[HN Gopher] I Will Never Use a Microsoft Account to Log Into My ...
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I Will Never Use a Microsoft Account to Log Into My Own PC
Author : terseus
Score : 836 points
Date : 2021-06-28 10:23 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.extremetech.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.extremetech.com)
| dzonga wrote:
| I have a habit of not shutting down my laptop for long periods of
| time. I used mac os for like 8 years, till High sierra and it got
| slow. this was a late 2012 macbook pro.
|
| Then also owned a macbook pro 2018 with mojave, that crashed
| every 2 days like ol' windows. switched to ubuntu for my
| thinkpad, still hibernate wasn't reliable. end up putting win 10
| pro on the thinkpad, n stability from hibernation is amazing. it
| feels like the old os x.
|
| so yeah, win 11 for me is a moot point - no need to upgrade
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| I don't really get the selective targeted hate.
|
| I don't like this move either but you need an account to use a
| Mac, iPhone or Android and nobody seems to fuss about it.
|
| So why only target Microsoft for doing what their competitors
| have been doing for a along time and why not protest against
| Apple and Google for making this practice the norm in the first
| place through their monopoly in the mobile space?
| Ducki wrote:
| Actually, you don't need an iCloud account to use a mac.
| Neither do you in order to use an iPhone.
| deregulateMed wrote:
| How do you do this?
|
| The initial boot makes this seem impossible.
| salamandersauce wrote:
| But you do lose a lot of functionality. Especially on the
| iPhone as there is no real way to add apps without it.
| eddieroger wrote:
| There's no way to add apps, but it still functions as a
| phone and communication device. Clearly not why someone
| would buy an iPhone, but it's not the same as being
| completely unable to progress with the system because one
| can't login.
| BBC-vs-neolibs wrote:
| This is an uncelebrated (accidental) security feature. One
| of the most secure "burner" devices there are, is an iPhone
| or iPad with no iCloud configuration.
|
| Good for semi-anonymous browsing for instance, also because
| fingerprinting of the browser looks the same as a bunch of
| other iOS devices.
| astrange wrote:
| App Store and iCloud accounts are separate.
| salamandersauce wrote:
| This is a distinction with almost no difference. You're
| still trusting Apple with essentially same set of data.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Nope, you don't need an account to use a Mac. You can set it up
| just fine without one. My Mac doesn't have any Apple ID.
|
| You can use Android without an account too. I have it set up
| that way on my phone, I use F-Droid and Aurora Store (in
| anonymous mode). I previously used MicroG which was amazing but
| I moved back to OxygenOS for other reasons. But even with full
| Play Services installed you can use them (and push
| notifications) without a Google account. It significantly cuts
| down on tracking doing that.
|
| Android pushes a Google account heavily but it's not mandatory.
| You can't use paid apps then but the only paid Android apps I
| use (Nine Email and Cryptomator) provide a way to pay them
| directly and sideload it, using a license key. For which I
| thank them! It also shows that I'm not the only one wanting
| this, as they clearly see value in offering this option.
|
| Only with iOS it's difficult as Apple is so difficult about
| sideloading. I don't use iOS as a result (except for work but
| only for testing).
|
| And yes I protest against these practices.
| amelius wrote:
| > And yes I protest against these practices.
|
| How?
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Well, here... And in every other discussion where it comes
| up. But also directly to the vendors.
|
| I manage hundreds of Macs at work, and Apple is always
| pushing us to use VPP (Volume Purchase Program). However,
| most of the apps we need are not in their store at all, so
| there is no point. And their 'federated' accounts don't
| work for us due to arbitrary limitations on Apple's side
| (Specifically: The UPN must be equal to email). I really
| don't want every user creating their own account which we
| don't manage. It's messy for support and the latest Macs
| lock themselves to the user's account so we can't recover
| it when it's returned (Activation lock). Also, because all
| those accounts have to be manually cleaned up if we ever do
| move to federated accounts. So I've set everything up to
| not use Apple accounts at all.
|
| So yes my objections have been made clear to Apple. And
| this is on the work side even, in my personal scope I'm
| even more against this.
| amelius wrote:
| > Well, here... And in every other discussion where it
| comes up.
|
| Not sure if "here" would help in any way, as when it
| comes to bigcorp-versus-small-guy, HN is basically an
| echo chamber.
|
| Also, I've once heard that Apple employees are
| discouraged from reading internet forums. That's probably
| why we never see them here.
|
| Kudos for complaining to Apple directly, though.
| skinkestek wrote:
| It helps.
|
| People gets discouraged from working with these
| companies, meaning they have to raise wages meaning it is
| easier for others to compete :-)
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| > Also, I've once heard that Apple employees are
| discouraged from reading internet forums. That's probably
| why we never see them here.
|
| Well, I would never let my employer dictate what I do in
| my spare time. I'm sure they're here!
|
| They're probably forbidden to reveal themselves as Apple
| employees though. Apple is really strict on that stuff.
| They love their NDAs.
|
| But I don't think it affects Apple directly discussing
| about it here, no. Agreed.
| yakubin wrote:
| You don't need an account to use a Mac or iPhone. You need an
| account to use App Store (duh), but you don't need to use the
| App Store, especially on Mac, where applications are mainly
| installed without using the App Store.
| pessimizer wrote:
| This thread is about Microsoft. If you want to complain about
| Microsoft getting unfair treatment, you should have to find a
| single comment in this thread that defends similar behavior by
| Apple or Google first.
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| I suppose people -- Windows users in particular -- expected
| Microsoft to be different.
| cm2187 wrote:
| I am equally annoyed by all of Apple's dark patterns. Every
| time I update iOS I know I will have to go through a dozen of
| modals nagging me for Apple services. Android and iOS are in a
| race to the bottom in term of user experience and privacy
| invasion. Should I be happy that microsoft is keen to join
| them?
| ubermonkey wrote:
| I just don't see these "intrusions" when I upgrade iOS. What
| are you referring to?
| cm2187 wrote:
| Setup icloud, setup apple wallet, setup apple music
| service, etc. And then I am getting nagged again regularly
| for apple music service when playing my mp3s.
| deregulateMed wrote:
| As an Apple user, I think this is silly. I already give Apple my
| personal information and lock myself into their walled prison.
|
| Things are fine in here as long as you stay in line and stick to
| the rules.
| bitL wrote:
| Can't wait to get W11 accounts banned for the next election cycle
| if somebody views/read/stores "committee-unapproved" stuff.
| api wrote:
| Apple has so far not gone this way, and I'm very happy about that
| (if anyone from Apple is reading).
|
| They do try to encourage you to log in with an Apple account, but
| they don't seen to use dark patterns to do this. You can use a
| Mac without one but you will miss out on the store and any iCloud
| feature... but the machine still works fine.
|
| There is an "allow your Apple account to unlock your local
| account" feature, but again no dark patterns. You can just
| uncheck it.
| blumomo wrote:
| There is this strange patent registered by Microsoft Technologies
| [1] which mines human body/bio activity into a crypto currency.
| From what I understand, it can measure your energetic flow when
| you are exposed to certain ads/applications/Blue Screens/etc. ;-)
| I am sure it gives are very detail of your inner workings
| (psyche?) to Microsoft.
|
| "Body activity data may be generated based on the sensed body
| activity of the user. The cryptocurrency system communicatively
| coupled to the device of the user may verify if the body activity
| data satisfies one or more conditions set by the cryptocurrency
| system, and award cryptocurrency to the user whose body activity
| data is verified."
|
| I guess this mining technology requires the mining user/body to
| be connected to the internet, hence this move by Microsoft to
| require an active online account facilitates to role out this
| patent technology.
|
| [1]
| https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO20...
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| After watching this fiasco unfold I have a hot take: We need to
| stop judging these decisions based on our needs and consider the
| everyday computer user.
|
| Yes, these decisions annoy myself and most users on this site,
| but we are in the minority here. Most people do not care and just
| want to be up and running. They want security/configuration to be
| easy. They don't want to have to think about it. I think that a
| lot of this will be good in the long run for security.
| no_time wrote:
| This is straight up a bad argument. They don't need to add
| anything. They could've just kept the damn "let me proceed, I
| hate the antichrist" button and everyone would be happy.
|
| If this mindset was prevalent in other industries as well then
| all kitchen knives would come with a mandatory 2 hour long
| instruction video on how to keep your fingers away from the
| blade.
| einpoklum wrote:
| You yourself just explained how this is not a need of the
| everyday user: Most people do not need to have their PC/laptop
| account be the same as their account on some Microsoft
| services/apps.
|
| Also, and to generalize - we need to stop judging these
| decisions based even on everyday single computer user's needs
| and consider the needs of the computing using _public_.
|
| ... and the public definitely does not need Microsoft to
| remotely control access to all Windows machines.
| judge2020 wrote:
| > ... and the public definitely does not need Microsoft to
| remotely control access to all Windows machines.
|
| Surely us HN readers have the knowledge to definitively state
| this as fact.
| dividedbyzero wrote:
| > Most people do not need to have their PC/laptop account be
| the same as their account on some Microsoft services/apps.
|
| But having only one secure login helps keep things simple(r),
| Microsoft can help keep associated devices secure and bad
| guys out, 2FA gets easier, and there is an easy way out in
| case of forgotten passwords and the like. For most people I
| guess that's pretty convenient and helpful.
|
| Besides, I don't think there's need for a term like
| computing-using public - let's talk about the general public.
| There won't be a lot of people in the general public who
| aren't either using a computing device like a phone or
| somehow affected by others using computing devices to store
| photos and phone numbers and the like.
|
| The general public is in dire need of very secure systems
| that can be used with a minimum of specialist knowledge,
| attention and maintenance effort, strongly resist being used
| insecurely, and that still look good and are reasonably fun
| to use and still allow for activities like software
| development to happen. That's immensely difficult and I'm not
| aware of any good definitive solution to this.
|
| This isn't just a question of being nice to grandma either,
| this is more about not leaving whole first-world economies
| vulnerable to highly sophisticated attacks with huge blast
| radii. We haven't seen much in the way of those, but who
| knows what we might have seen if platform security of the big
| targets hadn't kept up as well as it did?
|
| This whole complex is something a lot of people deep in the
| tech bubble seem to not really get: There are millions of
| power users, true, but there are billions of people who just
| want to pay their bills in an app or play a game or message
| their friends. The latter cohort is not intrinsically
| motivated to become IT pros at all (more like scared of the
| complexity and very disinterested), and they're not getting
| paid to secure their home computer, so some buy anti-virus
| and that's it. People don't want insecure computers, but the
| learning curve, time and effort required, the extremely dry
| subject matter, the unclear benefits, the overall scariness,
| that just doesn't happen at scale. Humans are amazing at
| conserving energy, and this checks a lot of conserve-this-
| energy boxes.
|
| iPhones are relatively hard to get into an insecure state;
| it's possibly, but the options to do so are limited and most
| aren't frictionless. I don't doubt most Windows home installs
| so far have been running with a passwordless admin account,
| with pretty much no restrictions on what to run and install,
| and many many footguns have been discharged as a consequence.
|
| The saving grace, so far, has been that most of those
| billions who have started using privately-owned computers in
| earnest in the last decade or so have been using mobile
| platforms, which have been pretty well-secured from the get-
| go; but to keep their non-phone offers relevant to this huge
| market, Microsoft and Apple will have to pivot their general
| computing devices towards that audience a lot more. That
| involves making them much more secure by default and much
| more resilient security-wise to being configured and used
| "wrong". That may be bad news to professionals and
| enthusiasts, but so far Apple seems to keep macOS enthusiast-
| friendly enough by making dangerous choices scary and adding
| friction, and Microsoft still has other licenses than Home
| that I believe are more enthusiast/pro-friendly.
|
| But seen in that light, requiring a Microsoft login makes a
| lot of sense, at least to me. Whether that's the main
| decision driver within MS, or the opportunity to gather even
| more data and engineer more stickiness and lock-in, I could
| only guess. They're surely not sad about another step towards
| a Microsoft Panopticon you can't get out of, but it's not
| like the security side is bogus, or not a big deal.
| einpoklum wrote:
| > But having only one secure login helps keep things
| simple(r)
|
| 1. It's not secure / doesn't keep things simpler: If you
| lose it, or it's get compromised, you're screwed on all
| your Windows machines, not just one.
|
| 2. It doesn't keep things simpler: If you lose it, or it's
| get compromised, you depend on Microsoft to access all of
| your Windows machines, not just one.
|
| 3. It's not "one login", unless Microsoft has gotten
| control over all websites, banks, ATMs, mobile phone apps
| and so on. It's just n-1 or n-2 sets of credentials instead
| of n.
|
| 4. Microsoft controls the authentication, so one could
| argue it's not secure.
|
| ---
|
| > mobile platforms, which have been pretty well-secured
| from the get-go
|
| Not sure how you figure that. More like the opposite.
| Bayart wrote:
| A lot of this will be terrible in the long term for privacy.
| They're exploiting people's laziness to fleece them of their
| identity. It's vile.
| streamofdigits wrote:
| the confusion and distress starts with assuming its "your own
| pc". for at least a decade now the winning and profitable design
| pattern wants user devices turning into thin clients. the
| chromebook-ification of computing if you wish, or its
| X-terminalization [0] for somewhat older people
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_terminal
| Ygg2 wrote:
| But if my client is thin, why would I buy hardware?
|
| I.e. this runs counter to hardware makers goals.
| streamofdigits wrote:
| they switch towards selling hardware to datacenters
| Ygg2 wrote:
| Assuming they all can. Still, that presupposed we will be
| able to connect to the datacenters in the future.
| streamofdigits wrote:
| to be honest I suspect everybody (including Microsoft)
| got wrong-footed by the mobile explosion. this redefined
| what personal computing means by placing simpler devices
| in the hands of billions.
|
| maybe its just a matter of time before the pendulum
| swings back and we get really cool hardware repatriated
| to homes / desktops offering features that would be
| suboptimal in a thin client setup (due to latency,
| privacy etc)
| Arwill wrote:
| Windows is my offline desktop OS. I keep it around specifically
| because i want it to be that way. I'm fine with a locked down
| Android phone, as that is a different use-case. Microsoft
| already failed with its locked-down ARM Windows version once.
| If the users wanted such an Windows OS, it would have not
| failed.
| xyst wrote:
| Haven't used Windows as a main driver for awhile. Windows XP (and
| maybe Windows 7 after a few updates) was the last usable update
| for me. The only reason I keep a Windows 10 license is for the
| occasional gaming session on a custom build pc.
|
| Some commenters report heavy dark patterns when trying to create
| a local account, but the experience is somewhat less burdensome
| on the "Pro" edition of Windows 10. If I recall correctly, I was
| immediately given the option to choose between an "online" vs
| "local" account after install. I opted for the local account and
| then immediately disabled all of the telemetry.
|
| I have to recheck telemetry settings after updating to make sure
| they haven't sneakily re-enabled it. I recall at least one time
| the existing settings were still disabled but they added a new
| telemetry setting which was enabled by default after an update.
| ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
| Same, Windows 7 was still usable for me but after I found out
| they reactivated telemetry behind my back in an update I gave
| up all Microsoft products for good.
| intrasight wrote:
| I generally run Windows Server. It's got less "stickiness" and
| bloat in general. I assume that the 2022 version won't require
| the user of a MSFT login.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| This is really a dealbreaker for me, much more than the TPM and
| recent processor stuff. There must be some workaround :(
|
| Edit: Thanks @yourusername, I had missed the part where it's only
| for the home edition. I'm glad there is still a way.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| The workaround is to use Linux :)
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| I only use my Windows PC for gaming now, where it's kinda
| unavoidable.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| Keep an eye out for games supported on Proton (Steam's Wine
| facilitation) on protondb.com. In a mere five years gaming
| on Linux went from a solid selection of native games, to
| those, _plus_ an impressive amount of high profile titles
| that just work out of the box (often with better
| performance on Linux).
|
| Of course there may be one or two titles that tie you to
| Windows, or perhaps multiplayer specific gaming related
| software, but if you are flexible in that regard gaming on
| Linux is just... good.
| checkyoursudo wrote:
| My biggest pain point is that some of the mainstream
| multiplayer anticheat implementations don't work on wine.
| I'd like to be able to play Tarkov or Hunt or Apex on
| Linux, but I can't. So far, I have just not played those
| titles, even though I really want to. I don't really want
| to have to dual boot just to play them, because Windows
| 10 messes up my EFI booting. I used to run Windows with a
| GPU passthrough, but I stopped doing that once proton
| came along. Maybe I'll look at doing that again, though
| it was hell to set up on Gentoo at the time. Maybe other
| distros have smoothed that out a bit? It's been like 6
| years since I did it the last time.
|
| I know the wine guys have been doing great work trying to
| get anticheats working in wine/proton. Hopefully that
| progresses well. Getting anticheat to work in wine would
| really be the best.
| binarybanana wrote:
| It's gotten much easier with Nvidia cards thanks to VM
| gaming being officially supported. No more hiding the VM
| and that Error 47 nonsense.
|
| Basically you bind the graphics card to the vfio driver
| by writing the PCI ID to /sys/bus/pci/drivers/vfio-
| pci/new_id and then you can use it in qemu with -device
| vfio-pci,host=01:00.0.
|
| If you have sane IOMMU groups and have an extra GPU for
| the host it should work with just those two steps. You
| still have to decide about how you handle input and
| output, but that's very user specific. Virtual input over
| the qemu GUI works well enough, there's also an evdev
| thing that lets you switch by pressing both Ctrl keys, or
| pass an entire USB controller. For audio I recommend
| scream[1] for the lowest latency (I get 2ms
| VM->PA->Speaker with MuQSS scheduler) with full 7.1 audio
| and if you don't want a dedicated monitor or switch
| monitor inputs there is Looking Glass[2] which captures
| frames and shuffles them to the host over shared memory.
| It also handles input via spice.
|
| It's still a bit of work, but for me that's mostly on the
| Windows side rather than the passthrough stuff itself.
|
| [1]: https://github.com/duncanthrax/scream [2]:
| https://github.com/gnif/LookingGlass
| checkyoursudo wrote:
| Thanks for the info. I appreciate that you took the time
| to write this. I think I will check out vfio passthrough
| again.
|
| Something like Looking Glass looks cool. I definitely
| disliked having to switch monitor inputs back and forth
| every time, though that was just more of an annoyance
| than anything else, of course.
| [deleted]
| maltalex wrote:
| "just work out of the box" is an overstatement.
|
| I ran Manjaro for about half a year recently, including
| using it for gaming. Very few games actually worked out
| of the box for me, including games with so called
| "native" Linux support.
|
| I ran into multiple games with "official" Linux support
| that were simply broken or became broken by an update.
| Some of those that weren't broken had significant
| performance issues (that Windows on the same machine
| didn't have).
|
| Is it possible to game on Linux? Yes. But at the very
| least it requires fiddling. As much as I love Linux,
| gaming is just a lot easier on Windows.
| leppr wrote:
| Many Linux games are only tested on Ubuntu. I personally
| haven't had more issues running Linux native games on
| Ubuntu than Windows native games on Windows.
|
| Playing games on Windows often requires fiddling as well.
| Either having to lock the mouse to one monitor, fiddling
| with V-sync and FPS limits (often only possible through
| graphics card drivers, launch arguments or text config
| files), disabling Windows malware scanning, fiddling with
| Windows compatibility settings for older games, ...
|
| Admittedly I now dual-boot to Windows to play videogames,
| but that's not because of faults in native Linux games,
| just the reduced selection.
| maltalex wrote:
| It's possible that some of the issues I ran into were due
| to Manjaro not being Ubuntu, but they could also have
| been due to drivers or some random setting somewhere in
| the system.
|
| Plenty of people on protondb reported zero issues with
| the same games on their Manjaro/Arch boxes.
|
| > Playing games on Windows often requires fiddling as
| well. Either having to lock the mouse to one monitor,
| fiddling with V-sync and FPS limits (often only possible
| through graphics card drivers, launch arguments or text
| config files), disabling Windows malware scanning,
| fiddling with Windows compatibility settings for older
| games
|
| Maybe it's the type of games I play, but this is
| extremely rare in my experience. I don't remember the
| last time I had to fiddle with anything outside the
| game's own settings despite having a multi-monitor setup.
| axelroze wrote:
| Steam Proton and Soldier runtime do wonders. I am playing
| Witcher 3 through it. Using mods. No lags or crashes.
| badsectoracula wrote:
| The annoying bit with those is that they are Steam only.
| I try to avoid Steam and instead buy from GOG because
| they are DRM-free and i keep offline copies of all of my
| games, but Wine still (just tried yesterday the version
| Void Linux installs in a VM) seems to have issues even
| with slightly older games.
|
| There used to be a way to run Proton outside of Steam but
| i think it is now discouraged.
| steerablesafe wrote:
| I have good experience with recent wine and dxvk too. I
| don't have steam.
| okamiueru wrote:
| It's not impossible to run gog games through the proton
| compatibility layer of steam. In short:
|
| 1. Download gog install files into the same directory
|
| 2. Add the install executable as a non-steam game, and
| enable proton compatibility before starting it up.
|
| 3. Run the installer and complete the installation. Gog
| installers typically give the option to run the game from
| the installer, but that will only work once.
|
| 4. Find the path of the installed game, and the working
| directory of that executable by searching in ~/.steam
|
| 5. Edit the entry created from 2. with this exec path and
| working dir, and look up possible args from protondb.com
| marlowe221 wrote:
| In that case, please give Lutris a solid look. It's a
| great app that eases the pain of installing games via
| WINE (and makes it easy to install particular versions of
| WINE on a per game basis).
|
| It's how I run my GOG games on Pop OS.
| tssva wrote:
| Great. The workaround is much worse battery usage, screen
| tearing and a horrible trackpad experience.
| whosaidwhatnow wrote:
| The track pad issues seem to largely be gone.
|
| I still get screen tearing.
|
| I am running on a laptop, but I typically keep it plugged
| in as often as possible to save the battery so I haven't
| noticed if it's good or bad.
|
| It's still a good trade IMO.
| andrewnicolalde wrote:
| Regarding screen tearing and trackpad issues, these are
| largely gone. Wayland has more or less solved the screen
| tearing issue and I have yet to encounter a poor trackpad
| experience using a modern machine, in my case an XPS 15
| 9570.
| tssva wrote:
| Neither of these issues have been resolved by Wayland on
| my modern Thinkpad 490. There is still awful screen
| tearing when watching videos and trackpad multitouch
| gesture support is still a mess on Linux. Gnome 40 added
| some gestures for navigating the desktop but beyond that
| the situation is horrible.
| abyssin wrote:
| Screen tearing isn't gone, unfortunately. Watching videos
| on my Linux machine is a pain. I use a Lenovo T460s and
| I've spent too much time looking for a solution (more
| then an hour). I like the freedom of a Linux OS (i3m is
| cool) but it looks so bad compared to MacOS.
| chme wrote:
| Wayland is great, however it also makes screen recording
| more difficult.
| andrewnicolalde wrote:
| True. For "wl-roots"-based compositors like swaywm, check
| out wf-recorder[1].
|
| [1]https://github.com/ammen99/wf-recorder
| chme wrote:
| I know about those solutions, and it works for me on sway
| in general. But is was not a simple out-of-the-box
| experience you have with X11.
|
| And there are still multiple issues: For instance with
| X11 you can select a specific window. I have not found a
| way to do this in with a wayland compositor yet.
| int_19h wrote:
| Trackpad is silky smooth on Star Labs laptops.
| tssva wrote:
| It isn't whether it is smooth or not. The issue is the
| mess that is multitouch gesture support on Linux.
| craftinator wrote:
| It's funny, I've been using Linux pretty much my entire
| adult life, and out of the issues you've pointed out, the
| only ones I've experienced have been with Windows; always
| reminds me to do a full wipe, not a dual boot.
| yourusername wrote:
| Win11 pro will not be subject to this requirement.
| cutler wrote:
| Does it matter? MS are back to their old tricks one way or
| another. Makes me wonder if I should ditch C# and ASP.Net.
| abraxas wrote:
| Yes you should. They are now pushing the 'your experience
| is better with a Microsoft account' shit in Visual Studio.
| cutler wrote:
| I use VS Mac exclusively. Wondering how long it will be
| before they try to leverage VS Code. There must now be
| plenty of young devs who have never used anything else.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Aha I'm glad, thank you for pointing this out! I see now that
| the article specifically mentions Windows 11 Home only, I
| should have noticed that.
| fh973 wrote:
| References? Is there some sort of official statement?
|
| Windows 10 was also not subject to this requirement, yet
| you're harassed when you try to keep your local login.
| romanovcode wrote:
| It was never a requirement. It uses dark UI patterns (You have
| to click cancel, then there is a tiny link at the bottom that
| allows you to create local pc admin account with no MS
| attachment). Media likes to overblow things.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| I'm aware yes. It was also possible by not connecting to WiFi
| or Ethernet while setting up Windows 10. But I thought that
| this meant that that option would go away with Windows 11. I
| haven't had a chance to try it yet, all I have is the news to
| go by!
| nulbyte wrote:
| I'm not sure this is true anymore. I bought a new laptop, and
| I could not figure out how to avoid signing in to a Microsoft
| account without starting over and refusing to set up Wi-Fi. I
| am quite savvy, but admittedly I had not used a consumer
| edition of Windows in quite some time. Nothing overblown
| here; dark patterns ought to be called out loudly.
| romanovcode wrote:
| I just recently did re-format my gaming PC with latest
| Win10 and it was possible. Maybe because I have "Pro"
| version, but it was possible on latest Win10.
| stan_rogers wrote:
| Yes, Pro is different. Windows 10 Home will require an
| account at setup if there's any way it can get to the
| internet. (No wifi and nothing plugged into the ethernet
| port will give you the option.)
| martyvis wrote:
| Yep. I literally had to solve this yesterday helping a
| friend setup a brand new laptop (with Window Home edition)
| That little link is gone now. I had to Google to find that
| you create the local account by turning on Airplane mode
| before entering that screen. It then let me create a local
| account. ( And of course the other thing I did was
| immediately remove the McAfee security nagware - at least
| Microsoft has Defender already installed ready to take over
| AV duties )
| emouryto wrote:
| Haha, how can you defend Microsoft like this.
|
| Imagine McDonald's applying such dark UI patterns: maybe
| forget part of your order, put your change on the table under
| a napkin so you don't notice it, only offer you the free ice
| cream the 3rd time you ask, etc. People would be up in arms!
|
| But Microsoft?! Well, they are the darling of the tech world
| now so it must only be a prank no?
|
| No evil to see here, sir!
| partiallypro wrote:
| "But Microsoft?! Well, they are the darling of the tech
| world now so it must only be a prank no?"
|
| Google and Apple do it too and no one has complained. Why
| suddenly the up and arms when Microsoft does it? That
| doesn't sound like a darling of the tech world to me.
| BatteryMountain wrote:
| Fedora, Ubuntu, Mint, PopOS, Manjaro/Arch.
|
| Spend the time to get acquainted, soon you will see you can do
| almost everything you need on linux (and more) that you can on
| Windows/macOS, but with less mental overhead (after you are
| used to linux, it really is simpler).
| xtracto wrote:
| I use Linux in my main PC, both to work on programming and to
| play games. I've been familiar with Linux and using it on an
| off for more th as n 15 years.
|
| Nevertheless, my days of advocating for others to use it are
| over (I even used to frequent comp.linux.advocacy!). People
| that are used to Windows will have a very hard time moving
| away of it. No matter how easy the migration path, there will
| always be something painful. The path of least resistance
| will always be running Windows. And in addition even the most
| polished Linux versions have issues. I've run them all. They
| are nice, but once you get into an obscure singular case, the
| console dance start. Wifi, sound, bluethoot, video, media-
| keyboard or mouse, fingerprint reader. There's always
| something.
|
| We People who have been using linux for years are already
| used to it: google for a couple of minutes, open the terminal
| and copy/paste a bunch of commands. Sometimes it works, other
| times we compromise by not using that feature that doesn't
| work.
|
| For people used to Windows this is very painful.
| xtracto wrote:
| Just as an example of something that happened to me just
| today: I wanted to connect 2 monitors to my linux Home PC:
| 1 in the Nvidia GPU HDMI and another one in the integrated
| Intel HDMI. It doesn't work out of the box, and it is
| apparently not possible, at least not without thinkering
| with the BIOS and some config files (and the main response
| returned by google
| https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=265946 doesn't
| work).
|
| So yeah, I can imagine how people coming from windows might
| be frustrated with that.
| vel0city wrote:
| Meanwhile on Windows, the setup for that is:
|
| * Plug in monitor 1
|
| * Plug in monitor 2
| SamuelAdams wrote:
| I feel like comments like this gloss over the many UX issues
| many Linux distros have. For example the file picker. When
| you open a new file from the web browser (Firefox usually)
| you navigate to your file and pick it. Now if you open up
| another file, it forgot your last opened directory and takes
| you back to your home or default. On windows and Mac I
| believe it remembers your last directory.
|
| Also saving files in Debian is a bit of a pain. I think it
| keeps searching instead of actually typing the file name when
| you save a new word doc from libre office or another
| application.
|
| Plus other services, like Netflix and Hulu, may not work out
| of the box. You'll have to find a workaround but I think
| their official stance is still "Linux is not a supported
| platform".
|
| Don't get me wrong Linux is great and it's in a wonderful
| spot compared to 10 years ago. But it still does not have the
| polish or UX that users from windows and Mac expect in an
| operating system.
| chme wrote:
| Regarding file-picker dialogs. I always found the most
| annoying dialog was actually with Windows: The folder
| chooser.
|
| You only have a directory file tree, that is often not in
| the right directory, where the application was launched
| from. No really way to directly jump to a directory via a
| path, that you copied from a open Explorer, which you might
| have open next to it, because you started the .exe from
| there. So you have to click your way through.
| vel0city wrote:
| The default Windows file-picker has let you paste in a
| path for decades. The address bar at the top can let you
| paste in a path and the "File name:" prompt at the bottom
| supports several different kinds of paths.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| Right but your comment glosses over the many UX issues
| windows has. For example, virtual desktops are associated
| with all your screens, not with individual screens. Never
| had this issue in any linux distro.
|
| (I'm all ears on how to solve that file picker problem
| though, that is mildly annoying).
| forgotpwd16 wrote:
| >I'm all ears on how to solve that file picker problem
| though
|
| Use the for long time available patch for GTK file
| chooser, use an XDG portal to open KDE file chooser
| instead of the GTK one, or use a Qt-based (KDE or Deepin)
| rather a GTK-based environment. And for any interested
| programmers, a maintainer recently has outlined some
| steps[0] to introduce that functionality in a way that
| probably GNOME devs will accept.
|
| [0]: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/233#note
| _1106706
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| GTK! I should have known that was the culprit. Remember
| gtk2 when there was a bunch of great apps that just
| worked? I remember :(
|
| Next time I'm on a graphical linux system I'll muck
| around with XDG to get PCManFM or whatever as default.
| Thanks.
| skinkestek wrote:
| I find that compared to the the UX issues of Windows it is
| fantastic.
|
| Obviously this varies from person to person but I have
| verified already a more than a decade ago that it worked
| very well with ordinary users as long as they didn't need
| MS Office or anything like it.
|
| And true: Netflix doesn't work but for that I use my
| phone/tablet that I cast to my TV.
|
| You may say: not everyone has a PC and a phone but as far
| as I can see the overwhelming majority who has a PC also
| seems to have a smartphone.
| leppr wrote:
| Netflix works fine on Linux. Either enable DRM on
| Firefox, or install Google Chrome, then use your browser
| of choice to access https://netflix.com.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| Netflix works fine in Firefox. Nothing to install.
|
| I've got rid of my Netflix account; between Sky, Youtube
| and Freesat, there's more stuff to watch than I have time
| in the day.
| leppr wrote:
| I reckon Netflix restricts to low resolution only if you
| don't enable DRMs.
| advael wrote:
| The netflix complaint is a pretty confusing one. The last
| time I used windows was back when Netflix was a DVD
| rental service, and while there was a time when you had
| to go get Google Chrome to stream via Netflix on linux,
| even that hasn't been the case for quite a long time. I
| swear half the people in these threads tried like one
| distro ten years ago, ran into one issue, and sees this
| as a knockdown argument that normal computer users can't
| tolerate a single learning curve. Meanwhile, any time
| some acquaintance tries to do a simple task they've never
| done before on the OS they claim is easy to use (whether
| this be windows or macOS), it ends up being a huge hassle
| anyway, and sometimes there is simply no solution to the
| problem they want to solve
|
| Like, yes, most things have a learning curve. I have yet
| to encounter any evidence that Windows having a
| particularly easy one for anything is more than
| propaganda
| vel0city wrote:
| I use a Microsoft account so I can use the same account
| across my multiple desktops, my laptop, my wife's surface,
| and several different friend's PC's as well. We do our file
| permissions on our network storage based on our Microsoft
| accounts so it's super easy to grant/revoke permissions to
| things and have that work globally for us. On Windows, this
| is all free (not a single second of additional setup) with a
| Microsoft account. What instant thing would do the same for
| me in Linux?
| mkr-hn wrote:
| None of the tools I use run in any of the Windows
| compatibility gadgets for Linux. The open source options are
| probably great if you can't access the good proprietary
| tools, but they're not remotely close. Some of them I used
| extensively before switching, so I speak from experience.
| ddtaylor wrote:
| Absolutely proprietary!
| ttt0 wrote:
| I already did the mistake of using Google account in Chrome back
| in the day and it turned out that they were stealing my saved
| passwords without any warning.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| Nasty as these dark patterns that make you create a MS account
| are, it's not like we haven't moved forward. I don't really see
| the same amount of horrendous, unnecessary bloatware like i used
| to. It wasn't like it was perfect 15 or 20 years ago.
| okareaman wrote:
| Windows used to cost money but now is free with ads in the
| taskbar and requiring a Msft account to hook us into the ad
| ecosystem. Should they also offer a paid version without those
| revenue features?
| joelbondurant wrote:
| Sounds like Apple, computing appliances for grandmas.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| When Stallman warned people about the risks of proprietary
| software, people laughed and continued using Windows.
|
| You created this problem. You kept buying Windows when they added
| telemetry, ads and other forms of privacy invasion, so you
| emboldened to go one step further. And when they are done with
| this they will invade your privacy more and more.
|
| If Facebook can require Facebook login for the Oculus then
| Microsoft can require Microsoft Login for Windows. It works. You
| made it work.
|
| If wolves accept the convenience of eating leftovers from human
| camps what is the worse that can happen? Yeah, they got
| domesticated. That just happened to you. By using a Microsoft
| account now you are living inside Microsoft's data farm as marked
| cattle.
|
| It is not your computer anymore. You gave computing away by being
| complacent just like the wolves were.
|
| Your decisions matter, and your decisions have consequences.
| 41209 wrote:
| Obviously it's because Microsoft isn't selling the OS anymore.
| They're selling various services, such as office 365, Xbox game
| pass, and individual apps you can buy off the Microsoft store.
|
| At this point why not just make the OS free ? I actually like
| office 365, by far it's the easiest way to backup my data
| slumdev wrote:
| Microsoft is working furiously to eliminate anonymity and purge
| unpopular speech from the internet.
|
| The Windows 11 changes will enable this plan by tying every
| computer to a real identity and using that identity to watermark
| all content.
|
| I'm switching to Linux.
| glandium wrote:
| You already need a Microsoft account to enable FDE on Windows 10
| Home.
| 1337turtle wrote:
| If you use Windows and assume you will have any form of privacy
| or control over the operating system, you are going to have a bad
| time. Switch to Linux or be okay with Microsoft spying on you.
| Those are the choices.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| Well, there is MacOS, but that would probably require new
| hardware.
| okamiueru wrote:
| MacOS is the uncontested king of spying. It literally logs
| every single executable you run, when you run it, and where
| you run it from. And it shares this data with no court order
| as part of PRISM.
|
| https://sneak.berlin/20201112/your-computer-isnt-yours/
| exceptione wrote:
| I have to second this. The questions one has to answer:
|
| What price do I set on my privacy and control? vs What price do
| I want to pay for inconveniences?
|
| Privacy is a value (abstract) and inconvenience is a concrete
| experience (concrete). Many people find it easier to reason
| about concrete experiences then about abstract notions.
| cutler wrote:
| Or a Hackintosh.
| forgotpwd16 wrote:
| Then you'll have Apple spying on you. You just swapped one
| megacorp for another.
| SavageBeast wrote:
| ... And the award for Mac Salesman Of The Year goes to ... Satya
| Nadella!!! WOOOOT!!!!
| timbit42 wrote:
| The Windows users who would switch to Mac will accept using a
| Microsoft Account. The ones who won't will switch to Linux.
| qalmakka wrote:
| I agree. No matter how much Microsoft tries, given they can't
| remove local accounts altogether I will refuse to log into a
| Microsoft account for as long as it is humanely possible. Same
| for secure boot.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| > I will never use...
|
| ... don't then. I thought I read Pro editions will still let you
| use a local account?
| dethos wrote:
| Windows 7 was the last windows version that I used regularly.
| Glad I made the switch back then.
|
| The current trend is making "personal computers" less personal.
| null_object wrote:
| Almost crazier than this is the need to have a Microsoft account
| in order for your kids to be able to play certain games together
| on their Nintendo Switch that have been bought for 50-plus
| dollars, and have no indication on the package that having a
| Microsoft account is a prerequisite for collaborative play.
| jahller wrote:
| could you tell me which games so i can avoid them
| null_object wrote:
| > could you tell me which games so i can avoid them
|
| In this case it was the Switch version of Minecraft.
|
| No indication whatsoever that (what I consider to be) a
| totally unrelated signup would be needed to collaboratively
| play the (very expensive) Switch game.
|
| In my case, a bunch of kids needed to wait while I attempted
| to create a Microsoft login with my private email address
| (yes I buckled - unfortunately explaining privacy to an
| expectant and impatient crowd of eight-year olds isn't
| realistic).
|
| But then I found halfway through the process, that I'd
| somehow used the same email for Skype many years ago, and the
| password was naturally long-forgotten - blowing that signup
| attempt.
|
| Not fun to need to create a new email account, and go through
| the whole signup and login flow all over again, just to play
| a game that's been sold as a self-contained entity for a
| totally different non-Microsoft platform.
| abraxas wrote:
| Microsoft makes little children cry. They did the same kind of
| nonsense to Minecraft Pocket Edition and later fucked up their
| login process causing my 8 year old to lose all his Minecraft
| worlds. I hate that company so much for so many reasons.
| skohan wrote:
| What Microsoft has done with Minecraft is so gross. I
| installed it recently after not playing for maybe a decade so
| I could try the RTX support, and I just had to shake my head
| at how packed the home screen is with micro-transactions now.
|
| This started as a very simple, creative game for kids, and
| now the only way to play is to enter through the gift-shop.
| Minecraft was already one of the best selling games of all
| time. Is it really necessary to constantly expose 8 year old
| kids to aggressive marketing to maximize profits?
| rendall wrote:
| I Will Never Click "Accept" to the Popup _We 'd like to show you
| notifications for the latest news and updates_
|
| I Will Never Click "I Consent" to the Popup _We tailor your
| experience and understand how you and other visitors use this
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| are able to keep this site free-of-charge to use. Please click I
| Consent below to give us permission to do this and also to show
| adverts tailored to your interests and allow our third party
| partners to do the same._
| DrBazza wrote:
| If it's true that Windows 11 (home or pro) requires me to create
| an online account, then I'm finally done with Windows at home. I
| really hope that it isn't, but it does seem like this has been
| coming since Windows 10.
|
| I can understand from a company perspective that this kind of
| thing reduces piracy (and losses for a $2tn company), potentially
| improves the Windows upgrade route in future, and has minor
| benefits to some customers (cloud storage + 'take your account
| anywhere').
|
| But there's exactly zero technical reasons to push this onto
| customers.
|
| I mostly use Linux all the time now so it won't be a problem to
| completely ditch Windows, but it's a shame that it's come to
| this.
| Nexxxeh wrote:
| Do Microsoft care about piracy of Windows at the home level?
|
| It feels like they just want that sweet recurring Office 365
| and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate revenue, and they'll effectively
| give you Windows to get it.
|
| Last I checked, you can still use an old used Windows 7 key to
| activate 10 on a brand new motherboard. They could stop it, but
| they don't make more than a token effort.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| You can. And I've been doing it for about 5 years at this
| point with 2 separate keys.
| DrBazza wrote:
| That's kind of my point. A $2tn company can probably just
| write off what little piracy there is left, even more so now
| that everything is "webby". So why they feel the need to add
| this to a platform they're now effectively giving away for
| free for the reasons you state is even more bizarre.
|
| I guess data is the next billion dollar department in
| Microsoft, and this is them harvesting even more of it.
| Nexxxeh wrote:
| My reading of it is, it makes signing up to 365 and XBGPU
| as frictionless as possible. If you're already identified
| and authenticated by the time you're presented with the
| options...
|
| If you force people to do it early in the process, you
| won't struggle to through that objection and difficulty
| when you want them to metaphorically pull out their
| wallets.
|
| And to make advertising more targetted, again it's
| recurring revenue.
| quasarj wrote:
| Well, I grabbed the current dev ISO and installed it in a VM. I
| could not find a way to login without an MS account.. however,
| I will admit I didn't try the "incorrect password for a windows
| account" to force it. Maybe I'll try that and see..
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| altf4 is current bypass, i think from last time i have saw.
| albertgoeswoof wrote:
| Surely pirates will just patch it, that's not a good argument
| robomartin wrote:
| Let me take a contrarian position here.
|
| For the average consumer it is likely that a MS account is a good
| path. No different from connecting your iPhone to the App Store
| and iCloud, which most consumers do.
|
| For the average consumer such things as automatic updates and
| some degree of management is a good thing.
|
| Profesional and enterprise users are a different matter. In this
| case what is being presented here is a nonexistent problem. If a
| professional or enterprise user can't figure out how to install
| and run Windows with the degree of control they desire, well,
| they might not actually be pro users. Using Hone edition? Please.
|
| This is not a problem.
|
| Something to gripe about for fun and entertainment? Sure. Have a
| blast. A problem? Nope. Never has been and never will be. MS has
| always provided professional users with the flexibility they
| require. Not doing so would destroy their business.
| Lendal wrote:
| If you login with a Microsoft account, what is your home
| directory name? Does it have an @ symbol in it? Do you then have
| to type that in every time you want to access a file at the
| command line?
|
| > dir C:\Users\giantsfan123@yahoo.com\Downloads
|
| Seems ridiculous to me.
| nightski wrote:
| No, it uses a shorthand. for example if I am joe@microsoft.com
| my local name will be C:\Users\joe\Downloads
| [deleted]
| nickjj wrote:
| I know the post is about Windows 11 but I installed Windows 10
| for someone on a laptop about 2 months ago and it had the most
| crazy dark pattern I've ever seen to be able to proceed past the
| installation screen without a Microsoft account.
|
| Short of not connecting to the internet first the only way I saw
| where it was possible to create an offline account was to first
| attempt to sign in using an incorrect password with a hotmail
| account. It was only after failing that where an option appeared
| to create a local account.
|
| It doesn't stop there too. Now once in a while when they turn the
| machine on and reach the login screen, there's a big banner that
| says something along the lines of "Hey, you're missing out on
| very important features and are less secure by not registering an
| account with Microsoft..." with a call to action to link a MS
| account. This also hides the login screen by default and the only
| way to ignore that and get to the login screen is to click
| somewhere in the empty space but for a non-technical user this
| isn't intuitive. They always try to click the only thing that
| looks clickable. It's so shady.
|
| Sadly I had to make a MS account for them in the end to unlock
| Windows "S" mode into a regular version of Windows 10 Home so I
| could install an app that wasn't in the app store on their
| machine. The only way to do that was to make a MS account for the
| Microsoft Store but fortunately you can still login to Windows
| itself with the offline account. It never ends.
| charwalker wrote:
| If online you have to set up as if it's a domain/work PC then
| say use an account or similar.
|
| I just run installs offline if possible, for home use, and make
| sure any place I'm working has a WSUS server/etc I can point
| MDT to.
| JoeyBananas wrote:
| it's time to ditch Windows for linux
| tabulatouch wrote:
| I am always surprised by the lack of a proper "Linux Wine"
| OS, binary compatible with Windows, but with linux under the
| hood..
| bserge wrote:
| Maybe if WINE ditched their "clean room" directive...
| mschuster91 wrote:
| They can't, it would open them up for so much legal
| trouble. Just look at the entire SCO saga.
| vageli wrote:
| These days there is Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).
| dkersten wrote:
| Which is a subsystem of windows to run linux, not a
| subsystem consisting of windows to run on linux. Ie that
| doesn't solve the problem of "I don't want to run Windows
| but want Windows software", but rather it solves the
| opposite problem of "I'm on Windows and want to run Linux
| software".
| vageli wrote:
| Ah, I see I misunderstood the comment to which I replied.
| sempron64 wrote:
| I think the core problem is that wine needs to be tweaked
| and adjusted for the applications which are running, and
| often running certain software requires strange things with
| winetricks. It's not stable enough for a distro
| prionassembly wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linspire
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| If only I could, but my experiences with Linux Desktop
| continue to be even more frustrating and painful than Windows
| despite Microsoft's apparent continued efforts to destroy
| desktop computing as a concept. Worse yet, the Linux Desktop
| community has demonstrated not only an inability to remedy
| said frustrations, but also a complete lack of desire.
|
| I have some issues with choices made in Haiku, but overall it
| has a clearly superior understanding of desktop and personal
| computing and it would be great if it could become a
| reasonable alternative for me within the next decade.
| x86_64Ubuntu wrote:
| I had the same story as you. I was setting up my mother's
| laptop, and of course they are pusshing 'S' mode. The narrative
| is that for security reasons, S-mode will only allow things
| from the Microsoft Store to be installed. MS knows this, and to
| disable S-mode so you can install something like Chrome, you
| have to create an MS account. No matter where I looked, there
| was no way to disable S-mode without creating an account.
| aclelland wrote:
| You want an even darker pattern? Try requesting the windows
| telemetry data from a PC which isn't logged in through a MS
| account. You'll spend weeks going back and forth trying to
| explain to their support agents that you can't login to the
| website because you don't have an account. Frustrating doesn't
| begin to describe it. I've still not been able to get anything
| from them despite a 30 email chain.
| linker3000 wrote:
| Are you in the UK/EU? Hit MS with a subject access request
| (SAR) as per GDPR Article 15, and the clock starts ticking;
| the data processor (MS) must then provide all the personal
| data they hold on you, and other supplementary information.
| within one month (extendable by another two).
| gigel82 wrote:
| I'm curious what'll actually be in there; please do this
| and report back.
|
| I keep hearing the line of MS's evil data collection to
| serve you ads and whatnot but I suspect the truth is much
| milder; they probably have mostly usage telemetry to drive
| their investment decisions and possibly perf / bugs because
| they fired their testing team.
| Wistar wrote:
| Atop this crap is that, whether Pro or Home sku, MS account or
| local, the user is set up by default as an admin account.
| darknavi wrote:
| In the leaked Windows 11 build the setup flow got slightly less
| "dark pattern"-y. There is a small video of it here (linked to
| timestamp):
|
| https://youtu.be/odZSCdNTFPw?t=305
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| > I know the post is about Windows 11 but I installed Windows
| 10 for someone on a laptop about 2 months ago and it had the
| most crazy dark pattern I've ever seen to be able to proceed
| past the installation screen without a Microsoft account.
|
| I would set it up without access to internet as the easiest way
| to force it. It is pretty awful this has to be done this way.
| Eventually I will just exclusively use Ubuntu and call it a
| day.
| keb_ wrote:
| Stuff like this makes me scared to upgrade from Windows 10 LTSC
| (1809).
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| just reinstalled ltsc and intend to use it forever
| hk1337 wrote:
| Albeit, it's not that obvious, you can create an offline
| account without failing to sign in. Maybe it's different with
| anything below Windows 10 Pro but that was my experience.
| nickjj wrote:
| > Maybe it's different with anything below Windows 10 Pro but
| that was my experience.
|
| It is different with the "S" Home edition which is what comes
| with a lot of decently spec'd laptops for typical personal
| use.
|
| I run Pro here and there's a secondary text link off to the
| side that you can click to make an offline account. That link
| doesn't exist with the Home edition (specifically the "S"
| edition, I don't know about the regular Home edition).
|
| In all cases this is with the US version too, which might
| play a role in what's seen when people install Windows across
| the world.
| hk1337 wrote:
| Yeah, Pro (and above) is also the only one that has the
| Hyper-V or whatever, if that's even still a requirement.
| Osiris wrote:
| I just installed Windows 10 on a laptop for my mom. On the
| account setup screen there's a little skip button to create a
| local account without a Microsoft account.
| sp332 wrote:
| Your computer was connected to the internet and you're using
| relatively recent install media? I'm asking because I haven't
| seen that behavior in years.
| danieldk wrote:
| I had a Windows 10 Pro laptop for the last 7 months or so
| (but ditched a few days ago it because Windows has become
| so terrible) and the two times I installed it, I definitely
| had an option to create a local account. At some point it
| was in the lower-left while onboarding (carefully disguised
| as some clickable text rather than a very visible button).
|
| Both times the machine was connected to the internet. One
| time with the standard Lenovo media, one time from a fresh
| Windows 10 Pro ISO.
|
| Could there be a regional difference? (I am in the EU)
| dsissitka wrote:
| They've removed it from Home but it's still there for Pro.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27624555
| lowercase1 wrote:
| My username is "fucky" after I used an name to describe my
| feelings of having to create/use a Microsoft account. Exercise
| to the reader to guess the unshortened name
| fencepost wrote:
| Now I'm feeling like I should create Microsoft accounts using
| the names of prominent Microsofties.
| Tepix wrote:
| Indeed, a few months ago Microsoft changed Windows 10 so that
| the only way to install it with a local account is to
| disconnect the LAN cable
| teh_klev wrote:
| I had to perform a fresh re-install on a laptop earlier this
| year and even had to go to the lengths of physically removing
| the WiFi card from the machine before I could get the local
| account option to appear in the installer. What an absolute
| fricken waste of time.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| Right, we need laws to stop this practice. If, say, I
| bought a new laptop several years ago with Windows 10 on it
| and agreed to the terms and conditions at that time and
| Microsoft then increasingly tightens those rules with
| updates etc. then I'm forced to agree to the new terms that
| I now disagree with or otherwise I could potentially be in
| trouble. This ought to be a job for consumer law.
|
| Moreover, MS is inexorably moving stuff, utilities etc,
| that were once on its website to its store that requires
| login for, it seems, similar reasons. Clearly, knowing
| exactly who we are has financial benefits for Microsoft or
| otherwise it wouldn't bother.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| Microsoft have become the best advertisement for Linux on the
| desktop.
|
| This kind of advertising actually worked on me.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| Yeah, unfortunately that kind of advertising only works on
| the likes of you, me and other HN readers. The rest, even
| quite savvy technical people (as I've found), simply put up
| with the problem--that's if they recognize it as such.
| Microsoft knows this and writes us off as our numbers are in
| the noise. Essentially, to MS, we're irrelevant.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| Microsoft really is one of the worst examples in the dark
| pattern department that I've ever seen.
|
| Same with their email service, where you can register an
| account without issues and after a few weeks of use I was
| presented with an unskippable input field for my phone number.
| Don't want to give MS your phone number? Too bad, better hope
| you don't need those emails anymore.
| nix23 wrote:
| I really don't get it. Microsoft has an OS and a Cloud (Azure
| and Windows) and make pretty much good money with it, but
| both have a great need for privacy. I really don't get what
| Microsoft is thinking.
| mavhc wrote:
| They're thinking they need to make it 1 click to buy things
| from Microsoft
| CSMastermind wrote:
| In the case of requiring a phone number for emails it's to
| try and cut down on spam / bots abusing their service.
| gabereiser wrote:
| you would think, but that's not the case. It's used to
| correlate data sharing between data brokerages. Facebook
| has your number, Twitter has your number, Microsoft has
| your number. What better FK to link all this data
| together than that? Now Microsoft knows what you searched
| for. Twitter knows what you bought on Amazon. Facebook
| knows who you hung out with. It's all about the data
| brokerages.
| gigel82 wrote:
| I'd be very surprised if these companies actually share
| the private data with each-other (or any external party
| for that matter). I worked at a FAANG and they take
| private data handling very seriously (you can't even
| access it internally without a very involved approval
| process and always partially).
| sys_64738 wrote:
| They share salary information with data brokers.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _I 'd be very surprised if these companies actually share
| the private data with each-other (or any external party
| for that matter)._
|
| They share it with "trusted partners." Which means data
| brokers. It's like money laundering, but for information.
| Look for the word "partners" in the small text of
| anything you commit to from signing up for e-mail to
| installing software to buying a car.
| gabereiser wrote:
| They don't share it directly with each other, it's
| through data brokers. Oracle being the biggest (here in
| the states) along with Experian, equifax, etc. I'm not
| talking about platform specific data. I'm talking about
| browser history, cookies, transactional, and the like. I
| know for a fact that one FAANG uses your browsers history
| to run adtech against it to show you relevant ads related
| to a previous search. Just because you couldn't access
| it, doesn't mean someone else wasn't.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Obviously it can be for more than one purpose. See spam
| reports from email1@outlook.com with phone number $x?
| Disable sending email for all accounts with that phone
| number. They've already signed up for three accounts this
| month with that number? Stop them from making any more
| without paying for a new number.
| gabereiser wrote:
| I mean, sure, it can be used this way. Often is for email
| deduplication of accounts. It's real strength comes from
| 3rd party data brokers and correlating various data
| profiles to you, the consumer.
| toyg wrote:
| Microsoft is thinking that Apple somehow manages to have
| billions of people creating "iTunes" accounts, and they
| don't, and what the hell, John, why don't WE get all that
| sweet data and them big account numbers, can't we do what
| they do? Sure, Bob, but some people will get upse--Screw
| them, John! what they gonna do, move to Apple and pay more
| get the same treatment? Just fix the damn process, John, I
| want those account numbers up 300% by Q3.
|
| ...Alright Bob, you're the boss.
| agloeregrets wrote:
| ....actually you do not need an iCloud account to use a
| mac or iPhone, but on iPhone you do need an iCloud
| account to download apps. On mac you can setup and use
| the machine entirely offline forever.
|
| The same irony goes for the Windows 11 CPU support, the
| next version of macOS supports machines twice as old as
| Windows 11 supports. Microsoft embraces alt payment
| methods in the store and supports regulation, Apple
| doesn't and is the monopoly. The world is upside down in
| such strange ways in 2021.
| toyg wrote:
| _> you do not need an iCloud account to use a mac or
| iPhone_
|
| ... but you are similarly prompted and dark-patterned to
| create one anyway. It is just marginally easier to skip
| the choice, if you don 't mind being nagged or diving
| into the buried option you need to switch it all off. And
| without an account, loads of features like family Screen
| Time don't even work.
|
| Apple paved the way, while MS was being cautious because
| of the browser-related legal challenges. They made all
| this socially acceptable, so at one point the guys in
| Redmond rightly went "why can't we do the same?" and here
| we are.
| agloeregrets wrote:
| Microsoft started the majority of this back in Windows 8
| and made it a dark pattern to skip in 10, this isn't
| really an Apple thing. The whole industry moved this way.
|
| Windows 11 breaks the bar here and requires internet now.
| It's not a dark pattern or skippable like you are
| implying here and it's not on remotely the same level as
| Apple or Google. Microsoft clearly is being the worst of
| anyone here.
| toyg wrote:
| Windows 8 was a reaction to the iPhone wave in
| everything, from the UI to this.
|
| _> it 's not on remotely the same level as Apple or
| Google_
|
| Oh, it absolutely is. "The healthier one is a leper", as
| they (used to) say where I'm from .
| gentleman11 wrote:
| They aren't afraid of those legal issues any more. They
| basically say Firefox is malware if you try to install it
| and you have to click that you are okay with insecure
| software to continue
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Google does that too.
| probably_wrong wrote:
| That's how I lost my GMail account - they demanded a
| telephone number so I relented and gave them mine, but they
| refuse to accept it. They won't take my work number either.
| saul_goodman wrote:
| Phone numbers have become the new SSN tied to your
| physical identity. In most cases you have provide
| extremely detailed personal info to get a working phone
| number. There are probably still some ways crafty folks
| can get a working phone number without it being tied to
| your physical identity, but you must go way out of your
| way to do so.
|
| Privacy and freedom of speech are dead, long live the
| constitution.
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| I've tried several privacy apps where you can set up
| phone numbers not attached to your identity and google
| refused to let me use any of them.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| The saddest thing is that many HN readers (and the tech
| community in general) have been instrumental in privacy's
| demise.
|
| Despite paying lip service to privacy, many people here
| still work on privacy-eroding companies and services.
|
| How many people here work Facebook, Google, Microsoft, or
| LinkedIn, Palantir, etc... (not to mention less well-
| known names that still erode privacy).. probably a lot.
|
| Many founders (another group heavily represented on HN)
| are just after their pot of gold at the end of the IPO,
| and will gleefully walk over as many users' backs as it
| takes.
|
| In some ways worse, though, are the people who are
| intimately familiar with technology, and who are enabling
| the people at the top. These people all have a choice of
| who to work for and what to do. No one's holding a gun to
| their head making them work on tracking and spyware and
| user-disempowerment, and yet they do.
| john2010 wrote:
| you are absolutely right. Even a google employee uses
| lineageos to avoid tracking but I am sure they deliver
| the code to millions of innocent...
|
| https://libredd.it/r/LineageOS/comments/nnccvr/google_loc
| ati...
|
| https://www.azmirror.com/2021/05/24/newly-unredacted-
| documen...
| wyldfire wrote:
| It's frustrating for sure but the reason that they want a
| phone number is because it's an excellent key to join
| lots of independent records about you. The companies who
| ask for your phone number don't care if the phone company
| knows where you live. They don't even need to ask the
| phone company, all they have to do is join up with a
| vendor who you did disclose your address to.
|
| You can at least do yourself a mild favor and don't tell
| your phone number to all those brick n mortar companies
| who ask for it. "we'll never call you" -- of course they
| don't, they just want your individual identity to track
| you.
| dolmen wrote:
| It's at least an excellent key that they can provide to
| country authorities if they request one.
|
| That's also an excellent way to ensure the user
| juridiction based on the IP address and phone number
| country code for 99% of users.
| r00fus wrote:
| What I did: create a Google voice number on my google
| account, then used that GV# as my Gmail account.
|
| It's an ouroboros of Google.
| maskedinvader wrote:
| Thats a bad idea I think, if you get locked out of your
| gmail account, you might not be able to get a reset code
| on your GV number either.
| r00fus wrote:
| Been locked out several times and I could always get by
| with my backup email and/or providing account details.
| They never sent anything to my phone.
| dzdt wrote:
| Twitter also. You can create an account without a phone
| number but in about 2 weeks it is locked unless you supply
| and verify one.
| croes wrote:
| My Twitter account got locked in about a minute.
| gentleman11 wrote:
| Took me a day
| b0tzzzzzzman wrote:
| Took about 5 for me.
| pansa2 wrote:
| Facebook does exactly the same.
| tu7001 wrote:
| I have twitter without phone number, typing from Poland
| diogenesjunior wrote:
| Yep. Main reason why I do not use Twitter. I'll stick to
| HN.
| Asooka wrote:
| In my case they accepted a shady Romanian SMS service
| account. Had to try several until one worked.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I got my account reported and locked on twitter and they
| would only unlock it if I supplied my phone number. Now I
| have no twitter and am honestly happier for it.
| nayuki wrote:
| This makes Microsoft's purchase of LinkedIn a good fit as
| another master of dark patterns.
| username90 wrote:
| Linkedin used to ask you to pay them to view public
| profiles if you were logged in, but if you logged out you
| could see the profile just fine since it was public. And
| there was no limit to that either, didn't need to get there
| from google etc. Not sure if they still do that.
| gentleman11 wrote:
| LinkedIn is so full of dark patterns that there is barely
| room for the site any more. I keep missing recruiter
| messages because my LinkedIn email just goes to spam
| because they send so much junk to try and boost engagement.
| It's like being stuck in a room with a car salesperson. I'm
| thinking of deleting it
| developer93 wrote:
| I have a separate email for job hunting which LinkedIn
| and Xing etc go to, and it only gets opened when I need a
| new job
| sm4rk0 wrote:
| I've deleted my LinkedIn account the same day I found my
| data and trust were sold out to MS without my consent.
| And I don't feel I'm missing anything.
| milkytron wrote:
| I deleted mine after their class action lawsuit.
| naikrovek wrote:
| you may be shocked to learn that your consent is not
| required in order for one company to buy another.
| LightG wrote:
| Increasingly Google also ... hate it.
|
| Like, look, I don't want or need to give you my phone number,
| capiche? Try Tinder and get off my case. Thanks.
| [deleted]
| tinus_hn wrote:
| Google paved the way for that trick, Gmail does exactly the
| same.
| r00fus wrote:
| So is there a way to use Gmail without creating a "Google"
| account?
| BeetleB wrote:
| I believe he is referring to the need to provide a number
| to continue to access your Gmail account.
| dolmen wrote:
| And now Gmail does it for the birth date.
|
| After login I have to reload https://mail.google.com to
| skip the form.
| no_time wrote:
| >Microsoft really is one of the worst examples in the dark
| pattern department that I've ever seen.
|
| It's insane. Every I reinstall windows and try to download
| Firefox, the number of times Microsoft pleads to continue
| using Edge is increasing.
| naikrovek wrote:
| it's not really a dark pattern if it's not trying to trick
| you.
| politelemon wrote:
| Same with Google. Same with Apple. Each I feel are worse than
| MS. The other day I tried using an iPad and could not proceed
| without signing in, and giving over my credit card details.
| The dark pattern being that it tricks you into thinking that
| you _can_ proceed without either.
| grishka wrote:
| What happens if you use that account with an email client
| instead?
| gruez wrote:
| AFAIK many mail providers have disabled password
| authentication via IMAP/SMTP. They force you to go through
| oauth flow (ie. opening a webview to log in).
| noobquestion81 wrote:
| I had the same experience a couple months back trying to set up
| a gaming PC. This was after the initial screen set my speakers
| to max and then blasted Cortana screaming at me in different
| languages. This was at about 3am in the morning, and I have
| pretty good speakers. After recovering from my heart attack, I
| then proceeded to fight for ~20 minutes on how to install
| without a Windows account - since I had already set up Wifi,
| the easiest way was to _unplug my router_ for a bit. After a
| while Windows booted up, but would constantly BSOD on reboots.
| I gave up and bought a console.
|
| Absolute trash OS, sorry.
| dudul wrote:
| Happened to me a few months ago too when setting up a new
| machine. The language was also so convoluted and strange that I
| didn't quite catch that this was creating an online account at
| the time.
|
| I found a way to revert it and make the account an offline
| account afterwards, but I was so furious about this crap.
|
| That being said, I don't see the banner you mention.
| ukyrgf wrote:
| I'm at a small business that gets maybe 2 dozen new computers a
| year but line 1 on my setup list is "DO NOT PLUG IN THE
| ETHERNET CABLE"
|
| I can't believe it's come to this...
| joejacket wrote:
| This is standard procedure for everything, it's been that way
| with 'smart' TVs for years.
| 83457 wrote:
| I know no internet connection used to be solution, but I
| thought there was an option to bypass the ms account
| requirement during setup for the last couple years?
| scrooched_moose wrote:
| Its slowly became harder from update to update over the
| last couple years of updates, and completely removed under
| normal circumstances in one of the last major updates.
|
| AFAIK leaving the ethernet unplugged is the only way to do
| it now.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| I did it recently by accident. When it asked for an email
| address I entered fuck@off.com with the C word as the
| password.
|
| This obviously failed as a legitimate Microsoft login,
| but it did, very handily, offer the option to create a
| local account instead.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| _" I did it recently by accident. When it asked for an
| email address I entered fuck@off.com with the C word as
| the password."_
|
| Hey, stop plagiarizing me! ;-)
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Surely the 'professional' versions don't have this
| requirement? I'm quite far from a Windows expert, but at the
| company I work for the IT folks control all aspects of
| authentication and maintenance (e.g. patches all come through
| our own servers, not MS or Apple). They'd tell MS to piss off
| if they tried to require employees to have MS accounts.
| Aerroon wrote:
| My guess is that the Pro version won't have the requirement
| _yet_. But in the future they 'll require it for Pro as
| well.
| ioulian wrote:
| I've only installed PRO versions of Windows 10 and you CAN
| setup a local account even if internet is plugged in. It is
| however, hidden behind a few clicks so you must actively
| search for it.
|
| EDIT: maybe I'm wrong now, as other comment says they
| changed it a few months back. My last install was somewhere
| in Dec/2020
| TheRealDunkirk wrote:
| I don't "do" Windows any more, except that it's installed
| on the company laptop. I do all of my work on a Mac, and
| gaming on a PS. So I am watching these Windows 11 threads
| with a lot of amusement. The fact that Microsoft is
| playing games with this -- such that you can't be sure
| what's happening, even on their "pro" SKU -- is telling.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| I just installed a copy of Pro last week, and was able to
| make a local account just fine. It's hidden in the corner
| under what looks like regular text, but is actually a
| link (versus the big button to use a MS account). And a
| few more screens in, they'll ask again with the same
| small link in the corner. And I think it asked one more
| time before finishing.
|
| Dark patterns abound. It's horrible, but there are ways
| around it. For reference, this is in the US (if it
| matters).
| buran77 wrote:
| I installed a 21H1 Pro version just yesterday. On the
| user creation screen the local account is still hidden
| behind a "Domain join instead" button where you can
| actually use a local account. Of course most people at
| home would actually actively stay away from that button
| thinking it must lead to some enterprise IT voodoo.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| I did an install of Windows 10 Pro N on a Mac Pro a
| couple weeks ago (followed this guide:
| https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/opencore-on-the-mac-
| pro..., search for "Installing Windows and Linux "
| section).
|
| The Mac was connected to the Internet, I had to do a
| couple of clicks during the setup to create a local
| account but it was easy enough to do - I had not searched
| beforehand and I hadn't set up a Windows machine in the
| last five years or so.
|
| Side note for fellow people willing to run W10 on Mac
| Pro's, two things: the multi-socket variants won't run on
| the Home edition, you _need_ the Professional edition,
| and if you 're using Opencore you will need to enable the
| OpenShell EFI shell as you'll need to run bootmgfw.efi
| once from the UEFI shell.
| a2tech wrote:
| No, Windows 10 Pro/Enterprise does the same thing until its
| bound to a directory.
| HeckFeck wrote:
| It is a shame to watch the decline of Windows. There isn't much
| I can recommend to non-technical users looking affordable
| computing relatively under their control. Manipulation and user
| hostility is unacceptable.
|
| Any of these possibilities would be nice:
|
| * The market presents a kinder (and equally-affordable x86)
| solution and users follow.
|
| * ReactOS lurches leaps and bounds ahead.
|
| * Microsoft realises this trajectory is wrong and rows back.
|
| * Everyone wakes up and realises that Stallman was right.
|
| For the foreseeable, none are likely. What we really need is
| something to go horribly wrong that demonstrates practically
| why remote control and data collection of your own system is a
| bad idea. That will be the only way the point is driven home
| for the passive masses, unfortunately.
| fouric wrote:
| I would also settle for:
|
| * The FTC actually does its job and takes action against
| Microsoft for antitrust violations.
| bserge wrote:
| Year of Linux on desktop, it's coming home boys!
|
| I'm joking but secretly hoping it happens.
| techrat wrote:
| The 'desktop' is an outmoded concept anyhow. More is being
| done on Mobile to the exclusion of the desktop. Who needs a
| big machine with a monitor when you can do just about
| everything on a Chromebook or iPad?
|
| As far as Linux on ________, Let's look at where we're at
| now.
|
| Supercomputer. Linux runs the entire Top 500.
|
| https://itsfoss.com/linux-runs-top-supercomputers/
|
| Severs/Websites. 75% are Linux or variants.
|
| https://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/operating_system
|
| Mobile. 72% is Android alone, which counts for Linux
| IMNSHO.
|
| https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/worldwide
|
| ChromeOS now exceeds MacOS market share. Apple had already
| been making (painful) attempts to move away from the
| Desktop.
|
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/the-worlds-second-
| mo...
|
| And, of course, there's the Linux Subsystem for Windows.
|
| Linux won. It's over. Windows might be holding onto a
| majority if you _only count desktops_ , but given even
| Microsoft has moved towards supporting Linux directly on
| their own OS... and moving towards Cloud As a Service and
| hosting, yep, Linux on Azure... Even Microsoft knows that
| Windows has found itself facing the once unthinkable:
| support Linux or find yourself increasingly irrelevant.
| Windows on ARM failed. Twice. Windows Mobile in all of its
| variants are dead now. Microsoft released an Android
| device. So given everything that we use today, something
| that ISN'T running a *ix type kernel is, in fact, the
| minority.
|
| Microsoft is grasping harder with Windows 11... and in
| their shortsightedness, they ended up excluding huge chunks
| of systems that were still being sold even as recently as 3
| years ago. It's quite unthinkable to me because the one and
| ONLY one major killing feature of Windows in general was
| that you could install it on decade-old hardware. Win10 ran
| pretty decently on my Phenom II x4 desktop which had 16GB
| Ram. Why shouldn't it?
|
| And now Win11 is looking to exclude first gen Ryzen.
|
| https://www.extremetech.com/computing/324157-windows-11-may
| -...
|
| The tighter the grip, the more that will slip in between
| their fingers...
|
| At this point, it's becoming easier and easier to support
| Linux... thanks to Proton on Steam, more native binaries
| (BlackMagic, for example, with DaVinci Resolve), more apps
| becoming webapps and only needing a web browser. At this
| point, I think what we're waiting for is for legacy
| companies like Adobe to shit the bed and render themselves
| irrelevant. (And boy have they gotten close.)
|
| Yeah. The year of Linux on the Desktop is a meme... but
| should it actually happen... the concept of 'desktop' won't
| matter anymore, IMHO.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Screen space and input matters especially with complex
| tasks.
|
| Due to heat and therefore power constraints an ipad
| shaped device will remain sub par compared to a PC shaped
| device.
| techrat wrote:
| External monitors.
|
| Also, laptops.
|
| People have been able to do without full-fledged desktops
| quite well for a while now.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Just wanted to add I agree with nearly everything you
| said save desktops.
|
| >Who needs a big machine with a monitor when you can do
| just about everything on a Chromebook or iPad
|
| You did say we didn't need laptops or monitors.
|
| People having been able to do without full fledged
| desktops doesn't imply the format is either dead or
| without merit.
|
| It remains the best tool for the job for many many tasks
| especially if you have a merely average amount of funds
| or need above average performance.
| kiawe_fire wrote:
| Perhaps I've just become "one of those people", but I
| honestly think if not for the buzz around the M1 from
| Apple, we would be seeing a lot more activity on the Linux
| side.
|
| "The year of the Linux desktop" always feels like just a
| couple of bad big tech decisions (and an absence of good
| decisions) away.
| gentleman11 wrote:
| Linux needs killer app equivalents. Many of the foss
| versions of windows programs have pretty painful UX or
| are missing key features (eg, smart select in gimp is
| really frustrating to use vs photoshop or affinity). Foss
| really needs to start tempting designers to participate
| more
| willtim wrote:
| It's worse than that. The desktop efforts are heavily
| fragmented and arguably the leader, RedHat's "Gnome",
| while quite polished, is actually quite user hostile
| (e.g. works very differently to anything else, perhaps to
| dodge patents; and constantly changes/removes popular
| features). Linux needs to have a standardised "platform"
| with stable APIs.
| gentleman11 wrote:
| It's not user hostile, I love gnome. It might slow down
| if you don't reboot (could be a hibernation or suspend
| issue?) but the Ux is great. Windows is a nuisance after
| using gnome. You do need to install some addons that
| should be built in
| techrat wrote:
| Good luck getting anyone to agree on anything.
|
| It's why everything is so fragmented to begin with. "Oh,
| I don't like what X is doing, so I'll fork it and make
| Y."
|
| If I were in a position where I managed several
| distros... I could say we could just suck it up and
| universally use XFCE, but then there's always someone who
| won't like that and they'll respin a distro to have some
| other DE instead.
|
| It seems with every decision we end up with another fork.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| XFCE is honestly a mediocre middle ground between the
| actual minimalism of a window manager or the better
| functionality of say kde.
|
| Most fragmentation is actually entirely different
| software with the same end goal as opposed to actual
| forks and it's not really clear that the developer of foo
| would have joined forces with the developer of bar had he
| not started his own project.
| techrat wrote:
| Like I said, good luck getting anyone to agree on
| anything.
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| I'm over in Mac-land so a bit unclear on the state of
| things, but it seems like the problem must be marketing by
| now, right? I can't think of any use cases for mainstream
| users where Windows is a requirement.
|
| Graphic designers, digital art types, and musicians are all
| fringe and mostly on Mac anyway. PC gamers are a fringe
| crowd. Practically all productivity software has migrated
| to the cloud. Desktop Linux usability seemed to meet the
| standard of Windows XP and Windows 7 years ago.
|
| Is the problem really that you still have to grapple with
| graphics drivers on the CLI? Or is it just that Best Buy
| and CostCo still don't have motivation to put shiny Linux
| machines on the shelves?
|
| and yeah I know all about the various shady Gates/Ballmer-
| era OEM deals... I just can't believe that not one OEM has
| snapped by now.
| anthk wrote:
| >Is the problem really that you still have to grapple
| with graphics drivers on the CLI?
|
| Bullshit on distros like Solus OS.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| >PC gamers are a fringe crowd.
|
| Sure, if 1.5 Billion people are a "fringe crowd"
|
| https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/314009-3-billion-
| people-w...
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| Wow, never seen those figures before... well forgive my
| American myopia. I would still describe American PC
| gamers as "fringe", but I had thought the Asian market
| was similarly leaning toward console players, clearly
| that is incorrect.
| chopin wrote:
| When I buy a computer, Windows 10 is installed as
| default. You have to go out of your way to get a computer
| which hasn't. I think it's as easy as that.
|
| I've setup Linux on all machines I own or maintain, for
| all users including my wife. The frequency of hickups is
| not higher than it was with Windows and It's easy to roll
| back to a known good configuration, much easier than with
| Windows. I never looked back.
|
| Edited to add: The last machine I bought was a Purism
| laptop. The first machine which did not have Windows pre-
| installed.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Linux simply has too many rough edges still exposed to
| appeal to a lot of less technical users. Even in the best
| case scenario (super standard desktop with hardware well
| supported by FOSS drivers), there's always some odd thing
| that requires one to pull out the terminal, usually
| because UI functionality was insufficient or failed to
| work as expected.
|
| That does not bother me or probably most of us on HN
| much, but for most people it's like periodically needing
| to muck around under the hood of their car. It's too
| much, they just want to drive and take the vehicle in to
| get oil and brake changes every once in a fairly long
| while. Anything more is tedious overhead.
|
| The situation with proprietary drivers still kinda stinks
| too. The distros I've seen handle it best are Ubuntu with
| the proprietary drivers control panel and pop!_OS which
| just sidesteps the issue altogether for Nvidia hardware
| by shipping an ISO with non-free Nvidia drivers included,
| but the rest just leave you with a package manager,
| terminal, and whatever you can scrounge up on the
| internet. Yeah it's technically the responsibility of
| Nvidia, etc to fix that, but it's negatively impacting
| adoption nonetheless.
| caeril wrote:
| > has too many rough edges still exposed to appeal to a
| lot of less technical users
|
| This is ridiculous. Not only does Ubuntu LTS work just
| fine for my incredibly non-technical wife and children,
| but my wife _prefers_ it to Mac OS.
|
| Linux with a basic Gnome desktop has been perfectly
| usable for well over a DECADE now for non-technical
| users.
|
| This particular bit of FUD has been wildly inaccurate at
| least since Fedora Core 3.
| unknown_error wrote:
| Why would non-technical users want computing under their
| control? Isn't the market going the other way, more and more
| towards walled gardens? Seems like a Chromebook or iPad would
| have far fewer headaches for the typical user who just wants
| Facebook and email.
|
| The web as an open platform is a dev manifesto; for everyone
| else it's just a glorified entertainment and information hub,
| and making it safer and easier for them is what the market
| wants. Not more openness, but less of it, because less
| openness means less cognitive mode. They don't want to think
| about 100 ways to do the same thing, each with a different
| license and complex venn diagram of incompatibilities. They
| just want to get on with their day.
|
| "If something goes horribly wrong"... even in that case, the
| vendors are less likely to fuck up than most users.
| Google/Apple/Microsoft clouds are much better at keeping data
| safe against device failures and ransomware than local
| Windows installs managed by average users ever were or could
| be.
|
| If anything the future is really dumb computing, where the
| internet is just another appliance not too different from
| your radio or the television. Apps with corporate content
| hubs, not open platforms.
|
| Computing as an open platform was due to the industry by and
| large being created by engineers. Now with mass adoption,
| we're seeing a switch to producer vs consumers, with
| different paradigms/devices/needs for each, like the
| differences between magazine publishers and readers. Readers
| don't care what software was used to create a magazine, they
| just want to pick it off a newsstand and read it. Same with
| digital entertainment; the underlying stack shouldn't be
| their concern if their intended usage is simply content
| consumption. Windows adds only unnecessary complexity to
| their usage. Stallman is not an average user, and it would be
| a massive disservice to humanity to design for the average
| user as though they were Stallman.
|
| Not all freedom is beneficial. Sometimes it's just yet
| another useless decision to have to make in a world already
| overflowing with excess information. The human brain did not
| evolve to make careful cost-benefit analyses for every
| trivial thing in a post-internet world.
|
| Even devs are moving towards serverless. Content creation
| might eventually move to "OS"-less, where content creation is
| moderated by walled hubs like Adobe apps on the iPad and
| developer experiences happen in virtualized clouds with web-
| based IDEs. Bare metal appeals to engineers, but for everyday
| users and developers, again, it's just excess cognitive load.
| Please don't make people think about useless crap. There are
| already infinite upcoming crises -- of the global sort -- for
| anyone born in the last few generations. Computing trivia is
| just... trivia, no more inherently interesting than the
| proper type of lubricant to use on the machines in the
| factory that makes their toaster. Don't make them think
| without good reason.
| queuebert wrote:
| It would also help if decision makers at large organizations
| would stop forcing everyone into Microsoft products such as
| Teams, Outlook, etc., when much better alternatives exist.
| sys_64738 wrote:
| What is a suitable replacement for Teams?
| elliekelly wrote:
| Why does Apple make it so difficult/borderline impossible to
| run MacOS on non-apple computers? Would it cut into their
| computer sales that significantly? I would imagine most
| people who want (and can afford) a Mac would still buy one.
| neodymiumphish wrote:
| > Would it cut into their computer sales that
| significantly?
|
| Is this a real question? Many of the edge cases, both high
| cost and low, would disappear for Apple.
|
| Additionally, all the tech support will fall on them.
|
| Lastly, any bad user experience (cheap device with crap
| battery, low quality hardware that doesn't match the
| software experience, etc) would have a negative effect on
| them as a brand.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| If you can sell a computer for 500-1000 more than your
| competition why sell an OS for 100-200.
| voakbasda wrote:
| No, they wouldn't. My last "Mac" was a PowerComputing
| clone, because other manufactures were doing hardware
| better than Apple. Jobs killed the clones, and I became a
| Linux user that never looked back. Apple maintains their
| walled garden because they know that their users would
| quickly realize the grass is greener on the other side of
| the fence.
| macintux wrote:
| > Apple maintains their walled garden because they know
| that their users would quickly realize the grass is
| greener on the other side of the fence.
|
| I've been on both sides of the fence, worked for a Linux
| company for a few years, and I'm very happy in the walled
| garden.
| TheRealDunkirk wrote:
| Holy moly! If there was ever a self-answering question on
| this site! Look at how much traffic is being generated by
| Windows 11's lack of support for older hardware, and how
| confusing it is -- even for technical users -- to figure
| out of their machines are TPM-capable at all, or if it just
| needs turned on in the BIOS -- in order to install it.
| After 19 years of Linux on the desktop, and always dual-
| booting Windows for gaming, I'm delighted to spend the
| extra money on Apple hardware (and game on a PS) to avoid
| all of that sort of nonsense now. You may not like them,
| but Apple makes the answers to these kinds of questions
| pretty clear. I'm glad Apple doesn't waste their time and
| energy with supporting every piece of kit under the sun.
| ravenstine wrote:
| What do they stand to gain in making macOS easy/possible to
| run on other vendor hardware? That opens them up to
| headaches that don't bring in revenue. They are in the
| hardware business, not the OS business. Their OS
| development is just a necessary evil. Apple wants people to
| buy their hardware. If the customer wants macOS, they'd be
| best off buying the one hardware that's designed
| specifically for macOS. This is unlikely to ever change
| because it's been Apple's business model from the very
| beginning, and it's served them well overall.
|
| I'm not saying anyone has to like it, but there's an
| inherent advantage in not having to support other hardware
| of varying degrees of quality. Honestly, I'll take that
| form of vendor lock-in over frequent pointless changes,
| having advertising shoved in my face, and being forced to
| have an online account. Perhaps my opinion will change if
| Apple follows suit (they won't), but for now it was pretty
| easy to set up my M1 Macbook Air without signing in with an
| Apple ID.
| nine_k wrote:
| In short, Apple is a hardware company. It sells you
| electronic devices with some software and firmware required
| for these devices to function.
|
| The software component in a Mac or an iPhone is larger than
| in a microwave oven. There is still equally zero incentive
| to port it to third-party devices, because it's the devices
| that bring in the revenue; software is a cost center.
| elliekelly wrote:
| It's super disappointing to receive such hostile responses
| to a genuine question but I appreciate the two people who
| replied kindly.
| nickjj wrote:
| Running native Linux for non-technical users ends up being a
| great move as long as the programs they want to run work on
| it. For example imagine a retired non-technical person who
| occasionally trades stocks. Even major trading platforms like
| Interactive Brokers have native Linux clients.
|
| Non-technical users want a stable system that doesn't
| constantly change. Windows loves to hit you with popup
| notices or UI changes where if you take the "ok" route things
| about your system change, or you accidentally click a
| notification that comes up and suddenly your browser is
| changed or worse. They also don't want to turn on their
| machine and have to wait 30 minutes for an "important
| update". They just want to turn their machine on and have it
| be exactly how it was yesterday.
|
| A non-technical person I know thought he was hacked and
| wanted to buy a new computer because a shortcut icon was
| moved from his desktop to his recycle bin and he thought
| someone wiped out his computer. Now in Microsoft's defense
| they didn't delete his shortcut, but that's the type of
| mindset non-technical folks have. The slightest change is a
| catastrophic event.
| grishka wrote:
| In other words: people hate updates. Especially so if those
| updates don't give them anything new but just move stuff
| around instead.
|
| That's what everyone working in IT should understand. No,
| you can't "always push an update". Always treat your every
| single release like your last one because there will be
| many people who will stick with that version.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > Non-technical users want a stable system that doesn't
| constantly change.
|
| ...and you're recommending _Linux Desktop_ for that? An
| operating system famous for breaking compatibility _with
| itself_ every 2 years or so? Not to mention between
| distros. I mean, I suppose you can just leave them on some
| arbitrary un-updated version of Ubuntu forever, but the
| same could be said for Windows 2000.
| beagle3 wrote:
| I just set up Ubuntu 20.04 with Unity which is still
| there, and it looks exactly the same as the 14.04 it
| replaced. Might not be there in 22.04, who knows. But
| even switching to Ubuntu Gnome is less of a difference
| than the Win7 -> Win8 -> Win10 transition I had to guide
| some older family members through.
| dolmen wrote:
| > Ubuntu 20.04 with Unity which is still there, and it
| looks exactly the same as the 14.04 it replaced
|
| That's not what users aged about 80 think. From direct
| observation, a print icon moving or a menu bar
| disappearing are just enough to make them crazy.
|
| I know someone who keeps the old computer from 2008
| around because "I prefer how Gimp is organized there".
| dgan wrote:
| This is misleading, as you can always turn on security
| updates, and turn off applications upgrades. I don't even
| know that's possible on Windows (I guess answer is a loud
| and clear NO)
| wrs wrote:
| For a few years, until that version stops getting
| security updates. E.g., about three years for Debian. [0]
|
| [0] https://wiki.debian.org/DebianReleases
| Silhouette wrote:
| Debian Stable typically gets ~3 years of official
| security updates, but then in reality the LTS project is
| excellent and probably gives you two more years, and now
| there's also the ELTS project that might give you two
| more beyond that.
|
| Which major commercial OS has a realistic expectation
| today of getting security updates for so long without
| being forced to change other parts of your system that
| you like as they are? Windows did, if you go back to the
| days when Microsoft published product lifecycle
| information many years into the future, before 10
| deliberately broke that whole model and the stability
| that came with it.
| wrs wrote:
| MacOS averages 3-4 years too. My point was just that if
| you want a user experience that never changes and only
| gets security updates, Linux isn't the answer either (as
| the great-grandparent comment implied). At most, if you
| luckily sync up with an LTS version, you get a couple
| more years.
| [deleted]
| wbsss4412 wrote:
| You can run LTS versions of Ubuntu and receive support
| for 5 years.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Non-server Windows editions, at least before 10, had
| security updates for almost 10 years. And new software
| often continues to function on old versions of Windows
| for far longer.
| wbsss4412 wrote:
| I wasn't trying to imply that Ubuntu has longer support
| than windows, only that it doesn't constantly make
| breaking changes. If you want you can use it and update
| once every five years and have a fairly stable desktop.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Sure, if you don't count all the software that no longer
| has a package in the latest version's repo and therefore
| is no longer available. Oh and whatever features GNOME
| decided to remove this time.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| So don't use gnome and switch to something that isn't
| abandonware
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| So, deal with things changing all the time. Exactly the
| thing we were trying to avoid with this exercise.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| I think in 18 years exactly one piece of software I
| wished to keep using has died an untimely death and it
| was impractical to keep using it.
| wbsss4412 wrote:
| I suppose I don't have enough experience because I stick
| to the latest LTS.
|
| I agree that the Linux desktop has its shortcomings, but
| I still feel that it would be a great option for plenty
| of people who default to windows today. Especially if
| they spend most of their time in the browser as it is.
|
| I've been a happy Ubuntu user for several years now and
| I'm not a tinkerer or anything, though I am more
| technical than the group we have been talking about.
| nickjj wrote:
| > I mean, I suppose you can just leave them on some
| arbitrary un-updated version of Ubuntu forever, but the
| same could be said for Windows 2000.
|
| Certain programs they run won't work on old operating
| systems like Windows 7 or 2000 but they work on Windows
| 10 and Linux. Running an unmaintained old copy of Windows
| 7 would be pretty bad for someone non-technical because
| if they decide to ever go-to a questionable site of their
| choosing, chances are they will get themselves in trouble
| with a virus / malware.
|
| You can run Xubuntu 20.04 LTS for a few years with
| unattended updates turned on so they get automated non-UI
| breaking security patches. Then when it goes EOL upgrade
| to the next LTS, or even turn on unattended upgrades too
| with a stipulation that something might change once every
| few years instead of twice a week. It's a really good
| environment IMO.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Xubuntu hasn't changed substantially, and Ubuntu Mate
| only a bit in a decade plus.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Nothing is making you run arch Linux with gnome wayland
| on your btrfs raid 5 with pipewire sound.
|
| One could have installed mint mate 16 in 2013 and
| painlessly updated between versions without huge
| difference between then and now.
|
| Linux isn't a product like windows it's an ecosystem use
| whatever works for you.
| cosmojg wrote:
| Lmfao, it's 2021. Stop parroting this tired meme. Linux
| runs beautifully if you aren't doing anything crazy with
| it.
|
| I say this as a sysadmin responsible for maintaining a
| small fleet, the majority of which are Linux boxes. I've
| wasted far more hours helping end users with OS-level
| problems on Windows and, to a lesser extent, macOS. This
| is in spite of the fact that, again, the majority of the
| machines I manage run Linux, and all of these users are
| similar in technical capability.
|
| Give it a try yourself. I'm sure a lot has changed since
| you last used it. Oh, and make sure you pick something
| that holds your hand a bit like Manjaro, Pop!_OS, Mint,
| or EndeavourOS.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I've been using Linux Desktop on and off for 2 decades
| now, have contributed to open source projects on Linux,
| have built my own Linux distro, and was once president of
| a LUG. It is my personal opinion that it isn't a good
| desktop operating system. You're free to disagree, but
| don't assume that I have no idea what I'm talking about.
|
| And you might have been slightly more persuasive by not
| being a condescending ass, but that's asking a lot of a
| Linux Desktop evangelist in my experience.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _" are less secure by not registering an account with
| Microsoft"_
|
| More accounts equals less security. That's a fact. If Microsoft
| believes this, it's not worthy of our trust.
|
| If it's just marketing hype, ditto. I don't trust companies
| that outright lie to me.
| Nexxxeh wrote:
| My usual procedure is make a restore USB drive using whatever
| tool supplied, or just clone it with TrueImage, in case
| something goes arwy.
|
| Then: "Disable secure boot, wipe SSD, reinstall Windows without
| connecting to the Internet".
|
| You'll end up with a relatively bloat-free non-S Windows 10
| install with a local account, no BitLocker (although it can be
| enabled later), and Windows will generally install all the
| hardware drivers for you.
|
| Anything missing that you want can be grabbed from the
| manufacturer's website. Once everything's done, re-enable
| secure boot.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| Agreed, this ought to mantra for everyone. Ever since XP, I
| have always installed or setup Windows in essentially this
| way--and I never do the setup with the internet connected
| (not even with Linux). If in the middle of the process I need
| an updated hardware driver then I'll download it on another
| machine.
|
| Once the setup is done and the O/S configured exactly the way
| I want it (which often takes me considerable time), I'll then
| mirror the drive.
|
| I then progressively repeat the process in stages, first with
| essential utilities, text editors and maintenance tools and
| work up to bigger programs, word-processors etc. At the end
| of the process I'll end up with at least four mirrors. If
| anything goes wrong I can restore the image which typically
| takes me 7 to 10 minutes and I'm right to go.
|
| Doing the job in multiple stages is good idea if you want to
| remove traces of a program that, say, won't allow easy re-
| installation for licensing reasons. All such program are
| relegated to a latter-stage image, so the process then is to
| restore the immediately preceding one that is 'clean'.
|
| Only when I'm finished saving the last image and I'm totally
| happy with the installation do I connect the internet.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Until the Microsoft account was introduced I could never could on
| authentication working to mount SMB shares.
|
| My fear is that Microsoft is going to wreck it all in a fit of
| mindlessness. I wrote them a letter when they were in danger of
| impulsively stealing TikTok. So many of us depend on their
| products that we'd be devastated if they destroyed their
| ecosystem for no good reason. (Someday Microsoft may need to pick
| a fight with the CCP, but it had better do so for a good reason.)
| lovelyviking wrote:
| >So many of us depend on their products that we'd be devastated
| if they destroyed their ecosystem
|
| Don't you think you are already devastated by that dependency?
| jraph wrote:
| > So many of us depend on their products that we'd be
| devastated if they destroyed their ecosystem for no good reason
|
| This is what free software people have been warning against for
| decades now, and yet governments and big structures still
| willingly give their hands to be tied instead of allocating
| some funds to the development of solutions that don't have this
| problem and would be far more cost-effective in the end.
|
| When will the world wake up?
| scrollaway wrote:
| I'm a FOSS advocate. Please don't make it sound like that.
| There's plenty of issues with FOSS, including funding.
|
| Like, what we _also_ warn about the fact that a majority of
| people on earth directly or indirectly depend on projects
| like, I dunno, coreutils, openssh and what not which receive
| fuck-all funding.
| pessimizer wrote:
| You're replying to a message asking why we don't fund FOSS
| by saying the problem with FOSS is a lack of funding.
| iso1631 wrote:
| "But not only were they illegal, like debuggers--you could
| not install one if you had one, without knowing your
| computer's root password. And neither the FBI nor Microsoft
| Support would tell you that"
|
| https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
|
| That's nearly 25 years old. Fortunately we can still use Free
| operating systems on at least desktop and laptops, but if you
| choose to use proprietary software, you get what you get.
| ttt0 wrote:
| EULAs already often prohibit disassembling the binary. That
| feels completely crazy to me, it's like saying that you
| aren't allowed to press Ctrl-U on a website. Is it actually
| legally binding?
| drdec wrote:
| > Until the Microsoft account was introduced I could never
| could on authentication working to mount SMB shares.
|
| This still does not work properly for me when mapping
| SharePoint drives. (Since going fully remote this is is the
| only type of mapped drive I use.) Every once in a while I need
| to open up the SharePoint URL in Internet Explorer in order to
| get the drives working.
| shantnutiwari wrote:
| Microsoft has been using this dark pattern for a while now.
|
| Around 1-2 years ago, I upgraded MS Office on my Windows laptop.
| It asked me for my username/password-- which I didnt think
| strange, as I assumed it needed it to upgrade.
|
| And thats when I got a message "Good news! Your Windows machine
| now uses your Microsoft to login."
|
| W.T.F.
|
| I was never asked, never warned, just tricked into replacing my
| local login with an online one.
|
| Took me 10-20 minutes of Googling to get my original setting
| back.
|
| I have now turned off ALL updates for Windows-- it is my backup
| machine, for a few programs that only run on Windows.
|
| Every update on Windows scared me (and still does), as I dont
| know what dark pattern they will try this time.
| jptech wrote:
| Even without an MS account, when using Microsoft Store with a
| local account, I won't be surprised if they used some hardware
| fingerprint such as MAC address to assign a unique ID to that
| account.
| entropy1111 wrote:
| They add a unique identifier to EFIVARS. That's why if you
| install a MS store application without being logged in,
| completely wipe/replace your disks you can still see the list
| of previous installed applications in the store.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Wait until you hear about the combination of hardware
| identifiers they use to validate that your license is only
| being used on one computer.
| Merad wrote:
| I don't know about use of the store in general, but if you
| use the MS store to buy a Windows license they automatically
| convert your account and link the license to that account.
|
| Source: built a new PC a few weeks ago and naively assumed
| they'd just give me a product key or ask how I wanted to
| receive it.
| teekert wrote:
| Do you really need Windows? Our family laptop runs Linux, it
| does Teams for school, MineCraft, Netflix. You could do
| Office365 from a browser, although I admit, it is less than
| ideal. But it seems like you are almost at the emotional state
| make the jump... what's holding you back?
|
| I bought a Dell Latitude E5450 for 350 eur about 2 years back.
| It was used but looked new. It came with Win 10 Pro, which sits
| on my NAS as a gzipped bit for bit copy now.
|
| Everything works out of the box on Ubuntu 20.04 and will
| continue to work until it dies far from now. I can open the
| thing up and replace everything I would expect I could replace
| (inc battery). It's all I need speed-wise. If the kids drop it
| I won't cry. Fun fact: When I play MineCraft with my son (I do
| it from my work Win 10 computer), he has has booted, started
| MineCraft and dug a hole to bedrock before I even get to click
| on the MineCraft icon. The thing is fast and snappy and remains
| so.
|
| I made accounts for both kids and they can do many things
| themselves, perhaps because the UI looks more like an iPad than
| Windows does (i.e., hit the menu and a grid of icons fly in to
| fill the screen.)
|
| I'm dreading the day they ask for a local install of Office365
| though... Or something like Adobe's tools. So far my oldest is
| 8 and it hasn't happened.
| anyonecancode wrote:
| Roblox. I had my kids on linux originally, but there's no
| linux version of Roblox, and the proposed workarounds I found
| were unreliable, out of date, or more work than I was willing
| to invest in.
| teekert wrote:
| Oh no, I'm just going to have to hope they won't ask for it
| before Proton (or something) starts supporting it :)
|
| But you are right, a time may come when they will want
| Windows. Although my wife's computer runs it (needs it as a
| teacher), so they may use that for Win only stuff. I'll
| deal with it when the time comes.
|
| I could do a VM with GPU pass-through and Steam client...
| Although that may also turn out to be more than I'm willing
| to invest (and essentially you still run Windows). Or maybe
| I'll dual boot...
| peapicker wrote:
| Won't the Steam client also ask you for a phone number as
| soon as you want to buy anything? How do you decide where
| to draw the line?
| fragileone wrote:
| Roblox works on Linux as of this week, there was a post
| here a few days ago.
| bennyp101 wrote:
| Probably not overly helpful, but there was a post yesterday
| about Roblox working on Wine.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27651224
| lancepioch wrote:
| > Do you really need Windows?
|
| Probably not, unless you are a gamer.
| fish45 wrote:
| Funny anecdote, I installed Ubuntu on my own laptop to
| improve my minecraft FPS when I was 9 (~9 years ago).
|
| I googled something like "how to get more fps in minecraft"
| and the first result was a minecraft forum post to which the
| only response was "install Ubuntu". At the time, Ubuntu had a
| .exe installer, so I thought it was just like any other
| program and installed it to my C: drive along with everything
| else. I think I did have the concept of other OS since I'd
| used both Windows and MacOS previously, so I figured it out
| after the reboot. It did increase my minecraft FPS from ~15
| to ~30 on average, so I didn't have any complaints.
|
| I stuck with that laptop until high school, when I got a new
| laptop and started dual-booting Windows for gaming and Linux
| for everything else, which is where I'm at now.
| rambambram wrote:
| Indeed funny! What happened after you installed the .exe
| Ubuntu? You clicked the icon and then ..? I'm just past the
| 'stage' you're in now, I recently deleted my partition
| running Windows (kept it for GTA5). Only Ubuntu now.
| vvatermelone wrote:
| Are you able to play GTAV on linux? Or just given up on
| the ability to play it? That and a few racing sims are
| the only things keeping me on windows these days.
| squarefoot wrote:
| Apparently GTAV runs quite well.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_69huFZSLA
|
| You may also want to check out PlayOnLinux which eases
| the creation of sandboxed installations for different
| Windows software (not just games), in which each one
| could use its own Wine version, libraries, modules etc.
|
| https://www.playonlinux.com/en/
| Technetium wrote:
| Lutris is wonderful, the answer is yes.
| https://lutris.net/games/grand-theft-auto-v
| godshatter wrote:
| Not the person you're replying to (and I don't play
| GTAV), but you can look here to see if it works in Steam
| via Proton: https://www.protondb.com/app/271590
|
| It's rated Gold, and appears to work out of the box for
| some people, others have had to add an option to the
| command line that Steams uses to run it, and some people
| have seen some problems running it.
|
| If you do end up going this route and try it, please file
| a report on protondb letting others know how it went.
| teekert wrote:
| I bet this was with Wubi which made a Windows file with
| whole install and booted into that.
| notRobot wrote:
| Yep!
| fish45 wrote:
| I don't remember much about the installation process. I
| think I just got to choose between automatic or manual
| partitioning, which is when I presumably went with
| automatic and chose the C: drive.
| tsjq wrote:
| Very well said. Fully agree with you. Both the personal
| desktops in my home, including the one used by my Sr Citizen
| non-techie Dad : are Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. Thanks for sharing
| this constructive and helpful info.
| wiredfool wrote:
| You're probably not going to be able to use that bit for bit
| copy later.
|
| I did something similar with my last linux laptop, and none
| of the workarounds to put the partitions back worked when I
| needed a quick windows test machine.
| teekert wrote:
| Actually I did the same with My wife's Asus, I dd-ed the
| whole drive, gzipped it and ran Linux for a year. Then I
| restored it. It worked fine. I guess I won't run into
| problems as long as the drive is the same drive, or perhaps
| a bigger one.
| pradn wrote:
| Windows just works. I can't remember the last time I had a
| driver issue with wifi or had an issue with new hardware
| working. Every game targets Windows first, so they all work
| without any extra work. My computer is a tool, and I don't
| want to spend any of my free time configuring things, like I
| have when running Linux in the past. I spent enough of my
| time at work doing that!
| Zardoz84 wrote:
| Since was the last time that you try using Linux?. Sounds
| like you try it like 20 years ago. Actually Linux f works
| out the box
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| I unfortunately kept all my backups as NTFS and I maintained
| that for a while because "legacy" and I was lazy. Converting
| them all is gonna take a while. So I'm sort of waiting until
| it's inevitable.
| logifail wrote:
| > Converting them all is gonna take a while
|
| What sort of backups?
|
| (My experience is that) NTFS filesystems mount just fine on
| other OSes, particular Linux.
| Terretta wrote:
| Minecraft for kids is arguably safer on Bedrock servers and
| clients with the parental controls managed through the
| Microsoft account.
|
| While Mojang made efforts, the premise of the Java version
| was unrestricted server community and that remains the
| dominant paradigm.
|
| Not everything should be for kids, not saying "think of the
| children" and use Win10 or iOS, just commenting on a less
| known value-add of a Microsoft Account for Minecraft parents:
|
| _How does Minecraft keep my child safe?_
|
| _With the Better Together update now out on Windows 10, Xbox
| One, Nintendo Switch, Android, iOS, and recently Playstation
| 4, any parent or guardian can rest comfortably knowing that
| there are a few systems in place to keep their child safe.
| [And able to cross play with friends on any of those.]_
|
| _If your child is playing the Java Edition of Minecraft then
| they 're still being protected by all the great features
| Mojang has baked into the legendary game. However, the Java
| Edition of Minecraft does not require Xbox Live integration
| since it does not support crossplay with other devices, and
| therefore loses out on many of the parental control features
| parents enjoy elsewhere._
|
| _If your child is playing Minecraft on PC, it might be worth
| getting them the Windows 10 version instead. It 's always on-
| par with every other platform for new features and updates,
| supports crossplay between platforms so your child can play
| with more of their friends, and can be moderated by Xbox Live
| and Microsoft Account parental controls. That's a win-win-
| win._
|
| https://www.windowscentral.com/minecraft-guide-how-keep-
| your...
|
| // Note that summer camps tend to require the Bedrock version
| and Microsoft account for this reason. It's possible to get
| interop, unofficially, e.g.:
|
| BedrockConnect: https://github.com/Pugmatt/BedrockConnect
|
| Geyser: https://github.com/GeyserMC/Geyser/wiki/Supported-
| Hosting-Pr...
| teekert wrote:
| I only ever saw my son make his own worlds locally and we
| play together on my own server [0], where I have 2 worlds
| currently. Sometimes Bedrock friends join, I installed
| GeyserMC for that (as you also mentioned) [1].
|
| It was indeed a great pain to get the girls from next door
| to join with their Android tablets, it required multiple
| back and forths between me and their father... So that was
| why. To be honest it does annoy me that they had to give up
| so many private details to get the benefits of this
| "outsourced protection".
|
| Well, my philosophy is to be there, check in on them,
| educate them about dangerous stuff but also to let them
| explore. I'll handle more difficult stuff through AdGuard
| when the time comes. The kid knows not to do weird things
| on their own. I regularly explain to them that the internet
| is like a jungle. Don't just wander off without me and my
| digital machete by your side, I tell them ;)
|
| [0] https://github.com/itzg/docker-minecraft-server
|
| [1] https://geysermc.org/
| [deleted]
| nonameiguess wrote:
| Still haven't found a way to digitally sign a pdf with a
| smart card on Linux, unfortunately. If anyone knows how, I'd
| love a tip. Last thing I absolutely can't do except on
| Windows, and it is required by a lot of DoD processes I have
| to follow.
| blablablub wrote:
| How is the online account thing going to work with laptops? No
| more working in business class?
| gexla wrote:
| This must be a poorly documented / communicated item that you
| must use an MS account to log into your system. You may have to
| jump through some hoops, but surely you could run something like
| a Powershell command to get past the GUI and do exactly what you
| want to do. Just like many people here would do with a Linux
| system. Maybe more of a PITA, but it would be worth the effort
| for me. And I bet there's some easy tricks.
|
| There's a difference between "supported" and "possible." Add a
| layer of marketing and UI magic and you get a lot of confusion.
|
| Edited to add: Just because it's a new OS, doesn't mean the guts
| of the thing went through huge changes. The ways you create an
| account is probably the same from 10 to 11. It's just the GUI
| which is changing.
| denkmoon wrote:
| Fait accompli. People who use Windows Home will happily comply.
| syshum wrote:
| Microsoft views windows as a ThinClient to the Cloud... Not an
| Operating System
| itronitron wrote:
| I wiped a brand new Windows laptop just last week and installed
| Linux because Windows 'S' Mode wouldn't let me install Firefox
| without a Windows account. Very happy with the change to linux
| and I don't have to worry about accidentally saving personal
| documents to the OneDrive cloud.
|
| Product companies should take note, I'd probably own a few more
| electronics if they didn't require that consumers 'create an
| account' or associate an email address in order to use the thing.
| rsp1984 wrote:
| You can get out of "S Mode", a feature which is absurdly hidden
| in the MS Store [1].
|
| [1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/switching-out-
| of...
| meowster wrote:
| My understanding last time I tried, was that you need a
| Microsoft Account to switch out of S Mode.
| input_sh wrote:
| I think what the parent comment was aiming at is that you
| need a Windows account to follow that. I don't think you can
| use the store without an account, therefore not able to
| escape the S mode, therefore not able to install Firefox.
| nightski wrote:
| That makes no sense. Why would you use 'S' mode if you didn't
| want to be connected? It's specifically a version that does not
| store data/apps locally, so of course it's going to require an
| account...
| itronitron wrote:
| It's the version/mode of Windows that was installed when I
| bought the laptop. I tried about three different approaches
| to switch it out of 'S' mode but none of them worked.
| opencl wrote:
| S mode does store data/apps locally, it just prevents you
| from running any software that isn't from the Microsoft
| Store.
|
| They were using S mode because it's impossible to disable
| without logging into a Microsoft account first.
| mschild wrote:
| Some devices, like the Surface Go, come with Windows S mode
| by default. To disable S mode you need a Microsoft account as
| you need to access the store to do so. I think there are some
| workarounds for this, but the default way is the store.
| Vahkesh wrote:
| I've been considering making the switch to a Linux distro full-
| time, this move by Microsoft might be deciding factor. It
| sounds like they restricted Firefox installations to force
| users to use Edge.....
| cosmojg wrote:
| What's keeping you on Windows? Linux is as capable as ever
| these days.
| Vahkesh wrote:
| Honestly, not much at this point.... Just don't have the
| time to commit to a smooth transition.
| drdeadringer wrote:
| > I've been considering making the switch to a Linux distro
| full-time
|
| I forget what my last straw was, but I went full Linux for
| all of my home computers around 2012 or so. At the time it
| bricked a piece of novelty hardware for me which I later
| ended up selling anyway, and that was not a hard choice to
| make.
|
| My life has been so much better.
|
| I segregate my usage of Windows and Mac OSs to work. I enjoy
| my OS sanity when at home.
| [deleted]
| cesarb wrote:
| This reminds me of the "Desert Island test"
| (https://people.debian.org/~bap/dfsg-faq.html). Suppose you are
| on a desert island with a solar-powered computer, and no
| connection to the Internet. The original question was whether you
| could legally share modifications to the software in these
| circumstances, but it seems we unfortunately need now to ask an
| even more basic question: are we able to use the software at all?
| jp0d wrote:
| I shudder at the prospect of going back to using a PC! I've been
| using a Mac from work. My wife and I are both pissed off at
| Microsoft for doing this to our home PC. I built that PC for her
| to do some Photoshop work. So I can't really get rid of Windows.
| If she switches to a Mac, I will happily forget about the money
| wasted on that Windows license and format that hard drive and put
| a Linux on it immediately.
| geranim0 wrote:
| While we're at it, windows fakes letting you install qbittorrent,
| then flags it as virus and silently deletes it. Only way to
| install it is either disable realtime protection forever or make
| an exception. If installed and re-enabling realtime protection,
| it deletes it again...
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| Want better OS choices? Don't just sit down and take it. Go try
| Linux distros, file bugs, code fixes, and don't accept excuses.
| If an open-source maintainer is blocking progress, hard fork and
| keep rolling. I feel that the Linux dev community has become
| stagnant and insular and we need more people from the outside to
| get involved. Could be you.
| fouric wrote:
| I have a candidate for an even better reason:
|
| I have no reason to believe that Microsoft will not pull a Google
| and start spuriously locking people out of their accounts (as
| happens every few months on HN), which may then prevent me from
| logging in to my own computer.
|
| In fact, I've already been locked out of my Microsoft account for
| "suspicious activity" (which was literally just purchasing
| Minecraft) and was required to enter a phone number to unlock it.
| Literal theft - I was compelled to either give up additional
| personal information or lose access to the software I paid for.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| Just use Pro and tell it you're joining the domain...
| sbhn wrote:
| I will never use a google account to log into android I will
| never use an apple account to log into iphone I will never use a
| facebook account to log into oculus Hewlett packard, cannon, lg,
| bosch, ford, tesla, bbc
| acapybara wrote:
| When Windows 10 came out, the telemetry, MS account features,
| forced auto updates/reboots made my computer feel like it was no
| longer my own.
|
| Having used Microsoft OSes since DOS, this was the straw that
| finally broke the camel's back.
|
| After dabbling in Linux for years, this was motivation to commit
| 100% to using Linux as my main OS. It was mildly painful at
| first, but after sticking with it, I would never go back.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| Same. After my third reinstall of Windows 10 thanks to broken
| forced updates I fully switched and I don't think I'll ever go
| back. I lost a lot of software compatibility but gained a sense
| of freedom, with an OS that doesn't feel like it's actively
| trying to ruin my day, but just...runs. Without doing anything
| weird by itself.
| no_time wrote:
| >When Windows 10 came out, the telemetry, MS account features,
| forced auto updates/reboots made my computer feel like it was
| no longer my own.
|
| Oh you don't know how good we have it. You just wait until
| Pluton comes out. Right now there is always a patch, a registry
| hack or some kind of modification that makes everything
| bearable. With Pluton you are 100% at the mercy of MS.
| Agentlien wrote:
| I switched to Linux entirely and used nothing else during
| approximately 2009-2014. I managed to do everything I wanted,
| including playing the latest games (with a bit of effort), and
| it felt so much better. What ultimately made me switch back was
| the lack of support for DX11 in Wine. I've heard that they've
| solved those problems now and gaming on Linux seems to be
| viable again.
|
| I would love to switch back in response to this. Unfortunately,
| I've since transitioned to working fully remote and I worry
| using Linux for my work might not be viable.
| sniglom wrote:
| Exactly the same. I bought a new computer 2017, the telemetry,
| account nagging and forced auto updates + reboots became too
| much.
|
| Updates could remove old Windows applications I had installed,
| change the default application association, or just break the
| installation. Every warning that I thoughtfully chose to
| dismiss came back with every update. Don't like to integrate
| your AV with the cloud? We will make sure you to warn you on
| every. single. update.
|
| It felt like I didn't own the system nor that I was the
| administrator of it.
|
| All this made me switch to Linux permanently. It made me take
| the steps from dualboot, VMs and experimentation.
|
| For those few times per year when I need Windows, I connect a
| separate disk with Windows, boot it up and do my thing.
|
| Usually the next time I come back to the computer, Windows has
| forcefully rebooted back to Linux. Thanks.
|
| If Windows 11 requires an account, I guess I'll stick to my old
| Windows 10 installation until it stops working. Hopefully I
| won't need Windows for anything by then.
| Technetium wrote:
| Supposedly non-Home versions of Windows 11 will let you use a
| local account. At least you know how long Win10 will be
| supported, you've got plenty of time (10/14/2025). Source:
| https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
| us/lifecycle/products/windows-...
| FpUser wrote:
| I would love me to move to Linux completely. However healthy
| share of my income comes from my desktop products. And since I
| have tens of thousands of customers for those it would be a
| business suicide trying to convince them to use Linux. Even
| without it there are programs I use on Windows that are not
| available for Linux. So no, moving completely to Linux is
| currently unrealistic for me.
| mackrevinack wrote:
| your can't just run the windows stuff in a VM? although it
| helps if you have a beefy enough system, otherwise it can be
| kind of sluggish if you have a lot of other things open in
| Linux as well. its a great way to keep windows at arms length
| though
|
| using seamless mode in virtualBox is pretty neat too
| mackrevinack wrote:
| i had pretty much the same feeling about not owning my computer
| anymore. someone person/people in redmond were deciding my
| computer should update and not me.
|
| the last straw for me was one time when i had 10 minutes to
| kill before i headed out the door, so i sat down to do stuff on
| my computer, but when i turned out in it decided it wanted to
| update, and took most of the 10 minutes to do that. so dumb
| proactivesvcs wrote:
| Pretty much the same reasons why I also moved to Kubuntu. I fix
| computers for a living and even I found it a comfortable switch
| and actually find using Linux preferable to Windows 7. A lot of
| the command-line tools I use are faster and compiling software
| is a cinch. Thanks, Microsoft, for making my job easier.
| skohan wrote:
| Yes exactly - MS does not respect the user's ownership of their
| own hardware.
|
| My favorite thing about Linux is that it does what I tell it
| to, and that's all it does.
| gorjusborg wrote:
| MS is making me sad. I like what they are doing in some
| areas, like WSL2, but on the other hand, they are taking cues
| from Apple on how to treat computing customers.
|
| The "we'll protect you, but you need to login and install
| everything through our store" paradigm is an awful trade, in
| my opinion.
| skohan wrote:
| I don't know, I think they are bad in a different way from
| Apple, and in my opinion this way is worse. Apple enforces
| what is and isn't allowed on their platform with an "Apple
| knows best" attitude, but besides this the UX basically
| respects the user and gets out of your way.
|
| Microsoft uses dark patterns to actively bully the user
| into doing what they want you to do.
|
| Also WSL2 is fine, but I have the feeling they are only
| doing this because Windows was becoming the 3rd class
| development platform behind Linux and Mac. For modern
| development you _need_ to be able to speak *nix, so MS did
| not have much of a choice here but to come up with some
| kind of solution.
| ndury wrote:
| I am in the same boat, I dropped all Microsoft products in
| 2014. There is literally nothing I do with my PC for which I
| need Microsoft products. It's very unfortunate to keep seeing
| these things pop up. It's like MS does not care or value the
| users of the machines and their operating systems.
| haolez wrote:
| I wonder if ReactOS[0] will eventually catch-up in business
| environments where this kind of bullshit is less/not acceptable.
|
| [0] https://reactos.org/
| no_time wrote:
| Unless ReactOS developers figure out a way to multiply by
| binary fission we will all be in the ground by the time they
| catch up with windows 10.
|
| Using linux as HAL and Wine as a compatibility layer has a much
| greater chance of ever becoming mainstream.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| It seems as though this bullshit is perfectly acceptable in
| business environments. Hell, many businesses are mandating that
| all employees have a Microsoft account anyway (Office 365). Why
| would business environments care that their workers' have to
| make a Microsoft account to log into their work laptops? IT
| surely has remote control of it and can get them access if they
| get locked out.
|
| The people who are MOST upset about this are the HN crowd.
| We're control freaks who are used to Linux, and the thought of
| Microsoft making us log into their filthy servers to run our
| own PCs maddens us.
|
| So yeah, ReactOS may become a viable techie OS at some point. I
| encourage everyone to contribute to it if possible, as it is
| open-source.
| haolez wrote:
| That's true when everything is working as expected. But when
| things go bad (e.g. you can't login to your machine),
| business do care.
|
| My business depends a lot on Azure AD. A couple months ago,
| Azure AD went down for several hours worldwide. It was a
| wakeup call that SLAs can be broken and that the vendors are
| usually not transparent regarding the uptime of their
| platforms (the status pages are always green!).
| gyulai wrote:
| > Why would business environments care that their workers'
| have to make a Microsoft account to log into their work
| laptops?
|
| One case in point would be: If that business happens to be
| located in the E.U. where GDPR prevents employers from
| exposing their employees to privacy liabilities of this sort.
| For example GDPR is already a major stumbling block to the
| adoption of Office 365 by european business, which is why
| many are using ancient versions of office, microsoft-
| alternatives, or are using Office 365 but without being able
| to really sleep all that soundly, hoping that employees won't
| sue and privacy regulators won't act. The legal position,
| however, is quite clear.
| _trampeltier wrote:
| There are also isolated networks in industry. Wonder how such
| things should work in future.
| Animux wrote:
| The article only talks about Windows 11 Home. There might be
| exceptions for a Pro version.
| extropy wrote:
| There will always be an enterprise and LTS versions without
| online requirement
| cm2187 wrote:
| No our nuclear facilities are running on Home editions!
| brushfoot wrote:
| This makes me want to move back to Linux, but last time I tried
| Ubuntu (2020) there were lots of little annoyances. Off the top
| of my head:
|
| - Screen tearing. I Googled around and installed the Nvidia
| drivers for my laptop, but it never went away.
|
| - No detection of tablet mode.
|
| - No auto screen rotation.
|
| - Slow Blender rendering. Probably a PEBKAC with my driver setup,
| but it just worked in Windows and it was easy to select Nvidia
| vs. integrated graphics.
|
| - MS Teams shared my desktop as a giant blur.
|
| - LibreOffice is still bad and incompatible with what my company
| does in Office, though that may matter less with Office Online.
|
| Is there a distro that Just Works more so than Ubuntu? I'm sure I
| could have solved all of the above with enough time and effort,
| but I'm not in a good position to do that right now.
| exceptione wrote:
| As a long time Windows user that tried Linux in the past with
| no avail, I finally found my love in Manjaro KDE. Because it is
| based on Arch, it is closer to cutting edge which is a good
| thing wrt hardware support. I especially love that you can just
| switch kernels from the GUI. The good thing is that it Arch
| with safety belts, with a wide array of curated packages. If
| you feel more adventurous, you can also reach out for arch
| packages from the same package manager.
|
| Being on KDE means I am ahead of Windows.
|
| Using MS Teams in ungoogled chromium for maximum privacy works.
|
| I have no experience with Nvidea drivers, but I see a lot of
| hits at disabling the Nouveau driver. But again, this might be
| solved with running a more recent kernel.
|
| It's not as simple as Windows, but my time investment to read
| the release notices is minimal. An other benefit is that your
| system doesn't slow as your os install ages.
| chokma wrote:
| I tried Manjaro recently - just in time to run into the
| Nvidia update disaster (black screen on boot, broken X-server
| due to system update). And no amount of fiddling with the
| config files and nouveau / proprietary drivers brought the
| system back into a usable state. So back to Ubuntu it was...
| vimacs2 wrote:
| I'm not arguing that this will necessarily fix your woes as
| I have no experience with any Nvidia hardware but one of
| the greatest but in hindsight obvious discoveries I made
| with regards to management of my Arch based system was
| discovering how to downgrade packages. Once you know how to
| do this, it's a lot less painful having to deal with broken
| updates - which are pretty rare anyway.
|
| I personally cannot stand using Ubuntu and it seems I'm not
| alone in that regard. I hear nonstop issues with it from my
| friends who tried it and I attribute a lot of failed Linux
| converstions of people thanks to it.
|
| https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Downgrading_packages
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Same exact experience here. Now I get why people told me to
| avoid rolling release distros.
|
| I used Manjaro entirely because of its i3/bspwm DE
| versions. Ubuntu now has a good equivalent in the form of
| regolith. Avoid Manjaro if you care about long term system
| stability
| philliphaydon wrote:
| I had the issue with Screen Tearing, its baffling to me that
| out of the box Windows with no GPU drivers for AMD/Nvidia does
| not suffer from this issue, yet this issue has existed on Linux
| since the dawn of time.
|
| However, moving from Ubuntu to Manjaro (KDE Plasma) based on
| recommendation from someone on HN, oh it almost /just works/
| without issues. There's just little gotchas along the way but
| atleast it doesn't make me want to tear my hair out like Ubuntu
| flavours do.
| rvanlaar wrote:
| - Give Pop!_OS a try. It's main selling point is that it just
| works with modern hardware.
|
| Aside, don't expect switching OS-es to be a walk in the park.
| Most things will work as good as on windows. You'll probably
| have to do some custom configuration for your laptop. Tweaks
| for your specific laptop model will be documented on the arch
| wiki.
| cassepipe wrote:
| I don't know. I installed Linux Mint three years ago and it
| was kinda of a walk in the park. Only now I don't have to
| take care of my OS (why is it slow? What are those things
| running on startup? Is this malware? Etc. Is this program
| legit?). It just gets out of the way.
| COGlory wrote:
| So for some quick background, I currently operate a number of
| Linux PCs. 3 GUI workstations at work. 2 headless servers (one
| at work, one at home). 2 desktop PCs (one at work, one at
| home). I also have multiple laptops running Linux (including a
| Dell XPS with Nvidia graphics), and I have a PinePhone (Linux
| phone).
|
| I say this from the bottom of my heart as someone that loves
| Linux: If you have a laptop with Nvidia graphics - don't bother
| trying to run Linux. The experience is just miserable.
|
| There are two major things in the way:
|
| 1) Nvidia's drivers themselves are not very good and present
| day-to-day problems (like screen tearing and other
| artifacting), especially when trying to use Wayland (the next
| generation window manager on Linux). This _may_ be fixed soon,
| Nvidia has been finally laying the groundwork for better
| compatibility with Wayland desktop. Alternately, if all you
| need is X11, then go ahead and don 't bother with Wayland,
| which sidesteps this problem nicely. But if you have a higher
| DPI display and want decent display scaling, or ever plug into
| an external display, unfortunately Wayland is a necessity, and
| currently, it's miserable with Nvidia.
|
| 2) Power management/graphics switching is a miserable
| experience. There is prime render offload, but it's not very
| intelligent. Which means you have to remember to start
| applications with a flag every time you want to use the Nvidia
| GPU, which introduces all kinds of bugs. Alternately, you can
| just leave the Nvidia GPU as default, but that introduces more
| bugs (for instance, on my XPS, it killed my audio because
| somehow the Nvidia GPU took over audio output and after months
| of trying, I still couldn't fix it). Furthermore, it completely
| drains your battery. This is something that is almost certainly
| not going to be fixed.
|
| On desktop, Linux is 95%-99% usable. On an Intel or AMD laptop,
| it's the same way. But on a laptop with Nvidia graphics, it's
| just not worth the headache. There's no complete solution,
| there's only tradeoffs.
|
| That said, I recommend openSUSE Leap as an OS, because I find
| it's the best of all the tradeoffs. It's very stable, there's a
| corporation behind it that needs to keep it running. The
| release cycle is nice for desktop. YaST makes things very easy
| to manage the PC. The only real "tradeoffs" are that you need
| to install AV codecs from a community repository, and Nvidia
| drivers from a community repository (both are easily enabled
| through YaST).
| coldpie wrote:
| I'm a long-time Linux user and my job is to develop open source
| software primarily used on Linux. My suggestion to you is to
| get a Mac. I'm not aware of any Linux distros that are suitable
| for non-developers. I wish it was otherwise, but it just isn't.
| zorrolovsky wrote:
| > I'm not aware of any Linux distros that are suitable for
| non-developers
|
| This is quite a bold statement. I'm not a developer and
| recently installed a number of linux distros to try which is
| best. Some of them were actually easier to install than
| Windows or MacOS. For example Linux Mint was a breeze, and I
| used full disk encryption and other 'advanced' settings.
| skohan wrote:
| I think it depends on what you do with it. I have a linux
| machine which I use primarily for Steam and watching movies,
| and I feel like anyone could do it (except for the install of
| course, you would need a technical friend for that)
| FpUser wrote:
| Actually I put Linux on my mother's laptop. Since then the
| amount of support calls got down to nothing. Her use is of
| course limited to just web browsing / email.
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| been disappointed by everything except PopOS
| npteljes wrote:
| Regarding office, ONLYOFFICE promises higher degree
| compatibility with MS formats than the other offices, while
| still being open source.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| I've found WPS Office to be pretty good after trying
| LibreOffice and having some compatibility issues.
|
| I use Ubuntu, but don't do anything heavy graphical, so don't
| have those issues you're mentioning and it works great for me.
| 1337turtle wrote:
| Sounds like you have a more complex 2in1 setup. Linux isn't
| great for those since those system are heavily designed to be
| used with Windows and will require the Linux community to play
| catchup and implement the correct drivers for Linux to play
| nice on it.
|
| Recommend a simpler laptop that is well known to work well with
| Linux. There are resources out there to determine how well
| Linux will run on it before purchase.
| fouric wrote:
| If someone asks for a software/OS recommendation, "get better
| hardware" is generally not the right advice.
| int_19h wrote:
| Linux Mint and Zorin OS are two examples. But I still wouldn't
| say they're "good enough".
| tpoacher wrote:
| for me Linux Mint was the first (and therefore last) linux that
| worked so well that there was no point experimenting with other
| linuxes anymore.
|
| it's supposed to be "ubuntu-based", but the usability
| difference between the two is night and day.
| zorrolovsky wrote:
| I agree! Linux Mint is very easy to install and to use. I
| tried both the ubuntu and debian flavours and I love the
| simplicity and elegance of cinnamon.
| FpUser wrote:
| Snap alone is enough for me not to use new Ubuntu. I am
| sticking to Linux Mint for now for my own desktop setups.
| Servers are a bit different story.
| Macha wrote:
| > - No detection of tablet mode.
|
| Well, Microsoft are getting rid of tablet mode in Windows 11,
| so soon it will be at parity :p
| hawthornio wrote:
| Elementary OS is positioning itself a Linux distro that Just
| Works TM, but I haven't used it anywhere near as much as
| Ubuntu/Gnome so I can't definitively say.
| Brakenshire wrote:
| I don't think they put any emphasis on tablet or 2-in-1
| support, so might not be a good choice for this person.
|
| I think it's an excellent choice for a standard desktop or
| laptop.
| pjerem wrote:
| For what it's worth, Elementary OS is really a cool OS as
| long as you don't expect to be able to customize it. Its UI
| and ergonomics are really different from the Gnome/KDE/XFCE
| and is really consciously designed.
|
| The trade of is that you have to love it or hate it because
| you can barely change anything, but it deserves to be loved.
| I'm back to Windows for an undetermined span of time but I'll
| gladly reinstall ElementaryOS as soon as I can probably pay
| for it.
| forgotpwd16 wrote:
| How is it really different from GNOME? The interface looks
| like modified GNOME, the apps look similar to their GNOME
| counterparts, and they even refer GNOME in their HIG.
| pjerem wrote:
| It's just simply not Gnome at all. It's not even a fork.
| Most of the base apps are developed by the ElementaryOS
| team (with their own framework on top of Gtk) and they
| are really impressive.
|
| So, listing differences with Gnome would be like
| comparing Gnome & KDE.
| C19is20 wrote:
| ...try being an audio engineer on Linux.
| fartcannon wrote:
| It's awesome? It's how I do all my audio.
| HKH2 wrote:
| This might fix screen tearing for you (it did for me anyway):
|
| https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NVIDIA/Troubleshooting#Avoi...
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| You don't become a 2 trillion dollar company by helping Joe
| Sixpack.
|
| You do it by serving corporations, owned by a few of the ultra
| wealthy, who have captured all the economic productivity gains
| that MS-like software has brought the world economy.
| lbriner wrote:
| It is sadly part of a dark pattern called "stickiness". You can
| dress it up as functionally useful or even important but
| ultimately it is about companies wanting to create enough of a
| dependency that you have to continue using them, which is anti-
| competitive.
|
| Gone are the days where you bought something from a shop with no
| stickiness other than good service brought you back. Now there
| are far too many Marketing Managers who see stickiness as a win,
| even though the win is only to the supplier and not to the
| customer.
|
| It is similar to those web sites who ask you whether you want
| "notifications" from them in your OS! Nope.
| cloverich wrote:
| First company I quit in my professional engineering career was
| over this. Not precisely this, but same concept. My
| constructive cynical take is this: If a company is spending
| money on this kind of stickiness, they aren't spending it on
| features users want and need. Which opens the doors for
| competitors to do just that. Their artificial moat will provide
| them some protection, but against a long term onslaught of
| "lock in" vs "features people want", the latter will eventually
| win. That company I quit has taken a long time to die, but its
| demise is of no surprise, because they lost focus on the thing
| that made them successful to begin with.
| xattt wrote:
| I would love to see the internal documents that Apple has on
| maintaining stickiness. I'm sure it contains a trove of terms
| and concepts that would enable a meaningful discussion.
|
| For example, using Apple Music was the default for the HomePod.
| Using any other music service was clunky (coincidentally or
| deliberately).
|
| Another point is the Apple Watch. Switching to an Android phone
| would mean getting rid of two devices.
| donmcronald wrote:
| I've always called it adhesive ToS. I hate it and I think it
| should be illegal. You set up an account and all you need is an
| email address. Then, all of a sudden, they need your phone
| number "for security." Then your name and DoB "for the security
| of your account." Soon it'll be a credit card for age
| verification.
|
| And the whole time you _better_ give them accurate information
| because if they ever lock your account you 'll be expected to
| send photo ID so they can verify it.
|
| The next step is subscriptions. The entire point of forced
| logins is because that allows them to build future features as
| subscription only. Think about how online SaaS works and how
| everyone eventually switches to a subscription product by
| keeping, but abandoning the existing service and building all
| new features on a subscription model. With everyone forced to
| log in Windows is essentially a SaaS. They're just not charging
| for it. Yet!
|
| Remember when you could get a free custom domain on Outlook.com
| or GMail? Anyone on those services was allowed to keep their
| stuff, but huge effort has been made to devalue and de-market
| those historical accounts. Microsoft shut down the _entire_
| admin side of things and Google excludes them from most new
| features.
|
| Get out your wallet. Prices are going up.
| smartmic wrote:
| I would not call this "stickiness" - it is about having control
| over your customers. The latter is hierarchical, not on eye's
| level. Stickiness could imply a quid pro quo status though.
| akagusu wrote:
| More sad than companies using this pattern is that people know
| it but don't care about it.
|
| It does not matter how many bad things a company can do, people
| simply doesn't care.
| swiley wrote:
| > bought something from a shop with no stickiness
|
| If you want this you can still have it, you just need to follow
| a simple rule:
|
| Absolutely no non-free non community maintained software ever
| period.
| Retric wrote:
| OSS software isn't immune to this stuff either. Many projects
| want to increase the number of people using them.
|
| What's different is the community pushes back on annoying
| examples where customers are mostly stuck with that they
| purchased and don't have a say.
| ajdude wrote:
| You're getting downvoted but I've seen this even with
| Firefox and Ubuntu lately. No, I don't want to log into a
| web account!
|
| Then you have stuff like this:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26114194
| ghoward wrote:
| And this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27068400
| pschastain wrote:
| So you don't do mobile? Because I don't know of any truly
| functional mobile platforms other than Android and iOS,
| neither of which is community-maintained.
| [deleted]
| criddell wrote:
| For most people it would mean giving up far more than they
| would gain.
| swiley wrote:
| It might appear that way but much of the cost of non-
| community-maintained software is hidden and people don't
| realize it until long after it becomes expensive to leave.
| Because of this I'm not sure I agree.
| criddell wrote:
| Do you have any examples?
|
| I don't think it's true for most mainstream consumer-
| level stuff. For example, you're suggestion would mean I
| can't play console video games, stream movies, or even
| watch DVDs.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Free, community maintained software have all sorts of
| problems too.
|
| Essentially, the problem is that the software is made to fit
| the developers needs, not the user needs. If they both have
| the same needs, that's great, if they don't most people are
| better off with a commercial solution.
|
| Also keep in mind that in most major free software, the
| "community" is mostly for-profit companies that want the
| software to fit their own needs and they have no money to
| spend for anything else.
|
| This is free software working as intended, and in some cases
| (like Linux), it works really great. But it is not a silver
| bullet and proprietary software still is the best answer in
| some cases.
| swiley wrote:
| >fit the developers needs, not the user needs.
|
| This is why I qualified open source with "community
| maintained." When there's a strong partition between the
| community and the developers then FOSS looks a lot like
| closed software.
| vimacs2 wrote:
| > This is why I qualified open source with "community
| maintained." When there's a strong partition between the
| community and the developers then FOSS looks a lot like
| closed software.
|
| I'm just going to come out and say that I think Gnome and
| Firefox are two of the worst offenders of this.
| voakbasda wrote:
| Worst, but not nearly the only. This kind of partitioning
| describes the vast majority of new projects that I
| encounter and have an interest in helping. Most ironic
| are those projects that simultaneously purport to have a
| mission for human rights and freedom.
| zxzax wrote:
| Not really, you just happened to pick two projects that
| are particularly large and particularly old. Drive-by
| commits are a lot less valuable in those type of
| projects, unfortunately, but you can still find places to
| contribute if you spend the time to look.
| swiley wrote:
| Right. At least with Gnome even distro maintainers
| struggle to keep up with the churn and build it, users
| have little hope of success there. The result is a
| partition between the community and the developers who
| spend a lot of time in the code.
|
| Firefox has a similar situation although I would argue it
| isn't quite as bad.
| zxzax wrote:
| If you have suggestions on how to fix that I think a lot
| of people would love to hear it, but for now, sadly the
| task of building a fully complete desktop and application
| platform means that there is a lot of code and a lot of
| churn. This is true of every single major platform.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| > Essentially, the problem is that the software is made to
| fit the developers needs, not the user needs. If they both
| have the same needs, that's great, if they don't most
| people are better off with a commercial solution.
|
| The first part may be true, but the second doesn't follow.
| In the case of software like Windows, etc, can you say it
| actually fits the user's needs? I mean sure, if Windows
| does what you expect and Linux / macOS don't, sure, it's
| great. But what if it doesn't?
|
| I really hate non-resizable control windows, what can I do
| about it? I also hate the pure white interface that burns
| my eyes. How should I go about tweaking it? The list of
| ways Windows annoys me is extremely long, and I don't feel
| like I have any say in them. The same goes for macOS,
| though to a lesser degree.
|
| This software seems to be made to benefit the "developers"
| (MS). People have been complaining about telemetry in Win10
| and MS just ignores it.
|
| You could argue that since I'm still using my 2013 MBP and
| basically only use Windows when I have no choice (gaming),
| I'm not really a client any more of either MS or Apple.
|
| I guess in the case of bespoke software, or even in a case
| where each client is big enough for a company to listen to
| them, then they may steer the software's direction.
|
| But for a random consumer OS? I _really_ don 't think so.
| My client is a fairly big European company, and they use
| Windows on their employees' desktops. There are ways in
| which Windows annoys them, but they have exactly 0 ways of
| changing this (other than dropping Windows).
| bostonpete wrote:
| That rule is simple to state, but damn near impossible to
| actually execute. I can't imagine the hoops you'd have to
| jump through to have a cell phone following this simple rule.
| I appreciate the push towards open source -- obviously a lot
| of good has come of it, but I'll happily take stickiness for
| convenience in many situations.
| rovr138 wrote:
| Pinephone.
|
| I believe the idea is that anything with blobs can be
| hardware disabled.
| swiley wrote:
| > I can't imagine the hoops you'd have to jump through to
| have a cell phone following this simple rule.
|
| It was hard, thankfully pine64 exists and it's no longer
| any more difficult than following on the desktop.
| orangepanda wrote:
| Rolled your own cellular infrastructure as well?
| swiley wrote:
| They're working on that interestingly enough, but that
| kind of thing does take time.
| pschastain wrote:
| Plenty of community-maintained software for it?
| swiley wrote:
| Yeah! The entire desktop Linux software library is
| available and that has a _lot_ of really good, community
| maintained software.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Is much of that library good on mobile?
| swiley wrote:
| It depends on the UI configuration. I run an overlapping
| desktop WM on mine and as long as the software doesn't
| need a second mouse button it's fine.
| orangepanda wrote:
| He said, on a non community maintained forum.
|
| ---
|
| Do you mint your own hardware as well? The problem with hard
| rules is there's numerous exceptions when it doesnt make
| sense to follow, invalidating the "rule" all together.
| rovr138 wrote:
| They also did say 'software'.
| Retric wrote:
| Your monitor has software, as does basically everything
| built lately significantly more complicated than a fan.
| rovr138 wrote:
| The topic is around stickiness of software.
|
| What does your monitor have that make it sticky?
| swiley wrote:
| Television screens do have sticky features, my rule
| applies there too.
| shuntress wrote:
| To clarify this: Closed Source Proprietary software is
| fine as long as it is easily interchangeable/inter-
| operable with similar competing software.
| TheFreim wrote:
| It's a general rule that solves the stickiness problem, I
| don't think you need to go deeper than that. Is it or is it
| not true that going with community maintained software as
| much as possible prevents stickiness? We don't want to miss
| the forest.
| jstanley wrote:
| The fact that the rule can't solve every single problem in
| the world doesn't invaludate the rule.
|
| Solving some problems is still better than solving no
| problems!
| jcelerier wrote:
| > The problem with hard rules is there's numerous
| exceptions when it doesnt make sense to follow,
| invalidating the "rule" all together
|
| But rules aren't invalidated by exceptions ? The only thing
| that matters is, trying to follow the rule to the best of
| your abilities when it gives you enough benefit.
|
| In the end what matters is each independent situation - the
| rules are only guidelines to get started.
|
| FFS this was understood decades ago with the ISO 9001
| revamp where they sanctuarized that obtaining quality
| products wasn't most efficiently achieved by following
| bullet point lists religiously, and even then it was
| already common sense.
| OhHiMarkos wrote:
| I would love to see a stickyness map for the top companies that
| apply these patterns to their customers.
| cheese_van wrote:
| Even the most ordinary technically intelligent person would have
| a problem with this. And Microsoft have legions of intelligent
| tech boffins. What happened to their common sense? Surely someone
| said, "Nah, this is dumb. We're smart. Our job is to make tech
| better, not worse. Let's not push this."
|
| I just can't imagine a team of smart techs cheering this on with
| "Great idea!"
|
| What pressures transpire to induce really smart teams to make
| such extravagantly poor decisions? It's a mystery.
| Causality1 wrote:
| Is it just the mists of time that make me feel like it didn't use
| to be this way? Growing up, new versions of Windows got me so
| excited. 95, 98, 2000, XP, Vista, 7 all made me feel like my
| computer was better than it was before. Sure there were bugs, but
| my overall satisfaction went up every time. Now instead of
| reading to see what feature I'm going to gain, I read to see what
| feature I'm going to lose. I miss being a Microsoft fan. I miss
| not feeling patronized.
| CA0DA wrote:
| Same here - I remember being excited about Vista and 7. Now I
| just dread update announcements.
| prirun wrote:
| Making everyone use an online account is the first baby step
| toward forcing everyone to pay monthly/yearly to use their
| computer.
| partiallypro wrote:
| You have to do it on iOS and Google's Android, and neither cost
| anything. Why does Apple and Google get away with it but
| Microsoft doesn't?
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Every stupid mistake by Microsoft is yet another great day for
| linux.
| jve wrote:
| Except for Ubuntu Core which requires Ubuntu SSO account.
| https://ubuntu.com/download/raspberry-pi-core
|
| The requirements doesn't list internet... and I was pretty sure
| my friend pressed some button or something that asked him for
| online login, when he tried to install Ubuntu for raspberry
| (because I'm not hardcore linux guy and I use Ubuntu and I will
| be able to assist him better in that OS), but after some
| googling around, it really turns out to be true - cant install
| without SSO login.
|
| The solution for that guy? He just installed a different OS.
| craftinator wrote:
| Yeah, Ubuntu seems to be happily trudging down the path of
| evil, right behind Microsoft. They, of course, don't have the
| massive marketing budget or UX polish to match though, so
| it's not going to go nearly as well.
| KingMachiavelli wrote:
| Not really sure what the Core part means but it looks like
| the SSO part is specific to it. You can just download the
| regular ISO for ARM/RPi...
|
| Also Canonical/Ubuntu seems just have a particular bad track
| record of stuff like this. Most Linux distorts are better.
| jve wrote:
| Yeah, I find out there is the arm build. But core is a nice
| minimal core with less packages. ~350MB vs 1.1GB...
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Lol. "Linux distorts".
| pjmlp wrote:
| I keep reading it since Vista.
| whosaidwhatnow wrote:
| I've been using Windows on the desktop since 3.1. I dabble in
| linux on the desktop from time to time, and I use it on
| servers, but I've never made the switch.
|
| I was recently spurred to action by two things.
|
| 1. The forced news widget in my taskbar. 2. Being forced to
| sign into a Microsoft Account to setup my father's laptop.
| The onscreen prompts promised me that I could disable the
| account later if I wished.
|
| We all see what's coming here. We're experiencing different
| levels of it all over the place.
|
| My work machine (as in, the device I use to make my living
| with and the only device I can't actively "play with") is now
| running Arch.
|
| _I 'm out._ You guys can do what you want, but there is zero
| chance this nonsense doesn't continue and get worse.
| [deleted]
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| But also a challenge. Linux also has to introduce purely
| Microsoft/Google/whatever-account log-on (without explicit
| local user log-in preceding it) as an option because this is
| what many zoomers expect. You just give them a new computer,
| they sign-in with their account and start doing their job.
| Businesses they run also expect this when ordering
| computers/integration from you.
|
| The open source world actually needs to implement this + a
| decent offline alternative to Alexa or be left behind.
|
| I will never want to use a Microsoft/whatever account either
| but other people will.
| nlitened wrote:
| > You just give them a new computer, they sign-in with their
| account and start doing their job
|
| They can start doing their job without signing in with any
| accounts, one step fewer.
| adsfasdfadsf222 wrote:
| nah the problem is the bovine masses have everything synced
| to their microsoft account now. they dont even really know
| how the file system works
|
| just log in to your ms account on a new laptop and wait a
| few hours while everything syncs up via onedrive and its
| like every computer is your home computer
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| > they dont even really know how the file system works
|
| I wouldn't say this is a problem in the bad sense. That's
| Ok. Almost nobody (except low-level system engineers)
| really knew how the file system works ever. I always
| believed it's unreasonable to ask people to learn about
| file system internals.
|
| What I really consider a problem which should never have
| happened and should be fixed ASAP is Windows hiding file
| name extensions by default.
|
| And people having an idea of how a DOC file and a TXT
| file are different, what do TXT and HTML files have in
| common and why zipping MP4 videos doesn't save space feel
| a blessing for me to meet among non-devs.
|
| > just log in to your ms account on a new laptop and wait
| a few hours while everything syncs up via onedrive and
| its like every computer is your home computer
|
| And this is a convenience we have to reproduce. It almost
| is there - you can add a Microsoft account in Ubuntu but
| it still requires an extra step of setting a local user
| up and signing in with it first.
| executesorder66 wrote:
| I'm loving the new Microsoft.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| Can some explain what's wrong with setting up a microsoft account
| on a random email? It seems to me there are no differences in
| telemetry concerns vs. what exists currently.
| Macha wrote:
| Now you have a cloud dependency to access your local files
|
| - What happens if your Microsoft account gets blocked
| (rightfully or wrongfully)?
|
| - What happens if the next Windows update, Microsoft
| "helpfully" activates onedrive sync of your folders by default
| and exfiltrates your data? (HTC did this to me before with
| their Sense UI).
|
| - Maybe the latter leads to the folder if OneDrive syncs some
| copyrighted data to their service they think you're pirating?
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| > Now you have a cloud dependency to access your local files
|
| That doesn't make sense and isn't how signing into windows
| with a microsoft account works now.
|
| > What happens if your Microsoft account gets blocked
| (rightfully or wrongfully)?
|
| A microsoft account that was created to set up a computer and
| then never touched again?
|
| > What happens if the next Windows update, Microsoft
| "helpfully" activates onedrive sync of your folders by
| default and exfiltrates your data? (HTC did this to me before
| with their Sense UI).
|
| > Maybe the latter leads to the folder if OneDrive syncs some
| copyrighted data to their service they think you're pirating?
|
| Seems a little farfetched to me. I'd rate it on a similar
| level of risk to apple requiring me to create an id if I want
| to use any apps on my iphone.
| _pdp_ wrote:
| This feature is most useful for parental control and enterprise-
| level security.
| bradhe wrote:
| Quite cheeky for a website that asked to send me notifications
| and wants to no my location.
| villgax wrote:
| Imagine if you are on a remote island with no internet, you will
| just pray for a starlink to pass overhead or be assigned you your
| sky in order to re-format a system lol
| Agentlien wrote:
| This has me really quite upset and a bit worried. I feel very
| strongly that I will never accept this type of ultimatum and I've
| already talked to my wife about going back to Linux again.
|
| At the same time, I worry this might mean I may no longer be able
| to work from home, if my employer "upgrades" to Windows 11 and
| introduces some dependency on it. I guess if this happens I may
| need to accept commuting for two hours a day, again.
| haecceity wrote:
| Buy Windows Pro?
| eddieroger wrote:
| I agree with the sentiment of the article and many of the
| comments here, but what really struck me as the expectation of
| online availability, and the memory of a time when the Internet
| was something you connect to, not something that is always there.
| I definitely remember the days of a AOL dial-up or when we played
| with the local ISP, and you had to actively, deliberately tell
| your computer it was time to connect. Of course, I type this on
| my always-connected work computer, and enjoy my always-connected
| mobile devices, but I wonder how things would be different (maybe
| better) if the Internet wasn't just always there.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| > I Will Never Use a Microsoft Account to Log Into My Own PC
|
| Yes, you will. Eventually. They'll continue to beat you down
| until you submit. Because, here's the secret. Even though you
| built the machine from the ground up, hand selecting all the
| parts, once you install Windows, the machine belongs to
| Microsoft. No, really, it does. They certainly think so. And
| they're a rich powerful organization, so it must be so.
| [deleted]
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| Windows isn't anywhere near as ubiquitous as it used to be.
| Once W11 requires a MS login I'm not installing it for any
| friends or family - they're getting on the Linux express or
| working it out themselves.
|
| I won't be party to this BS, this isn't the future I wanted to
| facilitate.
| arp242 wrote:
| Both Android and iOS require an account to be practically
| useful for most people, and have for years. Microsoft is
| "only" following suit, and I'm afraid that a bunch of hackers
| here aren't enough to stop the tide :-/
| danhor wrote:
| At least on Android, they're not really hiding the option
| of not using an account as opposed to what microsoft is
| doing. Probably because most people will use one anyway for
| the play store.
| Brakenshire wrote:
| People here can keep an alternative alive.
| sounds wrote:
| There's a solution I put out there for my non-technical
| friends. I just tell them to buy two Android devices.
|
| Obviously with iOS this won't work, but then again, iOS
| devices aren't cheap enough for this to be a reasonable
| approach anyway.
|
| Device #1: Buy the cheapest device you can. I give my
| friends specific recommendations. Invent a new burner gmail
| account for it. Install whatever you want off the Play
| Store - obviously, use all the normal caution to avoid any
| malware. Never put any personal info on it, so never put a
| SIM card in it, just connect over wifi.
|
| Device #2: Buy a nice Android device. Never sign in. Put
| the SIM card in this one. Side load apps and update them by
| extracting the APK from device #1. Export your contacts
| from Google and load them manually (and save a backup).
| Access your email using IMAP from a third party app. Backup
| your photos using a third party app. The point is _not_ to
| use Google Pay, Google Assistant, and Google Cloud.
|
| * Google Maps works without being signed in
|
| * Google Play Store will update Google Maps (and the
| default apps on the device) without being signed in, but it
| does use dark patterns to try to get you to sign in
|
| * Android OS updates will work without being signed in
|
| It is more work, no question. It works for me. Your mileage
| may vary. Disclaimer that I'm posting in kind of a hurry,
| so I'll just admit the details here probably don't make
| sense.
| cosmojg wrote:
| Why not just get a nice phone with good support for
| unlocking/rooting and run LineageOS instead?
|
| Sent from my OnePlus 6T running LineageOS.
| sounds wrote:
| An open source replacement for Android just can't put in
| the same level of effort as the entire Android ecosystem
| does, so LineageOS is at a fundamental disadvantage.
|
| If I am going to go with a different OS than Android,
| I'll get a Librem so I'm paying the company that made the
| hardware AND software, with incentives aligned for me to
| be a supported, acknowledged user.
| john2010 wrote:
| +1 for your ideas!
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| That is hardly a solution. You also act like by
| "inventing" a burner account that Google has no clue who
| you are, but that is simply not the case. If so their
| service would be overrun with spammers. Generally they
| require that you also verify a real phone number to setup
| an account.
|
| Also, once you've done all this you can download APKs
| from Google Play Store without needing a burner phone.
| They've had extensions that do this for some time. Might
| as well just do it from the computer and or use an
| alternative app store.
|
| If you really don't want someone to sign in to Google
| services, then there are ROMs made specifically for that.
| Have them use CardDav and CalDav. Use email with IMAP,
| etc. The route you've chose seems way too convoluted for
| no purpose other than the illusion that you're somehow
| unidentifiable.
| sounds wrote:
| We're solving different problems.
|
| By purchasing a burner phone, I am definitely traceable
| by law enforcement. You want to be untraceable after a
| crime - I'm not solving that problem.
|
| Your other suggestions are fine ideas, there's not a
| specific right or wrong way to do it.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| > By purchasing a burner phone, I am definitely traceable
| by law enforcement
|
| Well, it really depends on how you buy it and where you
| use it. Yes, they can locate your phone based on
| triangulation. However, you can buy a prepaid burner
| phone outside of your area and then use it to create a
| Google account and then make sure you are using a VPN
| when connecting from a residential location. However, I
| don't really see the use in buying a burner phone just to
| download APKs from. You can do the same without one. I
| agree, that it does work to accomplish what you mentioned
| but I was just trying to explain that there is a much
| easier route without the additional burden.
| sounds wrote:
| Then you're not one of those people I would recommend it
| to.
|
| You seem to have missed the biggest part of why I
| recommend this to some people - never, ever put a SIM in
| the burner phone. It's just for that burner gmail address
| you use to get into the Google Walled Garden.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| You don't need a separate Android device for that though.
| That was the point. You can do that with third-party
| extensions, websites, etc. Last but not least, in order
| to create a Google burner account you likely need a real
| phone number. Whenever you sign up for a Google account
| it asks you to verify a phone number.
| sounds wrote:
| I've successfully created numerous new accounts, on an
| Android device, with no SIM card.
|
| It looks like there's no proof either way. Are you
| testing without a SIM card?
| metalliqaz wrote:
| why have a burner phone at all if you're going to do
| this? just get the APKs from the web
| bruce343434 wrote:
| Your cause is noble but this is just way too much effort.
| sounds wrote:
| It's the same amount of effort for a desktop PC and
| desktop OS: apps have to do their own updating because I
| installed them myself. The sibling poster suggested using
| an alternative app store, which seems like a good way to
| make this less onerous, with the downside of more
| malware...
|
| I want the same benefit as the desktop PC, specifically
| that I own it, control it, and don't have to sign in to
| use it.
| babypuncher wrote:
| This is way too paranoid of an approach for 99% of users.
| judge2020 wrote:
| 'ownership' is just a term to mean the physical representation
| of your expensive hardware. When you install Windows you can't
| just use the parts that allow you to benefit from their
| hundreds of millions of dollars worth of work without giving
| them the data they also ask for before you can use it. Everyone
| is moving to this but it only works because people still want
| to reap the benefits of the investments these big companies
| have made, so for as long as people pay for the products/use
| the products they'll continue to make using Windows/iOS/Android
| such a value proposition with the "only" price being yout data.
| No amount of money can match what they'll get in share value
| from having that user data.
| maxk42 wrote:
| This kind of behavior inspired me to finally make the switch to
| full-time Linux eight years ago. I've tried Ubuntu, Arch,
| Fedora, and a handful of smaller distros. But with the Cinnamon
| desktop environment my day to day computing experience is truly
| enjoyable next to the constant slew of confirmation dialogs and
| dark patterns a Microsoft experience provides.
|
| However - you're right. Whenever I want to play a video game,
| there's a 90% chance I have to use Windows to do it. So now I
| keep two computers - one for gaming, one for everything else.
| Each time I log into the gaming computer I'm reminded how much
| Windows sucks.
|
| I just feel really bad for the average computer user who knows
| intuitively this is wrong but doesn't know how to do things
| like install linux or have the money to purchase an Apple
| machine.
| 6d6b73 wrote:
| Coming in Windows 12 - monthly subscription.
| xtiansimon wrote:
| On my personal I've tried and failed to change my login email
| address for a domain I no longer own.
|
| At work I'm constantly updating registry to take videos, pictures
| etc out of my explorer window. Fracking clueless. Why should any
| of this be in Windows Pro is beyond me.
| w4rh4wk5 wrote:
| Fun fact, password for my Microsoft account sits in my password
| manager. If I can't log into my PC, I can't access that password.
|
| And no, I am not going to remember that, or change it to
| something simpler. (Yes I know about entropy and correct horse
| battery staple!)
| rebuilder wrote:
| Microsoft can reset that password for you. Or, presumably,
| anyone that convincingly pretends to be you. Which is why I'm
| not going to tie my Windows login to an MS account.
| fart32 wrote:
| Same here. If I ever loose access to all my devices at once,
| I'm not logging back.
| kyrra wrote:
| This is why I haven't taken the dive either. Though, is this
| why Microsoft crested Hello?
|
| https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/sign-in-to-your-...
| w4rh4wk5 wrote:
| Might be, I don't know. But I am not going to use biometrics
| either, for various reasons.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Hello also has a "PIN" method, a 4-8 digit numerical code.
| xena wrote:
| Hello only works with a Microsoft account
| fart32 wrote:
| Would you mind sharing few of them? I use fingerprint
| reader on my phone and laptop, is there a reason I
| shouldn't? Face recognition is something I have a problem
| with. I don't like cameras, especially those you cannot
| unplug.
| Nexxxeh wrote:
| Not OP, but...
|
| Fingerprints, as far as most readers are concerned,
| aren't too difficult to duplicate sufficiently.
|
| You can obtain someone's fingerprints from photos, as the
| German defence minister found out years ago[1]. Also you
| leave them everywhere and your laptop is likely covered
| in them. You can't effectively change or revoke them.
|
| You can reproduce them with varying levels of success
| with photoshop, a laser printer, gelatin and some home
| PCB etching gear.
|
| And unlike passwords, there's no 5th amendment right
| covering them for Yanks. (The latter is debatable for
| passwords, but is absolutely not for fingerprints.)
|
| They may be "good enough" security, depending on your
| threat model. But they're pretty shit for security, all
| things considered.
|
| [1] https://arstechnica.com/information-
| technology/2014/12/polit...
| fart32 wrote:
| > And unlike passwords, there's no 5th amendment right
| covering them for Yanks.
|
| Good point, thank you.
| w4rh4wk5 wrote:
| For biometrics in general, there's a huge list, starting
| from cannot change and therefore rely on the
| implementation, all the way down to hard to deny that I
| have access. While I can say, no, I don't have a password
| to this random device you are showing me, with
| biometrics, you can just wave it in front of my face and
| it unlocks. Maybe even when I am asleep / unconscious.
|
| For the specific case here, about my laptop: for
| instance, I can't simply hand the notebook to my dad,
| _telling_ him the password and he's good to go. This is
| the downside where I can't simply share a (biometric)
| login, even if I want to. Which also means that every
| access automatically implies that it's really me, and not
| someone else I just gave quick access to without
| reconfiguring the system.
| invisiblewasabi wrote:
| Biometrics are typically immutable. If your password gets
| compromised, you can simply change it. You can't change a
| fingerprint.
| amanzi wrote:
| One thing Microsoft does really well is passwordless logins. As
| long as you've set up MFA with the Microsoft Authenticator app,
| you won't need your Microsoft account password to log in ever
| again. Instead, when you log in, you receive a notification in
| your Authenticator app which lets you log in without a
| password.
| trynumber9 wrote:
| Except on the Xbox. I turned mine on the other day and it
| requested that I re-enter my stupidly long, randomly
| generated password. There was no option to send an
| authorization email or use a code. Entering that password
| with an Xbox controller was a very unpleasant experience.
| amanzi wrote:
| That sucks. I don't have an Xbox and hearing that makes me
| never want one.
| guffaw5 wrote:
| I believe you can plug in a USB keyboard and enter it that
| way.
| alyandon wrote:
| My pseudo-workaround to deal with this is to use a Microsoft
| account for the sole purposes of backing up my digital
| entitlements. After I've logged in once, I create a local admin
| account using the control panel and never use the online account
| again.
| sys_64738 wrote:
| Most employers are all in on MS products like Office365.
| Everything in that eco-system revolves around you MS account.
| That's the paradigm shift. I guess the flip is what makes you so
| special to buck the trend that most people have signed up for? If
| you think MS cares what you do due to some tinfoil hat type
| concern then that's one thing. Ultimately MS doesn't care what
| you do as you're not really that important. Your lack of MS
| online account is gonna be lost amongst billions of these things.
| Who cares?
| orangegreen wrote:
| On the bright side, maybe this will push more people who find
| this appalling to install Linux on their computers.
| bserge wrote:
| One can hope
| bawana wrote:
| Ms windows will become their gaming is. Linux will b their
| productivity os. Though Linux will b free, you will still need
| support contracts to get their enterprise software to work on it.
| Thus they will b able to significantly downsize their support
| department. If you don't pay for the os you won't b entitled to
| support.
| codecalec wrote:
| This requirement just does not make sense to me. Why would
| Microsoft even have this requirement? Do they want to force users
| into an account so it is easier to lead them into Office
| packages? It can't be for greater data profiles on users since
| they could do this in other less explicit ways. Microsoft just
| doesn't have the ecosystem like Apple to make this worthwhile
| from their point of view or the users.
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| This is how Chromebooks work. A Google account is needed to
| sign-in. The motive is not mysterious -- I don't believe it is
| _security_ , it is pushing _free services_ to collect more
| data. We all know that selling people 's data is deliriously
| profitable.
|
| Of course, people will create less-attributable accounts.
| spijdar wrote:
| Ironically, even Chromebooks allow you to use a guest
| account, while you absolutely must use a Microsoft account on
| Win11.
| romanovcode wrote:
| OneDrive, Edge (if you're into it) and setting sync.
|
| What do you mean it does not makes sense? I am not using MS
| login myself but saying it doesn't make sense is ridiculous.
|
| It's exactly same as what Apple does.
|
| As for people who say it's required on Windows: It's not. You
| can create local account during setup, the link is there once
| you cancel your online login. It's hidden at first, but it's
| there. You don't even have to disconnect your internet or
| anything like that. Shit move by MS (dark UI pattern) but it is
| totally possible.
| iwasakabukiman wrote:
| I can set up and sign in to MacOS without using my Apple ID
| though.
| jptech wrote:
| Correct me if i'm wrong but I think you still need to go
| online to finish the setup process?
| skohan wrote:
| I'm pretty sure you don't need a network connection to
| set up a mac unless this has changed in recent releases.
| vetinari wrote:
| No, you don't need to.
|
| There is zero-touch enterprise provisioning available,
| that requires you to be connected to a suitably
| configured local network (if learns about what it needs
| from dhcp tags), but this is not something that normal
| users need to be concerned about. For a non-MDM-managed
| mac, you can do everything offline just fine. Or you can
| be online, if you do not want to use iCloud account (I'm
| not using it either), you can finish the OOBE wizard and
| everything will be just like the user wants.
| thelibrarian wrote:
| No, it is not. Apple does encourage setting up/associating an
| Apple ID account, it is not a requirement.
| romanovcode wrote:
| God damn it how many times I have to say it: it's not
| required on Windows as well! You click cancel, then click
| tiny link at bottom to create local account. You are
| talking about things you have no idea about man.
| Bedon292 wrote:
| In the latest releases of Win 10 Home, at least once you
| have connected to the network, that button does not
| exist. They prompt you to enter your WiFi info first,
| then ask you to log in. And once you have entered the
| WiFi info you cannot get back to that screen and remove
| it until after you have set everything up. At least not
| without a factory reset, which I didn't actually try.
|
| They force you to log in with a MS account during the
| initial setup then once you are in you can add a local
| admin account. Then you can log into it and remove the MS
| account. Its absolutely horrible.
|
| I have been dealing with this a lot lately, had several
| laptops that were Home and could not get in to them
| without the MS account. Its a huge pain.
| simiones wrote:
| You can say it however many times you want, but you are
| wrong. You would have been right had you been talking
| about Windows 10 Home ~1-2 years ago.
|
| But today, Windows 10 Home only gives you the option to
| login with a local account if you are offline (no cable,
| no WiFi) _or_ you fail to login to an MS account
| _multiple times_. Only in one of those cases do they give
| you a small, relatively hidden option to use the local
| account.
| lovelyviking wrote:
| It seems you'll have to say it many times more untill
| this dark pattern will be removed. Apple uses the same
| teqchinque to trick you into using iCloud making it look
| like requrement for use your iPhone. For my taste it is
| cheating and dsigusting because even when you know it can
| be avoided you should work hard to find it especially
| when you are in a hurry and this trouble is by "design".
| Brendinooo wrote:
| The article is saying that it's going to be mandatory for
| the new home version of Windows.
| gpvos wrote:
| If so many people are directly contradicting you, you may
| want to put in a bit more research instead of relying on
| possibly outdated experience.
| iso1631 wrote:
| I don't know about windows, but the comment you're replying
| to says microsoft encourages you to set up a online account
| (which I suspect most people outside of a domain would
| actually want), but allows you to set up a local account.
|
| Yes it's a Dark UI pattern, but I have a feeling Apple do
| the same thing (I haven't set an apple laptop up for 8
| years so my memory is vague)
|
| Is that incorrect?
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| >but allows you to set up a local account
|
| Not on Windows 11 Home, using an online account has
| become mandatory.
|
| >Yes it's a Dark UI pattern, but I have a feeling Apple
| do the same thing
|
| Skipping it is a little clearer in macOS.
| sturadnidge wrote:
| According the article, come Windows 11 that will be
| incorrect.
| iso1631 wrote:
| It's an opinion piece written for clicks. Time will tell
| if it's right or not.
| Macha wrote:
| Both Microsoft's official communication and the leaked
| beta indicate that Windows 11 will require this.
| [deleted]
| astrange wrote:
| It's possible to use the iCloud password instead of your
| local account password, but it's very opt-in and not at
| all suggested by default. Signing into iCloud doesn't
| replace anything about your local accounts besides that.
| CannisterFlux wrote:
| Apparently in Windows 11 they removed that loophole, and now
| you require an internet connection at least once during setup
| to proceed.
| naikrovek wrote:
| Windows 11 _Home_ only. Pro, Enterprise, and Education don
| 't have this requirement.
| dividedbyzero wrote:
| Are any of these freely sold to individuals, or do you
| only get them as part of larger deals?
| vel0city wrote:
| Pro is sold to individuals and you can easily get a
| laptop with a Pro license from an OEM.
| dividedbyzero wrote:
| Seems like there's also Pro for Workstations. Also, full
| disk encryption seems to only be available in Pro?
| naikrovek wrote:
| Yes. Well, BitLocker is in Pro, Pro for Workstations and
| Enterprise. Same for Hyper-V, if that matters to you; not
| available in Home.
|
| Home edition is for non-commercial use. I don't know if
| that's in the EULA or not, but that's the use case that
| Home is meant for.
|
| Pro and higher are for work use cases, and features add
| on as you go up the line. Pro for Workstations and
| Enterprise support slightly different feature sets, IIRC.
| Creating new ReFS filesystems is only available on Pro
| for Workstations, for example.
| vel0city wrote:
| The other benefits of Pro for Workstations is a higher
| RAM limit (2TB vs 6TB) and socket count (2 CPU sockets vs
| 4 CPU sockets), NVDIMM-N support, and SMB Direct. Not
| normally features that would be missed on a normal PC.
| toast0 wrote:
| On Windows 10 Home, in latest releases, you actually need to
| disconnect the cable to get the move on without a Microsoft
| account links to show up. Word on the street is Windows 11 is
| going to make them actually mandatory on Home, instead of
| only pretend mandatory with lots of prompting.
| oauea wrote:
| Unless it changed very recently you can also enter a bogus
| email address several times. Not that that is much better.
| johnchristopher wrote:
| They used to have things like passport.net way back then, their
| blogging platform was also tied to a hotmail account, etc.
| discordance wrote:
| You need a Microsoft account to log into Teams, which is
| integrated into Win11.
|
| Teams seems like a big bet for Microsoft, so that's one reason.
| HelloNurse wrote:
| Hopefully it will have to be disintegrated for enterprise
| customers who aren't going to use Microsoft accounts, and
| presumably for everybody. Antitrust prosecution might also
| help.
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| I suspect they are testing the waters and see how far they can
| go with W11. If there is enough outrage about a particular
| issue, they will simply drop it.
| adolfojp wrote:
| In addition to what others have said, Microsoft accounts back
| up your full disk encryption keys to the cloud.
|
| Microsoft ships Bitlocker with every OS and given the TPM
| requirements one can speculate that it will be turned on by
| default on every Windows 11 computer.
|
| I've seen an increase of tech support posts where people boot
| up their computer after an update or motherboard change and
| they're asked for Bitlocker decryption keys and they don't know
| what those are. Their data is lost forever. Their computers are
| bricked.
|
| The experience of working in IT and modding online tech
| communities has taught me that computer literacy is very poor
| even among those who use computers every day. They're just
| appliances to most people. And this is OK. The problem is that
| the people who can't figure out what a right click does will
| never figure out how to back up their full disk encryption keys
| or even what they are.
|
| Forcing a Microsoft account on Home SKUs eliminates this
| problem.
| addicted wrote:
| To be honest, I think it's as simple as it being a better
| experience for the type of people who would buy the Home
| edition.
|
| Forcing them to log in with a MS account allows MS to provide a
| lot of the services people expect using Android or iOS as their
| primary devices. For one thing, both those devices pretty much
| require an online account as well. And they contain far more
| sensitive data.
|
| But more importantly, they also provide frictionless backups,
| syncing, and a whole host of online services as table stakes,
| and MS wants to do the same.
| fsloth wrote:
| "I think it's as simple as it being a better experience for
| the type of people who would buy the Home edition. ... allows
| MS to provide a lot of the services people expect using
| Android or iOS as their primary devices.
|
| This. 100 times.
|
| The main compute device people as a population are familiar
| with is the cellphone/tablet, and usage patterns that differ
| from this are becoming the odd man out.
|
| Consumer tech. Commoditization. Etc.
|
| We've come a long way from the 1970's. The computer as a
| commodity is actually not the same as a computer as a gizmo
| for the technically minded enthusiast.
| hulitu wrote:
| > This. 100 times.
|
| > The main compute device people as a population are
| familiar with is the cellphone/tablet, and usage patterns
| that differ from this are becoming the odd man out.
|
| (Smart)phones and tablets are not computing devices any
| more than a refrigerator. You cannot do any real work on
| them. Even finding a text editor, let alone editing, is a
| challenge. Other stuff like SW development or CAD/CAE is
| the same.
|
| > Consumer tech. Commoditization. Etc.
|
| Nothing to do with it. Just pure control and data
| collection.
|
| > We've come a long way from the 1970's. The computer as a
| commodity is actually not the same as a computer as a gizmo
| for the technically minded enthusiast.
|
| We are back in the 1960 with disabled user interfaces. When
| you need to search the internet to disable dark patterns is
| the same like reading the source code to check with which
| options to invoke the shell.
| matthewmacleod wrote:
| _You cannot do any real work on them._
|
| This is obviously and objectively untrue, and this
| attitude contributes to the exact problem that's being
| pointed out above.
|
| You can make a decent and convincing argument that
| consumer devices should be more open without trivialising
| the (very much real) work that many, many millions of
| users do with them.
| tpush wrote:
| > (Smart)phones and tablets are not computing devices any
| more than a refrigerator. You cannot do any real work on
| them.
|
| Nonsense, of course you can. 'Real work' isn't just
| programming or whatever. Writers, painters and musicians
| do plenty of 'real work' on tablets and such.
| fsloth wrote:
| Agree, my productivity with phone UI:s is near zero. But
| _that 's what billion people use_.
|
| I agree with the "get of my lawn" sentiment but that's
| not how the world uses computers anymore.
|
| I don't see how this can work either but it seems it does
| and shows no signs of returning to sane Xerox-park
| derivatives I prefer.
|
| There are power users and their needs are catered for but
| in terms of market share expert users are a diminutive
| niche.
| blendergeek wrote:
| Android devices give the users this choice. Android devices
| are definitely made for regular consumers.
|
| Already, on Windows 10, all normal users used an MS
| account. The only way to get around it was to set up a
| computer without internet and then click some non obvious
| buttons while the computer begged for an MS account. If the
| goal was making it easy for normal users to have an MS
| account, Windows 10 succeeded.
|
| The change here is that power users no longer have the
| choice to not use a cloud account. This change provides no
| benefit to the average user.
| saba2008 wrote:
| >We've come a long way from the 1970's.
|
| And going for a full circle. No more personal computers,
| just terminals connected to corporate systems, which have
| full control over data and usage.
| skohan wrote:
| And it's a shame if you ask me. PCs and laptops are _so
| powerful_ now, and all that hardware is mostly just going
| toward running chrome tabs.
| bool3max wrote:
| ... as opposed to doing what?
| skohan wrote:
| Native software
| Spivak wrote:
| Another big one is being able to reset your laptop password
| without having to take your PC into the shop for someone to
| break into it. And if you turned on Bitlocker let's hope
| that they saved their recovery key or escrowed it to their
| MS account.
|
| This is the biggest feature for my relatives who no longer
| feel dependent on a "tech person" to help them out.
| x86_64Ubuntu wrote:
| The issue is that they don't give the user a choice to NOT
| login.
| taneq wrote:
| > the type of people who would buy the Home edition
|
| I haven't looked particularly into the differences between
| 'normal' Windows 10 and the other tiers but in the past,
| 'professional' versions were actually missing things (codecs
| etc.) that you'd want on a general usage PC.
| staticman2 wrote:
| As far as I know Windows 10 Pro has everything home has and
| more. You may be thinking of enterprise editions when you
| mention missing consumer features.
| Bedon292 wrote:
| I am sure there are more, but the only things I know of
| that are in Pro and not Home are BitLocker and full
| Hyper-V. You still get WSL2 and Docker using Hyper-V under
| the hood on Home. There is also the Active Directory
| support, but unlikely an individual user cares much about
| that.
|
| I can't really think of anything missing from Pro.
| dzdt wrote:
| MS terminal services to remote connect to your pc from
| another is in Pro but not Home.
| int_19h wrote:
| It already takes a lot of effort to configure Win10 with a
| local account; so much so that there's basically zero chance
| of somebody doing it by accident.
| blendergeek wrote:
| > Forcing them to log in with a MS account allows MS to
| provide a lot of the services people expect using Android or
| iOS as their primary devices. For one thing, both those
| devices pretty much require an online account as well. And
| they contain far more sensitive data.
|
| The online account option let's MS provide these services.
| Forcing the account prevents users from opting out. Even on
| iOS, it is possible to use an iPhone without an Apple
| account. An iPhone b without an Apple account is severely
| handicapped by the inability to sideload apps. On Android it
| is not hard to set up an account without logging in to
| Google.
|
| MS could (and should) allow the same.
| arp242 wrote:
| All true, but I also think it's kind of missing the point of
| the article a bit: which isn't that a Microsoft account is
| bad in itself, or even a bad default, but rather that they go
| out of their way to make it as hard as possible for you to
| opt-out of a Microsoft account as you need to play all sort
| of non-obvious tricks to do so. They could just have some
| small text with "no thanks" and a popup "you'll miss out on
| sync, backup, etc. are you sure?"
|
| The objections are more abstract, as in "it's my bloody
| computer, allow me to do what I bloody want!" Well...
| Microsoft says no apparently.
| cmiles74 wrote:
| Password recovery seems like another big reason to push this.
| Many consumers don't really have any tech support, aside from
| vendors like Dell or HP. With an MS account, Microsoft can
| manage this process.
| hulitu wrote:
| How about security ? If MS needs to know your password than
| you can leave your computer without any password. Security
| is the same. Or you never heard of Solar Winds ?
| Spivak wrote:
| So because you can log into a website with your Google
| account and theoretically this means that a malicious
| Google could log in as you this means you might as well
| let _anyone_ log in as you?
| kijin wrote:
| Most consumers buy their PCs from big box vendors who can
| help with password recovery and whatnot. Microsoft might do
| it better, sure, but why would they want to pick up the
| cost of doing it themselves when they've been outsourcing
| it to OEMs for so long?
| cmiles74 wrote:
| I disagree that most PC vendors are capable or good at
| helping consumers reset passwords of local Windows
| accounts. This is not a trivial process, take a look at
| the HP support page on this issue.
|
| https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c04648973
|
| It's unlikely that people with Windows Home have a
| password reset disk and there's likely only the one
| account on the machine. That leaves them with "have a
| computer repair service recover your local password" or
| "reset your computer". In my opinion, the majority of
| people would be better served by a Microsoft account,
| where Microsoft can handle the reset through their
| website, rather than a password reset disk or wiping
| their machine in desperation.
|
| Also note how excited HP is to get out of the business of
| handling this very situation.
|
| > HP recommends using a Microsoft account for signing
| into Windows. Using a Microsoft account offers many
| benefits, including easy password recovery. If you
| currently have a local user account, consider switching
| to a Microsoft account after recovering or changing your
| current password.
| bennyp101 wrote:
| No, they walk into (or go online to) PC
| World/Currys/Amazon and buy a computer. Then they load it
| up and up pops Windows.
|
| The make of the computer is irrelevant to 90% of people.
| sfgweilr4f wrote:
| From the opinion piece: _" I don't know why Microsoft wants
| everyone to use an online login. I don't know why Microsoft felt
| it had the right to treat its customers the way it did with the
| Get Windows 10 campaign or its six-year battle to push everyone
| to use online accounts."_
|
| I don't know the actual answer because I don't work for Microsoft
| but I'm lazy enough to assume it is about money. Its financially
| rewarding for Microsoft to have hordes of Home users online. That
| telemetry is valuable. Those eyeballs are valuable. That level of
| engagement is valuable. Its telling that Pro and Enterprise
| versions operate without the same level. Home users always online
| is worth Microsoft either enforcing or in the very least
| "encouraging" this state.
|
| That is a sufficient theory for me. I might not have the full
| picture but its accurate enough to form opinions and predict
| Microsoft's future behavior. I'd expect multiple pathways around
| leveraging that online presence even further. You haven't seen
| anything yet. This is just the beginning.
| donmcronald wrote:
| > I don't know the actual answer because I don't work for
| Microsoft but I'm lazy enough to assume it is about money. Its
| financially rewarding for Microsoft to have hordes of Home
| users online. That telemetry is valuable. Those eyeballs are
| valuable. That level of engagement is valuable.
|
| Knowing every user is signed in and authenticated means they
| can develop new features as a (connected) subscription service.
| They can attribute usage and bill you for it. That's what it's
| about IMO. All new features, even ones that should be part of
| the core OS, will eventually be subscription services. I bet
| anyone using a free account will be getting their last feature
| update when they install Windows 11.
|
| I've seen the exact scenario play out over and over with SaaS.
| Windows with forced logins is essentially SaaS and they can use
| the same dirty tactics to make you pay forever if you want a
| usable product.
|
| It could backfire with an OS though. I'd be pretty excited for
| a version of Windows that doesn't get any new features or have
| any "online" features.
| oolonthegreat wrote:
| hopefully shady practices like this will drive more and more
| people to the light side of free OSs :)
| philipov wrote:
| When Pandora's Box was opened, all the evils of the world were
| released and burst out into the world, leaving only hope. Hope
| is the evil that stayed behind, close to people's hearts.
| masswerk wrote:
| I guess, a local proxy box to all those account, update, and/or
| IoT services will be the next hot thing, after Pi-hole. Call it
| the Account-alypse.
|
| Otherwise, I can't see, how this masquerade of pretended
| ownership may continue.
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