used features so that they can
| effectively prioritize what to improve and what can be
| culled.
|
| Why do you think this is even needed? Every software package
| used by more users than nobody (by Joel Spolsky definition)
| has their bug report system full of bugs, and solving them
| would take years of doing nothing but butfixing. Your
| telemetry won't help prioritizing them, or even lead to
| solving them, but it will be mined for info that can be used
| to monetize your behavior.
| mkup wrote:
| Telemetry is far more than stack traces. It includes domain
| names of visited websites, names of executable files you've
| run, names of documents you've opened via explorer, clipboard
| contents, keyboard logs and other privacy-sensitive data.
|
| And switching between Basic and Full levels of telemetry in
| settings doesn't help too much. According to BSI (project
| SiSyPHuS), number of event providers for Basic telemetry
| level is 410, and for Full level there are 422 ETW providers.
| wolfgke wrote:
| > Agreed that candy crush as default is heinous, but it feels
| like "telemetry" is kind of brought up as a bogeyman.
|
| In Germany, such "spying" features are really detested; there
| exists a very privacy-conscious culture that perhaps has to
| do with the experience of two surveillance states on German
| ground of which one only ceased to exist about 30 years ago.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| No offense, but if Germans were so focused on online
| privacy they wouldn't spend so much time and money on
| Facebook/YouTube/Amazon/$FAANGCORP.
| wolfgke wrote:
| Indeed, as native German, I observe lots of people that
| try to avoid having a Google account (in particular for
| email) (to at least separate the services that can be
| provided by a different vendor [email] from the Google
| account) and explicitly completely delete accounts of
| social networks (in particular Facebook/WhatsApp) if they
| ever had one.
|
| To give an example: When at the regular's table of some
| group (details shall not matter) someone suggested to
| form a WhatsApp group, some people gave very direct and
| harsh words.
|
| I personally observe that when I think about buying
| something at Amazon, I ask myself and look whether there
| also exists another possible vendor.
|
| So the mentality that I described _is_ in real - it 's
| just not possible to avoid said
| "Facebook/YouTube/Amazon/$FAANGCORP" _completely_ for
| now; so you look for areas where you _can_ avoid them -
| step by step.
| mbeex wrote:
| > So the mentality that I described is in real
|
| .. but even anecdotal evidence. I says nothing about the
| general situation. Personally. I never felt the need for
| FB. For a few years now my - large - family is running
| Threema. All of them, even the old folk. This is good for
| us, but especially the youngsters have parallel
| installations of WA, Signal, Telegram etc..
|
| This is also anecdotal and I'm afraid, not typical. Some
| months ago I became member of a Skat club (a popular
| german card game). All the people are very different in
| social beckground to me and even to each other - real
| estate shark, musician, blue collar worker and more - and
| know what?
|
| > some people gave very direct and harsh words.
|
| I got these words for NOT accepting WA. Eventually, we
| settled to Signal - but even that not unanimously and it
| remains a slightly frustrating communication model.
| gruez wrote:
| >I can't imagine that corporations would allow Microsoft to
| market to their end-users. There must be some ultra-premium
| edition of Windows 10 that one can buy, where telemetry and ads
| are fully disabled?
|
| The closest you have is LTSC. No ads out of the box. Still has
| telemetry though, although you can turn it down to "security"
| level. It costs like $300 for a license[1], and they won't sell
| it to you unless you commit to buying a bunch (although that
| can be worked around by buying a bunch of cheap CALs).
|
| [1] https://www.cdw.com/product/windows-10-enterprise-
| ltsc-2019-...
| jwildeboer wrote:
| Told by a page that is full of ads and "click here to find out
| about UNRELATED AD STUFF"
|
| Welcome to dystopia.
| riddlemethat wrote:
| Windows 10 is quickly becoming freeware. It's smart. It's
| probably worth much more to Microsoft to Track user behavior and
| sell ads through it than to charge for it.
|
| Surprised they haven't done this sooner.
|
| No doubt they'll still offer a volume license/pro version with
| less advertising.
|
| I haven't used Windows as my daily driver since 2004 but
| companies pay lots of money for me to support it for them. More
| ads means more issues means more revenues for people like me to
| help companies.
|
| Sucks for consumers who aren't technical.
| klingonopera wrote:
| I recently reinstalled a colleague's laptop, with Windows 10,
| done quick and dirty, he was concerned he didn't have a
| key/license, said doesn't matter, we can install first and
| activate later.
|
| After installation, the thing was self-activated. Legit ISO
| downloaded from Microsoft, though via that ISO downloader
| software, starts with something with "H" and runs ads when you
| use it.
|
| Kinda makes me wonder why MS is even bothering gatekeeping
| their ISOs. Why not make them freely available?
|
| ...nobody makes cash of OSes anymore... It's market share
| they're after.
| corobo wrote:
| You mean like this? https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-
| download/windows10I...
| gruez wrote:
| That page seems to have some user agent sniffing. If you're
| on windows it doesn't offer direct iso download.
| corobo wrote:
| Of course Windows gets the worse version of it..
|
| Come on over to Linux everyone! We're bound to have the
| year of Linux on the desktop, any decade now.
| vetinari wrote:
| > Of course Windows gets the worse version of it..
|
| Not really. Linux/Macs get iso, which has install.wim
| larger than 4GB. That means, you cannot copy it to FAT-32
| formatted USB and boot it; you have to burn it (or mount
| as virtual cd in vm).
|
| Alternative would be using dism to split it, but for
| that, you need working windows machine, leading to
| chicken-egg problem.
|
| The windows version, although it gets media creator, has
| install.esd instead of install.wim (with different
| compression), so it fits into FAT32-formatted filesystem.
| gruez wrote:
| >Kinda makes me wonder why MS is even bothering gatekeeping
| their ISOs. Why not make them freely available?
|
| They _are_ freely available... kind of. There 's a site[1]
| that generates direct download links from microsoft's CDN.
|
| [1] https://tb.rg-adguard.net/public.php
| vel0city wrote:
| Modern hardware can store license keys on the motherboard's
| firmware. When you go to reinstall it checks the device to
| see if it has any valid Windows keys.
|
| FWIW, this isn't exactly a new feature, just a feature which
| has been expanded on and is far more common with modern UEFI
| firmware on devices shipped by OEMs. If you notice, most
| modern laptops don't ship with a product key sticker
| anywhere. Instead they have a genuine holographic Windows
| sticker on it and have the license loaded on the device. This
| became standard for large OEMs with Windows 8.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS#SLIC
| MadWombat wrote:
| > Windows 10 is quickly becoming freeware
|
| How so? As far as I can tell, even a Home edition license costs
| a rather significant chunk of money
| mnm1 wrote:
| How disgusting. What they've done to Windows makes the Microsoft
| of the 90's look tame. It's not an OS. It's a malware and
| advertising platform that spies on its users. It's shocking to me
| that people who run actual businesses with sensitive data would
| even consider running Windows. Or any government. For people who
| care about their data and their computing, that's one less
| platform they can run on. All the pretty hardware in the world
| doesn't change the fact that they no longer make an OS to go with
| it.
| DoofusOfDeath wrote:
| I already feel bad for the bureaucratic hassles faced by
| physicians in the U.S. But...
|
| I'm curious if HIPPA-related lawsuits against healthcare
| providers using Windows 10 could start mobilizing small
| businesses against what Microsoft is doing.
| philjackson wrote:
| Wordpad's that tool you use very occasionally to look at files
| that have unix line endings.
| contextfree wrote:
| Notepad now also supports unix line endings (was added in the
| October 2018 update)
| Vaslo wrote:
| As I open to a bunch of ads on my phone via this website...
| app4soft wrote:
| Would _MS Paint_ get ads too?
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| If Microsoft made Photoshop? Yes.
| johnminter wrote:
| Try SublimeText3 [1] instead. It is a cross platform editor. You
| can try it out and use it for free. The expectation is that if
| you like it and continue to use it, you will purchase a license.
| I really like it for programming any task I want to use plain
| text.
|
| There is also a build system and one can download packages that
| enhance coding in many different languages. I have no economic
| interest in this, I'm just a satisfied user.
|
| 1 - https://www.sublimetext.com/blog/articles/sublime-
| text-3-poi...
| dougbarrett wrote:
| The article isn't talking about Notepad which SublimeText3
| would be a good alternative to, but WordPad which is more of a
| WYSIWYG editor.
| pndy wrote:
| The "ad" takes form of familiar information bar seen in Internet
| Explorer; at the moment it seems to be less obtrusive than
| OneDrive notifications in File Explorer
| Zhyl wrote:
| I'd also argue that if there is one product or service that
| Wordpad has reasonable grounds to recommend, it's Word.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| Any notifications in my file explorer are obtrusive and a deal-
| breaker. My personal computing space is not an advertiser's
| playground.
| carlchenet wrote:
| why using WordPad? So much FOSS alternatives without ads.
| blibble wrote:
| it's not as if Windows 10 shows you ads if you use open source
| projects is it?
|
| https://external-preview.redd.it/mZxH3Zh3-fme9ENc2j1CAENz3nQ...
| chapium wrote:
| Really, do you have some examples?
| aloisdg wrote:
| Does LibreOffice work for you? I will also mention
| OpenOffice. LO is a forked of OO. Search online for the
| LibreOffice vs OpenOffice for more information. I also tried
| Abiword if you want another one (not sure if abiword is
| available on Windows).
| thenewnewguy wrote:
| As far as I know there is basically no reason to use OO, it
| is a completely dead project. All of the development effort
| is being focused on LO, so if you want a FOSS word
| processor use LO.
| opencl wrote:
| OO isn't _completely_ dead, the Apache foundation is
| still maintaining it. It 's more like it's on life
| support. But it is definitely true that LO development is
| far far more active and there's not much point in using
| OO over it.
|
| And Abiword for Windows does exist but hasn't been
| updated in the past decade.
| gtk40 wrote:
| To me, the advantages are support for multiple common file
| formats out of the box on Windows (text files with Unix line
| endings, DOCX, ODT, etc.). I know I have an option with a base
| Windows install for some file types if I'm ever using it.
| S_A_P wrote:
| It reminds me of how solitaire has "ads" now. Maybe its just me,
| but the only "Ad" I get is "Hey are you tired of ads? buy it
| here!" or "Hey you can change your card style". Both from MS.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| Actions like this are why I went to the trouble of getting
| Windows 10 Long-Term Service Branch (LTSB) now renamed Long-Term
| Service Channel. I can lock down more and I only get security
| updates, rather than games just appearing in my Start Menu.
| dewey wrote:
| Before reading the article I had a worse version of this in mind.
| Cross-promoting their own products, while not especially great,
| is a lot less bad than having "regular" ads with all their
| privacy issues embedded in your OS.
|
| Pretty similar to what Apple does with their "Sign up for Apple
| Arcade" push notifications, iCloud Login badges etc.
|
| It's still pretty bad but the headline is blowing it a bit out of
| proportion.
| sandov wrote:
| Each time I get frustrated at destkop Linux I feel tempted to
| just go back to Windows, but then I remember that Microsoft does
| this sort of thing.
| pariahHN wrote:
| This...does not seem as bad as I originally thought. Just a
| prompt bar to use Office instead of WordPad. I was thinking it
| would look like the start menu does. Admittedly I would be more
| concerned if it was advertising something other than a product
| most consumers regard as the default way to edit text.
| s3cur3 wrote:
| Agreed. Most of my Windows-using family members wouldn't be
| able to tell the difference between WordPad and Word... until
| they go to share the file and discover that RTF looks different
| on every other person's machine. This is entirely a positive
| for the tech-illiterate portion of Microsoft's userbase, who
| probably intended to be using Word anyway.
| _underfl0w_ wrote:
| It will also train them to further ignore the presence of
| these bars if they see them and close them without reading -
| these same bars that usually contain security warnings in
| Office products.
| [deleted]
| jandrese wrote:
| The headline made it sound like the horrible mess that Freecell
| has become, but this is fairly low key.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _this is fairly low key_
|
| Only if you're inured to this kind of corporate intrusion on
| _your_ machine that _you_ paid for with _your_ money.
|
| My toaster barking, "Hey, wouldn't you like a nice Thomases'
| English Muffin instead? Nooks and crannies!" is also fairly
| low-key, but not something I want.
| simcop2387 wrote:
| It really does get as annoying as you'd expect. The Sci-Fi
| comedy Red Dwarf has a toaster that does essentially this,
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRq_SAuQDec
| DoofusOfDeath wrote:
| > My toaster barking, "Hey, wouldn't you like a nice
| Thomases' English Muffin instead? Nooks and crannies!" is
| also fairly low-key, but not something I want.
|
| On the bright side, my kids would get to (briefly) see a
| reproduction of After Dark's "Flying Toasters" screensaver.
| Infinitesimus wrote:
| It's more like your toaster saying "we have another model
| that provides xyz features you may or may not want"
| jandrese wrote:
| Maybe more like you rent an apartment that comes with a
| basic toaster, and has a sticker on the said that says
| "full feature toaster available, inquire with the
| landlord if you are interested".
|
| Mildly annoying and silly, but maybe some people wouldn't
| even consider the possibility if you didn't tell them
| about it.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| Why is that even remotely OK?
| Infinitesimus wrote:
| If done well, it could just be a way to inform customers
| of an improved product.
|
| Lets say Apple launched iTunes2 as a separate product and
| one day you opened iTunes and saw the banner "Try
| iTunes2!" would that be equally upsetting? Or you go to
| gmail.com and see a banner for "Try Inbox!" etc.
|
| This isn't candy crush in WordPad, it's an ad for an
| enhanced text editor
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Agreed. The fact that we're making comparisons to worse
| scenarios just shows how low standards have become.
| [deleted]
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Just a prompt bar to use Office instead of WordPad_
|
| Wait.
|
| Feature creep. Scope creep. Ad creep.
| matsz wrote:
| Paid users shouldn't be exposed to advertisements like these.
| dylan604 wrote:
| so says every single cable subscriber.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| And look at the slow march to the grave cable is
| experiencing.
| zerkten wrote:
| They probably have a very different idea of "paid" from the
| companies creating the software. Even though you "bought" a
| piece of software, it's more accurate to say you "licensed"
| that software. Buying something in a box doesn't change this
| in the eyes of the law and companies take advantage of this.
|
| What can be done to change this perception? If "software is
| eating the world" then it's hard to see where this ends. Soon
| you'll have ads in your car, or on home appliances.
| msrmthehomeless wrote:
| Title is clearly click bait. This seems more like a message to
| gradually help people moving off a product that will eventually
| get retired. If MS is advertising you would think they would
| advertise in higher traffic apps (i.e. Paint) but most people
| don't even use WordPad.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| Can I also opt into a program where every time I say, "Brought to
| you by Carls Jr.", Cortana credits me $1? /s
|
| How much more can Microsoft do to the user before they actually
| rebel against it?
| rb808 wrote:
| bing has this, I usually get about $20 in Amazon cards/yr for
| using it.
| alerighi wrote:
| As a Linux user, I prefer much more the old Microsoft.
|
| Nowadays Microsoft business shifted from selling licenses to
| making money selling the user data, that is something far worse
| and concerning. Take a look at this, they suggest the user to use
| Word online, buy for what reason? Simple, to collect their user
| data. Or have you tried to install Windows 10 recently? They do
| everything to force you to sign up with a Microsoft account,
| think about a non expert user that buys a computer and thinks
| that is necessary to register one, also they propose to accept
| default settings that enable all the possible data collection.
|
| Also they are doing harm in other ways, especially against the
| FOSS community, despite the stupid slogans 'Microsoft loves
| Linux', no they don't, they are just trying to get the Linux
| developers to switch to Windows, they made installing Linux on a
| computer more complex thanks to UEFI and secure boot, and they
| offered the solution, why do you have to install Linux first
| place, we have the WSL, you can run your Linux software inside
| Windows so you have no reason to install it bare metal.
| thefunnyman wrote:
| I think there's a simple explanation here which is a lot less
| exciting than you suggest. Namely that Microsoft is pushing
| Office online to better compete with Google's offerings.
| Similarly, they're pushing use of a Microsoft account mainly
| for the convenience this offers to non-technical users with
| things like synced settings and automatically backed up
| documents.
|
| They continue to offer options to use a local account for those
| that want it and I really see no problem with pushing an
| account as the default option for the majority of users. No one
| complains that Apple pushes iCloud accounts on people.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > Similarly, they're pushing use of a Microsoft account
| mainly for the convenience this offers to non-technical users
| with things like synced settings and automatically backed up
| documents.
|
| This doesn't jive with the progression of their efforts to
| hide the option away. At first it was a small text link on
| that portion of the install screen, then it was that link
| plus another, now it looks like this [0].
|
| [0] https://www.howtogeek.com/442609/confirmed-
| windows-10-setup-...
| compuguy wrote:
| UFEI and secure boot predate the current CEO of Microsoft's
| tenure....
| m0zg wrote:
| Maybe their plan is to ruin Windows so badly that people would
| voluntarily switch to Linux? Who knows. Most of their cloud is
| Linux, and Windows Division has been disbanded long ago.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| It has been my suspicion for some time that they are
| intentionally ruining Windows. Not to get people to switch to
| Linux, but rather to just kill off the personal computer as a
| concept and switch everyone to some kind of Microsoft Live
| Desktop subscription.
| _underfl0w_ wrote:
| Almost like a targeted version of what Apple has been
| inadvertently doing with their desktop OS for several
| releases now.
| [deleted]
| cs702 wrote:
| The way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised to see the
| following in coming years:
|
| * All your Windows applications start getting ads, unless you pay
| for a subscription.
|
| * Your home appliances start getting ads, unless you pay for a
| subscription.
|
| * Your car starts getting ads, unless you pay for a subscription.
|
| * Your wrist-watch starts getting ads, unless you pay for a
| subscription.
|
| ...and eventually:
|
| * Your ad-free subscription services start getting ads (like
| Hulu).
|
| * You can't avoid ads, and all information about you will be
| sold, regardless.
|
| ...But I hope it doesn't play out like that.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >* Your ad-free subscription services start getting ads (like
| Hulu). Hulu is not ad free now.
|
| >* You can't avoid ads, and all information about you will be
| sold, regardless. Sounds like you've been watching Black Mirror
| again
| Razengan wrote:
| If there is money to be made, it will.
| globular-toast wrote:
| If there ever came a day when there was no option but to run this
| kind of software on computers then I'd just stop using computers.
| I'd pack it all in and go and live in the hills. It just wouldn't
| be fun any more.
|
| Thankfully I don't see that day coming. There's enough people
| like me.
| szczepano wrote:
| Screensaver ads please.
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