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We receive our fair share of slashvertisements. Not daily, certainly, but when we get one we often get a handful. Most get a cursory read by the editors, are identified for what they are, and go straight into the bin. But not all.
Recently we have also covered the enforced Windows 10 upgrade currently being pushed by Microsoft. If there is anyone out there who has not seen such stories you really haven't been paying attention. The effort being expended by MS to make sure that you upgrade - whether intentionally or not - is matched only by that being expended by users trying to avoid the upgrade while still being able to use their licensed software. Even the Chinese are getting in on the act.
And today, both of these things, have come together.
Spybot Anti-Beacon: block and stop the various tracking (telemetry) issues present in Windows 7/8/8.1/10
https://www.safer-networking.org/spybot-anti-beacon/
"Spybot Anti-Beacon is a standalone tool which was designed to block and stop the various tracking (telemetry) issues present in Windows 10. It has since been modified to block similar tracking functionality in Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 operating systems.
Anti-Beacon is small, simple to use, and is provided free of charge. It was created to address the privacy concerns of users of Windows 10 who do not wish to have information about their PC usage sent to Microsoft. Simply clicking "Immunize" on the main screen of Anti-Beacon will immediately disable any known tracking features included by Microsoft in the operating system.
If any issues occur with your PC while using Anti-Beacon, undoing the changes made can be done by clicking the "Undo" button in the main window. This will re-enable all tracking services. If you experience any issues using Anti-Beacon or have any suggestions/recommendations, please be sure to let us know on the forum thread relating to this tool."
We are not making any claims as the the efficacy of this piece of software, nor are we supporting it or suggesting that you should download it. It might work perfectly or may be as bad as the problem that it claims to cure. We simply do not know. But if anyone has tried it we would welcome any comments that you wish to make. You will understand that the community is likely to be a little skeptical regarding comments submitted as Anonymous Coward - that is how we received the slashvertisement in the first instance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 31 2016, @07:15AM
And gain new compatibility problems, unsupported game limitations, and other headaches?
Windows created those compatibilitly problems. OpenGL was free and they created DirectX first as a wrapper around OpenGL to accomplish the "embrace and extend" part of their typical play.
Windows don't support games, it's the games that are written to proprietary APIs thanks to various vendor lock-in and even exclusivity deals. This is the exact opposite of "supporting games". If Microsoft actually supported games then they'd have excellent support for both OpenGL and DirectX, but they don't. It's not in their gameplan to let users and devs decide which software API to write their software to.
While your complaints of having incompatibilities are true, let's not forget who makes sure hardware and software is incompatible: Microsoft. The POSIX standard has been out for longer than Windows, but Microsoft intentionally creates incompatibilities in order to leverage market position. In addition to monopolistic pressures (which they were found guilty of before), they now work to ensure hardware devs don't give users alternatives that are equal or superior to the Microsoft-only drivers (because their oversight period expired). Another example of incompatibilities: Remember IE6? Microsoft could have implemented POSIX and all this "incompatible" bullshit would have been resolved.
Nowadays developers can simply select a cross platform development toolchain. Starting new projects its a no-brainer. Why not select cross platform compatibility and for the same dev cost pickup more marketshare across more platforms? Exclusivity deals. Look at the Console Market. That's where console makers, like Microsoft, actually pay to prevent games from being cross platform. This is because the truth has come out: Operating Systems are Irrelevant. We have platform abstraction layers now. All major game engines, like Unreal, Unity, Valve's Source, etc. all support cross platform development. So, ask yourself why are the games "incompatible"? Now it's not the Operating System's fault. It's the developer's choice, and that choice is influenced by pro-incompatibility business model.
Windows is the source of the incompatibilities. Hell, Windows in incompatible with itself. I ran into less issues (none) installing Linux rather than installing Win7 over a pre-installed Win8, and had major driver headaches installing Win7 over Win10. At one point I was booting into a Linux live CD, that just worked, in order to connect to the network to transfer the Windows drivers for ethernet, WIFI and USB controller -- That is to say, I could install and boot Win7 or Win10 on this Win8 box, but once doing so I couldn't use a USB drive or network connection because Windows didn't come with the drivers, but damn near every Linux distro had support out of the box. Talk about incompatibilities. As far as compatibility is concerned Linux actually surpasses Microsoft. Performance wise hardware driver devs still make the windows driver better. Note that this is a reflection not on the OS, but once again on the driver developer choices.