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Comment by seanvelasco | Hacker News Reader

low-end Chinese phones, including Xiaomi and Huawei, show ads on system apps like Settings and Contacts. soon, smart home appliances might also display or speak ads. there's nothing stopping these Chinese companies from doing so - both technologically and ethically.

Xiaomi definitely should not lead the way in smart home automation.

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What makes you think this is unique to Chinese tech companies? Windows 11 put ads in our start menu.

Windows 11 "advertise" Microsoft services for Windows 11. It's more like feature announcements.

I wish they were that restrained.

While they do include MS services in their advertising it's way more than that. They include a bunch of other crap, including hardware offerings like trying to sell you XBox controllers in popups near the taskbar. They advertise Candy Crush, Instagram, Adobe Express, etc, as listed apps "preinstalled" in Windows. They push clickbait MSN articles (ads) for games, travel, and buying guides in the search button of the taskbar that is enabled by default. They then push those in a widget popover panel too. They make Edge the default browser out of the box (and are relentless about getting you to switch if you change it) and Edge itself then shoves ads in your face with default bookmarks like Ebay and Netflix and Walmart and featured content. IIRC even things like their Maps, Weather, and Photos apps also had web advertising placements.

There's probably more but I can't bear to use Windows more than minimally necessary so I've probably missed a bunch.

do you mean putting Bing on the start menu? Microsoft just made them opt-in by default and hoped that folks won't notice or care. you can disable them.

for Chinese devices, there's no way to disable them.

the difference is, for Windows, having Bing on start was a feature (although a bad one). for Chinese devices, you just get ads - you're stuck with ads while changing your brightness.

No, not just Microsoft services or features (or subscription based software), ads for games and apps on their store get jammed in the start menu as well.

And as other commenters have pointed out, lots of budget phones and hardware jam ads all over the place.

Premium hardware too (hello Smart TVs)

> for Chinese devices, there's no way to disable them.

Uh can you stop spreading misinformation? Try google "disable xiaomi ads" it takes you like 5 minutes to make all ads gone on MIUI or HyperOS. Sure the opt-out buttons were hidden deep behind menus for maximizing profit.

But be warned, in certain countries you are getting a modified ROM from your local re-seller, in that case some ads can't be disabled and they are not from Xiaomi. The only solution is to flash your ROM to the official releases.

Is there a way to unlock the bootloader? (The official ways give cryptic error messages on purpose to keep you distracted until your warranty runs out)

IIRC you'll need to register an account, use their official unlocker, then wait 2 weeks before your device is allowed to be unlocked. It's supposed to be done to hinder 3rd party sellers that flash custom rom with ads on phones they sell.

Yes, that's something like the official process excuse. It doesn't actually work, because their server has been configured to reject all unlocking requests.

You get ads for agreeing to buy a cheap subsidized device, like amazon devices. There's lots of guides out there to disable ads/msa.

>soon, smart home

How? With what screen or speaker? The half inch oled on my smart ricer cooker? Xiaomi has been in the smart home market for ~10 years, with 100s of products, except pushing for storage subscription in the mi home app, they haven't done anything aggregious. My robovacuum, air purifier, air conditioner didn't screamed ads in the middle of the night. There's nothing stopping any tech company that inputs to a screen or speaker from monetizing ads, except for past behaviour, and so far Xiaomi home has been very good.

Samsung, and some other major players put a lot of ads and bloatware in their phones, TVs, laptops and other appliances. Xiaomi doesn't have ads on global versions of TVs and Phones. I know the Chinese version does have ads.

As a homeowner, I don't know what is worse. Using stuff where the local government can watch and spy on every step or some Chinese guy watching your boring life if you are low-level person.

> low-end Chinese phones, including Xiaomi and Huawei

Did you mean Oppo and Vivo?

…unlike appliances from non-Chinese companies like, say, Amazon? :-)

There is nothing "Chinese" about enshittification of the world around us. My LG TV insists that my "home screen" is not my property, even though I bought the TV, and invents new ways of showing ads and tracking me invasively. Amazon devices show ads and speak ads. Even Apple devices, even though apple pretends they are above this, show ads in app store search results, and send you ad notifications.

I won't even honorably mention Windows, where my computer and the main UI is basically considered a free-for-all for the Microsoft marketing department.

I might modify your argument to say that there is nothing uniquely Chinese about enshitification of the world around us.

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