What happens if you try to download and install Firefox on Windows
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It really infuriated me, especially the usage of the word "need" and the fact that the dialog doesn't offer an option like "no, and don't bug me with this ever again". Fortunately, after hitting the "remind me in 3 days" button, I looked a bit and found an option that does make it go away forever.
My Windows is in Spanish, so I don't know the exact name of the configuration settings in English, but you can find it in the Win+I configuration dialog. Look for "notifications and actions" (or something very similar), and there, look for a checkbox whose text reads something like "suggest ways to finish device configuration to get the most out of Windows". In fact there are six checkboxes in that screen and every single one looks like an annoyance, so I disabled them all.
I've noticed the same thing on an Android tablet recently, just with Google Play in place of Edge (and F-Droid in place of Firefox). That's unpleasant, but unfortunately not that surprising: dark patterns and other annoyances are quite common, particularly with commercial products.
I think this stops a lot of Google's skullduggery. Of course a google-free ROM is even better for privacy but I think this is a nice middle ground.
The good thing is that this way firebase notifications still work, but are not linked to my account (similar to using MicroG).
But it hasn't complained about F-Droid, not asked me to 'continue setting up' or anything. I do this on a OnePlus and a Samsung. YMMV of course.
How should I tell my employer that I am no longer able to use Windows and that I will be unproductive if I am forced to do so?
If they do offer Macs though then I'd say just ask them for one and say you'll be more productive. It shouldn't be a big deal for any reasonable employer, I'm sure they could find a new home for your current device as well.
It does this every 6 months or so. Windows is malware
If windows does wipe out other bootloaders, then it's something serious to be discussed. Are you sure that's what happened?
MS ignores the problem too despite numerous complaints spanning years, when dozens of people are saying it's due to a Windows update and they insist it's something else it's probably fair to say this is Won't Fix for them.
If it's possible for you to just install Linux only (no Windows/Micros**t at all), please do that.
Or, get a Mac if Linux-exclusive doesn't work for you.
(I love both Mac and Linux).
Life it too short to deal with malicious vendors.
Dollars to doughnuts, parent was fiddling around and broke it.
Another option, is to run windows or linux as a guest VM. You can setup a near native quest VM with device passthrough, such that you only ever have to boot your host OS but can drop down into a fully fledged guest when needed.
I'm doing both as methods as a way to slowly offload from windows to linux
I would love to be able to pay for "Windows Professional" or something to get rid of this bullshit. But I guess my eyeballs are more valuable than my dollars. In that case, MS will get neither.
I moved back to Linux two months ago because of shit like this. Good riddance. Thankfully wine acts as the WSL for Linux, and makes the migration possible.
That's kinda what I felt this Pro version was for, back in the good old days that would get you extra features useful for power users, but then recently they pulled this:
> New Windows 11 Pro installations will require Microsoft account
-- 2022-02-18 https://tweakers.net/nieuws/193418/windows-11-pro-installati...
Basically the last credibility they had with me, with all the linux and open source things they've been doing since ballmer is gone. So uh yeah thanks microsoft, imma stay with Debian+Cinnamon a bit longer here o/
I don’t really understand why this is a problem for you, let alone such a major problem. Takes two seconds to set up an account. I don’t even use Windows and I already have one!
It's also a reasonable desire to have your computer local authentication be completely separate any from Microsoft service, ensuring that the events are private and don't even get communicated to Microsoft, much less being able to circumvent local authentication by anyone who is in control of that cloud account.
Seems a bit tin-foil in these days.
Which is a fine preference for an individual if they’re into that scene, but you can understand why Microsoft doesn’t care about such a tiny proportion of society.
What about people who refuse to use capital letters? Can you use Windows without using capital letters?
At some point it's reasonable to design for most people.
They gave up every pretense of gaining or humoring "consent" when the implemented Cortana's little "you need to agree to this or, ya know, no windows" bs.
These days? Surely these days it is beyond any reasonable doubt that not only were a lot of the tin-foil fashionistas right all along but also the suggested dangers of modern always-connected technology do now actually harm real people in real ways quite often. Just look at the subject of this very discussion.
The most disturbing thing is that it's still only a relatively small proportion of society who will actively try to avoid the trap. From my own experience it's not even that the others don't care -- plenty of them are well aware of what is being done to them and they don't like it -- but they think the alternatives are just as bad and they're (reasonably enough) not willing to become digital hermits who are disconnected from normal life just to avoid the likes of Microsoft, Google and Apple.
If people had genuine security concerns why would they be using stock Windows connected directly to the Internet in the first place?
We’re not talking about a single app or website. MS is a trillion dollar corporation that controls both the OS and in many cases the hardware layer.
The “stock” version has unjustifiable defaults and I quit using Windows myself a few years ago due to exactly the issues people in this thread are complaining about.
Right... so why are people so stubborn on insignificant details like signing up for an account?
Microsoft already controls all the software on your system if you're running Windows.
If that's what you think you've read, then I don't know how to re-explain!
I find it amazing that you can say such a thing with a serious face. Time after time, we learn that the question isn't "are you paranoid", it's "are you paranoid enough". State actors trying to get your data, hackers trying to get and sell your data, hackers trying to lock down your computer and blackmail you; the list goes on and on. The less "connections" you have to third party services, the safer you are.
The point is that refusing to sign up for a Microsoft account is not going to protect you against this supervision if someone wants to do it.
You shouldn't lose your gmail account for being an asshole on youtube, and one shouldn't lose their access to their local computer even for commiting fraud on the MS app store (whatever it's called)
One should be able to get banned from gmail if you really break the rules of course, but great care needs to be taken, and the same care (and even more) to make sure you don't lose access to your own computer.
Need to get a new computer? Doesn't seem the end of the world for such an unlikely act.
I'm not sure if this is possible or the default now on Windows, but it's common for mobile devices.
And Microsoft already controls all your software if you're running Windows. It could already delete your files if they wanted to.
https://tweakers.net/reviews/9094/all/account-geblokkeerd-wa...
Excerpt via Deepl.com:
> In all the conversations, it comes out how powerless people feel. You might think that if a company decides to algorithmically block people, there is a support department that can easily reverse mistakes, but that is not true. The department that deals with it is hard to reach. Or, as one customer service rep told BroncoJasperado, "The only team that has access to this is the team that you can reach through the form you already filled out. They are also not reachable by phone and are not located in an office that you can visit."
These are paying customers of Microsoft's.
Recently also a Dutch judge said MS had to unblock an account because MS could not provide the evidence why it was blocked. Something about american laws and child pornography that was allegedly stored on the account (I can look up the article if you want).
In most cases, the judge just rules it's fine because they're a commercial service and they are under no obligation to have you as a customer. You have to sue to even hear as much as "the cause was X" (even if they then can't/won't/don't provide X as evidence). There is little to no recourse.
A typical user whose MS account is banned might lose access to:
- Their game collection in Xbox / game pass
- All documents, pictures, etc. in OneDrive. A family member actually has all documents for their business on OneDrive because there is this history thing (can't permanently remove things by accident), MS guarantees your backups, it's all hands-off and super safe. On my recommendation, they did end up making an offline backup just in case... but I imagine that for every person like that family member, there are also a hundred business owners that would simply lose their business data.
- Microsoft Office products bought via 365
- Presumably purchases on the microsoft app store, but last I checked it contained only a few dummy apps and had horrible UX so I don't know how much this is used now
- Your email on Outlook.com
- And now also their computer? What is this, ransomware?
So for me, my Microsoft account being banned (one of probably a dozen by now) would have as impact that I can't play a game anymore that I paid for. I'd be pissed but it gets so much worse if you're a Windows user.
And it's not just MS, it's also Google (there the worst I could lose is a Youtube account where I've uploaded a few unpopular videos over the past decade), Facebook, etc.
I don't even care if I have a MS account or not but I really don't want it linked to my own computer. It means someone with access to my MS account can access my computer too, and it means Microsoft can collate all my recorded telemetry activity to my identity.
I only use Windows as my second boot option for emergencies when I can't use Linux.
It now has the same choice of (only a little / very much) telemetry that regular windows has, has the ability to link microsoft accounts etc. The only real advantage is that they don't really push any new things to it.
I'm happy how you formulated this thought. I feel the same way. I don't deserve this level of distrust and micromanagement in my own digital home. In my opinion a Professional edition that really works like one would solve this issue for real but again, my conclusion is the same, that the end goal must not be to make a good operating system.
Linux is a haven compared to the state of things and especially in this regard. And Wine is a wonder.
But then again... Google uses a lot of dirty tricks as well and the EU doesn't do much either so...
Is Ballmer CEO again?
Of course I despise what Microsoft does, it's absolutely over the top.
[0] https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/how-to-osx-try-safari-promotion....
This is just slimy sales tactics. The level of ‘acceptable to most people’ swings back and forth. It’s not a slippery slope.
I disagree, because by then you've lost the ability to fight back. If you let the little bad behaviors go, you set a precedent that's hard to fight against.
One could argue we're seeing that in realtime with your argument that everything is still fine...
Depends on how big that company is in the fridge market. Using a monopoly power in one market to dominate another is textbook abuse of monopoly power and exactly why MS got sued for IE back in the day.
Continuing to point it out after you’ve acknowledged it is called “nagging”.
It’s annoying. Really that simple.
How often would be too much? What if you already bought an oven and it was still 'pointing out' that the company produces fridges (like you just bought) as well? Every six weeks acceptable? I accept that when i go downtown/ to a shop my eyeballs count. But inside my home, on my systems? No thanks.
> “you don't need to download a new browser, we recommend Edge”
> “to protect your pc we recommend only running ms verified apps, use Edge”
And
> “try safari, it’s energy efficient”
If not, look a bit harder.
Except words have meaning, and the differences between these meanings are important.
One set of words is telling you that you are not safe unless you use this browser. It’s implying you’re making a mistake by using Firefox, and in both cases it’s saying “the people who make your computer are telling you to use this thing”. Non technical people are easily fooled by this. It’s scary.
The other one is saying “hey, Safari exists” in the corner of your screen.
There’s a big difference between these two.
And Microsoft follows suit.
Irritating as all hell, but complaints hit HN front page only when it comes to Microsoft.
I do wish, though, that Microsoft would take the moral high ground.
Google gets similar complaints but it gets stifled because by the numbers people are generally trying to install Chrome so they don't really care the Google page asks them "do you want to install Chrome" when they open it initially. Still scummy but most aren't going to complain about being prompted to do precisely what they wanted to do.
It’s not all bad though; safari is for example quite good at having low power usage.
For my iOS device I proxy my internet and block all ad domains on the proxy $5 DO server . The bandwidth and battery saved alone recovers the costs.
I am surprised why no major VPN provider offers ad-blocking pihole style as a add-on. People will surely pay for that.
https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2021/5/27/how-set-ad-blocking-ou...
https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2021/6/9/how-were-knocking-down-...
Firefox for android doesn't allow addons and F-droid Fennec doesn't seem to support them either.
The only browser on android that gives me full devtools and addon support is kiwi browser which has it's own skeletons to contend with: https://www.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/ppygw1/can_i_...
- Stock Firefox for Android allows a limited set of extensions including the most popular extension uBlock Origin.
- Firefox Nightly allows the installation of any extensions though this is not enabled by default and requires jumping through some hoops.
- F-Droid Fennec allows the same extension loading functionality as found in Firefox Nightly without having to leave stable.
That said there are still extensions that won't work once installed as not every API is covered. Far more work (orders of magnitude more) than the short list in stock stable Firefox though.
Since I'm not really interested in using nightly or jumping through hoops, I'll just continue using kiwi which is able to support both my requirements just fine.
Thanks for the clarification though.
So far I've stuck with Google on my phone simply because its local search is better than Kagi's, but I'm this far away from jumping to Kagi on the phone too.
On one of my Firefox installations, when I start it, it always asks me to become the default browser. Which I don't want, so I set the "don't ask me again" checkbox. Yet it will ask me again. The Firefox support forum mentions several workarounds, none of them working.
Also, there are additional random /modals every once in a startup, asking me to try out new design feature X. I'm never interested, I just want to use a web browser.
All in all, I'm more annoyed by Firefox than other browsers.
Same game, Firefox is just in the minor leagues because they don’t have valuable digital real estate in addition to the browser.
Worlds biggest corporations trying to stop you from installing a free community built browser is the same as it asking you nicely once to become the default
Good lord Firefox has fallen from grace in search of revenue. I still use it as my daily driver but they’re killing the golden calf in an attempt to save it.
They should search for revenue like all community projects. Get companies that have a stake in FF existing because they distribute it — Canonical, Red Hat, AWS, Oracle to put up cash and pay developers to work on it.
The only FOSS models that have a track record of success are:
* Run ads which is really shady.
* Be a true community project and be developed by the people who use it.
* Be open core and sell proprietary features.
* Sell consulting and documentation.
And they have been acting very scummy for at least a decade, at least.
And there we go on talking about nuance...
I get that bugs can be annoying, but "my browser has an annoying bug" is a million miles away from "my browser monitors when I search for competitor's software and warns me that I shouldn't use it".
Still, it is the only non-WebKit option out there, so there's that. And they at least claim to care abour user's privacy.
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/news/mozilla-acquires-po...
Sure, it can be turned off but it seems like every few weeks I have to go hunting around to turn some new spammy shit off. And even though I sync my settings through firefox sync, these adware 'features' don't seem to sync their settings when I turn them off.
The only "pop-up" - if you can call it that - I ever get is the one telling me a new version of FF is available for download.
I always browse with Firefox (apart from the occasional Safari when I want Apple Pay) and don’t use Chrome at all.
The repeated prompt that goes drive me nuts in macOS is the encouragement to get some more iCloud backup. Why can’t it detect I have a time machine backup running on an external SSD and leave me alone?
It grates to defend Apple, but that is not my experience. I cannot recall ever running Safari on the Mac I use. I use Firefox only. I cannot recall being harassed by he MacOS to switch.
FLW
This is what I don't like about social media sites like HN either where only the rage will reach the front page
Edit: screen recording https://streamable.com/wpjv2h
Your comment feels like gaslighting, considering you already know the answer to the question since OP is the one who suggested banning it.
Nobody would think this is alright.
Besides, I'm advocating for _non explicit_ A/B testing. Let the people know you are fucking with them at least.
What is your point? That all those popups were photoshopped and don't actually exist?
Or what kind of headline about this topic would you like to see on HN? "Windows sometimes does not show its nag screens when you install Firefox"?
You likely have “Allow Apps from Anywhere” selected whereas the person in the posted tweet has the “Warn Me…” option enabled.
You haven't experienced the rest of the issues because in your recording you haven't actually tried to install and use Firefox.
A few days ago, for the first time in years, I tried installing Windows. Booting Windows for the first time was shocking, and I didn't realize how bad things had become. I experienced the same banner warning trying to dissuade me from installing Firefox among many other annoyances (focus stealing, missing drivers, Windows update taking far longer than it should, adverts, just to name a few).
People give Linux a bad rap, but holy shit, using Windows for the first time in years was a truly miserable experience. Not once did I feel like it was a tool there to help me, it felt hostile.
1. VirtualAlloc:
1.1: separation of reserving memory from committing it, thus making overcommit unnecessary, when you want to have memory arenas and reserve a large contiguous chunk of virtual address space, but commit it (so tell the system that you actually want this virtual memory mapped to some physical memory), when you need it. So you can grow your arenas as you need more memory, without worrying that you may not have enough virtual space due to fragmentation, and without relying on invisible things like lazily committing memory on page-faults as long as your program doesn't have any bugs which make it touch that memory in advance and thus make the bugs go unnoticed silently and increase memory use
1.2: ability to implement a circular buffer[1] with a contiguous view instead of head + tail parts; thus making it possible to pass your ring buffer to functions which expect a normal array, and also avoid branches and complexity in code operating on the buffer.
Generally, VirtualAlloc > mmap IMO.
2. Behaviour in OOM conditions. Linux can become completely unresponsive for minutes. Windows is usually responsive enough to kill the offending applications.
3. GUI apps have reasonable baseline for performance of GUI. On Windows it's expected that watching YouTube/Netflix you won't see screen tearing. On Linux screen tearing with VOD in browsers is completely unsurprising.
4. Powershell is nice for a whole variety of reasons.
5. CreateProcess > fork [2]
6. MSVC, unlike GCC and Clang, doesn't come with guns for your children when you unknowingly dare trigger UB.
[1]: <https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/memoryapi...>
[2]: <https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/uploads/prod/2019/0...>
(Posted from Linux btw.)
And that's after some rather serious debloating...
The only reason for the upgrade is that some software doesn't support win7.
As expected the only thing which works better/faster on the new PC is games.
It's a downgrade in UX/UI too, it looks way worse than win95 classic theme (no point comparing it to aero)
Perhaps you should give your recording another watch. It clearly shows the "There's no need to download a new web browser" message box above bing's results.
I originally thought the word "download" in "firefox download" could be the contextual trigger for that behavior, regardless of browser. But your recording clearly shows that you searched only for "firefox", with no other context, and still had bing giving you the message, which confirms that they're singling out Firefox as a threat. Given the passive suggestion in their message that Firefox is slow, insecure, or costly in time or money, I'd say the outrage is justified.
Unless you're saying that person that experienced this is lying or misunderstood what happened?
Mozilla was caught "studying" (read, spying) on a tiny portion of its user-base who have explicitly opted out of telemetry. The fact that most weren't spied upon doesn't mean that it didn't happen.
This is what I don't like about people who make misinformed statements on HN.
open cmd.exe with admin privileges
> cd %PROGRAMFILES(X86)%\Microsoft\Edge\Application\[SOME VERSION NO.]\Installer
> setup --uninstall --force-uninstall --system-level
> create new key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft/EdgeUpdate
> create “DWORD (32-bit) Value” and call it “DoNotUpdateToEdgeWithChromium"
First windows experience in many years, it's been equally gross and amusing.
How?
A domain joined Windows laptop should have GPOs to remove the ads and shit also SCCM/Intune software center / company portal to install the apps you need.
Having some kind of Windows 10 "golden image" with SCCM/Intune/PDQ for apps is fairly standard.
Gross because I clicked somewhere by accident and the bottom right of my screen was filled with news snippets and some MS ads.
Hilarious because I wanted to change the (default ?) UI scaling from 150 to 100%; there was no obvious way to just type "scaling" somewhere and get to the point, instead I navigated three layers deep through the settings panel, which had three different visual design styles. I read all the windows design snark on HN, without really knowing what is what... turns out it REALLY is as bad as people make it out to be, haha.
I don't care what system I'm on, if I wanted to change display settings, I wouldn't search for scaling, I'd search for display settings.
I'm failing to see anything of substance here other than "I didn't immediately know how to do something."
> Gross because I clicked somewhere by accident and the bottom right of my screen was filled with news snippets and some MS ads.
Yea these suck but you can turn them off. In lock screen settings, and the 2nd one if you right click on it you can turn it off.
The metro UI... that has to be the ugliest shit I've seen on desktop. And I've seen my share of ugly UIs on Linux.
And the responsiveness/perf is down the drain too... on a new PC with fast nvme
Calling back home on every other thing probably slows things down too.
Maybe it's just what I grew up with, but all the native widget interactions feel perfect, even after the Win 8 style transition. The mouse acceleration is exactly what I expect. The taskbar behaves precisely how I want a taskbar to behave. The filesystem layout is refreshingly straightforward compared to the Unix/Posix FHS. Windows Defender does its job and gets out of the way (remember Norton/McAfee and Spybot?). And there are a ton of nice graphical "power user" applications available.
Part of the reason I like KDE so much is that it feels so Windows-like. But every time I boot into my Windows desktop, I feel a bit sad knowing that there is nothing quite like it in the GNU/Linux world.
There is that one Windows-API-compatible OS, but I have no idea if that will ever be viable as a daily driver.
lol don't have to be coy about naming it, it's called ReactOS. It's an OS project that attempts to be a clean-room implementation of the Windows API. The latest news about it popped up yesterday for being able to run some old Battlefield games: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30888799
Progress is understandably slow but since Microsoft has significantly lowered investment in Windows itself and are pivoting away from it to Azure, I can imagine a possible but distant future where Windows allows Wine & ReactOS to catch up because little beyond surface-level UI changes happen on Windows anymore.
> Windows Defender does its job and gets out of the way
WD is easily bypassed [1]. It's all smoke and mirrors - Microsoft has never cared about security. The OS is full of wontfix exploits (this is frowned upon to talk about in the security research community, especially among the big players, wonder why...)
One would benefit in exploring the thought that WD is valuable for MS in the way that it can be used to restrict 'personal computing' - the applications you download and use, the files you download and create, all recorded and hashed in some database, all under the guise of security. DeCSS is a good example [2].
One would also benefit in exploring the thought of the possibility that MS spends significant amounts of money in paying off MS partners, researchers, news outlets etc. to convince the public that defender will keep you safe.
I repeat, Microsoft does not care about security. That said, a properly hardened Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC with telemetry removed [3], along with a third-party/router firewall is the way to go, in my opinion.
[1] https://github.com/search?o=desc&q=Windows+Defender&s=update...
[2] https://www.arch13.com/ms-windows-defender-decss/
[3] https://www.bsi.bund.de/EN/Topics/Cyber-Security/Recommendat...
It's the same as sudo'ing an unknown script you received in an email. At that point you're begging to be pwned.
UAC is easily bypassed as well. In fact, the majority of wontfix exploits has something to do with UAC.
> They all expect to be run through an admin powershell/command line.
Admin rights will be acquired by using exploits (of which there are many) or by using built-in tools found in the Windows system directory, for example Wscript.exe. No internet connection required. No fetching of external files. You have no say in whether you can allow it to run or not.
> you will get a warning before the script is able to gain administrative access.
False. You wouldn't even know. Not a visible commandline window to be seen. It's all silent. A well-developed exploit will delete most of it's traces.
This is all pretty basic knowledge in the sec research community. Test it and verify it for yourself. I test hardening configurations using a Windows VM.
No password on login, no web browsing period, no access to NAS/media/files, no cloud access etc. just has windows and steam/various launchers and peripheral software.
I’m are things like proton exist, but there are a million issues with gaming on Linux that I don’t feel like writing a book about in the comment section. Maybe in a few more years…
I almost prefer having it on an isolated system, along with the various other game launchers.
I also wish I didn't have to use it to buy games, but it seems like any/most PC games are available only through Steam, or some equivalently distasteful proprietary launcher/platform/portal thing.
Microsoft has a long standing reputation for bundling crap and bloat its OS, while doing whatever-telemetry and harder to catch as the author of the OS itself.
Valve and Steam has a much better reputation for now, and is respected by many players. I'm not saying it's perfect but at least it's loved by players whereas Microsoft/Windows is more into the hated category, for good well-deserved reasons.
Work is also done on a domain joined Windows laptop.
This "just switch to linux lol" is so dumb.
I can't believe there is any good reason for people to run Windows on their PC in 2022?
Games like FF7R, GTA, anmy RPG etc, sure I play on playstation.
Good luck playing CSGO, Valorant, Leauge of Legends and my already massive Steam library on PS4 lol
Why would you suggest this as a "solution"
I run Windows 10 as it runs the software I want. Im on an install from 2015 when it came out and after chaning the default browser, desktop background, some settings customization, its fine.
I can also use my own desktop hardware. I have a i7 4790k, 32GB RAM and a 1070ti 3x 1440p monitors. Why should I get a Mac?
There are a variety of games for PC that just aren't on console. If you want to play them, you do not have any alternative.
There are a variety of games where you need a mouse, or have grown up using a mouse, and switching to constroller is like asking someone who runs marathons to switch to sack racing. This is not an alternative on consoles.
Games are frequently cheaper on PC. MUCH cheaper. If you're on a budget, it's hard to justify.
Not all multiplayer games are cross-system compatible, and many never will be. If your friends play on PC, you can't switch to console without agreeing to never play with them again. Maybe you'll be the one to start the exodus if you try, but maybe not. That's a lot to ask of people, to buy a new console, rebuy all their old games, and then be okay with all the above-mentioned issues, including the network effect of your friends' friends who all play on PC, etc.
In short, there are quite a number of valid reasons to run Windows on your PC, especially if you play games.
The first observation is that we're in a golden age of video gaming. There are so many quality games coming out, for every platform, that you could spend the rest of your life playing only the games available today and barely even make a dent in the backlog. The world has too many games as it is (which isn't a bad thing, to be clear).
The second observation is that, even though there are so many objectively high-quality games, I've become bored of almost all of them. Almost none of them have anything new to offer, and are, at best, refinements on existing formulas. Now that I'm older, I've seen all the formulas. For younger people, maybe they would suffer from not getting to have some formative experience in some Windows-only game. But I've put in my 10,000 hours, twice over, making me an expert in video games, and in my expert opinion I'm not missing out.
It's not really the truth anymore. At best it's a couple of bucks on sale, day 1 prices are typically the same and have been for 10+ years at this point, PSN/XBL regularly have sales that are just as or close to as steep as Steam or even cheaper. Plus you can still resell that physical PS5 game and get something back which you haven't been able to do on PC for a while.
Console subscriptions and some sales have gone more competitive, but it's still not there and probably never will.
No, the sales are just as competitive. It's been there for years. Take a look at sites that keep price histories for Steam, PSN and XBL. Only real value in PC gaming is free online.
Most people don't keep around a whole stash of old consoles, while keeping a 10-15 year old steam account is way more common. If you game on PC you will most likely have a steam acc.
Meaning whenever and whatever kind of PC you get, you have your library.
Plus the abandonware, freeware, and all the giveaways (Epic store front regularly gives away all sorts of great games for free, even new AAA titles sometimes) and other goodies that come from an open platform.
If you just go to a store and buy a console, you basically have nothing, other than the F2P lootbox games. It's a closed platform so you have nothing. And have to rebuy stuff from zero if you want to play the games you had in past.
The fact I can just go buy a PC and have the whole steam library dating back to almost two decades is the real value. And that i'm not locked out.
It should be clear that there is a big difference between PC gaming and console gaming experiences.
And I own about a hundred games on Windows, and I still think Linux file manager GUIs are awkward compared to Windows.
which is even more locked down than a PC and probably sends even more telemetry?
Why would I want to buy some box for hundreds of euros/dollars that only plays games:
- with worse quality
- with no mod support for basically any game
- requires you to pay extra for basic features (e.g. looking at you, Nintendo, with your "savegames are not on the SD card but locked to the console unless you pay a subscription to back them up online, so if your Switch kicks it, they're gone"; etc etc)
- last I heard basically no setting customizability and locked framerates all over the place, like Bloodborne locked at 30fps with no anti-aliasing
- exclusivity garbage
- almost always controller-only input: shooters and (other) first-person games with controller? No thank you!
- the list goes on and on
Nowadays, with Proton I can play basically anything I want on Steam on my Ubuntu PC with minimal if any added effort (actually none in recent memory) with no problems, parity in frame-rate and stability to when I was gaming on Windows years ago.
Granted, I mostly stay away from the garbage that is regularly barely warmed-up and churned out by those greedy MTX-peddling bloodsuckers known as the "AAA industry".
Gaming on Linux is really good these days though!
If you are privileged enough to be in the extreme minority who can do that - you probably already have.
I know you know this - but people need proprietary software, and they need to not guess if it might possibly work through some interpretative layer like WINE.
May I remind you a lot of people pay for software they need to use, and sometimes need support or updates that they certainly won’t be guaranteed if they are trying to run software on unsupported systems.
If you are somehow privileged enough to not be in that group, you are an extreme - extreme - outlier, and good for you, but don’t bury your head in the sand and forget that for 99% of people, that’s obviously not a possibility - whatsoever - including at least 90% of the workforce who gets handed a laptop and use whatever they have to use.
It’s just so irritating to constantly hear this ‘just go to Linux’ bullshit when it’s not like Linux users aren’t aware that it can’t work for the majority of people.
If I switch to Linux, I lose Photoshop, Logic Pro, Final Cut Pro, Unity, as well as a handful of plug-ins. That’s $1k plus of software I have paid for and rely on, that I instantly lose access to?!
The value loss upon switching to Linux - alone - for most people, who have invested into software ecosystems that can’t be replicated in Linux alone would be astounding.
It’s not even the money spent on software, either - it’s the time invested in learning it.
I know people who run Linux know this - I wonder why they seem to have forgotten.
I also don't think any of this is about privilge, it's about control. If you want control, you have to work for it. That's how everything works in life. People will always try to take away from you control. Switching to Linux may take work, but it will give you control. Learning a bit more Windows (like the operations mentionned earlier, the registery) will probably be easier and give you less. Everyone can then adjust things depending on how much control they want and time/energy they have.
Actually - it doesn’t. Plain and simple. I actually laughed out loud a little at the comment, ngl.
It’s actually that Linux is controlling me and what I can do. :/ Specifically, what I can’t do.
I’d lose thousands of dollars and years of investment into learning and using these tools I rely on.
It would cripple me completely, professionally - overnight. For real. I’d also lose access to a decade and a half of project files from Logic, etc.
It’s completely privilege if you happen to be in the minority that can find the time and value loss that switching to an OS that doesn’t allow you to run any previous software you’ve used (except Firefox, maybe :P) somehow works for you.
It’s funny - I have complete control over my ability to do everything I want to do on my Mac.
Switching to Linux immediately takes my entire command deck (Logic Pro X, Final Cut Pro X, various plug ins, Photoshop, Animator, Maya, Unity3D…I could go on…) away from me.
And what’s funny is - I have the ability to run most of the software I’d run on Linux on my Mac anyway, due to its underpinnings.
Then I’ve still got WINE…
So, the fact is - there are almost only disadvantages for a vast number of, especially average users - to switch to Linux - and most of that is the time and headache involved in unnecessarily learning a new system.
Most people don’t want to even deal with computers to start. And this leads to the biggest reason we will never have the ‘year of Linux’, and the biggest reason I laugh off Linux evangelists as totally ignorant of the ‘real world’.
Us nerds really get stuck in our tiny little corner of a perspective sometimes.
Very little demonstrates that more than Linux switcher evangelists.
The average person literally knows the like 4-5 tasks they need to do on their computer and they don’t want to know or learn anything else! Like, people are not like we are, and any serious Linux evangelist forgot that a long time ago.
We're in a discussion about how you can get Windows to do the things you want because of user hostile decisions made by Microsoft.
> It’s actually that Linux is controlling me and what I can do. :/
I don't think it's called "control" when it's due to an unconscious agent. Life is not "controlling" you because you will die one day. It's how things are. You can influence it, like living longer by not smoking, or porting over software to linux, or trying stuff out with wine or sharing how it works.
> It’s completely privilege if you happen to be in the minority that can find the time and value loss that switching to an OS that doesn’t allow you to run any previous software you’ve used somehow works for you.
You're making the fallacy of thinking that switching OS means you'll loss all software, which is absolutely wrong. Unless you happen to only use desktop apps that only work on windows, which puts you in the minority. A good part of Excel works online for example, same with most of Microsoft Office. Alternative also exists. And again, considering the post we're in, people are frustrated at windows, they're already spending quite some time and energy in trying to fix things or being frustrated at things.
You and everyone else are free to invest their time however you want. That doesn't mean it's the correct or best decision. There's nothing about that that's privilege. Some people work with Excel all their life yet refuse to learn more of it, even when they are offered formations at work. That's not lacking privilege. And again, it's perfectly fine if they don't want to do it. But the people that instead learn more Excel are not privileged in any way.
Edit following yours:
> The average person literally knows the like 4-5 tasks they need to do on their computer and they don’t want to know or learn anything else!
I'm glad we agree that it's in their power to do it and that they actually refuse to do anything about it. If you consider windows to be becoming too anoying (which is what this whole thread is about) and keep complaining and not doing anything, this is not because of a lack of privilege. This is on you. If windows is working fine for you, great! I'm happy to hear it! Same for MacOS. However, people are having issues frequently with closed source OSes. This one about windows, a recent one about MacOS: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30864613. For them, switching might be a solution.
I'll add that I don't really see the point of editing your comment to be even more snarky and less based on facts that it was before. Maybe reading the guidelines again would help you?
But I could agree with you on this point. A average person literally knows the like 4-5 tasks they need to do on their computer and they don’t want to know or learn anything else. That's true.
Modern software, be it Windows, Mac OS, or you productivity tool is going to ruin your workflow by introducing non-reversible UI changes that sure no purpose other than telling the world that our product is not staling. That's the standard practice.
While I am using Linux desktop, with customized config that is not changed for years, and I don't need to learn a new workflow for these years anymore. That's good and I like it because I am getting old.
I'm a Mac user and can't even consider switching to Linux (eventhough I like it) as I use Photoshop, After Effects, Sketch, Logic Pro which anyone would probably agree that they are unmatched.
Anyone who can completely be on Linux are probably people who don't need ANYTHING other than open source software/terminals/code editors etc. which is much less in percentage (but overlapping with the demographics of here a lot).
E.g. wake from sleep often doesn't, webcams often just stop between exiting one video call and starting another, Bluetooth often stops, CPU throttling often doesn't do anything so you have battery life of 1hr max, external USB keyboards often "disappear" etc.
This sort of shit never happens on my personal Windows machine, Chromebooks, or work MacBook Pro (that replaced the Linux dell). I trust the tech people at my place of work to not screw things up in terms of distro, and it has been something that I have observed time and time again over the years with Linux on different hardware, different distros and different corporate environments.
The answer if often "turn it off and on again" (much like windows 95) otherwise you are on an tedious trip down remote support sessions with dmesg/lsusb/blueman/pulseaudio command line messing about. I am sure someone will reply "ah you need to make sure you use foo instead of bar!" or "that version of Bar is not compatible with Foo" or " your distro needs to back port patch Quux" ... that is part of the problem and why "just use Linux" doesn't work (yet).
It's just as tiring to hear "Linux is unusable, it can't run X". For you maybe it can't work but it can work for a lot more than just coders.
Honestly I feel like desktop Linux market share would be a whole lot larger if the defacto office suite wasn't owned by the biggest OS maker...
> Product I use is bad
> Use other product
> No >:(
These threads are pretty pointless as it is, but if we avoid mentioning the only solution that exists and how to do that, switching to Linux, then the thread is literally just a bunch of complaining
There is such a lack of consideration for the average end-user - who would never deal with the layers that come with a Linux distro in the evangelical Linux community - it seriously drives me crazy sometimes.
Like - the only solution? …
There is an entire other OS and ecosystem called MacOS, that doesn’t have these issues like built-in advertising - allows for natively running the proprietary software most people need without some weird translation layer in between - and if you don’t like that - there are ways to tweak Windows into being semi-sorta-not-really-but-whatever level acceptable. It even runs most Linux software, to boot.
Almost like it’s the best of all worlds, or something.
And if you want to bitch about the proprietary hardware ‘needed’ for MacOS - to be frank - in about 15 years or so of playing with both Hackintoshes and various Linux distributions…I honestly found them to be about equal in terms of hardware support and annoyance of configuration.
In the last 4-5 years I’ve actually had better luck with plug and play hardware support on Hackintoshes.
(It’s amazing how fantastic that community is! Most of my computers are totally plug and play. My 80-year-old grandma did it last year, first try - after trying and failing several times with Ubuntu, on her bog-standard Dell tower…)
So, point in case - is the average person supposed to go fishing around for drivers or go out to purchase specific hardware so it works with their Linux distribution?
Do they want to dig through package managers to find whatever alternatives exist to the software they need and already know how to use?
Obviously not, and; no. :P
So is Linux even a ‘solution’ at all for at least 80% of people who don’t even get what a ‘driver’ is? Of course not!
So it certainly can’t be the ‘only’ solution.
Even convincing the average Windows user to go over to MacOS - even if you hand them a Mac - is pretty tough, honestly. (Speaking from experience…)
I’d never, nor have I ever - recommend(ed) any Linux distribution to anyone who wasn’t a serious techie.
Heck, I don’t recommend it in general, unless you’re lucky enough to be a programmer who doesn’t have to work on proprietary systems, and are dual-booting alongside an OS that can natively run the proprietary software 90% of people rely on and already know how to use.
If you’re curious and tech-savvy - of course - go for it!
I’ve recommended dual-booting to a few techie friends, and I have nothing against Linux - honesty except for the people who are blindly evangelical about it and forget about the real people in the world who aren’t techies.
For the average person - Linux is a perfect case of ‘free isn’t free’.
An aside:
You know what is likeliest to replace Windows, which sucks balls? Android. Because honestly, other than the built-in ads, on a default installation, with telemetry enabled, it would be tough to tell which OS is worse for your privacy.
I’d be curious to see a highly technical comparison on that!
If you're stuck on Windows, that sucks, but switching OS is the only solution to a hostile OS. You can tweak Windows however you want; it is still going to push updates that ignore your wishes and annoy you. We shouldn't stop recommending the best solution because you personally can't switch.
Thanks for posting this.
I'm using Windows 11 since a few months, been using Windows 10 before, and Windows 7 before that.
The prompt in question comes up exactly once, when using Edge to download Chrome/Firefox. Then there is only one additional prompt when you set your default browser to Chrome/Firefox.
After that, Windows gives up and shuts up. Even if you update it, it won't bug you again, ever. At least I have never seen that prompt come up a second time since then.
I'm using Windows 11 pro though, it might be that the consumer versions (home, educational, whatever they're called) are different in that regard
I'd like to see Microsoft be open with that sort of thing for Windows. I'd like to see the people who make these decisions. I'd like to hear their motivations.
If you believe the hype, the Digital Markets Act (DMA) will change things. (Or, I guess, Microsoft will need to spend a bit more to buy compliance from the regulators.) https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20220315IP...
* Uninstalling tons of crap (Xbox Live, Edge, McAfee, Cortana etc)
* Blocking network access for many processes (Windows Defender Smart Screen, GamingServices, Search etc). The latter sends all your search queries to bing
* Fiddling with telemetry & privacy settings
After uninstalling Edge I still find places where functionality is broken because the OS doesn't respect the default browser setting.
Microsoft makes very weird, deeply hurtful decisions, at a depth very few people understand.
It makes sense for developers to use the native html renderer when they don’t want to have to include a big binary blob (Electron/CEF) to do so in their application.
Uninstalling the latter shouldn't touch the former, nor should it break the OS.
But it definitely shouldn't be the other way around.
Candy Crush isn't anything like that, it doesn't screw up OS functionality. (Well, subjectively, you might consider ads and upsells in the UI broken.)
They don’t. It’s been like that for decades.
Preventing installation of third-party software. This will certainly go well in Europe.
Ultimately though, most people don't care. And the ones that do simply reinstall Windows on a new PC, because it's quicker that way.
A reddit thread [0] suggests using a PowerShell-based alternative.
[0] https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/3i766c/shut_up_wi...
Windows uses Edge for webviews, you shouldn't uninstall Edge if you want these webview.
While yes, using webviews to render things is awful, you shouldn't uninstall edge, it's like uninstalling librairies then complain about how things stop working.
I forget how much it costs, something like $350/year from memory, but it's a no-brainer if you are developing for Windows, as you get access to loads of software, including Visual Studio, Office, something like 10x Windows desktop licenses and 5x server licenses, $100/m Azure credits etc.
I think the only thing it still has going for it is that it doesn't really change all the time. Oh and you can probably still install updates whenever you actually want to, because it's meant for production systems.
The old LTSB of Windows 7 was indeed a really nice, light and no-frills windows release but LTSC has become almost the same turd that Windows 10 has :(
21H2 version is bloated compared to early win10 LTSC builds.
There's so much telemetry and so much Windows Defender bullshit, which is extremely hard to get rid off, but slows your system down tremendously.
I can only imagine how bad full non-LTSC version of windows is like.
More shocking posts about bad Windows and predictable comments about Linux to the entropy god.
winget install -s winget firefox
Microsoft used to be far less abusive than this. You installed it and it would just stay silent. I think things changed starting around Windows 8, then got much worse with 10, and the trend continues with 11.
Windows 10 started out pretty nice but all the tie-ins with their services and telemetry have become way too heavy.
Letting people figure that out for themselves word spread organically would be more effective than trying to shove it down everyone’s throats.
Stupid eh? As a developer, I confidently place Edge below Firefox in terms of usability and customization for my purposes.
The engine is just one part of a browser. Edge is not the same as Chrome.
it's a shittier version of Chrome laden with more telemetry, ads, coupon bullshit and abusive "pay later" schemes
standard Microsoft
Only browser that does 4k Netflix.
Fast and least resource/battery use on Windows.
Ublock origin still works.
Yes, Firefox is my first choice. But Edge is actually good.
> The vertical tabs are great and are actually native.
I don't like Vivaldi's vertical tabs, but I love Tree-Style Tabs on Firefox.
https://www.howtogeek.com/718693/how-to-use-vertical-tabs-in...
Unfortunately that's a business decision, not a testament to the greatness of Edge. The different browsers and properties of the PC constitute a "security level" in the DRM module, and Netflix ties its offerings to the different security levels. You could say that with IE, you have the least control over your Netflix stream and that's why they let you play their content in 4k.
Nevertheless, Edge could be a good browser otherwise. What I wanted to point out is only the point about 4k Netflix.
https://brave.com/popular-browsers-first-run/
They concluded Brave was the "best" with "only" 80 calls home.
As a maker of a zero telemetry browser, I can only chuckle at that.
To be honest I don't really understand why MS is so hell-bent on everyone using it. It's free and they don't even develop most of it.
I guess that telemetry is really a goldmine otherwise I don't see why they would pushing it so incessantly in Windows.
I wouldn't complain about favoring Edge by just having it pre-set as the default when you install Windows. That's fine and reasonable to me, you want some kind of default browser anyway, if nothing else, to install other browsers.
But the OS complaining about it when you switch is stupid. Whereas you can argue that having some kind of browser built into the OS is a reasonable necessity for user convenience -- and you could argue this for other app types too, like image viewers and video players -- having the OS try to convince users to not switch is explicitly anti-competitive.
Many places have laws, under headlines like "monopolies" or "anti-competitive behaviour", that have evolved precisely because of the danger of allowing a business entity that has achieved a dominant position in one market to exploit that position to gain an unfair advantage in another market (even if the former position was achieved entirely on merit).
Many places have evolved a regulatory environment for services, particularly those considered essential, where commercial providers of those services are restricted from freely performing certain acts that would harm a user of their services even if it makes business sense to do that.
We evolved these rules because there is a huge imbalance of power in these situations and we learned from experience that allowing the big guy to exploit that imbalance to the detriment of the little guy is bad for society.
The need to apply similar principles to modern technologies and communications services is abundantly clear. The legislators and regulators are just a decade or two behind the technology, as so often happens. Now we're starting to see the pendulum swing back and it will probably go too far the other way, with technologically illiterate political appointees seeing potential power and/or revenue that can be generated from applying heavy-handed control to the big tech firms and doing their own kind of damage to the societies they supposedly serve. Witness the current wave of laws and regulatory actions in basically everywhere in the West that isn't the USA.
But anyway car analogies are pretty skewed.
After navigating a few mazes of menus I was able to disable all this behavior.
It’s just believable enough that I remember it. The higher up on the corporate ladder one is, the less possible it is to tell him “no.”
Like Lyndon B. Johnson?
2h later i was back on windows 10 (yes 10, not 11), and wsl…
But... if I ever notice that Microsoft changes my Edge privacy settings behind my back then I will ditch it in a second for Firefox, and never go back.
And I'm genuinely curious if just me deciding to use Edge is enough to make Microsoft happy.
Also, what happens if you try to install Chrome, or Vivaldi, or some other browser?
The fact that they can't see that is very worrying because it indicates a higher probably that they do/will engage in unethical behaviors to reassure themselves.
A tip.
Collects installers in one exe.
Great for new installs to grab software in one go.
Obviously, they want to add their own telemetry, advertisements, and "helpful suggestions" like this.
What's with the Mozilla Firefox being leftist/Communist propaganda thing? Is it a meme or flat out ignorance? It seems to based solely on their logo, which is ridiculous.
I do apologize for being off topic.
[1] https://mobile.twitter.com/othala__/status/15106138125541744...
Windows is racing to the bottom as fast as it can. It reeks of desperation.
My experience with their desktops has been pretty great. Their laptops however are terrible.
Anyway, Firefox is just a de facto Google subsidiary that's allowed to continue to exist to preserve the illusion of competition in the browser space, so who cares