How to disable the built-in Windows 10 ads | Hacker News Reader

How to disable the built-in Windows 10 ads

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202 pointsmiles189 comments

For me, Windows 10 is where I felt like I was no longer in control of my own computer.

Microsoft doesn't do discrete OS updates anymore but I definitely feel like it might time to give Linux another go next time I upgrade my hardware. There's less and less software the holds me to MS. This is due to so many programs going to the web - Google Docs suite, dictionaries etc and partially due to better Linux support for software I use such as Unity or games via Wine. What's held me back until now has been poor graphics driver support.

They are trying to kill the idea of local apps and exe's, aka they can finally turn "files" into property by using active directory and NTFS for the entire internet. You all seem clueless as to the last 20 years of software theft in the game industry.

Everyone 20 year ago on slashdot was worried about software and hardware drm, windows 10 is the first version of windows where they are trying to turn the PC into a mobile locked down platform because of the success of walled gardens like steam, world of warcraft, and the appstores like apple/google play.

The level of stupid on hacker news is disturbing, we used to get complete PC games in the 90's and early 2000's before the public fell for mmo scam of the late 90's which put PC gaming on the path of massive game theft.

Valve is basically a criminal game stealing empire by infecting games with client-server code. The whole industry wants to take us to mainframe dumb client computing.

https://tifca.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/ClienttoCloud_V...

Hot rhetoric aside, this comment is insightful, so I'm vouching it.

Seems like this is a continuation of another account which has posted nothing but the same kind of thing: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=som33

There is still CD Project Red which seems to be the last bastion of DRM free games. I hope Activision (aka Tencent) will never buy them out. China is a cancer also in gaming industry.

The polemic style writing is really off-putting, but I wholeheartedly agree with this.

I know Microsoft keeps trying and failing, but I think they will eventually succeed with a separate version of Windows that is clearly a separate "walled garden" product, that is far more secure, far better performance, only supports UWP apps, and is uncoupled from being in the backwards-compatibility hell that the "main" Windows variant is.

Such a product "powered by Microsoft Office" would be an incredibly compelling Chromebook competitor. As to whether or not it will support ARM, support AD, or even be open source, only time will tell. I could definitely see something like Windows X or a rebuilt Windows S (locked into S) being a glimpse into this future.

I don't personally find it off-putting. Op made some great points. and they deserve to be addressed on their merits, not on their tone.

You can make great points without saying everyone else on the site is "levels of stupid". That's unnecessary, unhelpful, and just escalates the debate immediately. OP is the one who brought an incensed and polemical tone to this thread - asking everyone else to only react to the substance just gives them a free pass on what is innately anti-social behavior that detracts from a civil discussion.

No, I know. I get the ideological desire for the point you make. But I find some levels of rancor endearing, genuine and humanizing especially when the points seem to merit it.

Some of it is also the OP seems to have a history of just going around making incendiary posts and insulting the intelligence of anyone they disagree with. It's endearing the first time - when you've got a pattern of it, and often don't actually bother to reply or discuss with anyone, you're just a flame-bait.

It sounds a lot like Windows RT.

Marketing it would be an incredibly tiny needle to thread-- promoting the OS can run Microsoft Office while immediately changing the message when they ask about every old no-source-available compiled-for-Windows-98 app.

It feels like the people who can switch easily probably jumped to Chromebooks already.

It is a lot like Windows RT, because I feel like they've been trying this model every year. Windows RT, Windows 10 S Mode, Windows 10X...

The latter (designed for dual screen laptops) is coming to single screen devices. https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/4/21246561/microsoft-windows...

In what way is World of Warcraft a "walled garden"? It's a single game. If anything, it's one of the most extensible online games made by a major studio. Do you just mean "walled garden" as "not FOSS"?

It's a game as a service, sure, but that doesn't make it a scam. That's like saying that renting an apartment is a scam because you don't own it. You can question if it's a good financial decision, but that doesn't make it not a fair exchange of money for a product.

But... when I buy a gun in one game, I'd like to be able to use it in another.

I was with you until MMO Scam. The people behind Mazewar, Ultima Online, MUDs, etc. were not trying to scam you out of money and ownership. They were innovating heavily on what games could look like in a networked platform. It was revolutionary at the time.

Not everyone in the industry is on one side here, and if you want to fight this war efficiently and intelligently, you need to know precisely who your enemies are.

Also with such highly populated games they have to do a TON of ongoing work to support the infrastructure to the point that they would lose money on customers in a matter of months if they didn't charge subscription fees.

You should be able to (within reason) use your computer without an internet connection.

> Valve is basically a criminal game stealing empire by infecting games with client-server code.

Uhh.. Valve release all their game server binaries for anyone to run, and sometimes even the source code (Half-Life, Half-Life 2). If you're going to rag on any games company, it shouldn't be them.

Valve did so because they had steam money to rely on, they were boiling the frog slowly.

Notice what they did to TF2 and now the are making artifact (totally microtransaction based game).

Notice how all that money from Dota 2 and TF2 were the end game, you don't get that STEAM malware client, was for valve to ultimately to get to in game stores. Valve was very careful in how they manipulated you into not owning your ow games so they could shove in game stores and mtx into them.

For other games like battlefield or modern warfare, and even overwatch... the problem remains that they can shut down the game remotely, aka Overwatch is not coded in an honest way where you own the game outright, you can't use its multiplayer as a stand alone app, aka you're using stolen software that is coded in a criminally screwed up way so that Activision maintains control.

The whole goal for the game industry was in game stores and mtx in every game and to do that they need to undermine game ownership.

Fortnite, Dota 2, and league of legends would have been fully boxed product games with LAN multiplayer/dedicated servers in a past era, aka for most AAA games we no longer get server exe's and get matchamking.

Quake champions is literally a stolen quake game where you don't get to own it, quake fans wanted a quake they owned and controlled like the first 4 quakes, with QeRadiant, dedicated servers, etc.

Quake champions can only exist in a world where companies have won and games are being coded in criminally underhanded ways to deny local application game files.

(Replying to dead comment.)

> Valve did so because they had steam money to rely on, they were boiling the frog slowly.

Citation needed. Valve have been very good to the TF2/Dota 2 communities. Again, you _can_ run the servers for these products. Worst comes to worst, if Valve turns evil, then pirating the software is easy.

There's good points to be had that Overwatch is terrible for not releasing the server, but Valve are not.

You don't seem to understand VALVE is an outlier because they have so much power, for the rest of the AAA game industry, dedicated servers largely have been under attack. Because client-server and drm ridden software allows them to put in game stores. They don't want people to have dedicated servers if it interferes with their microtransaction business model. AKA in game stores means further eroding software ownership.

You don't grasp the reason quake champions is a server locked game is because of gamers buying client-server coded software.

You're a corporate fanboy. You don't grasp the reason Doom 2016 and no level editor is specifically because of the last 15 years of the war on PC game ownerhsip that began with mmo's in the late 90's.

That all those "MMO/freetoplay" games on steam would have been boxed products with lan/server exe's in a former era, of the public had not taken them up to begin with, valve would have never come up with STEAM. Steam was a direct reaction to ultima online.

Valves long term plan was to remove ownership from his customers, and valve no longer needs to produce games because their long term agenda was making money, they want to be the middleman that skims money from every game sold.

Unrelated to the "walled-garden" debate Valve has invested heavily into their Linux game compatibility tools and invested in the upstream projects that make them happen. That allows people who game on PC to break out of the pending Windows walled garden dystopia that the original commenter fears.

I think the GP means steam "ecosystem".

Over the last 10 years and 1000+ of hours of gaming, I've literally never used a single "feature" or had a single positive interaction with steam other than downloading the games (for which a zipped installer would have worked just fine), yet I had many cases where I couldn't play because steam forced update but couldn't download it due to slow connection/really wanted to go online on the plane because offline mode used to be buggy/had the update install and completely break steam/couldn't login/connect to valve servers, etc.

They were fixing these but new stuff always comes up (and is 0% justified), and some stuff is by "design" e.g. "offline" mode still installs steam updates. At this point I have steam completely firewalled out and I turn that off only when I want to get a specific game or a DLC.

Steam is malware (so are Win10 ads, forced updates, etc.)

Windows has always been like that. Want to shutdown? Oh I'm sorry windows I didn't realise you planned on doing an update! How about I pull the power cord out and we discuss this again later? Computers are our slaves, I don't want to know what is most convenient for them.

Installing updates during a shutdown or restart is a recent phenomenon in the lifetime of the Windows NT family. Windows XP post-SP2, if memory serves, attempted to offer-up updates via the Explorer shutdown/restart/logoff dialog. Windows 8 (again, if memory serves) was the first version that was more "militant" about forcing update installation. Windows 7 was the last of the client-oriented versions of Windows that permitted you to (easily) defer updates indefinitely.

Windows 7 regularly wanted to force me to update on shutdown. I remember it well, because at the time, I was doing my first startup and had a train to catch in the evening, so I regularly had to hit the power because the train wasn't going to wait for Windows to update. It infuriated me so much.

Shift-click, it would shut down without loading them.

A few years too late. Pity it wasn't discoverable, because I never knew about it. I'm happily running anything but windows nowadays. (MacOS for work, Linux at home)

Windows 7 update installation was easy to bypass, however, and still get a clean shutdown. You could use the command/line shutdown command to restart or shutdown w/o installing updates. In Windows 8 and following they put that idiocy into logonUI.exe (which runs outside your logon session) to force update installation.

Well, if there was a way to bypass it, I never found it. Often when I shut down, it gave me the "windows is updating, please wait and don't turn your computer off" message with no options.

It's the reason I developed the muscle memory for Windows-key / R / shutdown -r -t 1 -f / Enter.

Crazy feature. Many times you are just shutting down to dash out the door, but no, windows wants to amend my schedule.

For me, OS X has always been worse about that. Want to shutdown? Better get ready to manually close every single application, because if any of them disagree then that shutdown ain't happening.

Windows does that sometimes too though. Is there no “This program isn’t responding. Do you want to force kill it?” like thing?

There technically is, but the dialog takes too long to pop up, and sometimes never does for some inexplicable reason.

Linux: sudo shutdown -h now

It does my bidding.

This also works in osx, and it’s much faster than the gui based shutdown.

I was about to say—this is how I shut down macOS when it doesn't feel like cooperating.

It would of course be nice if the GUI just consistently did what it's supposed to, but oh well...

I've always typed poweroff. I guess that's because of my time at Sun, since that is the fastest way to shutdown a Solaris machine.

I was always under the impression that shutdown -h ran more shutdown scripts?

Don't forget that Ubuntu is moving into same OUR_USERS_ARE_IDIOTS model. Obligatory reminder: https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/disabling-automatic-refresh-for... Avoid Ubuntu at all cost or you're just going to step from frying pan into fire.

Which is why I wish people would stop recommending Ubuntu as "the" Linux distro.

Debian is a great distro that works, does what it is told.

Flatpaks work perfectly fine on Ubuntu, just remove the snaps and you'll be fine.

```flatpak permission-set flatpak updates $APPID no```

Input to computers used to be treated as commands. You would command computers to do things and they did them. Now, our input is treated either as unreliable ("Are you sure?" dialogs), treated more like a suggestion ("close app" vs "force close"), misinterpreted (oh you didn't want to run update when you issued a shutdown command?) or ignored entirely. It's gotten me irrationally angry.

I remember getting angry when I first had to ask the computer "pretty please, could you shut down," and having that possibly fail, rather than just throwing the power switch.

I remember getting angry when I first had to ask the computer "pretty please, could you eject the disk," with a non-zero chance that no, the computer is busy and you can't have your disk back.

I remember when undelete was an option, and delete was delete.

Now everything is a request. Everything second-guesses the user. Every button and switch is soft button that puts "software with lots of excuses" between you and what you want to command the computer to do. Every software iteration puts the user further and further into the backseat as a passenger rather than where they should be as the driver.

> Want to shutdown? Oh I'm sorry windows I didn't realise you planned on doing an update!

Also recently "shut down" became "hibernate without fully taking the filesystem offline". Because clearly, that's what I meant. Not actually shut down.

I wish I had a tenner for every time I swore I disabled the last power-sucking feature only to find my ThinkPad battery was again dead after being shut down for three days.

I actually did after I installed windows 8. And never installed windows 10. Dont understand me wrong, linux IS a mess not the kernel but the whole userspace is a catastrophy, from systemd to the networkmanager. I never liked it but I started to use it, not becoase it became better but as windows became so much worse. I would prefer freebsd as on my servers but as most of development is going on on linux it doesnt stand a chance. Which is a pitty.

Well, to be fair, these user space components are often judged as catastrophes from the point of view of Linux/UNIX users/admins. In other words, Windows components for same tasks were never scrutinized at this level. Windows users used often scoff at me when I am troubleshooting problems with my Linux boxes. But the fact is, I can troubleshoot and in most cases fix problems with systemd/NetworkManager, whereas when corresponding problems arise on Windows boxes there's really not much you can lean on, because inner workings of these components are not public, so 95% of Google searches result in total crap, and the remaining 5% reveal that design of these components isn't at all that perfect. (NetworkManager equivalent in Windows is big pile of steaming crap.)

So yeah, I don't like design of systemd. But hell, compared to dealing with Windows, it's precious.

> I don't like the design of systemd

I feel like many who level this charge have unfortunately never really looked into its design or compared it realistically to what came before, because I can tell you that if I am comparing the ability to write a systemd service in a declarative way and having it working with the same set of commands across all major distros, I'll take that over having shoddy quality bash scripts that vary across distros just slightly enough to annoy and that rely on a patchwork of PID files that is very easy to mess up, I am taking systemd any day of the week.

I did all that and I like unit files and all the rest that you mention. But there are little things here and there that suck.

Oh sure. But that's the case with all software I can think of. And there was a lot more of these things in SysVinit than systemd.

I am not saying it's perfect. I am just saying it is generally better than what came before.

I have never really understood the "Linux is a mess" argument. While I do agree that it is a mess, it is not as though Windows is any better. The big difference is that the Linux development process is open and the end user is more likely to tinker so a lot of criticism bubbles to the surface. Contrast that to Windows, where there is very little point in discussing how things work under the hood. You may have to know enough about it for setup, maintenance, and troubleshooting. That is about all.

The arguments also ignore some of the great things about Linux. One of the things that I marvel at is how easy it is to setup and maintain a Linux system. Things like software typically being installed and updated through a single source is a tremendous time saver. While many device drivers are lacking specialized features, most hardware will work out of the box. There are also fewer concerns about what is happening behind the scenes. Walkthroughs like this one are fairly common in the Windows world: disable advertising, delay updates, block telemetry, improve performance.

None of this is meant to imply Linux is good and Windows is bad. Both platforms have their benefits and drawbacks. Neither is ideal for everyone. It's all about which trade-offs you're willing to accept.

As someone who uses all 3 OSes to various degrees, the while "mess" thing just strikes me as something that's supposed to be said around Linux and mic drop, as if that in itself meant something.

Linux is often installed on shoddy hardware that Windows no longer runs acceptably on and then people complain why it runs shoddily compared to their new Macbook/DELL XPS that they just purchased.

This very topic shows that Windows is a mess too, there's now been multiple updates that deleted user data as well. Why is that not a mess? Or why is so much more attention paid to the Linux mess? macOS allowed users to log in without a password, leaked encrypted HDD secrets, borked curl & SSH, borked user machines with an update, throttled user machines etc. and that's just from the top of my head. And that's bearing in mind that Apple controls almost all the variables.

Just listen to this. I bet you will recognize the speaker.

https://youtu.be/5PmHRSeA2c8?t=474

It is 100% to the point and nothing has changed in 6 years since (and not only on debian), except that the mess is being solved by docker. Which is crazy. And windows is heading into same direction (when I have seen the manifests the first thing I have said was... omg... .dll.1.4.3)

Just additional info, to help you get into my mindset - system level developer for linux AND windows for 25 years.

(anyway, I have thrown tomatoes into directions of two largest fanboy camps, guess what will happen? =/ )

IMO Linux still has pretty poor graphics drivers, and the whole Wayland thing is in a weird spot right now too. My primary use my my PC is a work machine, for which Linux is very well suited. I also game on my PC. For that, I have tried limiting my self to native Linux games, Wine, directed assigned graphics with a windows VM, and plain old dual booting. In the end I keep end up dual booting. Gaming graphics cards don't work well under Linux. However, I've had great luck with low end workstation graphics cards, especially those running the new AMDGPU driver.

If you are an expert, there has never been a better time to move to Linux. If you are a novice, there still hasn't been a better time, but its also still not for everyone.

not to get too offtopic but performance in Linux for Vulkan routinely beats native windows video performance. https://www.protondb.com/

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=dota2-ma...

at present there are about 6500 working games in Linux that take advantage of advanced 3d graphics. These include the latest Doom, Fallout 76, and Borderlands 3. Im currently running a Radeon RX 470 and playing everything from Aragami to P.A.M.E.L.A. and Wolfenstein New Colossus at 60fps or higher.

Yeah, performance certainly has come a long way. The bigger issues these days are stability and compatibility. Both nouveau and nVidia proprietary are pretty crashy (and not just for me). nVidia proprietary isn't great with wayland. Catalyst is pretty bad. AMDGPU is great, but I haven't really pushed it beyond a low end workstation card. Intel is fine, but intel doesn't offer high end graphics.

> the whole Wayland thing is in a weird spot right now too

You can still use X though, speaking from experience Nvidia drivers don't work at all on Wayland.

Furthermore this is a great resource which will certainly be useful to OP

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2019/03/15/linux...

I actually bought a second graphics card for use with linux because I was sick of deciding between slow (nouveau) and crashy (nv proprietary). I have a WX2100 and it has been completely rock solid. I can't use X11 without some as-yet-to-be-discovered workaround because it won't give up on using my nvidia card, even though I have that card attached to vfio-pci. Wayland is solid though.

> IMO Linux still has pretty poor graphics drivers

The situation is like this: https://preview.redd.it/79011affulj11.png?width=800&format=p...

nVidia: I've been gaming on nVidia proprietary drivers without any issues. Though most demanding games were CS:GO and The Talos Principle.

AMD: At work I'm on workstation with some 2 years old Radeon and AMDGPU drivers (mainline). No issues so far.

Intel: I'm using it on my laptop. No issues so far.

What poor graphics drivers do you have in mind?

I mean you linked the meme? That pretty well sums things up. Like I said in my original comment, workstation graphics cards tend to do great, as do older graphics cards.

I've used mix of old and new graphics cards and I have never experienced issues with drivers related to how recent the graphics card was. The few issues I had were always with the driver itself. And I've never used workstation-grade graphics card, always consumer ones.

> IMO Linux still has pretty poor graphics drivers.

IMO Intel is generally very well supported with the open-source kernel driver and amdgpu is getting there. This feels like a trope that always gets repeated but never updated, kind of like "you need CLI to use Linux".

> the whole Wayland thing is in a weird spot right now too

The whole Wayland thing is already much smoother for many than X11 ever was and it actually takes security seriously. I am running GNOME on Wayland full time since 2018 and by this point there's nothing I miss from X11, any specifics?

> there's nothing I miss from X11, any specifics?

There are plenty of applications that still depend on Xwayland, and the nvidia proprietary can't accelerate these. There are some other weird stability issues related to the nvidia driver as of mid last year at least. Wayland is missing a bunch of features from X, which bothers some people. I personally miss network transparency from X. That said, I do run wayland full time, and have for a few years now. I just can't recommend it without reservations.

I can't comment on catalyst, or AMDGPU on current generation AMD gaming graphics cards. What I can say is that you can pretty much blindly assume that whatever gpu you want to buy will work well under Windows.

> IMO Intel is generally very well supported

I would add AMDGPU to that list as well. Still, AMDGPU is new, and Intel doesn't offer a high end graphics card. nVidia proprietary causes problems, such as those it causes for wayland. I am very happy with my AMDGPU compatible WX2100 for linux, but it is certainly not a good gaming GPU.

Sure, nvidia is problematic, hence Linuses now famous rant, but that's to be expected, they don't cooperate at all.

I understand it may be the only option for high-end gaming, but in that case one probably doesn't have switchable graphics, which causes the most issues, so X/Xwayland is the one compromise one has to make.

This however does not mean that Linux graphics is a mess in general. I have both Intel and amdgpu machines that work out of the box, no problem. And this does not ever gets asked in relation to macOS, because everyone "knows" nvidia just wasn't a thing there in recent years. So perhaps we should assume nvidia just isn't a thing as well, unless you're willing to put up with crap?

So does Linux and Linux on the desktop work for everybody? No. Does it work as good for a high-end gaming machine as Windows? No. Does Windows work as the most productive fronend/backend/systems OS for programming out there? No. Does Linux? Yeah.

So while they both have their strengths and weaknesses, Linux works perfectly well for a lot of use-cases, the graphics driver situation included.

As for Wayland not being network-transparent, the fact that it worked in X in the way it did was in fact a massive hack and a security hole and while sometimes convenient, I personally didn't need GUI over SSH almost ever, apart from playing around, so I'd take a proper security architecture, like Wayland has, over network transparency.

This is also not a feature supported by Windows/macOS, so not really a point against Linux in my book.

The early complaints, like screenshots etc. re Wayland were all resolved some time ago too.

> X/Xwayland is the one compromise one has to make.

No you don't. You could use Windows.

> So perhaps we should assume nvidia just isn't a thing as well.

Sure, that is what I do. How do you explain that to a novice that is just trying to run linux on their computer for the first time?

Look, I use linux full time for most tasks, both at home and at work. Professionally I am a kernel engineer. I am very pro linux, and pro new linux users. I think that we do linux a disservice by pretending that there aren't issues. The simple fact is that the linux graphics experience is not seamless like it is on other operating systems. We shouldn't pretend that it is just because experts can make it work.

> No you don't. You could use Windows.

Of course, provided you don't mind the ads, the telemetry, the updates that delete your files [1], this is assuming you're actually interested in Linux.

> How do you explain that to a novice that is just trying to run linux

That perhaps you do look for Linux HW before purchasing and do not install Linux on any old crap?

Look, I could hand somebody a Chromebook and ask them to try how well Windows would run on it. The experience wouldn't be great. Same on a Talos II or some other obviously problematic HW for Windows where Linux fares much better, but it's a pointless game.

Most people don't run into this situation because BestBuy laptops come preinstalled with Windows. If they came with Linux, there'd be a reverse situation.

But with macOS people somehow don't assume they can run it on a random POS HW and indeed know that it's best to get one designed to run macOS.

Why is the standard Linux is evaluated against always different?

Just get a Linux-compatible machine and you're good, that's it. I know as I've done it many times now.

It's not about pretending there aren't issues. But I've realized we're being held back by always trying to snatch this mythical 'new user' with his BestBuy laptop, or someone with a knowingly problematic HW, (unless nVidia cooperates, there's little we could do) and Windows will continue to come preinstalled on the majority of PCs, so a mass exodus isn't happening anytime soon.

What we could do, instead of being this "honest" and just reinforcing the idea that Linux doesn't work, we could be even more frank and just say avoid this vendor, but this and this one is fine.

Reinforcing the idea that Linux is crap because of some shitty corporation that refuses to support it gives too much importance and power to said corporation when they don't deserve it.

1 - https://www.tomsguide.com/news/massive-windows-10-fail-new-u...

> Gaming graphics cards don't work well under Linux

They work fine, haven't had a problem with them for years, using nvidia cards. Most distros just ship the proprietary drivers now, and those just work.

There just aren't masses of native games. That said, Steam now has a built in version of wine called "Proton" that's worth checking out.

"For me, Windows 10 is where I felt like I was no longer in control of my computer."

If Microsoft cannot not stop Windows computers from becoming controlled by a botnet, the logical solution is to create their own. Well, that is what it looks like.

Big tech companies will tell users that they will "protect" them from this, that and the other thing (including protecting users from themselves), but they cannot protect users from the company. Obviously, showing ads demonstrates that the user, what Microsoft knows about her, is now a "product". Nevertheless, it is fair to ask why any user would prefer to control their own computer 100% instead of letting Microsoft control it for them. It is possible that, outside of HN commenters and voters, most Windows users are ambivalent.

I can remember when Windows had no way to access the internet, only local area networks. It was much faster. Why not temporarily bring down the interface to the internet gateway when it is not needed, or just delete the default gateway from the routing table. For example, if one is only using a program that does not need internet access, e.g., a word processor, spreadsheet, dictionary, calculator, etc., there is no need to have a connection to the internet. A script could be used to automate this procedure. This way the user has some control over when Microsoft can install updates, send telemetry data, etc., i.e., when the company can "take control". When the user is done with her offline work or game playing, she can bring up the interface or re-add the default gateway and let Microsoft have control.

> I can remember when Windows had no way to access the internet, only local area networks. It was much faster.

> When the user is done with her offline work or game playing, she can bring up the interface or re-add the default gateway and let Microsoft have control.

By that reasoning deleting System32 folder is also an option, and should make your computer 10 times faster /s

at this point Windows 10 LTSC will be the last version of Windows I use

First of all, I don't understand why Microsoft is doing this. They are making more from online services than they ever made from selling windows licences so it's not like they need the few cents advertising generates. Probably the windows group trying to up their own numbers, not noting they are hurting the company as whole.

With that said, I don't consider all things author disabled as "ads". Some are just annoying attempts to get people to explore w10 and the included software.

What I consider ads are:

1. The stupid preinstalled games and apps that fill your start screen upon your first boot.

2. The preinstalled Microsoft games (these contain actual ads)

3. The third party app suggestions.

> I don't understand why Microsoft is doing this

Maximizing shareholder value is about pushing everything to the limits, to fully explore every opportunity for potential revenues.

Not saying I like this concept and what it does to the world. But at the same time I am invested in the stockmarket, meaning that I want to profit from it. I guess I want it all...

Anything which spies on me for Microsoft, I want disabled. I'd like my Windows to:

* Occasionally grab a list of patches available, see which ones apply to my system

* If I install new hardware, with my permission, find drivers.

Sending random information about me to Microsoft is not okay.

But no, the author doesn't disable all Microsoft ads as advertised; you also need to uninstall the massive number of paid pre-installed craplets, which as far as I know, can only be done with command line incantations.

I think Microsoft is doing this since OS licensing costs will disappear at some point, with

(1) actual increasingly fierce competition from places like Android

(2) ease of future free OS competition as things moving online (20 years ago, no business could run Ubuntu because Word; now, Ubuntu, Chromebooks, etc. are enough to run a business on)

The Microsoft tax will become increasingly unsustainable on the low-end, and that may quickly trickle up.

> First of all, I don't understand why Microsoft is doing this.

For money. All companies do things for money.

> so it's not like they need the few cents advertising generates.

Few cents? Advertising is behind some of the most profitable companies in the world today.

> Probably the windows group trying to up their own numbers, not noting they are hurting the company as whole.

When windows 10 was released, MSFT had a market cap of around $400 billion. Today it has a market cap of $1.4 trillion. If the windows group is hurting microsoft, that isn't being reflected in its market cap.

Not enough to offset their continuing monopoly in productivity software, but it's certainly kept me from buying a Windows device. n=1, ymmv, etc.

Everyone on HN is an outlier, though. We’re very atypical users.

The word monopoly gets thrown around like it's nothing these days. Google Docs and LibreOffice also exist.

Monopoly and anti-competitive go hand in hand, though I don’t think Office has anything to worry about currently.

Alternatives to google search exist but they’ve still been declared a monopoly by the EU, with something like a 90% share of searches.

In the US we’ve blocked cell phone company mergers that would take them over 40% share for comparison.

Of the office suite front Gsuite has ~57% share and MSOffice ~43%

I used Windows almost exclusively from mid 2016 to mid 2018. Ads, tracking I couldn't get rid of and annoying questions on the beautiful login screens drove me back to a Mac for most things, despite the bad video card other hardware deficiencies.

Ye I hate those "Haha I wont tell you where this butieful island is click to know more" clickbaits.

I am fine with the pictures they are nice. But the click bait link is distracting.

I recently got a new "Microsoft Ergonomic Desktop" keyboard. It has a the "Office key" which if you press launches an ad to buy Microsoft Office. AFAICT there is no official way to disable it!!! and at least for me it was easy to hit by mistake.

Apple isn't as bad but I run into ads for Apple Music on my iPhone unintentionally in a similar fashion. Meaning have no intent of ever subscribing to Apple Music but Apple has designed the UX so that users are likely to hit the ad to sign up from time to time.

Then stay away from the YouTube app...

> ["Microsoft Ergonomic Desktop" keyboard] has an "Office key" which if you press launches an ad to buy Microsoft Office.

That is the funniest and saddest thing I've heard today. Ergonomic indeed..

With their work in open-source, like developer tools and programming languages, Microsoft has been regaining some of the trust they lost over the years with their business strategy and product insanity. I'm surprised to note that these days I'm using more and more of their products regularly.

At the same time, it's widely recognized that the company culture is still sick in some ways, with incredibly questionable design decisions in Windows 10 and other products.

That's what worries me, for example, about their acquisition of GitHub and NPM. I never want to be stuck being dependent on Microsoft, because you never know when they might slip into crazy mode and ruin a good thing.

On a related note, while my wife and I were trying to remember how to put the Apple TV to sleep we accidentally subscribed to Apple Music. I only found out the next day when I saw an email informing us of our 3-month trial.

There are registry tweaks to disable or reassign buttons, and utilities that make it easy to do them. I made my left Windows key be inert this way, by mapping it to another key that does nothing. The software I used is SharpKeys from randyrants.com.

Honestly I would jam a paperclip under that key to disable it out of spite

You mean Clippy?

Can you remap this monstrosity out of the way (or making another control key or something more useful)? I always remap control and caps keys on my keyboards, which is a pretty minor one-time regedit incantation.

Is this also present in Enterprise version of Windows?

It depends on what you mean by "Enterprise". My Windows development VM currently runs Server 2019, which doesn't have the issues described above.

> First of all, I don't understand why Microsoft is doing this. They are making more from online services than they ever made from selling windows licences so it's not like they need the few cents advertising generates. Probably the windows group trying to up their own numbers, not noting they are hurting the company as whole.

Maybe you know more than me, but I think it's possible that your assumptions aren't right.

Do you remember the Ask toolbar that everyone hated Oracle putting into the Java installer on Windows? I think it was even opt-in rather than opt-out, and it was just in the installer pretty unobtrusively. I heard recently that this earned more money than all of Java licensing at the time, and supported the hundreds of people working full time on Java.

For reference: Drive by installation of adware/malware is very lucrative. The going rate is around $1 per install.

One perfect example is Google Chrome, that used to pay the usual price per new install. That's why Chrome got bundled into the installer of every software and their mother, and got so many users so quickly.

> The stupid preinstalled games and apps that fill your start screen upon your first boot.

While I agree that this is advertising, note that they're not really preinstalled. Those game icons will download and install the app on first click.

Windows 10 was the final push for me to switch to Linux once and for all. And so far I'm super happy with it. I'm using Linux mint and I must recommended it highly for any long time windows user as they've hugely reduced the learning curve.

The only thing I miss is Photoshop. I've tried so many alternatives like gimp, etc but I find graphics editing a big struggle, for example I can't even do simple things like adding a red arrow to a screenshot till date without googling for it first. Also wine it didn't work for me for some reason. But thankfully my graphics requirements are pretty less so I boot up windows for that, other than that I don't miss Windows at all now. Rather it would be very hard to go back now.

Maybe try Inkscape for some of your graphics needs. Adding arrows etc. is very easy.

I find Dia easier to use than Inkscape and both do vector graphics, but Inkscape might be better to learn how to use in the long run because it can do more things.

You probably have already, but have you tried Krita? After usuing it I much prefer it over gimp. Inkscape for vector.

I also recommend Krita. I started using it when I tried KDE and never went back to GIMP. It's even available in the Microsoft Store for Windows users.

For me the same. Since the mid 90s I had Windows and Linux installed at home. But Windows 10 was a no go. I mean I even have the Pro Licence. But serious, Candy Crash and XBox all over the place. After one week trying to delete all that things, I had to accept, thats not what I want and deleted it. So I'm also a Linux only now.

Pinta is the software I use for quick little edits (like adding a red arrow!)

Photoshop was a big one that I missed, until someone posted their self-made online editor to reddit: https://www.photopea.com/

I'm not sure what modern photoshop looks like, but the interface is completely familiar to me as a former CS2 user.

While Photopea is online, its completely satisfactory for small editing tasks that I need to do. Only gripe is that saving massive pngs with 100% quality causes the site to freeze

>Only gripe is that saving massive pngs with 100% quality causes the site to freeze

Png or jpg? Pngs shouldn't have a quality % level given it's a lossless format.

If the site is freezing while it's trying to compress the image, you may have better luck saving in a clunky format like bmp and using a local program to compress it later. Hard to tell what issues can arise from trying to do cpu-intensive tasks in a JS browser app.

They’re probably referring to png compression level. All levels are lossless it’s just about how long it takes to encode/decode and resulting file size. Actual image quality is identical (which can be verified via hashing the decoded images)

Photoshop is the main reason I still have a Windows boot on my home desktop. I wish Linux had a comparable alternative to Photoshop (for which I would gladly pay a sum comparable to what I paid Adobe). Any time I tried Gimp or something similar I really missed the clean visual UI of CS, ability to accurately work with at least 16-bit color and support for printing large files (say, 17x40" panoramas) without killing my workstation.

What about Krita?

I have not tried Krita yet. It seemed to be geared to artists drawing / creating images, where my main (in fact only) use case is enhancement of my DSLR or phone-captured photos. That said, Krita is on my "to try sometime" list.

Didn't Google sponsor some work to run Photoshop under Wine? That's ages ago, so it probably doesn't apply to modern Adobe stuff, but sitll, I'm curious, can't you use Wine for that? Not saying it's silver bullet, but usually popular programs gets love from Wine contributors. Sadly, Richard Burns Rally is not that popular. :(

I'm the other way around... I've been using Gimp for so long that I cannot use Photoshop.

Adobe Illustrator is no problem. And I can sort of fumble my way through other Adobe products. But Photoshop is another story.

re: adding arrows, I've had success with Shutter (which doesn't work on latest), and flameshot (which works now)

Not a wholesale PS alternative, but for screenshot annotations specifically, I'd recommend https://shutter-project.org

Just wanted to say that the recommendations you guys made are just awesome.. Especially shutter.

I think this is another great thing about using linux, the super helpful community that jumps on the first chance to help someone out. Thanks.

Funny, for me it was the other way around.

Windows 10 was the reason for me to switch back from Linux to Windows, due to WSL.

I hate the ads and build in tracking like any other, but in the end this is my work laptop and I need to get the job done. I can't be spending hours fiddling with graphic drivers and GTK issues when a customer is paying for my time.

The solution is to send a clear signal to Microsoft that their behaviour is unacceptable by switching to Mac or Linux.

Windows machines are a rare sighting where I work.

Sadly, so are Linux machines, since the company doesn't support them.

This. And if the next version of macOS is any more of a dumpster fire than Catalina it may narrow the list down even further.

For me Catalina is already a dumpster. In fact, it had been so since Sierra (when, for example, the default Korean keyboard layout was silently changed to include a Won sign in place of a backquote) so that I had been very reluctant to update; I only updated to Mojave months ago.

This doesn't work. When we have only 3 major choices, and each one is exceptionally complex, it can't work. It's literally impossible to "send a clear signal" about dozens of different issues using (slightly less than) 2 bits of information.

I highly recommend using this to configure Windows:

https://github.com/Disassembler0/Win10-Initial-Setup-Script

Windows 10 is practically adware https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-microsoft.html

My experience with troubleshooting on Windows has led to a lot of websites like this - no-name businesses, a wall of ads, and SEO-optimised content derived from performing the same web search I'm doing.

Unless I add 'Ubuntu' to the search term, troubleshooting on Linux OSes tends to take me to primary sources e.g. internet-hosted manpages and docs.

It's probably just an inevitability of success but it does make the ecosystem more frustrating to use.

> It's probably just an inevitability of success but it does make the ecosystem more frustrating to use.

For searching online, probably yes. If Linux were used by all the people currently using Windows, there would surely be just as much crap.

But for the OS itself, if the current (open) development models of most distributions would remain open and not become like Canonical's Ubuntu, I don't see that such an OS would ever get ads or become frustrating to use as a law of nature. Volunteers don't do work they don't believe in, few people would work on a change or feature they don't think will be an improvement.

I use Windows (not 10), I like the convenience of it that most things, drivers work out of the box.

But given the direction Microsoft is going it's likely my next machine will run Linux. All the software I use is available for Linux too, so I guess the main unconvenience will be that I'll have to pay attention when buying hardware to make sure there are proper Linux drivers for them.

I guess there are plenty of people using Windows for convenience, but if the longer trend is that it will have ads, I'll need a Microsoft account to run it, etc. then many of those people who know their way around computer OSs may switch to Linux instead.

Why not a Mac? Seems like it would tick most of your boxes.

Mac for laptop. Windows / Linux for desktop.

I don't like Apple's business strategy of overpricing. A linux laptop is much cheaper and for my purposes just as suitable.

I follow those 3 steps:

1. Buy LTSC license from sketchy resellers on eBay (I found out it's usually the same Vietnamese guy with 100 of different usernames)

2. Install Windows LTSC

3. Enable Windows Store in LTSC by this repo - https://github.com/11lein/LTSC-Add-MicrosoftStore (it's a fork of some other repo that doesn't work for me that much)

LTSC is available to buy legally too, but it costs around 300$... all the "bulk resellers" are kind of sketchy. But hey it usually works.

With commits named "nothing"[0] the repo is surely trustworthy

0: https://github.com/11lein/LTSC-Add-MicrosoftStore/commit/b5b...

In this case it's probably fine because you can manually verify the .cmd file and all of the .appx files are digitally signed by Microsoft

You can also just skip that step if you don't use the Microsoft Store. It's what I do.

There are sometimes utilites only available on Store nowadays.

If there is an edition that has Store, but doesn’t have ads, and doesn’t cost 300 usd, I would prefer to use that...

Windows S stands for Store (I think) and you can't install anything on it otherwise. Had an impression that it was ad free but I'm not completely sure.

Windows LTSC ≠ Windows S

That I know, but the question is whether or not it's free from ads.

it’s a shell script with some signed installers.

No need to buy a key.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18156955

oh that’s neat!

thanks

The fact that this is necessary at all is completely ridiculous. Thanks, but I'll just stick with Windows 7 for my Windows machine. That works and doesn't have any of 10's bullshit.

After using windows since 95, I can't do it anymore. It doesn't feel like its my computer.

> Someone cleverly pointed out that Windows changed from "My Computer" to "This PC" in recent years. - arwhatever on Microsoft has removed the “use offline account” op... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21104910)

Maybe I've just become blind to them but I don't recall seeing any?

* some only show up on consumer editions (eg. home or pro)

* some don't show up on LTSC/LTSB

* your admin might have disabled it for you via group policy

I think it is fascinating that there seems to be huge differences between the amount of ads seen. Not being signed in to Microsoft account probably is the single biggest factor, followed by having Pro edition and being located in EU instead of US. And of course not having an OEM edition. Obviously I opt-outed everything during installation, but I don't remember going through any special hoops in at any stage.

While I can't say that I haven't seen any ads, they have been singular events (I think at least one for O365, OneDrive, and Edge, maybe something else too) instead of any sort of constant stream. Of course it is valid to argue that any ads, however few, are too many, and I don't disagree. But I definitely do not remember seeing any third-party ads in my Windows 10 and I think that is pretty important distinction.

But as someone who has become extremely wary of installing any mobile apps due the infestation of ads there, I feel my desktop to still be pretty decent oasis against ads.

All plausible

Signed in, pro but off an enterprise sub, not EU but probably counted as EU for this. Actual I do recall seeing an add for office a couple years back

I've been using O&O's shutup10 (https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10) as the first step after a fresh install for years. Anything better, or is this still a good solution?

I still remember the feeling of dread in my stomach the first time I used Windows 10 and realized Microsoft had added a lock screen I had to click past to get to the login screen. On a desktop OS. Just because smartphone sales were booming and that's what smartphones do.

Personally I'd rather just hold my knife by the handle end rather than trying to sand down the serrated bits!

Frankly, what keeps me on Windows are just games, if I would be able to play all the AAA titles on Linux, it would be my desktop. I can't think of any other thing that keeps me on Windows.

In regards to his tip "Disable advertisements from File Explorer". Also after clicking "Apply" do chose the upper button on same window that says "Apply to folders" - it will make the settings done there to be applied to folders of same "style". One only need to apply this to local drives, documents, pictures, videos and a few other "styles" to have an unified view of all folders when using Windows File Explorer.

But I recommend using Total Commander instead (personal favorite).

Ironic, given how the website itself is packed to the brim with ads.

Everybody hates ads until it comes to their own bottom line, I guess. Exceptions apply, of course.

Something you hate, is something you would like to track and destroy. But it's all the opposite: that's ads which want to track you.

Now please consider getting a copy of my last new world exclusive publication "The book I will never write" for free¹.

¹ First 42 microseconds are free of charge, after what you tacitly renew your subscription into a premium plan, including a varying minute fee whose amount will be changed at our will, and you concede the total complete worldwide eternal exclusive rights on your soul. Download of this page is considered an explicit consent. Any form of pleasure, displeasure, or any other form of emotion risen during the reading of this text might be charged with extra fee.

The difference being that you don't pay for the website

I'm opening you're site, I'm peering into your home, if you're adding things to my desktop, you're invading mine.

The Surface Pro briefly pulled me out of the Mac ecosystem. And I spun on my heel and went right back at the sight of baked-in ads.

Would love to see the PowerShell equivalent for these steps so it can be automated / repeated.

https://github.com/W4RH4WK/Debloat-Windows-10

I'm surprised no one has mentioned O&O ShutUp10 (https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10).

I've used it on my Windows computers for years and never see ads.

Step 1: Format

Step 2: Install Linux

If only Linux had as nice and frictionless experience as Windows or Mac.

Linux on desktop is somewhat bearable with the right distro but on a laptop it's a big no no (terrible battery life etc).

I've never had a battery life problem with Arch or Mint.

It has. Since it does not boot most of the time, you are going to shut down your computer and do other, meaningful things instead, like reading, writing, painting, hiking or hanging out. Install Linux and wasting time on HN and Facebook is a problem of the past.

(I'm joking, I have been an happy user of the Linux desktop on laptops for many years)

Huh? I get a full work day and then some (~10 hours) out of my Dell XPS 13 running Linux. Quit spreading bullshit. Linux has come a long way, to the point where I and many of my colleagues genuinely prefer the experience over that of Windows or macOS. Maybe you should give it another try yourself. I recommend Manjaro over Ubuntu for newcomers nowadays.

Quit acting like a religious fundamentalist. Goodbye.

Honestly the fear of using Linux is mostly due to people not trying it and people being used to Windows already. If you look at it objectively, and look at the built-in parts and not the obvious availability discrepancy of third party software on the more popularly used platform, I think Linux might come out ahead.

The prime example I can think of is printers. In Windows, my dad now learned how to reinstall a printer since, in our experience, most computers need to reinstall the printer every single time you want to print because it'll show the printer as offline but find it when it searches for it. In Linux this just works, I add it once and it just talks to its IP address, no problem. My girlfriend (Windows) will ask me (Linux) to print something via USB because it just works. Printer support in Linux has turned around somewhere about 5-10 years ago.

Things like tabs in explorer or multiple workspaces is something we've had for decades but Windows is just getting around to it. Installing software from a "market" or "store"? That has been a thing for decades as well, it's called repositories and the packages are customized to work with other software in your OS version. Works great, but in Windows developers have to repack all the dependencies they need for every piece of software. Not to mention that, after installing 50 programs, you also have 50 updaters pinging and downloading away when you're in the train on a mobile connection. (Nowadays metered connections mitigate that mostly, and people also have larger data plans, but the software all has to individually build support for it.) Everything is third-party and you have to hope that you clicked the real download link and not an ad. The unified software and update management is something I found hard to believe (as a former Windows user) before seeing it in action. How could a niche volunteer project be doing better than this OS that I just paid 130 euros for? (As student, that was a lot of money. I'm still not sure why I didn't just pirate the crap, in the years ahead I paid for enough Windows licenses that came forced down your throat with laptop hardware, not to mention the Microsoft tax on Android devices...)

Windows has been trying to catch up but with every step forwards, you also hear of things like "ads in your OS" which just sounds entirely backwards.

> Windows has been trying to catch up but with every step forwards, you also hear of things like "ads in your OS" which just sounds entirely backwards.

You still don't get ads in WordPad so there's still way to go.

Good ol' Dutch comfort: it could be worse!

Linux isn’t the end all be all like every programmer thinks it is.

I switched to Linux (specifically Arch because I wanted the challenge). While most programs I use were available on Linux in some form (LibreOffice, VS Code, etc.) and some had replacements (HxD -> wxHexEditor), there’s still things I miss from Windows. As in, even though Wine works great for things like Steam and Exact Audio Copy, some programs just don’t work. In my case, namely iTunes and Adobe (yes I still use iTunes).

You may think, “who needs iTunes, etc.” or “just use FOSS replacements for Adobe,” but the fact of the matter is that people still use these programs for various reasons, and if they don’t work out of the box, the average user gets upset.

If you want an Average Joe to switch to Linux, you need to make sure all his stuff works. I know a few (non tech savvy) people who hate Windows 10, but just deal with it because the alternative (Linux) isn’t as easy to set up.

> and if they don’t work out of the box, the average user gets upset.

Adobe tools are specialized and not for the average user, getting upset doesn't help anything, should MS be blamed that designers can't use Sketch on Windows?

Average (read: least common denominator) of users needs MS Office, Skype, Dropbox etc. Some work and some don't on Linux. Hardware compatibility isn't completely solved issue on Windows or on Linux. My relatives couldn't upgrade without issues to Win10, so that machine went into the dumpster after a couple of drilled holes through the hard drive. Such a shame, environmentally speaking because it wasn't slow, RAM could have been upgraded (stationary i5 Haswell CPU and Intel graphics) and could just have bought an SSD. But they couldn't be assed to "upgrade" to Linux even though I offered my help with this, simply just went to the store and got a new Windows 10 machine. It is a commodity after all. Too much precious time can't be "wasted" to learn Linux and Windows is "always the same".

Eh. Anecdotal evidence goes both ways. I installed Ubuntu on my mom’s laptop, and she likes it much better than windows.

My apologies. I wasn’t implying that it won’t work for everyone; It will. It’s just that for what seems to be a majority of the population, if it doesn’t work, they won’t use it.

Is there no magic script or program out there that will just do this for my lazy ass? (:

Does anyone know how to disable the "Like what you see" text that is shown over the lock screen images (also known as spotlight images)? If you click on that text Bing comes up in a browser after you login. I've followed some online guides but so far no luck getting rid of it.

It drives me nuts how complicated it is to simply have ALL of those 'spotlight' images at login nixed. I don't want any stock photography of landscapes or whatever, thanks - I just want a plain black background.

Unless something's changed in the year or so since I last tried it, it's basically not possible (there was some hacky solution, but it dismayed me, so I never bothered).

Just go to Settings > Personalize > Lock Screen and disable Windows Spotlight.

Unfortunately there's no way to get the pictures without the text overlays.

EDIT: In fact it's the first suggestion in the article.

Hmph, are you on Pro? I've only got the consumer version of Win10, and I can't see that option... .

I am using Pro (which is also a consumer version of Win10), but Home also has the option.

See: https://i.imgur.com/mzXI6Em.png

Well I'm a fucking idiot, it's right there.

Thanks!

You can keep Spotlight on the lock screen. You have to turn on the "Require Ctrl-Alt-Del" option though.

For me the routine is always the same: Install Open Shell to make it look reasonable and then ShutUp10 for things under the hood. While that may seem too much work, it has honestly always been like that. I remember tweaking Win98 and the massive tweaking community around win XP.

https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu

https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10

This is mostly click bait . The first 3 mentioned by the author are not ads. If you are a new windows user, those tips and tricks are somewhat useful as they tell you what’s new in Windows 10 compared to Windows 7 or an older version.

The first (lockscreen thing) is definitely an ad. If you misclick by accident trying to type your password, you get sent to a bing site opened in edge regardless of if edge is even your default browser. It will then nag prompt to switch to edge which could bring in a good bit of money for MS.

I guarantee that factored into their decision to add it far more than "this would be a fun thing to innocently engage users with."

It may go against the grain here, but I think advertisements in Windows 10 is crucial. It's strange, because you would expect the HN audience to be in favor of getting products in front of eyeballs.

Operating systems in 2020 have evolved into thought systems that enable our lives in the emergent digital economy. Think of it like real-estate in the "real" world. People hate billboards because they're gaudy, yet they relish Times Square. Operating Systems are like the Times Square of the computing world, allowing us to navigate and consume and vote with our dollars. It makes total sense for them to contain advertisements. In fact, I encourage it.

I want no billboards and no digital billboards.

If I buy the software, the screen "real estate" is mine.

Are you in favor of your landlord or the HOA replacing your wallpaper with advertisement too? My desktop environment's role in my life is much more like that than Time Square's.

Tourists visit Times Square and then go home. Similarly I might tour some virtual hell hole covered in ads for Candy Crush but then I’m going home to an ad free existence because I’m not a crazy person.

Lol what is this? Who made this and what is its purpose?

Spotted the adman.

You don't own Times Sqr, maybe you don't own your computer either and just rent it from MS (good for you), but most people actually buy their PCs.

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