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posted by chromas on Saturday November 17 2018, @12:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the dot-dot-dot-for-now dept.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/16/18098855/microsoft-windows-10-email-mail-app-advertising-pilot-program

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.


Original Submission

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Original Submission

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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @01:13PM (25 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @01:13PM (#763072)

    Simply paying for your OS once is not enough. Microsoft wants more! This is only the first step. The end game is having Windows365 with monthly payments for everyone. It's either that or just let Win32 die and port everything to Linux (which they are doing anyway).

    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 17 2018, @01:18PM (15 children)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday November 17 2018, @01:18PM (#763073) Journal

      Let it die, then. Windows only real value is nostalgic. "Oh, look, Baby - we used to be so stupid that we PAID FOR operating systems for our computers! These days, you can buy a computer with any OS installed, or no OS at all, and install your own. But no one charges you for the operating system anymore."

      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @01:53PM (14 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @01:53PM (#763083)

        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)

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @02:05PM (#763088)

          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

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @02:52PM (#763106)

            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)

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @06:54PM (#763175)

            Why would I watch a video in the browser on Linux? I press a hotkey and open it in mpv.

            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)

              by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @09:11PM (#763211)

              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)

                by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @10:48PM (#763236)

                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

                  by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @05:19PM (#764298)

                  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)

          by RS3 (6367) on Saturday November 17 2018, @03:04PM (#763112)

          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

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @03:31PM (#763118)

            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)

          by Arik (4543) on Saturday November 17 2018, @04:07PM (#763132) Journal
          "One of the most popular mainstream activities nowadays is watching videos in a browser."

          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)

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @06:24PM (#763164)

            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)

              by MostCynical (2589) on Saturday November 17 2018, @09:46PM (#763220) Journal

              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

                by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @11:14PM (#763251)

                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

              by Arik (4543) on Sunday November 18 2018, @01:43AM (#763292) Journal
              "will never succeed in mainstream."

              ""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

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @02:22AM (#763314)

          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.

    • (Score: 2) by fraxinus-tree on Saturday November 17 2018, @01:25PM (6 children)

      by fraxinus-tree (5590) on Saturday November 17 2018, @01:25PM (#763075)

      Windows 10 is free (as in very bad quality beer) right now. You can download, install and run Win10 on a compatible computer with no limitations. I didn't know. They are transforming it in adware - well, sounds legit, even if adware died some years ago and in best cases it worked for small and not very important apps. Good luck for them.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @02:55PM (5 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @02:55PM (#763108)

        [citation needed]

        • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @03:21PM (4 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @03:21PM (#763116)

          Install Windows 7 or 8.1 with or without a proper license, activate 7 with Windows Loader 2.2.2 or 8.1 with Microsoft Toolkit, run gatherosstate.exe from the Win10 install media, copy GenuineTicket.xml somewhere, install clean Win10, copy the file back to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\ClipSVC\GenuineTicket (IIRC) and run clipup with the appropriate option (can't recall if it's -d or -o) and then slmgr.vbs /ato to activate with the genuine ticket.

          • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @03:34PM (3 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @03:34PM (#763120)

            That is actively breaking the activation mechanism. Hilarious, so "free" is just stolen by your definition. Great morals there.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @07:44PM (2 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @07:44PM (#763181)

              You wouldn’t download a car, would you?

              • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Saturday November 17 2018, @10:11PM

                by MostCynical (2589) on Saturday November 17 2018, @10:11PM (#763226) Journal

                You wouldn’t download a car, would you?

                Dunno - can it be registered?

                This is the problem with copy vs take original. Copying something only removes the ability of someone to charge for something, that is, intrinsically, free.

                Microsoft has always known the value of their software was zero, and that they wouldn't be able to convince people to pay for it forever. That is why most companies love the cloud/lease model: revenue forever.

                --
                "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
              • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @10:11PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @10:11PM (#763227)

                You wouldn’t download a car, would you?

                I would if I had a 3d printer.

    • (Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Saturday November 17 2018, @03:33PM

      by Hyperturtle (2824) on Saturday November 17 2018, @03:33PM (#763119)

      The last time I used the integrated client was when it was called "Exchange 32".

      Maybe us IT people need to teach our friends and family how to set up 3rd party mail clients (like thunderbird or something anyone wishing to argue with me prefers instead)--that is what I used to do, but since the rise of Facebook, I stopped getting emails chains requesting I forward to as many people as possible, or cute overload emails or whatever.

      Also webmail has taken over a lot of people's preferences for how to access email. I never have really wanted to use webmail, but ad blocking in a browser won't work in an application. It may be a better solution for people to give them an adblocker and say use webmail than to try to defeat an updated client that may well prove to heal itself after every reboot.

    • (Score: 2) by Nuke on Saturday November 17 2018, @07:51PM

      by Nuke (3162) on Saturday November 17 2018, @07:51PM (#763184)

      Simply paying for your OS once is not enough. Microsoft wants more! This is only the first step. The end game is having Windows365 with monthly payments for everyone.

      I don't know why someone modded this as Troll because the basic point is correct - that MS want to get you subscribing, like with MS Office 365 and Adobe Photoshop - it is a software maker's wet dream because they don't need to keep writing new ever-shinier versions to make money. Yes, MS allow(ed) people to install Win10 for free (and shut off roll-back) but expect that at some future point they will start charging for updates and security patches on a subscription-only basis.

      Meanwhile pushing adware and selling your data can be a nice little earner.

  • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday November 17 2018, @02:01PM

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Saturday November 17 2018, @02:01PM (#763085) Journal

    Do you use the default Mail client on your PC,

    Yes.

    the one that comes with Windows 10,

    No. My PC doesn't run Windows, and didn't ever.

    How would you feel if Microsoft decided to throw in a few ads right at the top of your inbox?

    Well, I'd immediately switch to another Linux distro. ;-)

    (And yes, my computer came pre-installed with Linux.)

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Saturday November 17 2018, @02:05PM (1 child)

    by bradley13 (3053) on Saturday November 17 2018, @02:05PM (#763089) Homepage Journal

    ...to avoid windows. Now that all of the Steam games I play work under Linux, I boot into Windows maybe once every couple of months. And then only because someone has sent me a stupid, unnecessarily complicated PDF. I still wonder how much Microsoft paid Adobe to drop Linux support for Acrobat Reader.

    --
    Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
    • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday November 17 2018, @04:55PM

      by Gaaark (41) on Saturday November 17 2018, @04:55PM (#763144) Journal

      I love steam for what they've done for gaming on linux.

      Yup, ANOTHER reason to not use that cancer Windows.

      --
      --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
  • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @02:23PM (10 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @02:23PM (#763094)

    Pick your poison, bills dont pay themselves.

    And say what you want about ' they have enough money', but if companies dont do something to make money, revenue will drop, and services will vanish, be them 'free' or 'paid'.

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @03:07PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @03:07PM (#763113)

      Yes, Bill clearly didn't pay himself.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Gaaark on Saturday November 17 2018, @04:56PM (8 children)

      by Gaaark (41) on Saturday November 17 2018, @04:56PM (#763146) Journal

      "and services will vanish"

      'services' like Microsoft has NEED to vanish.

      --
      --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
      • (Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @05:43PM (7 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @05:43PM (#763153)

        You think that now, but it they did, there would be a vacuum of power that someone far worse, like oracle, would step into.

        Plus, for all the bad MS does, they do support opensource, and other things.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @05:59PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @05:59PM (#763159)

          They support OSS as an exit strategy when their architecture comes down on their heads and as a means of incognito-outsourcing projects they don't want to maintain on their own anymore.

        • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday November 17 2018, @07:57PM (4 children)

          by Gaaark (41) on Saturday November 17 2018, @07:57PM (#763189) Journal

          They support open source?

          Really?

          Haven't REALLY TRULY seen it so far: there is ALWAYS an ulterior motive which will kill off open source if they can/when they can.

          Would you think supporting a blind cripple while walking them toward a cliff is really truly being supportive.

          Not really. I think you'd get internets taken away from you for it.
          Really.

          --
          --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @09:15PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @09:15PM (#763212)
            • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday November 17 2018, @11:04PM

              by Gaaark (41) on Saturday November 17 2018, @11:04PM (#763247) Journal

              They're just hoping to be able to kill it from the inside somehow: Embrace, extend, extinguish.

              They don't really care: if they did you would see no OOXML or whatever their 'open source' document format is. You'd see them dropping that for real open source document formats.
              You'd see better graphics drivers.
              You'd see REAL support.

              --
              --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @09:46PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @09:46PM (#763222)

            Open source=A blind cripple. Interesting that that's the analogy you picked.

            • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday November 17 2018, @10:56PM

              by Gaaark (41) on Saturday November 17 2018, @10:56PM (#763240) Journal

              Better that than brain dead like Windows.

              --
              --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
        • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @01:58AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @01:58AM (#763305)

          ...for all the bad MS does, they do support opensource, and other things.

          Interesting, but nonstandard, use of the word "support".

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by looorg on Saturday November 17 2018, @03:07PM

    by looorg (578) on Saturday November 17 2018, @03:07PM (#763114)

    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.

    "Gone", but can be turned back on again without any or much problems when all the negative press has died down a bit more or that the customers/sheep/idiots/whatever has gotten more used to the idea or when their A/B-testing for whatever little subgroup they can find "love" that new and amazing feature and they can get that into some kind of "independent" report. I very much doubt they developed this whole thing just to bin it now. From the images it seemed to only, if that wasn't bad enough, be ontop of things (possibly also below) -- at least they have not started to inject ads into your emails ... yet.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Saturday November 17 2018, @03:42PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday November 17 2018, @03:42PM (#763126) Journal
    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @04:48PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @04:48PM (#763141)

    lol

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @04:50PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @04:50PM (#763142)

    Their search within the repo function is breaking now. That is a key feature... It is amazing how they seem to just mess up everything they touch but still make money.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by SDRefugee on Saturday November 17 2018, @05:54PM (1 child)

      by SDRefugee (4477) on Saturday November 17 2018, @05:54PM (#763158)

      Because corporations and people who don't know any better keep using MS products. I used/supported Windows for 20 years as a sysadmin and
      when I retired I decided I was done with insanity that IS Microsoft. All of my home systems are one Linux distro or another, and I can not think of ANY
      thing that would cause me to go back to Windows, ESPECIALLY Windows 10 and its half-assed updating/reboots whenever it wants and let's not forget
      the spyware aspects of it.. The ONLY way to win with MS is to NOT PLAY......

      --
      America should be proud of Edward Snowden, the hero, whether they know it or not..
      • (Score: 1) by Goghit on Sunday November 18 2018, @06:23PM

        by Goghit (6530) on Sunday November 18 2018, @06:23PM (#763565)

        Same here. It was so liberating to realize that once I was retired no one was paying me to use Microsoft products. It's been delightful.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @10:35PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @10:35PM (#763230)

    I don't use your telemetry-gathering OS, but fuck you nonetheless.

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