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posted by mrpg on Saturday March 11 2017, @10:59PM   Printer-friendly
from the truth-and-advertising dept.

Microsoft made a lot of changes in Windows 10 that helped it put the mistakes of Windows 8 in the rear view mirror. Not all of Microsoft's ideas are good, though. The company has shown a tendency to get a little too casual with how it promotes its services within Windows. You might even call these "ads." Microsoft would, of course, dispute that description. Some of these things that look very much like ads have started showing up in File Explorer. Specifically, Windows 10 has started nagging people to buy a subscription to OneDrive.

Microsoft's OneDrive cloud storage service is built into Windows 10 and tied to your Microsoft account. Everyone gets 5GB of space free, but you can pay to get as much as 1TB for a single user. That also includes an Office 365 subscription. Depending on your needs, that might be a good deal. That does not necessarily mean you want to be made aware of said deal while browsing your files.

The ad appears as a banner at the top of File Explorer, reminding you that OneDrive and Office 365 can be had for a mere $6.99 per month. You can take Microsoft up on the offer or dismiss it. It may just reappear at a later date, though. Some users reported seeing this a few months ago, but the incidence has ticked upward in the last week or so. This is not the first time Microsoft has crammed ads into the Windows UI — there are the lock screen ads disguised as backgrounds, notification ads for Edge, and a strange pop-up ad for Microsoft's personal shopping assistant in Chrome.


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Nuke on Sunday March 12 2017, @10:28AM (1 child)

    by Nuke (3162) on Sunday March 12 2017, @10:28AM (#477999)

    ^^^^ This ^^^^

    If I were doing a doctorate in psychology, I would make this phenomenon my thesis. It is the same mass behaviour as was portrayed so well in "1984" by George Orwell - no matter what Big Brother did to people, even torture, they still loved him.

    Most people do not give or "need" a reason why they stick with Windows : they never even think about it, to them it is just a fact of life. They take any suggestion that they might use something else like a suggestion that they live on Mars - mostly without even any comment, just blankness.

    The more technically minded Windows users (like the guys I work with) might show mild interest in the fact I use Linux, but only an outsiders' passing curiosity like if I said that I spent my holidays swimming in the Arctic. Forget evangelising, I only raise the subject of Linux if it comes up naturally, and if anything I tend to deter people by saying that while it is bullet-proof against malware, it's not much good for games and installing it would invalidate any hardware guarantee, and the PC World repair guys or Geek Squad won't touch it with a bargepole anyway. That clinches it for most people.

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  • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday March 12 2017, @05:59PM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Sunday March 12 2017, @05:59PM (#478120) Journal

    I've come to a place where I don't care what OS other people choose, as long as I can use linux or some other open-source OS. They can grumble and complain about how their computer breaks, spies on them, costs a fortune for upgrades every 4 months, etc. I chuckle, shake my head, say that that kind of thing never happens to me with linux, and continue on with my productive day.

    If other people choose to be slaves, that's on them. Other people like me choose to be free. Freedom can at times be difficult and costly, but it is infinitely more worth having.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.