Microsoft is slowly rolling out ads in the Windows 11 start menu | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft is slowly rolling out ads in the Windows 11 start menu

gizmodo.com

180 pointsourmandave203 comments

I would love to hear Steve Jobs' thoughts on this if he were still alive. He famously was quoted as saying Microsoft has "no taste", and I can't help but think this commercialization of the core OS interface is the epitome of tasteless and cheap.

It's hard to imagine a company like Microsoft with so many billions in the bank is so hard up for cash that they're effectively putting billboards up for sale on their primary product. I'm sure Jobs would have had some colorful things to say, if not outright gloating at the vindication.

Doesn't Apple offer backup services in OSX? From what I can tell that's all this is, it's offering the ability to backup via OneDrive for a cost...

Wrong thread?

*macOS.

Yes, iCloud is offered across platforms and OneDrive would be the Microsoft equivalent.

Yeah... that too. I came here to point out the contrast between the technical marvel that is Windows, and the sheer obscenity of the tracking hell it enables.

I don't like it any more than you, but my biggest beef is iOS nagging me all the time with modal dialog boxes to sell me apple paid services. It won't be Apple lecturing Microsoft on this topic.

It's a pain in Apple Photos that continually nags you about running out of space or buying more. They also have persistent notification badges for settings if you don't turn on iCloud.

If you are backing your photos up to iCloud and you're running out of space, of course you will get a notification. Just disable Photos sync to iCloud if you rely on another cloud like Google Photos

I cannot even use Google Photos in the same way that I use iCloud.

With iCloud I can set the system up to only retain low-resolution versions and only fetch high-quality when needed.

I can't do that with Google Photos. ANY app that requires me to open a photo opens up with the standard iOS photo viewer which does not allow anything. I can't even write an integration for iOS photos so I can browse my NAS, or Google Photos or DropBox or whatever.

But doesn’t the nagging make sense if you’re already using iCloud sync for Photos (so you’re obviously interested in the functionality) but running out of the free (trial basically) space? The badges are crap, yes.

My beef is that something about taking my Samsung Bluetooth earphones out of my ears launches Apple's Music/iTunes app, and only that, and after a cursory search, this apparently can't be turned off. Aside from the annoyance itself, pushing a particular app/service is also not what I want an OS to do.

This drives me crazy ever single day.

Taking them out does that? That makes no sense.

That sounds more like a bug or oversight than a dark pattern.

It's a bit of both. The intention is probably to start the app when you "plug in" earphones. But something about putting the Galaxy Buds back into their charging case, or sometimes just taking them out, causes a state change (reconnect?) that triggers it.

The dark pattern is to start the Music app.

On my Apple Watch 3, when on a run, I would look at my watch for heart rate and pace, but Apple would always show Music first, even though i don’t listen to music when running.

Bought a Garmin watch immediately after that.

This hasn't happened to me a few iOS versions ago with the Buds Plus.

Sorry, I realize I didn't make it clear, but I meant Mac OS (on a MBP).

My solution: https://github.com/tombonez/noTunes

(i.e. I use this. I did not create it)

I’m especially easily irritated by this kind of thing and I cannot recall a single example of that in iOS. are you using your device for an unusual case?

Pretty much after every system update I get nagged for using iCloud, apple wallet, the defaults redirects you randomly to apple music when you are trying to play your own music, etc. Perhaps you have given up to all those demands and you don't see them. Otherwise you can't really miss them. To the point that I am deferring system updates as long as I can.

Apple Wallet is free, and does it use modal dialogue boxes anyway?

iCloud I can’t really argue

haven’t had an Apple Music redirect for years

is that constant modal dialogues for paid services? not really

You think Apple wallet is a charity? They get a cut on every transaction. Processing fees are charged to the merchant.

That’s Apple Pay, not the wallet app. The wallet app just shows a collection of cards supplied by the system and apps.

and by implication using your camera or your torch for free is a charity. phones have features my friend. the speakers on your PC are not a “charity”

Sorry about any lecturing.

We should skip the Apple vs Microsoft debate. It has no value.

We all vote with our money.

Cue the Microsoft apologists...

Where and how often? I get a notice every time I update my OS for things I don't care about. But imagining every time I opened my main search interface that I saw an ad... no thanks.

For almost every one of those pop ups, you can click on it, step through the dialog, then cancel the setup and it will clear the badge and not nag you anymore.

I agree it is getting irritating on IOS, but on Windows they’re now using things like alert badges on the battery charging status icon, the security status icon, etc. for stuff like “alerting” that you haven’t signed up for cloud backups and somehow this is an urgent security concern.

> For almost every one of those pop ups, you can click on it, step through the dialog, then cancel the setup and it will clear the badge and not nag you anymore.

Until the next update.

really? I don't remember seeing any ios nags like that. super weird that you'd be seeing them constantly.

I just got a brand new iPhone 14 and didn't see any of this either even when setting it up fresh.

I'm also curious what OP is referring to.

well, to be fair, the app store has ads in search. When you search for app X, you're likely to see its competitor Y as the first result. (Though this is obviously not Jobs' doing.)

oh give me a break! They are promoting OneDrive. I use Macs and an iPhone, I definitely get pestered to use iCloud, news or apple music all the time! The music app alone is mostly screens pushing Apple Music. The headline makes it sound like they're selling general ad space.

Forced Candy Crush, Facebook and other installs, MSN tabloid news articles, etc. are all over Windows start menu too. It's extremely tasteless and looks like a grocery store checkout aisle.

And is irrelevant to this article.

I think I've seen the apple news widget helpfully installed on my iPad before. The candy crush thing is true, but I haven't really noticed it until I just checked.

The pinned apps thing is sorta annoying but generally I just hit windows + type whatever I'm looking for. Like spotlight on mac.

You are discountingthe effect that the plebs still using Windows will click on Candy Crush and get addicted.

It may hook only 7 people out of 100, but it’s just toxic.

I recall seeing an ad from a start menu search... admittedly, an insiders build and likely a test feature... but they're definitely at least considering it... I don't use many apple apps on my m1 laptop, so can't say much there. All said, my desktop has been in Linux 99.9% of the time since first seeing that. Though Win11 had already been pissing me off a lot well before then.

Apple definitely pushes apple music a lot. I use spotify and when I hit play on my headphones half the time it somehow thinks that I want it to fire up apple music instead of unpausing spotify.

On iPhone if it doesn't auto sync your photos it definitely encourages you to on.. yep, iCloud!

I just don't understand all this hate for microsoft in this particular case. To me this is not really that different from what Apple does, yet I don't see articles roasting apple about it.

There are places in macOS where Apple really makes sure that you do know about iCloud and do consider subscribing, but it’s still nowhere near what Microsoft does, and it feels more like someone offering you an optional dessert after lunch instead of extended car warranty.

And Apple Music, and Apple Classical Music, and Apple News, and Apple Fitness, and ...

Tbh I don’t think I’ve ever used the new Music app (I’m on Spotify) and the last two are not available where I live :)

I use the Apple Music app constantly and never get nagged to buy the service. On macOS, I just unchecked the "Apple Music" checkbox under "Show" in the Music Preferences, and on iOS turned off the "Show Apple Music" toggle in Settings > Music. Boom, no nagging.

Opt in vs. opt out. Those check boxes should be disabled be default. And they are not.

> He famously was quoted as saying Microsoft has "no taste"

Eh, I really don't expect my hammer and screwdriver to be "tasty", I expect them to be reliable, stable, sturdy and customizable.

In terms of complexity, a computer is more like a car than a hammer.

That’s why you probably don’t use many Apple devices, which is totally cool. I on the other hand, expect something that I look at, touch and use literally for half of my waking hours to be as “tasty” as possible. It’s actually one of the most important factors, if not the most important.

If your hammer had a habit of interrupting your work, in order to suggest purchasing a subscription for nails, you would not be happy.

You likely gave some idiot a startup idea or some exec the next project.

Yeah. I call that failing to be reliable.

That's definitely not about taste.

Yeah when I buy a hammer I always buy the one that has no labels on it of any kind. Just plain hammer and no signage on it whatsoever. Thats super important because what if I stop hammering and start reading the sign, could be a serious distraction. None of that, I am all about work and hammering.

And ad free

Microsoft has no taste, no taste for charging you a ton of money for nothing tangible, but a green bubble and not being able to talk to your poor friends.

Apple devices have had this same type of ad for years.

Yep,

> A “small” number of Windows 11 users will now see “notifications” encouraging them to use other Microsoft products when clicking on the Windows Start Menu

Is the red dot on System Preferences a software update, or is it "Update Apple ID Settings" which wants me to sign in to iCloud everywhere just because I use Apple Music.

Apple even goes so far as to change the behaviour of the notification 'X' so that instead of dismissing the notification it opens System Preferences to iCloud for me. The only way to dismiss it is to swipe it off screen (not what you usually do), and it returns each time I wake my computer and periodically through the day.

??? The start button on mac does not have ads

Ironic, considering how user hostile Mac OS interface is.

Either way, I hope this pushes more people towards Linux. Moved to Mint recently and couldn't be happier.

Only wish I could use it for work as well, but oh well.

I'm so glad I got comfortable using Linux early on. It just keeps getting easier to use and more powerful. Even gaming on Linux is pretty much tolerable these days thanks in part to Valve / Steam and their Proton fork of WINE.

I don't have a Steam Deck and I have no intention of buying one.

But damn I am grateful it exists. It single handedly allowed me to have Linux and nothing else on my personal machine.

Gaming on Linux for me has been more than tolerable, it has been as close to perfection as I always hoped.

Gaming on Linux for me started getting easy for me around WINE 3.0-ish, when EverQuest (and other MMOs of that time period) started running pretty near flawlessly for me. That's when my Windows XP/7 partition finally died for the last time on my system. Ain't been back to Windows since (other than trying out Windows 10 on a friend's system and instantly remembering why I had learned to hate Windows). Since Steam came to Linux and Valve released Proton, it's all only gotten better by leaps and bounds.

It's funny, I spent the time to get a windows app launching in proton as I was having some issues with the Linux version that I didn't have the time/patience to diagnose and fix myself.

The launcher is called proton-call ... I changed Steam to use the version of proton to match what the app expected, and it worked pretty cleanly. All said, I do wish it were easier for a separate launcher or third party to include proton as a separate package.

https://github.com/caverym/proton-caller

Not the hero we deserve, but the hero we need.

Thanks for that!

You might also want to look into "Heroic" (an open source implementation of a GOG and Epic games launcher), and "Lutris", and "Bottles"; all of which can use Proton (and WINE) to launch Windows games and apps on Linux rather easily.

> considering how user hostile Mac OS interface is

I can’t say that this is wrong, because user hostility is 100 % subjective by definition, but it’s as close you can get to “wrong” in some general knowledge, large numbers, empirical sense. macOS has always been the “user friendly” one.

> has always been the “user friendly” one.

Yet trying to get my keyboard to be properly configured on Mac OS is next to impossible. The time I spent trying to get it configured is comical, I just decided to get used that a couple of keys are switched around.

Doing the same on Windows or Linux was pleasantly easy.

Mac OS sacrifices usability in the name of having a "sexy" interface. There's nothing user friendly about it.

A gold plated turd is still a turd.

I think it's more that certain hotkeys are different, and that comes from history... even if you switch ctrl/alt/super around, you still have to have something off. It used to be far worse if you were around for real unix hardware and other systems like Comodore, Atari etc.

Oh no, MacOS just doesn't like the position of the tilde character on my keyboard. Decided that it should be somewhere else.

I'm okay with it beeing anal with the ctrl/super/alt keys. It's just thay MacOS is anal about a lot more things.

> Ironic, considering how user hostile Mac OS interface is.

You might not like it, doesn't make it user hostile. At least not without further expanding, because it's definitely not just a fact as you seem to state.

Last OS update for my iPad kept nagging me to accept the T&Cs for iCloud.

Eventually, it wouldn't let me update the OS without updating iCloud, which requires accepting the licence.

Apple is doing the same thing, just more overtly. I find your comment a bit jumping on the bandwagon and lacking of thought.

Off the top of my head, apple has advertising for:

  - Stocks
  - Maps
  - iCloud that never stops pestering you.
  - AppStore
  - News

It looks like Apple may add ads into Podcasts and Books.

This is a common complaint but it is really not on the same level as advertising for trash like Candycrush.

Comparing those to having tiktok on your start menu without being able to remove it (like an Apple News notification, for example) is completely asinine. I use windows everyday and coming from LTSC, the ads on 11 have been very surprisingly gross. Which is a shame since I actually really like win11 a part from that. But I would take apple ads all day if I had a choice between the two.

I truthfully find them all a sickening distraction that attempts to steal my current context and thus, I really don’t distinguish between candy crush ads vs the apple ads as I find them all sickening.

I find the inability to distinguish from services like iCloud and one drive, services that supplement the os, to apps and adware like tiktok and candy crush, lacking of thought.

I don't think you grasped what I said...

Finder doesn’t show ads, right? System Preferences doesn’t show iCloud ads, right? You don’t keep urging me to make Safari the default browser, right? Strictly speaking, macOS has an iCloud item in the Finder sidebar, but you can hide it, and you have to go through several layers of account settings to get to the iCloud settings in System Preferences. Safari only notifies you that Safari is recommended as the default browser when you first set up Chrome, but nothing after that. At least for macOS, they don’t display ads in prominent places over and over again like Microsoft does.

After years of Windows, I just recently set up a new Mac. It was a breath of fresh air!

Windows has onedrive im the sidebar of the explorer, macos has icloud. On macos it's one toggle I'm settings, and it's gone. In windows, it's an undocumented registry setting, and an msconfig setting, and several nag screens, and it comes back after some OS upgrades.

Changing the default browser to Firefox, Windows still opens some links in Edge, with no way to change that. In macos, browser choice is a setting, and it is honored by the OS.

In general, there are tons of things that annoy me in both OSes, but in macos it's usually a simple preference toggle, where in windows it's some complicated, undocumented hack.

The kinds of things that I configure/fix after the install are different, too. In Windows, it's disabling junk that windows comes with, such as ads, nags, intrusive dumb defaults, etc. In macos it's generally adding things the OS doesn't come with, such as NTFS support, triple-tap/middle-click, window snapping.

As I said, macos is a breath of fresh air compared to the shitshow that is windows 11 (in this regard).

Yeah, heard this before, most all learn to hate Macs after a little bit of time. A fresh of breath air is when you have a ton of control, MacOS is not really good at that. You have to do things a certain way and in particular purchase the right type of stuff and it's doesn't always work.

This isn't a new idea whatsoever. Even going back to the '90s, Windows had ads, but people have a very selective memory. This is likely where the anecdote came from in first place.

Microsoft Network/MSN on 95/98, anyone? Office? Internet Explorer?

Windows Welcome Experience on XP? Media Guide tab on Windows Media Player on XP? I could go on for hours.

No where close as aggressive. Windows 98 never interrupted your boot a few days after install "to complete the setup experience" asking you to subscribe to MSN or order a copy of Office 97.

The aggressivity isn't the topic of discussion, the topic of discussion is what Steve Jobs would have thought about ads in an OS, but we already know what he thought about Microsoft ("no taste" anecdote) and MS were already pushing things in Windows prior to Jobs' passing, ergo he almost certainly would have found it tasteless.

If the goal of a tool is to provide an efficient means to tackling a task, Windows is becoming further and further removed from its ability to effectively do that with layers of cruft, up-sell and dark patterns. It's not been great since the '90s.

With that said, I'm sure Jobs would find plenty to dislike in modern macOS and iOS too with all the crap bolted on top of them. Apple TV UI is a good example too. I'm sure he would have had some strong opinions on the Apple Pencil as well.

Microsoft is a public company, so they always need to grow their business. That’s why they do anything that seems to make money. Even if it’s a software that costs 200 dollars, they show ads in the software.

Apple is a public company too..

People need to stop representing Steve Jobs like some kind of visionary. He was an asshole who stole Wozniaks talents and money. Pretty sure once he saw the money coming in from ads, he'd be the first one to do it (in fact iCloud came around when he was around so likely he signed off on it). With our without Steve Apple is already doing this, many things Apple did that are shitty are being copied in the industry, including this ad; a direct borrow of the "buy iCloud ad" "buy AppleTV" "buy Apple Fitness" (etc) we've all seen.

... The year of the Linux Desktop...!

I can't understand why MS does this. Is it that much profit? How is nobody at MS telling someone "people hate this, this is toxic, this is a paid OS already"?

From all the metrics they collect, does none of them tell them what their powerusers are disabling? Im guessing not many people are disabling the ads because the menus are so convoluted. Metrics then probably say "X million ad views per month, 3 people disabled it", so it must be good?

I don't get it, please enlighten me. They could even do a subscription model for Windows and it'd be more reasonable and probably more profitable.

I believe the new licensing of Windows 11 is similar to what you suggest. The so called free edition is adware, whereas the paid license has less. MS made big investments in Xandr and OpenAI. With all the rich data they can glean from their properties, they could become the new king of ad tech.

The Corporate, Policy version has no ads.

What ever it was called the day, this was the only Windows version to get since at least Windows NT. Everytime I see something other than a commercial Windows, I am at shock of what it looks like. And I'm already shocked by the difference between commercial Windows 10 and Ubuntu.

By now, so, I accepted the fact that I am a technological Luddite who is stuck in the early 2000s and doesn't want to move a secind forward. On software that is, I take new processors and graphic cards in a heart beat. And RAM, anf mainboards...

> By now, so, I accepted the fact that I am a technological Luddite who is stuck in the early 2000s and doesn't want to move a secind forward. On software that is, I take new processors and graphic cards in a heart beat. And RAM, anf mainboards...

To quote somebody on a forum I read:

> It's not that I hate new things. It's just that all new things are objectively terrible.

> the paid license has less

That should be zero. Not that my opinion matters, as I only use Windows because I'm forced to at work, where it regularly costs me a lot of time (I lost 5 hours of my workday yesterday because of a Windows update that went sideways.)

I bailed on it on my personal machines a couple of decades(!) ago.

> they could become the new king of ad tech.

...which is truly a doom scenario seeing how as this business turned a company which had "do no evil" as its motto into a data-hungry parasite. Microsoft more or less starts off where Google ended up so it won't be long until Redmond, WA will be disgraced by a black tower with a flaming eye in it if this is to be the future.

Thats actually explained in the article: they testing the water by doing small scale A/B testing.

A/B testing doesn’t really account for whether the Bs got annoyed with you

Seems to be product people that have a need to launch a feature to which they can doctor some KPIs and justify their promotion. The longterm damage to the company is probably in the billions, so I also have no idea why the top execs don't understand they should just make sure they aren't losing OS market share.

They are losing overall market share, and have been for years[1].

They no longer GAF. Every user that remains is evidently worth some large multiple of every user they lose.

1: https://dazeinfo.com/2019/08/23/desktop-os-market-share-worl...

> I can't understand why MS does this.

For the same reason Apple does this

> How is nobody at MS telling someone "people hate this, this is toxic, this is a paid OS already"?

People are still buying the os, and ms doesnt care. But as soon as ai is able to generate more than basic, albeit broken, code i imagine we will be able to build a linux based os that will be even better than it currently is. A lot of these software monopolies will get shaken soon.

I don't think "people" are actually buying windows anymore.

It's relatively difficult for a normal person to buy a pc without getting windows.

Even that's underselling it. It's extremely difficult and basically impossible for anyone besides tech people.

They are trying to make an ecosystem with all the products they build, this are not third party ads.

I hate go to family members homes and have to check his Windows devices to disable stuff, uninstall apps and all this things that they push through updates. I'm moving to Ubuntu LTS all family members as possible though.

I took the bullet and completely Microsoft-ied my Windows experience, once. It wasn't great to say the least.

1. Onedrive - File management i.e. deleting / renaming / moving a large number of files is awful. Things break all the time. Deleted files come back up.

2. Edge - What's up with the side panel? The browser gets in the way of web-browing.

3. Bing - shows tabloid news, ads and rewards.

4. Microsoft Store - UI feels like as if it was built for smartphones. Everything is expanded with lots of wasted space and the entire store seems like a scam. And laslty installing any app takes forever.

5. Settings App vs Control Panel - What takes precedence?

6. File Explorer - Windows XP's FE performed better than Windows 11's.

These promotions would've been acceptable if there was a straight forward way to disable it and if the promoted products actually lived up to the copywrite.

Now that I've bought a PlayStation & a Steam Deck, I no longer need a Windows machine. I hope Macbook Air M2 with 16GB wasn't so expensive.

Switzerland has 3 languages, but they're quite region-specific. I live in the German region. The Windows Store always shows up for me in French. Geniuses. Hey Microsoft, you can probably geo-locate me, if not that, maybe you could at least honour the language I've chosen for the OS?

Also, Windows 7 reliably shows you what your current keyboard language is. This has not worked reliably since the beginning of Windows 10, it would often show "Layout is US-English" but pressing the key between T and U would give me Z (because in the German layout it is Z, and there are other differences). Or the other way around. Even more fun if you have German (Germany) and German (Switzerland), and you can't even use iterate through the layouts to find the correct one, because many times the control panel would lose all your keyboard layouts and the layout is in some undefined state. Fucking joke of an OS.

> Switzerland has 3 languages . . . .

Y'all ditch Romansh?

Been using Linux (Ubuntu-Budgie) as my main desktop OS for well over a year now, with very few issues. On windows for work, most of my time is spent in WSL with Docker, VS Code and a Browser.

I have similar feelings. I'd even go for the products, if they weren't a shitshow. And as long as I'm doing shitshows - I'll choose one where I don't feel disrespected all the time.

My girlfriend recently had a popup from microsoft urging her to use bing instead of google for a few days in return for a few bucks (I think it was amazon credit). I was simply astonished, windows really didn't seem like a tool anymore but just someone trying to sell you something or get your data. Also it's tacky. As I personally haven't used windows for years I really was in disbelief seeing it.

How can you work professionally with something like this?

EDIT: seems I remember it correctly https://www.howtogeek.com/269793/how-to-earn-earn-amazon-cre...

I'm down for corporations offering to pay me to use their products, ngl. For $25 a month I'd set Bing as my default search engine.

and search "google" 25 times a day with it :D

And I'd be scared of what they thought was worth more than 25$ to them.

Probably same way as usual. By IT disabling those those popups via group policy.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/deployedge/microsoft-edge-...

this is truly absurd. I bet there are quite a few small businesses/self employed people getting popups all the time. I really can't believe how you can damage your product this much, it's like if they have no respect for windows.

I can't that IT has to disable those ads via group policy.

More proof that "if you're not paying, you're the product" doesn't hold up.

Companies will put an ad anywhere the market will tolerate it.

Very few end users pay for Windows.

They're paying for it with a slightly more expensive laptop/computer price. The manufacturers don't get Windows for free, they ultimately pass that cost on to the consumer.

Yes, of course, but I think it's a slightly shallow perspective.

It's a push-pull between the hardware vendor and Microsoft. You can bet that a hardware vendor with large numbers can get a better deal on the Windows license. Why? Because the vendor effectively "sells" you, the customer to Microsoft.

Very few? Most machines sold have an OEM version, which I'm sure was paid for by the OEM (Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc)

One thing I just cannot wrap my head around is this: Where does all the money to make the ad business viable come from? Are all those ads resulting in a profit down the line? Or is it all just just a pointless waste of money to begin with?

Indeed, advertising and data collection is ultimately there to drive a profit in real money - at some point, someone still has to put actual money into the system - in advertising, this is typically from consumers buying the advertised products. If everything turns into an advertising platform with no actual way for real money (as opposed to "engagement") to get into the system, it will fall apart.

However, the same kind of people who are willing to sacrifice long-term brand trustworthiness of a previously-reputable OS supplier in exchange for some quick "engagement" metrics to justify their salary and/or promotion will be in other companies paying for these ads and then finding a way to coerce the data/metrics to justify that ad spend, even though in the long term none of those ads may actually bring net profits to the company.

As long as there is enough money being available from previous profits and/or other sources, both of these camps will independently cooperate with each other to further their own careers at the expense of their respective companies' long-term outlooks.

Even when you pay, you’re still the product.

Paying for something means you have money. People with money make more valuable ad targets.

Wrong conclusion, just because if you're are not paying, you're the product doesn't mean, if you are paying, you aren't the product.

It's just: you are the product, no matter if you pay or don't pay.

Except that that's not actually true either; I don't pay for Debian.

But that's ok, you can change it in group policy. And if you aren't an enterprise customer, here's a bunch of random registry edits you can do to disable it! See? No reason to consider alternatives! Continue to buy Windows! /s

The availability of a group policy to disable it shouldn't be an acceptable excuse - it still means your IT admin needs to keep on top of those and preemptively toggle group policy settings every few updates - this is ultimately still a cost.

I'm imagining some exec at Microsoft who went and saw Ready Player One in theatres, got to the scene where Nolan Sorrento says "We estimate that we can sell up to 80% of a user's visual field before inducing seizures" and going, "Sounds great, we'll get started!"

Maybe they can start tattooing ads on all their employees bare skin think of the untapped potential

Windows did an update today and I found myself dreading what I would find when I logged in. I did have to confirm or skip a bunch of setting that I’m sure I skipped before, but was relieved to find my minimal layout kept in tact.

Made me think more deeply about the lack of control I have over the device I spend most of my time using.

I use a program to disable Windows updates called Wu10Man. I am then able to apply the updates according to my own schedule, which works for me because it's a computer in my house that isn't in a DMZ. I got sick of coming back to my PC rebooted with windows closed and context lost.

You can use O&O ShutUp10++ to disable all the shit that every update re-enables.

I think the fundamental problem with OS-level ads is that they're by design irrelevant. I don't mind Google search ads because I'm searching for something related.

But in the OS, if I'm opening the start menu, my intention could be anything. Microsoft is then forced to serve the most generic ad possible, which is going to be irrelevant 99% of the time.

Thanks for letting us know you're not proud of your work, Microsoft. I wouldn't plaster anything I built and respected with tabloid ads.

Similar sentiment like in the “Jobs said MS had no taste” top level comment. Putting tabloid ads in the most sacred part of your most famous product ever is the exact opposite of making the bottom of your laptop or the back of your desktop beautiful.

https://ubuntu.com or https://debian.org

I have to manually remove ads from the Ubuntu server motd.

What is the motd?

Message of the day, usually displayed at login.

Serious question. How comes I din't get any of those on desktop? And never did?

I'm pretty sure MOTD is only shown on server installations

It gets displayed right after logging in, either directly through `login` or indirectly through something like SSH.

If you're using a desktop environment that's likely the reason: the message is hidden by your DE, and starting a terminal emulator does not cause a login.

You might be able to see it by switching off your DE and logging in manually through the virtual console.

You won't see it on a graphical session. If you ssh into a server (or remotely onto your pc) it will get printed. Or switch to another vitual terminal (Ctrl + Alt + F8) and log in, and it should print whatever is in /etc/motd

At least it is probably not one of those dumb MS tabloid ads "Bill Gates hates this one weird trick!"

Jokes aside, that would make me switch to Debian immediately.

Message of the Day

Message of the Day.

Yeah, there are several reasons why I don't recommend Ubuntu to people. That's one of them. Although, admittedly, it's toward the end of the list.

I've got one about Ubuntu ESM in Linux Mint - but only in virtual consoles

Fedora, too.

The only distro that worked perfectly on my Thinkpad. Ubuntu didn't find the fingerprint scanner.

Definitely not Debian if you're suggesting this to first timers.

Curious of PopOS would be able to use it out of the box... Thinking of switching in the next LTS cycle from Ubuntu Budgie.

It's very hard to beat Debian. I've been using it for 5+ years and it's such a pleasure. The stability combined with an excellent package repository made converting windows people very easy.

Not until modern app sandboxing is the default. Your weather app shouldn’t be able to access your microphone or photos (for example) until the OS asks you to allow it access always, once, or never. People are making good progress on this, but you don’t get it with a default Ubuntu or Debian install yet.

This is why I use and will hold onto Linux forever. With Linux it is my machine I own, I control I can do what I want.

You can take your "more secure" walled gardens, and you're "just works" OSes and shove 'em.

I own my machine I control what runs on it, I can turn this crap off, I am not licensing, leasing, or renting. I have purchased and I own it.

The Free in FOSS was never about money it was always about ensuring the user controlled their device and this is why.

I’d be quite glad if snap disappeared from Ubuntu.

That's what Linux Mint and Pop!_OS are for.

Do you use phone with Linux too?

Global majority of smartphones run Linux.

So, is it ok for you to use proprietary, not open source OS that actively restricts your possibilities, shows ads for you, logs most of your actions, etc. etc and created by profit driven giant corporation when this OS is based on Linux kernel?

You can install open source Android if you want.

On some phones anyways.

Except Apple phones.

IIRC, Ubuntu tried something like that and the quickly realized it was a big mistake and reverted.

This is the thing, with Linux or any BSD, if they start doing something like what M/S is doing, it is very easy to move elsewhere. Windows, either leave the OS for something completely different or you learn to live with it.

Interestingly, the Ubuntu feature was arguably worse. When you did a search in the application menu, they would send your request to Amazon servers and return shopping suggestions. I.e. it was advertising third-party goods and sharing your data with a third-party service (albeit anonymized). This is Microsoft trying to sell you subscription to one of their own service products.

I like neither one, but it's hard to overstate how much Canonical misunderstood its audience on that one.

Mark Shuttleworth on his blog at the time, before it was rolled back: "It makes perfect sense to integrate Amazon search results in the Dash, because the Home Lens of the Dash should let you find anything anywhere. Over time, we’ll make the Dash smarter and smarter, so you can just ask for whatever you want, and it will Just Work."

and

"Don’t trust us? Erm, we have root. You do trust us with your data already."

That's a pretty terrible miscalculation. I've been a Kubuntu user for well over a decade and have never seen anything like this before. In general, for all the hate Ubuntu gets, I feel like Kubuntu is not getting the recognition it deserves.

Canonical is recently licensing the Kubuntu brand, getting it some more exposure: https://kfocus.org/

Ubuntu's reputation still didn't recover. More than a decade later, and it still gets pointed every time people talk about OS ads.

Besides, they have no chance at all to play a "we just changed the CEO, it's a new Ubuntu".

A bunch of people with Stockholm syndrome makes a world of difference for a brand.

> “I own my machine I control what runs on it, I can turn this crap off, I am not licensing, leasing, or renting.”

Just like Windows users.

Did you turn off the “Help poor children in Uganda” ‘advert’ on opening Vim?

Because, you know, you didn’t choose to put the advert there, strangers who wrote the code you updated to, they put the advert there.

I find the headline quite misleading. Microsoft are pushing a Microsoft feature. I highly dislike it but actually pushing banner ads would be ten times worse.

I think the headline is accurate. An ad is an ad.

> I highly dislike it but actually pushing banner ads would be ten times worse.

how did you know what next year's roadmap is??

House ads are ads.

Glad i am 100% linux. No ms or apple nonsense.

I don't know why, but this comment made me realize just how good we have it. To me, what microsoft is doing feels "not real", like how you would feel reading a dystopian novel. Sure, you know the events that happen in it are bad but you also know that they don't really effect you. You're isolated and safe.

There are hundreds of millions of real people who are about to live this particular novel. I think we, full-time linux users, should dust our linux fanboy hats and start spreading the good word once more. I'm sure there are many people who would gladly jump upon learning that greener affordable options exist.

Wow! Lucky me I never got that but this is the typical MS policy for the last 20 years to abuse the fact they have almost no competition :-/ It's like buy a car coming with ads already painted all over.... Sad.

Oh I bet that it won't be long before you get cars plastered with ads. Add free paint coat will be an extra $6000. Absolutely see it coming.

Well in the future cars will drive themselves and dealerships will rent them out, since you aren't doing anything in the car you might as well be forced to watch ads.

Reading things like this makes me realize just how “over” using Windows I’ve gotten the last few years.

I’m not going to decry Linux as the superior, flawless option in every way which everyone should use. It has rough edges, bugs and issues too, but those are your bugs and issues, which you can actually do something about.

It’s not going to be fundamentally abusive in nature and there’s not going to be anything running on your machine which you didn’t put there.

God I’m so glad I don’t have to put up with Windows on a daily basis anymore.

First time I saw an ad in a search result in my start menu was the day I made my linux HD the default in my BIOS and never really looked back. It's really the step too far imo.

I will continue to use Open Shell as a replacement until it no longer works.

It is still being updated here:

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

I'd love to hear about other alternatives people are enjoying, but this has reliably shielded me from what MS has done to their start menu for several years now.

-------------------------------

Edit:

I just wanted to add that I'm a little shocked that a discussion of Open Shell or other alternatives to the default Windows menu isn't higher in this thread. Windows has always been an OS that was meant to be customized. If Microsoft makes a poor choice for the default start menu, then change it. This isn't OSX.

Yes, Linux is great, but Windows is highly customizable too. MS may be trying to look more like Apple these days, but the roots are still there. Graft whatever you want onto them. Sometimes you need to use Windows, so you might as well learn how to make yourself comfortable with it.

Last i tried it, it had no support for Win10-on-ARM64 :(

Interestingly, there is no such thing as Windows 11.

There is

Windows 11 Home

Windows 11 Pro

Windows 11 Business

Windows 11 Enterprise

Only one of these is seeing ads. Not great, but this disingenuous reporting is pitiful.

> this disingenuous reporting is pitiful

What's disingenuous here? There are in fact ads in the Windows 11 start menu, and "Windows 11" is how everyone I know refers to what you'd call "Windows 11 Home."

The actual article explicitly states that only a small number of users are affected, to the point that the author was unable to personally reproduce the issue.

> "Windows 11" is how everyone I know refers to what you'd call "Windows 11 Home."

Very poor anecdotal evidence.

I know not a single person with Windows 11 Home, but I am not making swooping generalizations.

I frankly don't care that they have a version like this - my aunt would be probably better off, if the cat pictures were backed up in case of a hard drive failure.

What I can't tolerate is that they don't offer a straightforward power user version of the system. I need the platform, because I need software that was made for this platform, and that's it.

And the amount of disrespect is just aggravating. Second-guessing my settings, obscuring or infantilizing errors, updates and security updates being used to push unwanted settings and features - nonsense.

I've read a few articles where you can turn these off. Is there any truth to that, or are you unable to turn these ads off?

Some of the articles:

https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-remove-annoying-ads-from...

https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/windows-11/how-...

I recently tried Windows 11 for the first time, run in vbox VM. I'm not going to talk about performance, it was a VM, but UX should change much and, god, it has been awful! I know I'm not really smart, but I use Win10 every day, and it really took me a while to get used to new Win11 UI, imagine a non technical user. This time, if you are not into gaming, just ditch Windows and use OSX or Linux.

Microsoft is slowly alienating their proponents and turning them into advocates for other systems like Macos, ios, Android, and Linux. Windows 10 has so much potential, but MS changed the game and turned us into the product. But so many of the tactics in the early 2000’s that MS faught other companies to prevent they are doing now.

Oh please. Where was the article about the "Buy iCloud" "Buy AppleTV" "Buy Apple Fitness" nagging. The only thing driving here are senseless people who treat Steve Jobs, Apple like some kind of religion. There are tons of issues with MacOS and no one talks about them, or even when they do they get steamrolled by Apple lovers. It's a toxic place to be. Considering Apple is basically a China company that slaps a made in USA sticker on it, it explains the culture pretty well.

Ad supported media eventually gets corrupted by the advertisers. We've seen this time and again. If MSFT makes money off the ads, they will degrade the entire OS to support their ad addiction.

This is only a problem because Windows is the Standard Corporate Operating System, and Word is the Standard Word Processor.

MSO will outlive MSW.

Weren't they already doing this? I swear I remember hearing complaints about this in Windows 8 or 10...

I saw it last year on an insiders build for Win11 pro... switched to using Linux drive as my daily driver since.

Are the ads in the Pro version too, or just Home? I paid extra for Win10 Pro because I wanted the hypervisor features. Having to pay extra just to avoid ads would be quite annoying.

Yeah, they're pretty much there. You can replace parts of the start menu and shell, which helps some. There are apps/scripts you can run to remove some of the annoyances. Large businesses get the enterprise version which is the only noise-free out of the box version I know of.

I switched to Linux for my general use early last year.

Microsoft is cruising for a bruisin on this.. now we have laptops or rather Chromebooks that are half the price or less, and then we have Android devices that are under $100 now..

Are Chromebooks still ad-free? Even if so, I wonder how long we can count on that to last.

I am already served that google "Discover" trash on Android Chrome. I switched to Firefox mobile for that reason.

Gaming is literally the only reason to own a Windows these days. The experience is genuinely miserable.

Linux gaming is growing. At some point I expect most home users to switch to Mac or Linux and Windows will become a primarily business OS.

I use my start menu about 3 times a month on my windows machine, and I both game and develop on it. Everything that I use often gets pinned to the taskbar. Virtually everything else is run from a command line. I went to inspect my start menu just now because I was so unfamiliar with actually looking at it. I haven't found it to be useful past the search feature in years.

I'm loving the new Microsoft.

So glad I dropped windows finally, kfe plasma is a breath of fresh air

Why anyone would willfully subject themselves to this is beyond me.

Once Windows 10 is no longer supported, this may be the thing that drives me to Proton/Wine for my next gaming rig when GTA-6 finally ships for PC.

Promotions for other Microsoft services. Article is click-bait.

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