from the whatever-happened-to-calling-them-programs? dept.
Windows has brought personalized advertising into the Desktop OS realm.
For those of us with ad blockers installed in our browsers, it may prove to not be enough to shield us from the advertising that Microsoft is now including as part of Windows Update.
The new suggested apps are shown right on the task bar. Is this going to be an accepted new "normal" for Windows users? How will they use their mandatory telemetry to measure feedback and improve the messaging?
And if this isn't accepted but continues to be forced as normal, how can one expect to actually opt-out of this sort of behavior if automatic updates are not allowed to be controlled by typical users on non-enterprise installs of the OS? Being able to opt-out out of *seeing* such recommendations is not the same as preventing the OS from tracking behaviors used to guide the selection of such displayed advertisements.
Prior to Windows 10, this kind of behavior never happened in Windows without it being from malware of some kind.
http://betanews.com/2015/10/15/microsoft-now-uses-windows-10s-start-menu-to-display-ads/
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 16 2015, @05:58PM
Anyone who has been paying attention has figured out that with Win10 Microsoft has decided "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" and is now trying to outdo Google by turning their OS into an advertising platform with all the data collection and advertising they can possibly stuff into it.
(Score: 5, Informative) by bob_super on Friday October 16 2015, @07:36PM
And today's news [arstechnica.com] is that Windows Update "accidentally" selects the "optional" upgrade by default.
Warn your relatives...
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday October 17 2015, @08:05AM
Warn your relatives...
Hell, warn your enemies! No one deserves something like Micro$erft!!
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Saturday October 17 2015, @10:20AM
not only that, but given a story i read about some IE vulns, decided I would check my 'inform-but-don't-install' upgrades, and went down the list; when i got to the bottom of a MEEEEELLLION 'security upgrades...', it had one little greyed out check box at the bottom that said 'install win10 home' AND COULD NOT BE UNCHECKED...
scumbags...
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Friday October 16 2015, @11:11PM
Except that neither of Google's OSes do anything like this.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Saturday October 17 2015, @12:51AM
Correction, Android 6 now has an option for "App suggestions on home screen", as part of the Google launcher.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 17 2015, @01:01AM
I saw this coming, but as payback for the "We want our Start Button back!" crowd. [Evil Voice] "You want your precious Start Button? Here, have it ... and some free ads too dress it up a bit."
(Score: 5, Funny) by melikamp on Friday October 16 2015, @05:59PM
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Friday October 16 2015, @06:16PM
Wait, wasn't this done already? Where you can "squirt" content to a friend? A zuney idea if there ever was one!
(Score: 3, Funny) by nitehawk214 on Friday October 16 2015, @06:29PM
It will be like Star Trek. Even numbered windows versions will have a start button and be decent, odd numbered version will not have a start button and be unusable.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by turgid on Friday October 16 2015, @10:54PM
Bookmarking this post by replying. You are this year's winner
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday October 16 2015, @06:00PM
Do I really need to say any more?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by unzombied on Friday October 16 2015, @06:34PM
(Score: 2, Troll) by Tork on Friday October 16 2015, @06:58PM
Do I really need to say any more?
Nah, we got enough of the blind zealotry on Slashdot.
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 4, Disagree) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 17 2015, @12:50AM
Zealotry. We are discussing unwanted behaviour of a proprietary OS, and I suggest any one of several Unix based OS's instead. A display of zealotry would be defending the unwanted behaviour of the proprietary OS. Think about it . . .
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday October 17 2015, @03:42AM
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 17 2015, @04:32AM
If defending Microsoft's abusive behavior wasn't your point, then you didn't have much of a point. Suggesting alternatives to abusive proprietary software is perfectly on-topic and acceptable.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Tork on Saturday October 17 2015, @05:25AM
Suggesting alternatives to abusive proprietary software is perfectly on-topic and acceptable.
Here. let's try this on for size: "Mac, need I say more?"
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 2) by AnonymousCowardNoMore on Saturday October 17 2015, @10:43AM
Looks perfectly fine. You are free to suggest any less abusive alternative (I wouldn't call Apple a good one but I do know people with good reasons to feel otherwise) and it would be on-topic and appropriate. (For the benefit of the mods: "Troll" isn't a catch-all term for provocative examples I don't agree with.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 17 2015, @05:14PM
A Mac is abusive proprietary software since it denies the user their freedoms, at the very least. So no, that isn't a good alternative.
But I still would not call the suggestation "zealotry"; just misguided.
(Score: 4, Touché) by jimshatt on Friday October 16 2015, @08:58PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 16 2015, @06:04PM
I saw some Windows users defending the previous spying. I wonder how they will bend over backwards trying to defend this blatantly abusive behavior? It's so pathetic that you can only feel sorry for them.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by draconx on Friday October 16 2015, @06:04PM
Opting out is simple. Stop using proprietary operating systems such as Microsoft Windows.
This is an example of an antifeature: extra functionality added to the software, designed so that users would rather not have it. Proprietary software vendors can (and often do) charge a fee to remove antifeatures. Free software naturally resists antifeatures, because such functionality can be removed by anyone, and improved versions can be shared.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Hyperturtle on Friday October 16 2015, @06:20PM
I agree that the only feasible, enforceable, opt-out for such behavior I have is to not use the product.
Unfortunately, I often have little choice in what gets used at work. (So far, Windows 10 use is not expected of me, but because of Windows 10, Windows 7 is more acceptable to use than it was when Windows 8.1 was grabbing the headlines).
I've had little trust with the automatic updates process -- ever since Windows 98 I always thought it would be a Faustian bargain at best, but instead it is now a Sisyphean effort to avoid what I feared years ago. And most of this is thanks to Google, a competitor that did not exist back when my initial fears took root.
As long as I somehow manage to maintain control of my network, I can prevent or redirect some things... but it's like being a survivor in a zombie game with a safe house and limited bullets and medical kits. Eventually, the winner declared is the last one to succumb to the outbreak.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Friday October 16 2015, @06:34PM
Unfortunately, I often have little choice in what gets used at work.
If it gets really bad, you might try installing VirtualBox and running whatever OS you want inside it.
I've gotten by for years with Windows + Cygwin + Firefox + Eclipse + other free software. But I'm not sure how long that can last.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Hyperturtle on Friday October 16 2015, @07:16PM
I agree with you there -- at home I have an ESXi server, a Xen server, and virtualbox on my desktop (and a few older machines with some unused VMs in VMWare workstation that I need to get around to migrating for posterity...)
The problem is that in some of my engagements, I am not permitted to plug in a USB stick, let alone install unsanctioned software. I may get administrative rights, but anything I put on the machine has to be approved by people that do not... understand what it is that I am likely to be doing.
As a result it is sometimes easier to just use what I am given and not have any special tools.
Notepad, regular windows Notepad, has proven to be the most versatile of tools -- next to Putty, presuming telnet is not permitted or installed either.
Usually I have to ask to install Putty, but I've never once had that request rejected. other tools... i may not be so fortunate to even get the chance to explain why I want them.
When ping and trace route are considered to be hacker tools in some places, you can understand the difficulties I may come up against.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 17 2015, @02:01AM
One of my favorite uses of Notepad is as a memory consumption tool. Create a text file with 30 characters and a carriage return, and then double the file onto itself via "type" and ">" in the command line. Keep doing this until the file is about 512 MB in size. Now open this file in Notepad. Again, and again, and again. You'll see lots of memory usage (about double of the size of the file, at first), and lots of CPU time used up until the file is finally loaded. You can then close the Notepad instances to watch them clear out. It's a fun way to act as a "memory balloon" to squeeze out filesystem cache in memory, and to trigger pagefile activity.
Notepad itself is old and cranky, even in Windows Server 2012. It probably hasn't been updated that much since the NT4 / 2000 version, aside from the worst of bugs. It still unnecessarily wraps lines at some arbitrary (constant?) point on lines that should not have been wrapped, even though "Word wrap" is turned off. It sometimes moves the cursor position on you if you scroll up and down, or bring the window out and back into focus. It has no respect for *nix-mode LF-only text files, and will show everything on one line (aside from the aforementioned bug where it "phantom wraps" lines that should be on one line). It also has no respect for file locks (but then that's sort of a feature, making Notepad a "last resort" administrative tool if you're crafty enough to know about this).
(Score: 2) by drussell on Saturday October 17 2015, @03:53AM
Usually I have to ask to install Putty, but I've never once had that request rejected. other tools...
... which is funny because most of the time once you have putty available you can usually manage to access and do pretty much whatever you want... :)
(Score: 1) by Francis on Friday October 16 2015, @10:18PM
The idea set up for Windows 10 is in a VM. I tried that and it worked, but I'm not comfortable with the spying even if it's just when I'm in the VM. They're view that they can fuck with software I've installed was unacceptable.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Friday October 16 2015, @06:32PM
Free software naturally resists antifeatures, because such functionality can be removed by anyone, and improved versions can be shared.
I agree with you, but I immediately thought of how difficult it is to find a version of SumatraPDF that allows me to copy and paste from a DRM'ed document.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Friday October 16 2015, @06:44PM
On the plus side as the user experience gets worse and worse then more people will flock to the more open systems where they have more freedom of choice! While the general joke is that humanity is getting stupider and everyone is a joe sixpack, the truth is the exact opposite. People will get fed up, and open hardware will advance far enough to be actually usable for modern work, and then the walled gardens will have to open the gates or risk withering to dirt.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 16 2015, @07:41PM
You sound just like Ralph Nader after the 2000 election when confronted with the statement that Gore would have won if Nader wasn't in the race. It's good that Bush won because the people will realize how bad it is and they'll enact some kind of change.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday October 16 2015, @08:07PM
On the plus side as the user experience gets worse and worse then more people will flock to the more open systems where they have more freedom of choice!
But the general user experience is NOT getting worse and worse in the windows environment. At least not since Windows 10 undid the damage that Windows 8 did.
At least its not getting so bad fast enough that people run screaming from the room, (unless they are Mac users, and they run back to their equally fuckeup UI). Win 7 users would be right at home in Windows 10 for the most part. Far more at home than they would be trying to switch to anything else.
Too often people suggest Ubuntu to windows exiles, but Gnome is far more of a change than is Windows 10.
(KDE is a much softer landing spot for windows exiles).
Unless I converted them, by lots of hand holding, I don't know of a single friend or family member that has abandoned any version of windows for Linux. The ones I've converted was after I refused to do tech support on their Windows machine after the 5th time they got it infected with malware.
I know many more people deciding all they need is a tablet, with an equally closed system.
This magic revelation and subsequent flocking you imagine just doesn't seem to be happening. How many consecutive years have been dubbed "The year of the Linux Desktop", only to here crickets?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Friday October 16 2015, @08:46PM
All true, I was focusing more on the anti-features. However, you are probably right, they will be buried deep enough that it is just a minor inconvenience occasionally, so most people will never get too bothered :( People are getting so used to the "free" web that they gloss over advertising, and it probably won't be too long before it is accepted as "the way things are".
I still hold out some hope, the recent generation is at least more savvy that alternatives exist.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Dunbal on Friday October 16 2015, @06:35PM
Opting out may be simple, getting all your software and hardware to run flawlessly on another OS is not.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 16 2015, @06:49PM
Show me the current OS that can play my stable of 1000+ games. That is my use case. I have put in quite a large sum of cash to play games. Wine does not cut it. Emulation is currently crap for XP/7 and 3d games. So my choice is win7 (will be EOL quick enough) or win10. Linux/BSD/OSX are non starters. My use case is a several hundred windows games. I am all in.
These sorts of posts are borderline useless to even post. Oh here is the 'easy way to do this, just dump all your other software and get used to another way oh and your old software is garbage'. That is not helpful it is snarky and just wastes my time. My end users (my family) would sit and bitch about how windows used to do this and now it doesnt. You try explaining to your wife why her game that she has played for 5 years no longer works because you like linux. She will just think you are being a prat and rightfully so.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by TrumpetPower! on Friday October 16 2015, @07:13PM
Over a thousand games?
Seriously?
Play a different game every day, and you can go three years without playing the same game twice. I know hardcore gamers who upgrade their hardware on a more aggressive schedule than that.
Clearly, it's not the individual game titles you care about; it's the act of gaming itself coupled with variety in the games you play. I'm no gamer, but it was my understanding that Steam and other big-name commercial game marques run on Linux. Not to mention all the Web-based games, let alone physical games (cards, boards, whatever). If that wouldn't make you just as happy, then there's something about Windows itself that you prefer to Linux that has nothing whatsoever to do with gaming -- and you do yourself a disservice by pretending otherwise.
...assuming, of course, you're not simply trolling and / or shilling....
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
(Score: 3, Touché) by WillR on Friday October 16 2015, @08:26PM
I'm no gamer, but it was my understanding that Steam and other big-name commercial game marques run on Linux.
Steam is just a store. Some of the games they sell run on Linux, most don't, and the ones that do sometimes have annoying caveats (I'm looking at you here Borderlands series, with your non-interchangeable save files) that make switching painful. The Linux games situation is better than it was 10 years ago when your choices were Quake or... Quake, but it's not a full Windows replacement yet.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Friday October 16 2015, @07:34PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 1) by Squidious on Friday October 16 2015, @08:21PM
If you purchased a large number of those games via steam, you should take a look at steam on linux. It is a breeze to install via apt-get, not sure about the other package managers. Then log into your steam account and see what you get. You might be pleasantly surprised to see that a good % of your game collection is already set up to run under linux. I know I was!
The terrorists have won, game, set, match. They've scared the people into electing authoritarian regimes.
(Score: 2) by drussell on Saturday October 17 2015, @04:03AM
You obviously don't know what you're doing.
You make it sound as though 0/1000 "games" will run on anything except Windows 7 or 10. I declare that to be hogwash.
I'm quite certain a very high percentage of your theoretical game library will run just fine on another OS if you know what you're doing.
Heck, even most of the games I would try to run if I actually had time to waste playing video games would be difficult to get running properly, if at all, under Windows 7 or 10. You sound woefully inexperienced and I've a funny feeling you were born in a year beginning with a 2... :)
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday October 16 2015, @08:19PM
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 1) by tftp on Friday October 16 2015, @08:56PM
Wasn't Firefox raked over the coals recently over pushing unpopular features?
It started years ago - probably on the day when they refused to keep the "Back" item in every right-click menu. I completely abandoned Firefox since the day of that CEO incident. Recently I installed Mint, and it came with FF. I started it to download the alternative... and I couldn't even navigate within their options menus. I haven't ran it since. It is quite strange that a proprietary browser, like Chrome or Opera, is better than FF. I have no idea where FF is going, and I don't care anymore. On Windows (at work) Pale Moon (with every adblocker known to man) is all that I need, along with Chrome (fewer adblockers, for work-related sites) and IE (no adblockers, for the SharePoint only.)
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Hyperturtle on Friday October 16 2015, @08:37PM
I wanted to comment about what I wrote and why I wrote in regards to the question I asked:
Millions of people have upgraded. There are clearly a large portion of them that wanted to do so.
MS counts them all, haters or not, in that upgrade cycle.
My question was not intended to generate much serious discussion among the crowd that knows how to uncheck the boxes, or boot into some other OS.
I was hoping to generate discussion as to what we can do to help the masses that are just swept along with it.
A cousin of mine was going to upgrade because he was tired of getting nagged about it whenever he used his computer! If that is all it takes to get people to become one with the singularity that is the vision of Microsoft, then it is going to be a very hard battle to win. Or even cut our losses and run away from it and hope to survive.
My real hope is that people can actually demand change and get it--not get responses like your call is very important to us, or that we hear you and acknowledge that you have privacy concerns so we do too! That's the reaction we're getting so far, and it's not what anyone wanted to hear. Yet the upgrade pace has continued.
Few resisted what Google did with Android, and many IT people embraced it as good. I even remember playing around with Android 1.0 on an emulator before the first phone came out. It seemed cool. Then people like me started to question why are they just giving it away? What are they intending to do? Is this a toy or a scheme?
Not many of those same people that embraced Android chose to back out once they saw how deep that rabbit hole went. It was a damn good toy, and it wasn't apple which seemed to draw a lot of Windows users to it because of that. I don't really care who the master is, as I don't like to be enslaved.
Perhaps worst of all, many people will just choose the most attractive master they can, and many others will choose the most convenient master they can, in order to prevent having to lead themselves. Freedom *from* choice is so much easier for some people, even though they claim they want the illusion of choice. Not everyone... but enough people that it's easiest to serve them what they want by giving them choices they believe are not false. Of course, I am assuming people are choosing to be lead. I imagine many simply don't care, too. They'll use whatever as long as it lets them watch tv on it or play games. It's just an appliance for many. They do not pay attention to these concerns.
The path of least resistance is being provided for everyone, even those of us that like a challenge now and then, and many do not understand where it leads. The challenge, strangely enough, is not to be lulled into sleep, like in the Invasion of the Body Snatchers...
On top of it, there is a charismatic geek bearing gifts that resemble a trojan horse (or giant pod), and he looks like a winner compared to the previous guy and thus more trustworthy, and people are letting the horse/pods into their home and going to bed with the automatic updates enabled. That night while they sleep...
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by wonkey_monkey on Friday October 16 2015, @06:09PM
Windows 10 Now has "Suggested Apps" in Start Menu
What's "Windows 10 Now"?
(this is why title case for headlines is a dumb, pointless tradition)
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 16 2015, @06:16PM
as a sidenote, can you please give an example of a smart, purposeful tradition?
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Friday October 16 2015, @06:23PM
I may leave my windows partition slightly more vulnerable, but I feel vindicated for not turning on automatic updates. Pick and choose (at least till they stop THAT little loophole).
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Saturday October 17 2015, @10:30AM
oops, too late...
as my post relates above, went to look at/install 'necessary' updates (which is impossible to tell without hours of esearch, since they are virtually ALL labeled something like 'security update for Win 8.1 x64 blah blah blah'), and had a ghosted, pre-checked 'update to win 10 home' THAT COULD NOT BE UNCHECKED...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 16 2015, @07:33PM
If it was a product, it would be "Windows 10 Now" has "Suggested Apps" in Start Menu
(Score: 5, Funny) by The Archon V2.0 on Friday October 16 2015, @07:37PM
> What's "Windows 10 Now"?
It's a series of stop-motion shorts featuring a group of Windows 10 retail boxes (several of them damaged or missing parts) attempting to stop crime, often in the form of arch-villain "The Mayor". They generally get run over by cars or otherwise mangled in the process of doing this. It's part of a Nickelodeon TV show along with with shorts "Prometheus and Microsoft Bob" and "Life With Clippy".
(Score: 2) by srobert on Friday October 16 2015, @06:41PM
"...how can one expect to actually opt-out of this sort of behavior ... ?"
Go to Distrowatch.com and select an alternative. I like FreeBSD. If the one you pick doesn't work for you pick another one.
"Prior to Windows 10, this kind of behavior never happened in Windows without it being from malware of some kind."
MS Windows IS malware. Windows 10 IS malware of the worst kind.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheGratefulNet on Friday October 16 2015, @06:50PM
oddly enough, because I'm running a pirated version of win7 ultimate and I've disabled all the bad bullshit that MS is doing these days.
my win7 system will keep chugging along until the hardware dies. if that happens, I'll reinstall from the same dvd.
all of you guys who 'followed the rules' are being punished. almost funny. "play by the rules and get fucked in the ass".
you know, it pays to follow your own conscience instead of some rules that may or may not make sense at the time.
I sleep well at night; even better knowing my system is cleaner than the so-called proper installs are.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 16 2015, @07:01PM
How do you know you can trust the install? Unless you cracked it
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 16 2015, @07:03PM
Install the enterprise version from a MSDN iso and use a KMS emulator.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jdavidb on Friday October 16 2015, @07:22PM
Tangentially related: if you are a pirate, this is what you get [imgur.com].
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday October 16 2015, @10:32PM
This is when i wish there was "+1 Brilliant!"
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 16 2015, @11:59PM
Reminds me of Linux vs MS.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by TrumpetPower! on Friday October 16 2015, @07:06PM
And, now, how are users supposed to tell the difference between this Microsoft-sanctioned malware and unsanctioned malware that does the same thing? Or tech support, for that matter? Somebody calls up and says that they've got some new app installed they know nothing about, the helldesk grunt is going to think that's just Windows doing its thing.
Way to go, Microsoft -- training your users to expect the ultimate in insecurity.
And could it possibly be any more clear that it's Microsoft who owns your PC, not you? I mean, when was the last time you walked out to your car and discovered the manufacturer had "helpfully" installed a new brand of tires festooned with somebody's logo?
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
(Score: 2) by physicsmajor on Friday October 16 2015, @08:16PM
Ah, you're not thinking creatively enough.
Consider the opportunities available if one could spoof the cert behind these ads and reroute DNS away from MS? The DNS is definitely possible, and this is such a juicy target that even if properly secured, social engineering will be wielded against it.
How much do you trust the worst of every employee there?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 16 2015, @07:24PM
As the IT guy for a handful of small businesses, switching them to Linux/Mac/Other really isn't an option when the owners object. So what's my strategy? Drop my clients? Create highly restrictive firewalls to block the ever-growing list of aggressive update sources (Windows, Chrome, Firefox, Adobe, whack-a-mole)? What are admins supposed to do when MS decides to bypass your policies? They've already betrayed our trust once with GWX (Windows 10 nag-ware with malware-like properties). Then they betrayed it again by reissuing the same GWX patch after we had cleaned it from our systems and blocked the offending update. Then again, when they silently pushed many gigabytes of W10 installation files; despite the prior community outrage. This week, they literally forced some users to upgrade with no option to abort, and then claimed it was all an innocent mistake! At this point, I feel like Microsoft really hates the IT community.
So... what are some solid ideas to deal with this going forward? We can block Windows Update URLs at the firewall, which I have done as of today, but that's not guaranteed to work because MS changes IPs and adds new URLs. We can't remain on W7 forever and we can't run for very long without security updates. We can no longer trust MS to honor Group Policy settings. So now what?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rich on Friday October 16 2015, @08:03PM
So now what?
Switch to hourly billing for everything. Their problems, your income.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by TheGratefulNet on Friday October 16 2015, @08:52PM
MS is essentially in total panic.
think about it: they realize that pc buying has slowed and new installs have also slowed. they can't keep selling os systems since we're over the curve at this point.
they seem to think software as a service is the only way forward. the thing is, once you put the software on the net, you no longer NEED to run windows anymore! they're afraid of that. and they should be, too.
but how they are going about this is like a scorched earth policy. they are offending everyone they can and stepping on any toes they feel like in order to retain their revenue stream.
shit man, they already have more money than god. they could close up shop, give everyone a retirement pkg and call it a day. greed and stupid fucking capitalism is what stops them from calling it a day, though.
home users won't stay on MS forever. home users don't NEED to. its mostly corporate morans that keep buying windows and forcing it on their employees. this corp lock-in is what keeps MS alive.
I just hope enough home users get seriously burned so that they finally give up and learn about alternatives.
if I was a bad guy and knew how to write malware, I'd probably spend time doing all I can to make win10 invade user's privacy and really accelerate the reject-and-revolt movement. but really, I would not have to do a thing; the russians and chinese will do that for us, given enough time. I fully expect this to blow up on MS big-time once some important people get screwed over.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 16 2015, @09:41PM
Why switch to anything? Just stick with win7 or hell even XP. Install a kernel level HIPS if you're worried about exploits.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Friday October 16 2015, @07:27PM
Being able to play cutting edge PC games at huge resolutions is the only real reason I've kept using Windows at all. I'm sure I'm not alone. But Microsoft are now making OSes I find absolutely intolerable. Thanks to the data harvesting I wouldn't want to use them for anything other than gaming so they become little more than bloated, offensive games consoles. So why bother at all? Once games stop supporting Windows 7, I think I'll have to quit. Bye bye PC gaming, it was lovely knowing you.
Linux gaming, now that could be awesome, but how many large scale software houses are going to bother to do Linux ports? When the games are closed source what chance is their of it running on your favourite distro?
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by rondon on Friday October 16 2015, @08:19PM
The more people who buy the Linux version of games on Steam, the more power the segment is going to hold over game developer's choices. I don't know how far it will get, but there are already a lot of games available, and I'm hopeful it keeps getting better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 16 2015, @08:24PM
It's getting there, slowly but surely. Steam is adding more Linux games. MS in my opinion has gone too far and will be losing customers.
(Score: 2) by Hawkwind on Friday October 16 2015, @09:12PM
Cutting edge is the tough part, it takes a while for the top of the line games to be figured out. It eventually happens but it takes a while.
It looks like it'll be a couple years before TES VI comes out so at least I don't need to face the need to wait for a while. In the mean time I'm happy with Linux/Steam.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by linkdude64 on Friday October 16 2015, @09:16PM
I'm in the same boat as you. When the fun of PC gaming new releases becomes outweighed, I will quit playing AAA new titles...and fall back on emulating generation after generation's worth of absolute classics in every genre, plus DRM-free Linux compatible GOG (Good Old Games) titles as they come out. Doesn't sound like a bad outcome at all, if you ask me. The only thing we might consistently miss out on are microtransactions, seeing as that is now a staple of AAA titles—boohoo!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by meisterister on Friday October 16 2015, @08:34PM
While it is nice to see Microsoft taking a feature from a Linux distribution, it's sad to see them take the worst one.
(May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by darkfeline on Saturday October 17 2015, @12:21AM
There's a key difference: you can always remove the "feature" from Ubuntu, but good luck with that on Windows.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by martyb on Saturday October 17 2015, @09:29AM
It seems that you and the parent post know what this "feature" is. I'm not certain that I do and would appreciate your elaborating on the feature and how it can be turned off. Further, as a privacy-conscious user, I'd also appreciate recommendations on where I can go to learn of other such "gotchas" and how to remove them.
(I'm starting to migrate from Windows (7 Pro) and have started running Ubuntu Mate in a VirtualBox VM.)
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Sunday October 18 2015, @12:28AM
Search Ubuntu and Amazon for more info. Ubuntu added integration with Amazon that potentially leaks private information, although I think they may have removed it now.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by martyb on Saturday October 17 2015, @09:21AM
Genuine question: which Ubuntu "feature" did they copy and how can it be turned it off?
I've started the process of migrating away from Windows (Win 7 Pro) to Ubuntu Mate (in a VirtualBox VM) and would rather not jump from the frying pan into the fire!
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 17 2015, @11:06AM
I think they are referring to the "Shopping Lens" [google.com] that was added in 2012.
There was a lot of squawking at the time but I haven't heard a peep about that in years.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday October 17 2015, @01:18PM
At the time a lot of people aggravated by that feature abandoned Unity and Gnome for other desktops. I chose XFCE because it seemed the simplest. Others say positive things about Mate and LXDE; But with all the veteran developers in the FOSS universe forking projects that have taken wrong turns, you're probably gonna be alright if you avoid the default desktops that Ubuntu is pushing for business reasons.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by baldrick on Saturday October 17 2015, @01:16PM
fixubuntu.com
... I obey the Laws of Physics
(Score: 2) by meisterister on Saturday October 17 2015, @04:07PM
Well, then you're already safe. In the mainstream version of Ubuntu using Unity as its default environment, all search terms entered in the dash are, by default, sent to one of a number of online search providers and the Ubuntu software center.
(May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by drussell on Saturday October 17 2015, @04:21AM
It seems to be abundantly clear that Microsoft has forgotten or has essentially decided to completely ignore the fact that some people are (misguidedly) actually still trying to use their OSes to do actual Real Work. It seems like they are hell bent on making everything except an "excessively-expensive-corporate-lockdown" style installation into some sort of "consumer-content-consumption" device. They've seemingly forgotten that someone has to actually create all that content that is being rampantly consumed in the first place or that they might generally just want to actually get something productive done...
Way to alienate your dwindling remaining customer base, there Microsoft... X-(
Blech!! Good riddance!
(Score: 1) by elixir on Saturday October 17 2015, @07:28AM
Where have you been? Microsoft has always done this. They do not care about their users.
(Score: 2) by drussell on Saturday October 17 2015, @04:34PM
You and I may have known this for many years but my point is that the average person is even starting to undestand... :)