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Do you use the default Mail client on your PC, the one that comes with Windows 10, to read your email? How would you feel if Microsoft decided to throw in a few ads right at the top of your inbox?
These aren't rhetorical questions — as Windows news site Aggiornamenti Lumia noticed today, Microsoft is already testing that exact idea in a number of countries around the world. According to Microsoft's FAQ, what we're seeing is a pilot program, an experiment, a test that'll theoretically help the company decide if it should actually roll out the feature for real.
Update, 11:52 AM PT: Microsoft comms head Frank Shaw tells us the company has decided to turn these ads off. He also says the experiment was never intended to be tested broadly, which doesn't quite jibe with the existence of a FAQ about a pilot program taking place in several countries around the world, but either way the ads should be gone.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @01:53PM (14 children)
One of the most popular mainstream activities nowadays is watching videos in a browser. Wake me up when Linux is able to use hardware accelerated video in a browser so my ultrabook does not catch fire from watching youtube. Every major browser vendor refuses to implement hardware video decoding because "reasons". You can hack around with custom-compiled Chromium on Intel hardware, but it's not user friendly. Edge is the best browser for watching video in terms of power use, not even Chrome on Windows can touch it. Test it yourself if you don't believe me. New Windows 10 versions have GPU load indicators in Task Manager so it's not hard to observe.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @02:05PM (5 children)
Why would I watch a video in the browser on Linux? I press a hotkey and open it in mpv.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @02:52PM
I wrote why: it's one of the most popular use cases for the mainstream. You and your arcane hackery* are simply too hard for "normal" users. You have to understand that as long as Linux is not as easy to use as Android/iOS/Windows it will not displace them in the mainstream. Which is why most companies are not even bothering to support it properly.
* - mpv uses youtube-dl to download/stream video from most sites, and there is a constant war between youtube-dl and youtube for example. Look at how Google actually made the lives of "alternate clients" a living hell with DASH for an example. And they are correct in doing that from their business perspective - mpv skips all ads while browsers/offical apps generally do not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @06:54PM (3 children)
I think you forgot the step to download the movie before you press you "hotkey".
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @09:11PM (2 children)
youtube-dl - it's integrated into mpv. Plus I use a real browser, so I can bind keys to shell scripts and do whatever I want.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @10:48PM (1 child)
That's is not an universal solution like proper video decoding in a browser. That software delivers bad performance due to being actively broken all the time by content vendors. It does not support all sites and those that it does often break. For example it's impossible to stream a youtube video with the speed being faster than 1x in mpv and it's trivial in a browser.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @05:19PM
Bullshit. I do that all time, mpv has built-in speed controls.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday November 17 2018, @03:04PM (1 child)
I haven't tested it recently, but from past experience with Linux GUI I have no doubt you're correct. However, you may be fairly new to the Linux world and you may not yet know some of the history regarding (especially) graphics chip drivers for Linux. Chip manufacturers infamously refused to release specs, APIs, development libraries and tools, etc. And even for the ones who have helped Linux driver development, or at least released binary drivers, it's been proven they are crippled. Overall it set Linux graphics significantly behind. So please don't blame Linux. I think we can all speculate about why this all happened.
I'm not a big fan of (hog) Chrome, but if you try chrome://flags you'll find acceleration flags and settings. Haven't played too much with it; more important things to do...
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @03:31PM
I'm sorry but this is just no the case and hasn't been for a long time. Intel is the biggest GPU vendor and also the one with longest history of open-source driver development for Linux. They support vaapi for video decoding for a long time and it's been proven to be stable as well. Mpv has no problems using it for everything and so do most other media players on Linux. Not to mention Google uses it itself on Chromebooks. Chrome on Intel x86 Chromebooks is perfectly fine doing accelerated video decoding and accelerated rendering using the same open-source Intel drivers as desktop iGPUs. There is no technical reason for Google not to enable it by default in Chrome on Desktop - they just refuse to do so giving lame excuses about compatibility.
The acceleration flags for Chrome that are exposed in the GUI are only for rendering acceleration and not video decoding acceleration. Unless you are using some heavy graphical websites it doesn't matter that much while video decoding on the CPU is a big problem, especially for laptops.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Saturday November 17 2018, @04:07PM (4 children)
And that's how big the problem is. Your 'popular, mainsteam' activity is simply doing it wrong.
Watch videos with video player. The right tool for the right job.
The other issue you raise has to do with drivers. The perversity of hardware manufacturers refusing to support their hardware is matched (nay exceeded!) by that of the 'consumers' who have consistently just shrugged and spread their cheeks wider each time they are asked to pay more and receive less.
You can watch videos day and night on linux without any unexpected heating issues if you use a decent video player, and a video card that's properly supported. Unfortunately that means relatively low resolution, of course.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @06:24PM (3 children)
The arrogance of this statement is staggering and the prime reason Linux will never succeed in mainstream. "You're doing it wrong" just lol...
People watch videos mostly on websites, this isn't 1995 any more.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Saturday November 17 2018, @09:46PM (1 child)
Actually, most people seem to use apps, thanks to mobile devices [ooyala.com]
Which means they may, by accident, be using the nost appropriate method.
On a laptop or PC, people use whatever is "easiest", which will probably mena a browser. Doesn't mae someone arrogant for pointing out that they may be getting lower quality video and audio as a result, and chewing up resources as well.
Car analogy: in many juristictions, it is a legal requirement to use indicators, and it makes driving easier and safer (unless you live somewhere where people deliberately prevent lane changes, but even then, it is still better to use indicators). Just because many people refuse to use them, doesn't make it *right*.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @11:14PM
Apps use the browser components to play video on both iOS and Android. So yeah, most people are in fact using browsers without even realizing it.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday November 18 2018, @01:43AM
""You're doing it wrong" just lol..."
Spoken like someone that takes pride in doing everything wrong, then gets angry at other people when it doesn't work out like you want.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @02:22AM
might be true ... but that defending thing is slowly eating up the limited electron smoke in the background all the time and don't get me started on the "zypper up" version of windows which should be renamed to "drives-me-up-the-wall" ... IF it decides to work.
also some blame does go to the philosopher who think that a computer should be used to limit what a computer can do, which has resulted in stuff like DRM and not publicaly viewable code routines ... thus leading to the absurd situation you mentioned: a less free OS that runs videos "better".
"if you hand over some of your god-given rights(*) over your computer i will give you in return the right to watch a high quality COPY of MY video"
(*) always mention god in a respectful way when talking with 'murikans. it works wonders.