I keep seeing headlines like this all the time. I’m over here like “This has already been a thing for years”. Whenever I’d setup a win10 pc for someone, I’d have to clean the ads out of the start menu as part of the setup. So I ask again, how is this any different from the bullshit we’re already dealing with?
Cool. I just started testing Nobara
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The software maker will use the Recommended section of the Start menu, which usually shows file recommendations, to suggest apps from the Microsoft Store.
“This will appear only for Windows Insiders in the Beta Channel in the US and will not apply to commercial devices (devices managed by organizations),” says Microsoft in a blog post.
The app promotions can be disabled in the Settings section of Windows 11, but it appears that Microsoft will enable these by default.
Microsoft is seeking feedback on the changes, so it’s possible the company could decide to ditch these ads in development builds of Windows 11 if there’s enough feedback that suggests they’re not going to be a popular addition.
Microsoft started testing ads inside the File Explorer of Windows 11 last year before disabling the experiment in beta versions of Windows 11.
Microsoft has been experimenting with ads inside Windows for more than 10 years.
The original article contains 222 words, the summary contains 152 words. Saved 32%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Cool
I’m learning more and more about Linux while using Linux Mint
It’s pretty cool NGL
asdfasfasf
Although not the same, this has been going on for about two years now. Jensen Harris, a former MS engineer, criticized the ads as well as the design of the new Start Menu, over here: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1564399431545667585.html
Weren’t they doing this as far back as windows 8?
It just highlights the downward spiral to user hostility becoming the standard. Pretty sad.
Good thing I use Ubuntu for >90% of my computing now.
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I’m under no illusion Ubuntu is perfect. But I PAID for my Windows licenses. And if I paid, I don’t want to see ads. I don’t care about Win 8’s penetrative pricing model or the $25 coupon. I don’t care that I paid for my licenses 10+ years ago. Don’t sell me ads on a product I paid for. And Windows serves up ads all the god damned time now. If there’s anything good to be said about Windows 8, it’s that it didn’t take every opportunity to sell me an Office 365 subscription ever second breath I took. I don’t actually remember the last time I saw an ad in Ubuntu, and I’ve been using it to varying degrees since 2011. I think we can at least agree Canonical is better than Microsoft, yeah?
All that said, I’ve had thoughts of switching to plain old Debian, especially now that I’d consider myself much more experienced and comfortable in Linux. But if I were recommending a distro to a new user, I am one million percent telling them Ubuntu or Mint, depending on how they feel about the Windows UI.
I’ve used Linux on every PC except my gaming PC for years. This year I made the final leap because of decisions like this from Microsoft.
Very few games have failed to work, the ones that have are all from Epic and they fail because of their shitty anticheat software. The only other things I feel the lack of are paint.net and the Affinity apps.
Pinta is a fork of an older version of paint.net: https://www.pinta-project.com/ I have no idea if it is any good. I just thought that this might solve your problem.
I have Pinta, it’s ok but lacks a lot of the plugins I used and hasn’t been too stable. The graphics editing thing is something that will,just take time for me to rework my workflows. Gimp is great, I’m just not used to it.
How many PCs do you have, lol. And Gimp and Inkscape are pretty good art programs.
5 in use. Main Gaming PC, Laptop, Game server pc, media server PC, and another for testing things out. Whenever a family member upgrades I get the old one so most of these are pretty old.
I have gimp and other graphics tools, I also have a LOT of hours of use in the ones I mentioned so there are things I know how to do quickly in those programs but not in their counterparts.
EAC is now largely compatible with Linux, but devs have to enable support per game.
I recommend browsing protondb to see how (if) people have made games with anticheat work, you might need to change proton versions, add launch options etc.
It was Fortnite and Fall Guys, I’m not really missing them.
Fall guys works. I used to play it on my stem deck. Fortnite is notoriously busted though.
This is why Linux rules tbh, little to no rules what so ever in terms of customizing your desktop whilst also not having shit like this too like having so much bloat and constant ads, like telling you to install edge everytime whilst protecting your privacy too.
linux rules because it’s the only os built for its users rather than some company stocks
Absolutely!
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🤫 we don’t mention BSD out of reverence.
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illumos!
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After looking a bit more it seems like illumos is mostly the kernel, and openIndiana is one of the maintained distros.
a rounding error on my part, sorry 😋
More seriously, I was thinking more of foss desktop environments and user programs (which are basically the same all over) than about the actual os - thanks for correcting me
If they could inject the ad’s into your veins, they would.
So Microsoft is one of the most valuable companies in the entire world. They have a stranglehold on corporate America, power a huge the cloud infrastructure, hold one of the largest sources of telemetry/user data, and are the defacto standard of PC environments worldwide.
Why in the fuck do they need to pivot to ads? I’m genuinely curious. Even if they lost 50% of their entire business they would still be one of the most profitable companies in the world.
@SuperSynthia @dvdnet62 because once untamed capitalism sees a money spigot they can’t help but wonder how wide it will open.
@SuperSynthia @dvdnet62 Because for capitalism, profit is not the end, only a means to the end. The end is to accumulate sufficient capital to absorb all competitors and achieve total control of markets.
Yea but like, their competitors, when it comes to operating systems are Apple, which isn’t anywhere near small enough to be obtainable by anyone and Linux and Linux-Derivatives, which are also unobtainable due to their open source nature.
@accideath The point isn’t whether Microsoft will reach that end. The point is that like all capitalist enterprises it will forever strive to do so.
Not all of them. Only the big and successful ones
@accideath All of them. That is the definition of a capitalist enterprise.
Not every larger company is automatically evil, just because they exist within a capitalist market. A lot of them are, sure. At least to some extent. But there still are privately owned enterprises that do have a conscience.
Also, calling them “capitalist” enterprises seems redundant.
@accideath I’m calling them capitalist enterprises to emphasize that they are capitalist enterprises. They accumulate capital. That is what they are and defines what they do.
A capitalist enterprise does not decide it has enough and can retire and take up gardening. It is not a person. It does not have a conscience.
Would be nice if pivoting to ads caused them to lose 50% of their business.
Sadly it won’t.
Better question is “why not”?
@SuperSynthia @dvdnet62 Because capitalism demands infinite growth.
@SuperSynthia @dvdnet62 I’ll explain in two very simple words.
MOAR MONIES
I think it’s the same reason games offer a cash shop for things you can get in-game. Sure they’re making billions but why not billions plus ad revenue? I don’t agree with the practice but the answer always comes back to money.
Because when you have shareholders, there’s no such thing as “we’re profitable enough”. Shareholders always demand more. Ads means more profit, at least in the short term. Next quarter profits are all that matter to public companies.
It’s obscene, but it’s the way it is.
It’s not just that they demand more, they demand more/faster growth all the time. It doesn’t matter that the economy has slowed down to borderline recession, it doesn’t matter that they pretty much captured all the market they can, they still need to make more and more money every quarter otherwise they’re considered a failure even if they are one of the biggest companies in the world.
I’d believe Google has a larger data collection as it’s includes both google hardware and software products.
Google can also connnect the dots between an extreme amount of user data and services.Because they were “leaving money on the table” instead of getting it for their shareholders.
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Isn’t it obvious? Start Menu is being used by every windows user but is not generating any revenue Serving ads will enable them to better support the platform and provide more advanced features. Ad supported version is better than making it a subscription like some third party apps have done. Start8 I think, basic copy of Microsoft’s Start Menu but paid.
Maybe this is why you can’t have a toolbar on the taskbar, to force you into the start menu more.
it was already full of ads on win10
Yeah, lol people forgot what ads are. News feeds, Xbox and other office apps you haven’t bought yet, are also ads, just their own products.
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Fedora+KDE ftw. I switched my un upgradeable windows PC to fedora and I couldn’t be happier.
@tsonfeir But Linux does not have AutoHotkey. This is the biggest deal-breaker for me by far. AutoKey seems be the closest thing, but it’s such a massive pain to even try to use by comparison.
Depending on your usage, perhaps this re-implementation of AHK for Linux might be of use to you.
Interesting, thanks. I think ultimately, seeing this port’s adherence to AHK v1 syntax, I’d just have to bite the bullet and learn Python or something, though…
Never mind, I’ve since stumbled across
xdotool!
I doesn’t have auto hotkey because for the most part, you can control Linux from the command-line without someone having to invent a new scripting language from scratch to control it.
I heavily recommend you familiarize yourself with bash and the system commands you’ll need to send key presses, move windows, spawn and kill programs, etc.
Hmm, thanks. Can it simulate mouse-clicks?
Apparently,
xdotoolcan! I guess the next thing would be generating GUIs. I think the final issue is that this would cause quite the fragmentation given how I use the same scripts on my Windows-only work laptop… but I’ll think about this more…An alternative is python, it can do GUIs easily, and it does have mouse-control facilités as well and it is cross plaform. That being said generally on Linux you don’t even need to automate mouse click, as almost all of it can be controllers with straight up commands.
Fuck me, there is no worse way automating things
Do you have any as-convenient alternative? It’s way easier to use than Python or anything else, and it’s sped up some of my work procedures by, like, 7x. I use it for dozens of text expansion strings, autocorrect, address typers, mouse-clickers, etc.
Never mind, I’ve since stumbled across
xdotool! I suppose this may be doable after all…
I had the same issue holding me back from giving up Windows, until I discovered the Python keyboard module.
How to bind key presses to it varies, but here’s a recipe for Ubuntu, as an example:
Overall, it’s not quite as elegant, as AutoHotKey, but it’s ultimately a more powerful, since there’s so much else I can also do from the same Python script.
Edit: Most notably, I don’t recall AutoHotKey having any nice way to tell which apps are open, and Python can quickly call out to
ps. It’s been on my to-do list to leverage this to let me map keybindings according to what is open (i.e. a favorite game, or a move player.)KDE can do that without third party software I believe.
Windows 11 looks like a crappy knockoff of KDE with all the good bits removed and replaced with spyware and adware.
It looks much better actually, with the fancy blur and transparency effects. Not to say it works better than Linux, and I’m sure it must be possible to customise KDE to look better.
Yeah there are plenty of kwin effect you can install that would make it as pretty as windows 11 if that’s important to you. Just like there are plenty of themes you can install if you want a macOS experience instead
Yeah, if there is one thing that windows 11 does well is looks. I think its fancy.
HOW MANY TIMES DO WE HAVE TO TEACH YOU THIS LESSON OLD MAN
Every time.
Because this old man hasn’t learnt the lesson…
We love a good call to arms, what more can be said
It’s time to switch.
