[HN Gopher] The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge
___________________________________________________________________
The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge
Author : thombles
Score : 393 points
Date : 2023-03-18 10:26 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thomask.sdf.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (thomask.sdf.org)
| sandworm101 wrote:
| As had been said many times, every bad day for microsoft is a
| great day for linux.
|
| There is a way. That way is freedom.
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| > Apple doesn't try to make revenue from Safari because they
| don't need to.
|
| Apart from the small matter of Google paying Apple $15bn to be
| the default search engine in Safari.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Nobody would criticize Microsoft if they did the same with Edge
| _and left it at that_.
| justeleblanc wrote:
| I sincerely doubt that.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Do you think there is some coordinated smear campaign
| against Microsoft that is holding them to a higher standard
| than its competitors, and if so, why do you believe this
| instead of the simpler explanation that people are fed up
| with a user-hostile OS/browser especially when it is the
| _only_ upgrade path from a prior, non-user-hostile one
| (Windows 7)?
| justeleblanc wrote:
| What's the point of introducing a strawman like that? A
| coordinated smear campaign, really? Nobody said before
| you. You're painting me as a conspiracy theorist and
| alienating me from the debate. Why should I bother
| replying?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| No offense intended.
|
| Your response insinuated that even if Edge did the same
| as Apple, people would still complain, which suggests
| that Microsoft is the target of some hate that Apple
| wouldn't be subject to, so I wanted to understand your
| reasoning.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Almost no one.
| skrebbel wrote:
| I'm a longtime Windows fan, and initially I was quite enamored by
| Edge as well. Base UX is excellent, lots of settings and they're
| easy to find. Vertical tab bar, profiles, and it all Just Works.
| I flat out love its "turn this website into a desktop app"
| feature.
|
| But by now they've shoved their core consumer products so chock
| full of crap that even I am starting to look for a way out.
|
| I got my son a new laptop recently and it has Windows 11. Did you
| know that Windows 11 has a feature called "widgets", a popup from
| the left bottom which has weather, traffic warnings nearby etc?
| It makes a fair bit of sense, except that it's filled _to the
| rim_ with terrible clickbaity news headlines _and you can't turn
| it off_! Someone at Microsoft decided that the entire Windows
| install base, ie nearly everybody, must really read news about
| foreign celebrities doing questionable things.
|
| The only way to get rid of it is a Powershell incantation that
| removes the entire Widgets feature. Better than terrible news,
| but still nuts.
|
| Edge has this too. There's now a Bing button in the toolbar full
| of "discover" and "suggest" type features that nobody wants.
|
| I don't understand why MS doesn't get some sort of internal
| revolt. The core of both Edge and Windows 11 are tastefully
| designed. You can really see that it's been built by people who
| want to ship great software. Why do they allow the Crap And Turds
| department to piss all over their work? Who at Microsoft benefits
| from me seeing the latest Taylor Swift gossip when I just want to
| know when it'll rain? Don't they understand that this is what
| drives people to Macs and Chromebooks (and nerds like me to
| Linux)?
| watwut wrote:
| > I don't understand why MS doesn't get some sort of internal
| revolt.
|
| Because companies are structured so that it never happens.
| Moreover, professionals who are too angry about direction are
| expected to leave. Not just in MS ... anywhere including in
| startups. Companies are not democracies.
| MikeSchurman wrote:
| The news widget is terrible, and the sole reason I haven't
| switched to windows 11. I spent about 30m turning off news
| source after news source before giving up. Apparently there is
| an infinite supply of them.
|
| It's actually a problem for me at work because they keep
| drawing my eye and distracting me from getting work done. It's
| crazy. What are they thinking?
| permo-w wrote:
| they were thinking that it would draw your eye
| ChatGTP wrote:
| _except that it's filled to the rim with terrible clickbaity
| news headlines and you can't turn it off! Someone at Microsoft
| decided that the entire Windows install base, ie nearly
| everybody, must really read news about foreign celebrities
| doing questionable things._
|
| Well they replaced their journalism team with "AI" and that's
| what their AI thinks you want.
|
| My partner helped someone in our family the other day with
| Edge(tm) and she told me she thought the browser was so weird
| it looked like one of those "home page hijack" sites from the
| early 2000's.
| MarkSweep wrote:
| It is infuriating. The only way I know of to remove Widgets and
| Teams Chat is with the Remove-AppxPackage command in
| PowerShell:
|
| https://pureinfotech.com/uninstall-widgets-powershell-window...
| TheRealDunkirk wrote:
| What I can't wrap my head around is how one of the biggest
| companies in the entire world is willing to annoy literally
| everyone who uses their products, and slow down their browsing,
| in order to make a penny or two a day off of each one. My
| company just rolled out new laptops, and all of this is on by
| default -- on a corporate install!? WTF is my IT department
| thinking? They bastardize the hell out of the install with all
| the usual "security" crap, spyware, tracking, and scripts that
| run on login and logoff to make sure that you haven't done
| anything you shouldn't have. On top of all of this, why do I
| have to wait for 10 seconds to open Edge to go to the company
| home page while it loads all this horse pucky? Microsoft will
| do anything for a corporate purchase, so I'm positive that
| there's a tickbox or two in the policies that would shut this
| off. Is Microsoft giving a kickback on that money to companies
| who leave this on?
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| _What I can 't wrap my head around is how one of the biggest
| companies in the entire world is willing to annoy literally
| everyone who uses their products, and slow down their
| browsing, in order to make a penny or two a day off of each
| one._
|
| The only thing I can imagine is that they are making a _lot_
| more than a penny or two a day from each Windows user they
| sell down the river.
|
| Otherwise the marketshare graph that concinds linked to (
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35212328 ) would be
| treated as an existential emergency. The only rational
| conclusion is that they no longer GAF about Windows as a
| product with paying users.
| toast0 wrote:
| That marketshare graph is interesting, but what's missing
| is a graph of the size of the market.
|
| Anecodtally, people aren't moving from Windows to Mac,
| people are moving from desktop platforms to phones. Maybe
| Microsoft is taking a ride it into the ground approach.
| Usage growth for desktop Windows is off the table, Windows
| Phone is dead, so revenue growth for Windows needs to come
| from throwing users under the bus?
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| _I don't understand why MS doesn't get some sort of internal
| revolt._
|
| For the same reason that Milgram and Zimbardo didn't see a
| revolt among their test subjects. Whenever anyone objected to
| the unethical things they were told to do, all the researchers
| had to do was give the same order to the next subject. They
| didn't have to go very far down the line to find someone who
| would cheerfully do the dirty work. And those students weren't
| getting six-figure paychecks.
|
| I will never understand how Nadella gets fellated so
| felicitiously around here. (Hello, -4 Flagged). He has turned a
| decent OS into an exploitative nonconsensual experience, in
| which the user is constantly reminded who really 'owns' the
| computer they paid for. Even more offensive from a business
| perspective, he refuses to give the rest of us the obvious
| option to pay to get rid of the garbage. It is still far too
| much trouble to run LTSC without pirating it.
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| Yeah, everyone who really wanted to make quality products or
| had too much self-respect quit Microsoft years ago. Right at
| this very second it makes sense to stay put, but most of the
| time any Microsoft employee can grind Leetcode for a few
| weeks and hop ship to another company with a 30% raise.
|
| Last time I was there, nobody working there was happy about
| how things are going, except a few random sociopaths.
| nicbou wrote:
| It blows my mind how non-consensual the Windows experience has
| become. I wouldn't let someone with a similar understanding of
| consent anywhere near my drink.
|
| You are right about one thing: I refuse to purchase a Windows
| computer, and have been refusing for a decade.
| KronisLV wrote:
| > You are right about one thing: I refuse to purchase a
| Windows computer, and have been refusing for a decade.
|
| I still use Windows on my personal machine due to gaming
| still not being comparably good on Linux across all of the
| titles I want to play - sometimes native releases aren't
| available, other times even Proton has issues running stuff
| on Steam. Apart from that, there is actually very little
| holding me back, since a lot of things on Linux are just
| better (mostly development related) and in general most of
| the popular distros feel _good enough_ as a daily driver.
|
| I wrote about my experiences before:
| https://blog.kronis.dev/articles/a-week-of-linux-instead-
| of-... but I don't think that in regards to gaming (or other
| software) all of the titles will ever be supported, so a
| Windows VM with GPU passthrough might be an okay choice in
| the future for entertainment and running some specific
| software packages, with some Linux distro on the host for the
| rest of my computing needs.
|
| Which is a shame, because on a technical level Windows is
| _okay_ and has lots of good software built for it in the
| past. Even the Edge browser is an improvement upon what they
| did previously (IE and the old Edge, though I 'd say the old
| Edge was reasonably okay too). It's just the project
| management aspect of it that's annoying - the OS being taken
| in a direction with mainstream appeal (which is debatably not
| an issue to many), but without ways to always turn those
| customizations off and do it easily.
| 2fast4you wrote:
| GPU passthrough has been a game changer for me. I stream
| all my games from a computer in a closet running Proxmox.
| Windows is still there in the background, but I almost
| never have to interact with it
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| I did find one good reason to buy a Windows computer: A few
| years ago a Dell XPS with Windows was cheaper at Costco than
| buying direct from Dell with Linux preinstalled.
|
| I wiped the disk and installed Ubuntu.
| unxdfa wrote:
| Yep. I'm in the middle of switching from macOS back to
| windows because I need to do things I can't do on macOS. I've
| had to build out a locked down windows 10 LTSC build to get
| anywhere near a sensible outcome for me.
|
| I think we should start a revolt in the IT sector against
| this shit really. I'd start one but I don't know where to
| begin.
| specialist wrote:
| Any chance ReactOS (the FOSS clone of Windows) can fill in?
|
| Or maybe use VirtualBox or VMware?
| unxdfa wrote:
| I would really love ReactOS to replace windows. Genuinely
| would. But it's not there yet. I've tracked their
| development for years.
|
| As for VirtualBox and VMware, that means I have two
| operating systems instead of one :(
| [deleted]
| binkHN wrote:
| > I've had to build out a locked down windows 10 LTSC build
| to get anywhere near a sensible outcome for me.
|
| Smart move. Truly sucks that we have to do this nowadays,
| but this is what Microsoft has become. Back in the day I
| would format a machine I purchased from a vendor due to all
| the added garbage; Microsoft is becoming just as bad.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| Start here:
|
| > because I need to do things I can't do on macOS.
|
| IT departments in huge corporations have purchasing
| requirements specs. Require any software that you pay money
| for to run on at least one non-Microsoft operating system.
| As a second source requirement.
|
| If more than a trivial number of large corporations do
| this, developers make sure their software runs on other
| systems, which is what allows users to switch. Large IT
| departments are in a position to actually move the needle
| here.
|
| This also has the side benefit of being a heuristic that
| excludes primarily low-quality software, because most
| higher-quality software is already portable.
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| I work for a pretty large financial corporation. They
| sent out the IT roadmap for the next year and in it was
| casually mentioned that they expect Macs to be the
| dominant platform in the next five years. Our current mac
| usage is <15% and as a result support is an afterthought
| with a very frustrating experience. For them to say that
| and push for this change in an industry that very
| strongly favours Windows is the clearest indication I've
| seen that Windows is starting to lose.
| concinds wrote:
| macOS now has 30% market share in the US. Surprised me.
|
| https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-
| share/desktop/united-st...
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Wow, I had no idea. Never mind Nadella, why does
| Microsoft's board of directors tolerate this?!
| thrwawy74 wrote:
| They've build up enough political capital to expend it,
| upset their customers, and normalize all these dark
| patterns. They're taking the risk that 5 years later
| everyone will consider these things common and not be
| bothered by them. Apple did the same thing by making an
| attractive ecosystem. Windows is using its dominance as a
| platform to make the same exchange.
| unxdfa wrote:
| Windows doesn't matter to Microsoft now. The big sellers
| are Azure and Office 365 and they work on Macs.
|
| As for market share in the US, I very much doubt it's
| that high really. There are huge unimaginable swathes of
| windows boxes which won't show up in GlobalStats at all.
| I know a company with 50,000 desktops that can only visit
| a web site on an internal network for example. Those
| sorts of installations are everywhere.
| [deleted]
| foobarbecue wrote:
| It's so bizarre how all the computers at my work have clickbait
| on the start menu. That's windows 10, so admin could disable it
| I think, but defaults tend to stick.
| dazc wrote:
| 'Don't they understand that this is what drives people to Macs
| and Chromebooks (and nerds like me to Linux)?'
|
| Maybe that ship has already sailed and they know who their core
| market is?
| r12343a_19 wrote:
| > Don't they understand that this is what drives people to Macs
| and Chromebooks (and nerds like me to Linux)?
|
| (Internal) metrics say otherwise.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| How would internal metrics even capture someone using a
| different computer?
| AraceliHarker wrote:
| I think you can track pretty well with just the device ID
| alone, but you combine it with other identities like
| location information, IP address, cookies, login
| information and so on. Is that why Windows 11 recently made
| it impossible to bypass creating an MS account?
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Yeah but they're speaking about switching to a chromebook
| or a mac. How is your device ID going to help with that?
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| If windows keeps phoning home, at some point they should
| see a bunch of device ids not checking in anymore.
| lozenge wrote:
| They could summarise the User-Agent s visiting LinkedIn
| or a couple of other websites they run.
| imajoredinecon wrote:
| You estimate how many people use computers and how many
| people use computers you make. When you subtract the two,
| you get how many people use computers that your
| competitors make.
|
| Not every "internal metric" is something you can measure
| directly.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| If that is how sketchy the data they are using to make
| decisions is, that would explain a lot about their
| decisions.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| Most active Linux PCs were made by Windows PC
| manufacturers.
| skrebbel wrote:
| (Internal) metrics may be short sighted.
| tetrep wrote:
| What if they're not?
|
| What if it really is economically better for Microsoft to
| "double dip" and try to monetize Windows beyond its
| purchase price?
| everdrive wrote:
| I think you raise a very important point. What if it's
| economically better for you to let men have sex with your
| wife for money? If you _don't_ do this, you're just
| sitting on untapped value.
| fhd2 wrote:
| Not a fan of the analogy, I like to think that would be
| her own decision, not her partner's.
|
| Anyway, companies are capitalist entities, so all that
| ultimately matters for them is to make more money. The
| majority of decisions happen along the axis of short term
| revenue vs long term revenue (e.g. not ruining your
| brand, not getting fined etc).
|
| In an environment of insecurity and fear, I've seen
| companies focus more on the short term, since it's less
| speculative. But it sure doesn't look very good from the
| outside.
| doubled112 wrote:
| She has the choice to get a divorce just like I have the
| choice to not use Windows.
| vanviegen wrote:
| Of course they are. It's just not practicle to track
| long-term consumer sentiment around Microsoft, and life-
| time customer spending. So they track something else and
| convince themselves it's close enough.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Internal metrics can be cooked to show anything. I read
| somewhere that "if you torture the data enough, it will
| confess". Whatever oxygen wasters are pushing for this crap
| will cook the data in such a way to push for their idea (as
| their salary depends on it) while "conveniently" not putting
| forwards data that shows otherwise.
| tored wrote:
| I recently switched from Edge to Firefox. Edge used to be
| great, but all "features" it has added the past year is not
| features I need, like sending my text input to Microsoft,
| showing online shopping suggestions, discover features, sidebar
| apps and what not. Edge also has a annoying bug in combination
| with AMD graphics card where the bottom of the screen flickers
| when watching certain video content in Edge, like Netflix
| (YouTube works). This bug has been there for months and still
| not fixed.
|
| I also recently downgraded from Windows 11 to Windows 10.
| Windows 11 was just too intrusive and many non-configurable
| features. Windows 11 is also slower, has more bugs and more
| unstable than Windows 10.
|
| I'm guessing that we need to abandon Microsoft's products when
| Windows 10 reaches end of life, not something I looking forward
| too because I'm not a big fan of Linux desktop nor the Mac
| desktop.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Edge's only real feature is that it works... sometimes. I use
| it only when i run across some work-related thing where edge
| is literally the only option, like stupid configs whereby
| msoffice runs inside the browser. Instead of just downloading
| a pdf i have to trick edge into "printing" a docx to a pdf
| format that i can then actually read like a sane person. When
| edge dies i will be first to dance on its grave.
| rolph wrote:
| wear a pair of throwaway shoes when you do; im sure that
| grave will be decorated with fluids and semi-solids of
| biological origin.
| gloryjulio wrote:
| I use edge only as double page endless scrolling pdf reader.
| Haven't found the alternative yet
| gjvc wrote:
| Chrome has two-page view for .pdf files.
| gloryjulio wrote:
| Not sure which extension you are referring to. Just tried
| and couldn't open pdf with chrome
| Andrex wrote:
| Hit Ctrl+O in Chrome and pick the file.
|
| Sometimes server MIME types (or the download attribute on
| anchor links) force a download instead of letting Chrome
| just load the PDF directly. But it can definitely open
| local PDFs, I chucked Acrobat in the trash years ago when
| I found out.
| itishappy wrote:
| No extension. It should work by default. Two page view is
| in the menu at the top right.
| 300bps wrote:
| _I recently switched from Edge to Firefox_
|
| Right there with you. Somewhere in my comment history here
| six years ago was my suggestion for Microsoft to give up on
| Internet Explorer and create their own fork of Chromium.
|
| They could've gotten massive adoption if they did it right.
| Instead I had to turn off their useless auto-coupon feature,
| be ever vigilant to keep them from switching my search
| provider to Bing, frequently turn off the distracting new tab
| content, etc.
|
| Switched to Firefox and planning to dual-boot Windows 11 and
| Ubuntu soon.
| Qem wrote:
| > Switched to Firefox and planning to dual-boot Windows 11
| and Ubuntu soon.
|
| It doesn't help Microsoft apparently also managed to make
| dual boot more difficulty. Some years ago it was quite
| seamless, you could rely on automatic partition and it just
| worked. Today windows messes with the Linux bootloader
| after install, and to make it work I have to resort to
| advanced partition mode.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| Yep, also see the section called ''About dual-boot with
| Windows and "fast-boot" enabled'' here if you rely on an
| Intel WiFi device:
|
| https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/drivers/iwlwifi
| andrepd wrote:
| Why even go through all that trouble in the first place?
| Datagenerator wrote:
| Just add two OS'es to UEFI BIOS. Bootloaders easily
| break.
| pxc wrote:
| Windows doesn't support multiple EFI System Partitions on
| one system1, and it will nuke the default EFI boot image
| (bootx64.efi) on the ESP it uses whenever it updates or
| does startup repair. So if you do this make sure you have
| configured the Linux system to write EFI variables and
| know that if you ever clear them, you may lose the
| ability to boot Linux until you perform a repair.
|
| Dual booting sucks. Don't do it, _especially_ if you 're
| new to Linux.
|
| --
|
| 1: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-
| us/troubleshoot/windows-clien...
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| It's always seemed to me that dual-booting sucks because
| Microsoft ensure it sucks. Basically every one who wants
| to have a Linux distro and Windows on the same box has to
| work around MS being a dick. Their hope is that you give
| up and stick with Windows, presumably. It just makes me
| more keen not to use Windows.
| 300bps wrote:
| _Dual booting sucks. Don 't do it, especially if you're
| new to Linux._
|
| I'm gonna give it a go. I first installed Linux from a
| shareware CD I purchased from my local Micro Center in
| 1996.
|
| Still remember Slackware fondly! And qmail - great email
| program.
| pxc wrote:
| Sounds like you'll have to trouble managing your
| bootloaders should they break, and you might even enjoy
| learning some quirks about how both Windows and your
| distro of choice treat the ESP.
|
| Have fun! May the source be with you ;)
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| The Windows 10 LTSC IoT Edition still has 10 years of
| support, and you can apparently hack it to continue working
| until the 2038 bug takes the digital world down. Looking into
| this now.
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| the massgrave activation scripts work great and will perma
| register w a real license from ms servers. only thing id
| advise, if you use a pihole turn it off while running it as
| many popular lists block the activation servers (or
| related)
| mikub wrote:
| It's just three clicks to disable widgets, "Right click
| taskbar, select taskbar settings, click on slider to turn
| widgets off".
| flir wrote:
| Do you happen to know how to disable the page of clickbait I
| get every time I open a new tab in Edge?
|
| I tried setting my "Home" to Google, but that doesn't seem to
| do it.
| password4321 wrote:
| Is there a way to block all the Microsoft news/spam and
| telemetry at the router and still get just Windows Update?
|
| I am willing to sacrifice Bing.
| schemescape wrote:
| Sadly, Edge updates sometimes re-enable all the clickbait
| "news" stories. The last time it happened I finally gave up
| and switched to Firefox.
|
| It's a shame because I actually liked Edge, and it was the
| fastest browser in my experience.
| CSMastermind wrote:
| Yep can confirm, after every update I have to go re-
| disable this, it's beyond annoying.
| sphars wrote:
| This worked for me when I used edge > 1 year ago, it may
| still work: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/new-
| tab-redirect/i... and set my new tabs to
| https://aboutblank.page
|
| Also it's open source:
| https://github.com/jimschubert/newtab-redirect
|
| The only way AFAIK to change the new tab is an extension
| pseudalopex wrote:
| You can't set it to about:blank?
| sphars wrote:
| It's been a while since I've used the extension (I use FF
| now) and I can't recall if you can set it to about:blank.
|
| Disclaimer, I created https://aboutblank.page because in
| some browsers, about:blank was a default white page, and
| ignored the OS dark mode setting. My site respects the
| prefers-color-scheme setting, or you can set it to
| whatever color you want via a query string (see
| https://github.com/sphars/about-blank/#usage)
| rr808 wrote:
| Agree this is a bigger problem for me. Its usually temping
| clickbait and I end up clicking some of the links and
| getting distracted.
| schemescape wrote:
| This seems like a good time to trot out Microsoft's
| mission statement:
|
| > Our mission is to empower every person and every
| organization on the planet to achieve more.
|
| It's disappointing to see them working against their own
| mission like this...
| nguyenkien wrote:
| Click gear icon at top right of new tab page.
| LoganDark wrote:
| That does not disable widgets. That only hides the button
| that toggles it.
|
| (Edit 29 minutes after, because I can't seem to post
| anymore:)
|
| It still runs its webview in the background and can be
| toggled with the keyboard shortcut, Win+W, even if the button
| is hidden.
|
| In order to fully disable it you need a Group Policy or a
| registry hack.
| mikub wrote:
| Good to know, thanks for that.
| binbag wrote:
| What's the practical difference?
| numbsafari wrote:
| Having a web view loading garbage in the background
| consuming resources and probably leaking your data vs.
| ...none of that?
| recfab wrote:
| It consumes a fair amount of resources just idling.
|
| I'm currently using a laptop that was mid-to-low spec
| when I got it a couple years ago. It was chugging,
| especially during video calls. Uninstalling the Widgets
| feature was enough to make it useable again.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| You still get the widgets in some interactions (like left
| swipe from the edge of the screen). There must be a way
| somewhere to customize those as well, but getting rid of
| widgets altogether is a lot faster.
| crimsontech wrote:
| As a mac user it's super frustrating because this is the
| shortcut to close a window so I see this widget flyout
| constantly.
|
| I need to figure out a way to remap it but not having admin
| on my corporate machine I have little hope.
| LoganDark wrote:
| As another macOS user, it's absolutely insane how much
| worse Windows has been allowed to get over the years, and
| I sincerely wish that my mid-2015 MBP had never broken,
| because this is still absolutely awful even after almost
| 2 years of getting re-acquainted with an OS that I had
| already used for 7 years before my first Mac.
|
| macOS was just too good.
| skrebbel wrote:
| I've seen those screenshots too, I spent hours googling for
| this. But that setting is not available on my Windows. Maybe
| a pro vs home thing? I'm on the latest version. I don't
| believe that this is by accident, I think MS decided that I'm
| in some customer segment that's not allowed to not know that
| Jimmy Fallon might be depressed.
|
| And even then, I can't get the widgets feature, a pretty
| decent idea, without the news. I want to turn off the news,
| not the feature.
| mikub wrote:
| I have Win11 Pro and it really is just those three clicks.
| skneko wrote:
| I have the non-Pro edition (Home?) and I have the
| setting. I think this is a US-vs-Europe thing?
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| There are various unexpected limitations a given Windows
| experience can have.
|
| Recently someone's laptop broke while visiting the
| Mexican beach I was living so they bought a laptop from
| the local shop. The Windows install was in Spanish and
| the language options offered no other language to choose
| from. All of the tutorials online showed menu options
| that weren't there. I tried helping them change it to
| English.
|
| Apparently, for some reason, Microsoft really does offer
| single language Windows--I found after some digging.
| skrebbel wrote:
| I'm not going to pay MS even more just to get a version
| that has a "please disable this one specific bit of crap"
| toggle. This has got to be the worst upsell ever.
|
| It's like you book a hotel room and the TV is on Fox News
| and you can't turn the TV off. You ask around but
| everybody says that they can turn it off just fine, must
| be you. Turns out that they're all in the executive suite
| and they also have Fox News on the TV, turned on by
| default when they enter the room, but for them the hotel
| didn't hide the remote.
| xattt wrote:
| It was either in 1984 or Fahrenheit 451 where each house
| was equipped with a radio that couldn't be turned off but
| only made quieter.
|
| My Google-fu is failing me.
| playingalong wrote:
| That's not fiction. Not sure what came first though
| gjm11 wrote:
| On the first page of _Nineteen Eighty-Four_ there's this:
|
| "Winston turned a switch and the voice sank somewhat,
| though the words were still distinguishable. The
| instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be
| dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off
| completely."
|
| (Though the more nightmarish thing about 1984's
| "telescreens" is that they were two-way, giving the
| government the ability to see and hear what you were
| doing as well as exposing you to their propaganda.)
|
| I had the vague feeling there was something similar in
| _Fahrenheit 451_ too, but I took a look and I'm pretty
| sure there isn't.
| soundnote wrote:
| And people today happily buy voice assistants themselves.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| "Hey Telescreen, reorder trash bags and look up recipes
| for risotto."
|
| Huxley's extrapolations were much more on-target than
| Orwell's. He realized people would line up to buy things
| that Orwell assumed would have to be imposed at gunpoint.
| xattt wrote:
| From ChatGPT using the prompt of a description of someone
| ordering household items from a voice assistant in the
| style of 1984:
|
| As the clock struck 10 in the morning, Winston Smith
| approached the telescreen in his small apartment, where
| his voice assistant, known as "Big Alexa," awaited his
| commands.
|
| "Order household items," Winston spoke into the device,
| his voice barely above a whisper.
|
| "Confirmed," the cold, metallic voice of the voice
| assistant replied. "What items would you like to order,
| Winston?"
|
| Winston hesitated, feeling a twinge of paranoia as he
| considered the possibility that his every word and bowel
| habits were being monitored and recorded by the
| omnipresent Party. But he knew that he had no choice but
| to comply with the rules of this totalitarian society.
|
| "Two rolls of toilet paper," he said, his voice trembling
| slightly.
|
| "Two rolls of toilet paper," the voice assistant repeated
| back in its emotionless tone. "Anything else?"
|
| "Yes," Winston said, his eyes darting nervously around
| the room. "One bottle of dish soap, one box of laundry
| detergent, and a package of paper towels."
|
| "Confirmed," the voice assistant said. "Your order will
| be processed and delivered within the next 24 hours."
|
| Winston breathed a small sigh of relief, knowing that he
| had successfully navigated yet another aspect of his
| tightly controlled life. But as he turned away from the
| telescreen and resumed his mundane existence, he couldn't
| help but wonder if there was any escape from the all-
| seeing eyes of the Party.
| pimlottc wrote:
| This was also part of the original Max Headroom TV
| series, except in this was it was a television you
| couldn't turn off.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| Your analogy is good but I disagree with your principle.
|
| Companies need to make money (if you don't accept this
| premise, fair rough but we probably have no further
| meaningful discussion).
|
| I'm _OK_ if they offer me options. Here 's a free / cheap
| option that's ad supported, here's a premium option that
| has no ads.
|
| This is a good choice! It's a good choice for all! It's
| when we don't have that choice that things suck! And if
| we want free things with no ads, that option exists too!
| :-)
| skrebbel wrote:
| Look, I don't even know for sure if this is a Home vs Pro
| thing. I'm just deducting that from the comments here.
| I'm not arguing against the virtues of an ad-supported
| software product, I'm arguing against the obscenely
| braindead way Microsoft is executing it.
|
| If there were a free ad-supported Windows and a paid ad-
| free (and news-free!) Windows I'd be a happy paying
| customer.
| throwbackhere wrote:
| Microsoft is using dark patterns and is gaslighting its
| customers about it.
|
| The honest thing to do here is for Microsoft to leave the
| option visible but show a big ugly error window when
| lesser users try to change the setting. That way, people
| won't waste their time trying to fix something they're
| not allowed to fix.
|
| Source: This happened to me, a now Linux user.
| grugagag wrote:
| Can't stop laughing, it's a funny analogy. Im trying to
| find a case where the user would be okay with that but
| not even the staunchest fox news fan would be okay with
| it. I really hate this model where windows is free but
| infested by ads you can't get away from. The other day
| someone came over to me asking if they should get a
| windows laptop upgrade and I recommending them getting a
| mac
| RajT88 wrote:
| Fox News fans would love it if a hotel (or all hotels)
| turned Fox News on and hid the remotes.
|
| If you have a TV in a public place people are always
| trying to put Fox News on. It is not because of those
| businesses.
| aryaneja wrote:
| Might be a dumb question but are you the admin?
| tremon wrote:
| As if only admins should have the privilege of turning
| off obnoxious stuff _on their desktop_?
| labrador wrote:
| They just rolled out the taskbar features in Home Windows
| 11. I just turned Widgets off thanks to the parent comment,
| not that they bothered me because I never clicked on them
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> and you can't turn it off!_
|
| Except you can. Taskbar setting -> toggle Widgets to OFF
|
| _> I don't understand why MS doesn't get some sort of internal
| revolt._
|
| Windows sales aren't core moneymakers anymore when they're
| basically giving them away for free (I have mine registered
| with a MSDNAA key I found online and it worked).
|
| Money is in Azure, O365 subscriptions and ads shown to their
| Windows userbase. Nadella even said that Google makes more
| money from Windows users than Microsoft does, so shoving ads in
| your faces was them taking a slice of that sweet ad revenue.
|
| It's unfortunate, but this silent acceptance is our society
| having been numbed to being bombarded with ads on every
| computing devie it just became the new norm sadly and it
| doesn't seem like there's any hope for the trend to be
| reversing. People just got used to SW & online content being
| free and ad supported rather than paying upfront for it.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > It's unfortunate, but this silent acceptance is our society
| having been numbed to being bombarded with ads on every
| computing devie it just became the new norm sadly and it
| doesn't seem like there's any hope for the trend to be
| reversing.
|
| Oh there is. Governments. The GDPR was a massive hit against
| the advertising industry, and there is more in the pipeline
| (DMA/DSA). Additionally, the EU is beginning to act against
| crap like lootboxes, and other annoyances like NFTs collapsed
| on their own.
| skrebbel wrote:
| Except I can't
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35208271).
|
| Also I don't understand why "not a core moneymaker" implies
| "this must be crap-maximized".
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> Except I can't_
|
| Maybe it's a Win Pro edition thing and not on HOme.
|
| _> Also I don't understand why "not a core moneymaker"
| implies "this must be crap-maximized"._
|
| What you don't understand is irelevant to the Microsoft
| board meetings where they show ad-revenue go up, because
| money is the only thing they understand, user experience be
| dammed.
|
| What are those users gonna do, install Ubuntu? /s
| skrebbel wrote:
| Buy chromebooks most likely
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| I've never seen chromebooks in continental Europe though.
| Maybe it's an AMerican & UK thing.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Only part of Denmark is on the continent, but anyway.
|
| The categories are "Laptop computer", "Macbook" and
| "Chromebook" on Denmark's largest electronics retailer:
| https://www.elgiganten.dk/computer-kontor/computere
|
| 12 of the cheapest 15 laptops are Chromebooks, although
| that could also mean they aren't selling well and have
| been discounted.
| dazc wrote:
| I don't know what the situation is now but I do recall,
| circa 6 year's ago, a Dutch colleague being very
| impressed with my cheap laptop and asking where she would
| get one.
|
| I remember searching various Dutch retailers to show her
| how readily available these things were and not being
| able to find one.
|
| Also, at the same time, Dutch amazon only sold books?
| skrebbel wrote:
| Fwiw I'm in continental Europe too and the local Media
| Markt has about 30% Chromebooks in the laptop department.
| The sales guy actively tried to push them last time I
| talked to one.
| Kye wrote:
| I'm on Home. I don't remember what I clicked to make it
| go away, but it's gone. Turning off Search highlights
| also got rid of the news garbage in the start menu. Now
| it's more like KDE's launcher.
| masfuerte wrote:
| Microsoft often do this. They introduce an unwanted
| feature but they include a checkbox to turn it off. After
| a year or two they remove the checkbox. My Windows
| profile doesn't have any ads or Bing integrated search or
| other nonsense but the options I used to achieve this
| live on only in the registry. When I get a new computer
| I'm not using Windows.
| alisonatwork wrote:
| I just switched from Edge to Ungoogled Chromium for exactly
| these reasons. It used to be a slick, lightweight alternative
| to Google Chrome, but the last 6 months or so have been a
| disaster, and the beta version is even worse with the useless
| sidebar that magically appears when you accidentally hover your
| mouse in the corner and the hideous rounded corners that turn
| your Surface Pro into a 1950s CRT. Not to mention the default
| search one day decided to railroad me into using mainland China
| censored Bing instead of the international version. It's been
| so disappointing.
|
| Meanwhile on Android they also started screwing everything up,
| which led me to switch from Outlook and Edge to k9 and Bromite.
|
| I don't know what's going on in the applications teams at
| Microsoft, but it's really soured me on the "new" Microsoft,
| and I've been a fan up until relatively recently too. I just
| hope VS Code isn't next.
| plagiarist wrote:
| It's a real shame, I thought they were trending in a
| different direction by actually releasing large projects as
| open source under permissive licenses.
| neogodless wrote:
| Exactly. While I get that live tiles and universal apps have
| their limitations, I vastly prefer a weather live tile that
| opens to a full screen weather app over the news widget that
| shows me weather in a random location among clickbait. And if
| you click weather, you go to an ad-infested web page.
|
| Remember when places hired UX designer to, you know, design a
| great user experience? This is not that. This is one hundred
| percent how can we get ad clicks, with apparently no one to
| push back. Except unhappy consumers that are ignored.
| bbarnett wrote:
| _Remember when places hired UX designer to, you know, design
| a great user experience? This is not that_
|
| Some tortured soul, chained by NDA, not allowed to tell its
| tale of angst and woe, is hastily linking your comment, to
| email manager "See!!!! It's rubbish to do this, they hate it,
| see!!"
| xattt wrote:
| I'm thinking that individual has descended into madness by
| this point and is looking like the Monty Python "It's" man.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| There's only a certain amount of soul you can extract
| from people before they become empathy-less ones unable
| to create things for other people and dangerous to have
| around. So, corporations cycle the people they use before
| they reach that level.
| [deleted]
| Dalewyn wrote:
| >Why do they allow the Crap And Turds department to piss all
| over their work?
|
| Because Windows is a free-in-practice product and it
| needs/wants a revenue stream.
|
| Remember that Windows 11 can be activated with Windows 7, 8,
| 8.1, and 10 keys; as if that wasn't crazy enough you can
| straight up not activate it and you won't lose out on anything
| important.
|
| As for install media? You can download those for free any time.
| No strings attached.
|
| As for Edge, that really is a free-as-in-beer product. You
| literally can't buy it.
| jnsaff2 wrote:
| macOS and Linux are even more 'free-in-practice'
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| macOS is free only when you bought Apple's computer
| hardware which comes at some serious markups. Unlike
| WIndows and Linux I can't legally downloads it and install
| it on the PC hardware I already own.
|
| That's like saying the SW ruining on your car's
| entertainment unit is free. Sure, that SW didn't cost you
| anything extra, but you paid for it through the car's
| purchase price.
| ccouzens wrote:
| I still have Windows for multiplayer games (everything else
| is done on Linux). When I built this desktop, I had to buy a
| Windows 11 license. It wasn't free. My laptop's old license
| did not transfer.
|
| OEMs have to pay Microsoft for Windows licenses on prebuilt
| Windows computers.
|
| ---
|
| >>Why do they allow the Crap And Turds department to piss all
| over their work?
|
| >Because Windows is a free-in-practice product and it
| needs/wants a revenue stream.
|
| Windows is not free. It's because 2 revenue streams are
| better than one revenue stream. If your goal is to make
| money, why wouldn't you? (To answer my own question, it's
| short term thinking that will eventually drive people away
| from your product).
| Dalewyn wrote:
| >My laptop's old license did not transfer.
|
| OEM licenses are tied to the motherboard, which is why that
| didn't work. It'll probably activate Windows 11 on the
| laptop just fine.
|
| >Windows is not free. It's because 2 revenue streams are
| better than one revenue stream.
|
| While you have a fair point and I agree it would be nice if
| Windows was either paid-for or free-adware, fact of the
| matter is it's doubledipping right now if one chooses to
| buy a new license.
|
| It's still possible to run Windows perpetually without
| activation with no loss in practical functionality, so I
| stand by my position that Windows is free in this day and
| age.
| Kwpolska wrote:
| > The only way to get rid of it is a Powershell incantation
| that removes the entire Widgets feature. Better than terrible
| news, but still nuts.
|
| You don't need PowerShell to get rid of Widgets. You can
| disable it with three clicks: right click on the Taskbar, go to
| Taskbar settings, and toggle the switch next to Widgets at the
| top of the window.
| gigel82 wrote:
| That hides the UI entry point, but widgets.exe continues
| running, along with 5-6 edgewebview2.exe processes, taking up
| valuable resources. If you try to kill widgets.exe, a _system
| service_ restarts it :(
|
| Unfortunately, the powershell incantation is the only way to
| get rid of it...
| permo-w wrote:
| will there not be some registry entry you can change?
| gigel82 wrote:
| No, there is no way to disable it via registry or group
| policy that I know of.
| canadaduane wrote:
| I used to think Linux users were ideological, but now I just
| think they are long-term thinkers, preserving and contributing
| to both the culture and the code that will enable freedom of
| choice, and create software whose goals are well-aligned with
| its users.
| _fat_santa wrote:
| > Base UX is excellent, lots of settings and they're easy to
| find. Vertical tab bar, profiles, and it all Just Works. I flat
| out love its "turn this website into a desktop app" feature.
|
| IMO this is one of the great tragedies with MS Edge. The UX is
| so much better than standard chromium but because of all the
| other crap that MS puts into it, I just can't use it. If MS
| open sourced Edge and someone created an "UnMicrosofted Edge",
| I would use that in a heartbeat.
|
| Currently the only place I use it is on my work laptop where I
| don't have any personal info and just generally don't give a
| crap about privacy since I'm inside my company intranet,
| bitbucket or jira all day. It's honestly really great for that
| sort of thing because the vertical tabs let you have 50+ tabs
| open and still read what they are, but there's just no way I
| would use it for anything personal or outside of work.
| pbronez wrote:
| Same. I use Edge at work because it's less evil than chrome
| and I'm logging into O365 anyway. Firefox for personal stuff.
|
| I haven't had too many problems with Edge myself. I use Kagi
| for search without issue. Don't see any native ads. It's
| fine.
| soundnote wrote:
| Brave has vertical tabs built in too, though they're behind a
| flag. But similar implementation as Edge and they work well.
| permo-w wrote:
| last time I tried them they were extremely glitchy. have
| they been fixed?
| soundnote wrote:
| I think a lot of the glitchiness had to do with the tab
| bar changing size if you didn't have the bookmarks bar
| always on or always off. That's fixed now, and the tabs
| look pretty, too.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > I don't understand why MS doesn't get some sort of internal
| revolt.
|
| My understanding is that they did, around Windows 8 or so, and
| all the people who had scruples about the desktop experience
| left and were replaced by people who don't mind earning their
| pay check by making the world a worse place.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| >people who don't mind earning their pay check by making the
| world a worse place.
|
| Yikes, you could be correct. Is this re-Ballmerizing? Wasn't
| that supposed to be off the table a while ago?
|
| Not only Edge, Windows itself is acting uglier every time
| too.
|
| Some of my scientific instruments are over 20 years old and
| going strong, a few still supported by the latest Windows
| software from the original vendors.
|
| Now some of the new instruments do have lab functions the old
| ones never will but at least the old ones are on equal
| footing as data peripherals when you are sitting at a Windows
| 11 PC.
|
| But the very oldest used to work with Windows 98 and Windows
| XP originally.
|
| These things have always had some pretty demanding software,
| and before installing, the factory instructions had a few
| paragraphs you were advised to follow in order to configure
| Windows so it wouldn't have badly compromised performance.
|
| You needed to manually disable a number of underlying Windows
| processes that were totally un-needed by the task at hand, if
| not highly detrimental.
|
| It took about 10 minutes to go through the list and then the
| high-dollar software installed in 85 MB and worked really
| snappy on a 300 MHz processor.
|
| To run the same old instrument now there are fully updated
| drivers for the new factory software so the readings can keep
| coming in to the PC at the same old 100 MB ethernet speed,
| including all the latest data integrity features from that
| point which didn't exist originally for these type analyzers.
|
| It really does work and it is fully validated on Windows 11,
| but before it installs it autoruns a script which takes half
| an hour on a 3GHz PC in order to disable all the detrimental
| Windows defaults these days. It would take you hours if you
| wanted to do this manually.
|
| Before it unzips its 10 GB package of goodness, which now
| runs like a dog on a _dedicated_ near-gaming PC, compared to
| the number of clicks-per-minute you could get 20 years ago on
| a Windows 98 office machine. For the same raw data being
| processed the same way which is basically both the state-of-
| the-art at the time.
|
| "Slowing down the speed of scientific progress one Windows
| version at a time."
|
| Now I like Edge since I only use it offline, to open PDF's
| and web files like HTML help documents.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| _It really does work and it is fully validated on Windows
| 11, but before it installs it autoruns a script which takes
| half an hour on a 3GHz PC in order to disable all the
| detrimental Windows defaults these days._
|
| Interesting. I've never heard of a commercial product
| shipping with its own Windows decrapifying script. Any
| chance this script is available publicly? We build similar
| things (relatively high-end instrumentation that needs to
| stream a lot of data to the PC), and have similar customers
| with similar problems.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| I have been wondering if I could find the script in the
| installed folders. I'll have to check on Monday.
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| I've been working on automated setup and configuration of
| Windows for my purposes and for family computers etc.
|
| As part of that I wanted to hide the widgets, the pointless
| search input, move the start menu back to its normal place
| instead of the dumb place, hide one drive icon from explorer,
| etc etc
|
| This also installs software from Winget.
|
| This is what I have so far:
| https://github.com/lloydjatkinson/configuration/blob/master/...
|
| I have a version for development machines too which is WIP but
| you can see what I have so far.
|
| The repo root has a big readme of what it does and does not do.
|
| Once it's done you end up with a consistent Windows setup.
|
| I haven't looked into how to disable the bing crap on the start
| menu search yet as apparently the previous registry keys people
| found to disable it have been deliberately changed into "touch
| these values and your start menu search won't work for
| anything" which is a new level of contempt from the Windows
| team.
|
| Tldr: Automate all this tedious tweaking and turning off of
| crapware features via PowerShell. The end goal is to be able to
| run a single command from the windows terminal and leave it to
| do it's thing.
| alisonatwork wrote:
| A tip I got on a previous HN thread was to set HKCU:\Software
| \Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\DisableSearchBoxSuggesti
| ons to 1 so that when you type something into the start menu
| search box it actually returns installed applications and
| files on your hard disk instead of internet search results.
| That's been a huge productivity boost for me, and reverts the
| behavior to what it used to be a couple years ago.
|
| Also from this thread I have now added HKCU:\Software\Microso
| ft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Dsh\IsPrelaunchEnabled to 0 to stop
| Widgets.exe from executing on startup. Unfortunately it still
| starts up if you accidentally swipe the touchscreen from the
| left.
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| That first key is the one I was thinking of, a lot of
| comments online saying it breaks search for local totally
| by disabling it.
|
| That second key is new to me I'll be adding that too
| thanks.
| everdrive wrote:
| This is the new pattern for almost any successful free software
| provided by a corporation. Make it nice enough to start
| building a user base, and then slowly make it more terrible to
| find a way to extract value from it.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Cory Doctorow named it enshittification.[1]
|
| [1] https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| This was my reply to the recently flagged article showing a
| graph of the decline in percentage for Windows' desktop
| share of the market. I think it was flagged due to
| questionable consideration of mobile OS's.
|
| But it did visually show a marked decline over the most
| recent year and a half or so, which may be a realistic
| indicator even if not pefectly accurate numerically.
|
| Looks like the downturn accelerated to its current more-
| rapid decline right after the release of the latest Windows
| 11 22H2 version in late 2022.
|
| This would have been the time the true enthusiasts, who
| were hoping for some respite from user hostility and
| compromised privacy, could finally be giving up for good.
|
| And it doesn't look like Windows 11 relented at all, when
| it comes to expanding its support for more older PC
| hardware than it did with its original release which was so
| misguided in this respect. Plus more dark patterns in
| things like online account approach.
|
| So now that it's even more plain to see how much faster
| it's getting worse, even the users who embraced Windows 10
| have finally had enough.
|
| Now my opinion is based on professional use of W11 since
| its initial preview.
|
| As always, the product of some absolutely outstanding
| engineers at Microsoft, some of whom add wonderfully to the
| discussions on HN.
|
| But somehow or another, even the most excellent code is
| still getting Ballmerized by a vestige of the corp that
| seems to still be in position to compromise "what could
| have been" before it gets a chance to be considered or
| deployed by users.
|
| Also anecdotally I was the only one using Windows 11 when I
| presented at a conference a week after W11 was released
| back in 2021. Didn't notice a single other one this year
| either.
|
| reply
| dagaci wrote:
| I really wonder how and by which process Microsoft thinks its
| Ok to force everyone to look at its garbage bottom feeding msn
| news feed, do Microsoft exec's atually use Windows and put up
| with this?
| nokeya wrote:
| Imagine the point of view of Microsoft employee: you have well
| paid work, revolting is taking a huge risk of losing the job.
| Almost sure you will be fired IMHO. And in current market
| conditions when all companies are laying off, are you
| interested to be fired or laid off? You are not.
| drc500free wrote:
| From what I can tell, it's to prop up Bing's advertising. The
| windows search bar is mixed in with Bing traffic to juice their
| numbers, even though nearly all clicks from the windows search
| bar are inadvertent.
|
| They are also chasing the Taboolah/Outbrain native advertising
| space that masquerades as new articles, hence stuffing that box
| with celebrity news.
| Andrex wrote:
| Give Linux a try. Even if you did before and hated it.
|
| Flatpaks and Proton are really coming into their own. And not
| in a "year-of-Linux-desktop" way where it's perpetually "almost
| ready" for 5 years. So many of my teething problems moving away
| from Windows have been buttoned up and solved since originally
| using mainlining Linux 10-15 years ago.
|
| I'm a Gnome weirdo though, Gnome 3/4 are easily my favorite
| complete desktop experiences (Elementary was competing there
| for a while).
| moritonal wrote:
| Second this, Kubuntu is an excellent OS that on the whole
| just works.
| koromak wrote:
| Microsoft just can't stop doing this. All of their products
| suffer. I'm happy to fork over the absurd Apple tax just to
| feel comfortable at my computer, and to know I'm not going to
| wake up one morning to a forced OS update that has Cortana
| start screaming black friday deals from my desktop. I mean, ads
| in the task bar? I spend all of my time on my computer, I do
| not want all this shovelware pushed in my face at every
| opportunity.
|
| I think this strategy is going to kill them in the long run. I
| was a pure Windows user, until I was forced to spend some time
| on mac for a job. What do you know, its just way more pleasant.
| jlarocco wrote:
| Having used OSX for ~10 years, I can say Apple isn't much
| better. Both systems treat the user like an idiot, just in
| different ways.
|
| You'll see what I mean when the OSX updates start undoing
| changes you've made to settings and things like that. For
| your own good, of course.
| marcellus23 wrote:
| I have to strongly disagree with "not much better." I'm not
| saying Apple doesn't do some annoying stuff, but it is MUCH
| much better than Microsoft. Every time I use Windows I am
| just floored how obnoxious they are with pushing their BS.
| The difference is night and day.
| factormeta wrote:
| I do think the Apple user experience is better, and the
| hardware is much better designed. I switched from Apple
| to Linux several times, and really know the difference,
| but when it comes to privacy, Apple and MS just can't be
| Linux/*BSD variant (I do know it is not for everyone).
| chasing wrote:
| It's called macOS, now that it's no longer on version 10,
| and it ain't perfect but it is _miles_ beyond Windows when
| it comes to respecting the user, as far as I 'm concerned.
| And, yes, I'd rather have an operating system that makes
| things easy for me -- "treats me like an idiot,"
| pejoratively -- rather than one that's unnecessarily
| convoluted and full of crap.
| jlarocco wrote:
| Reverting my settings changes isn't "making things easy
| for me"; it makes things more difficult, because I have
| to go back and change them again, and again, and again
| after every upgrade, sometimes after every update.
|
| Arbitrary UI changes aren't "making things easy for me,"
| either.
|
| Neither is forcing me into value-added services like
| iCloud.
| chasing wrote:
| > it ain't perfect but it is _miles_ beyond Windows when
| it comes to respecting the user
| permo-w wrote:
| Windows does that too, on top of all the other crap
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| > _I don't understand why MS doesn't get some sort of internal
| revolt._
|
| From whom? They've got two customer bases:
|
| - corporate clients, who get this stuff removed, either as part
| of the purchase or by their various sysadmins who get paid to
| secure the purchased laptops
|
| - personal clients, who purchase desktops and laptops pre-
| loaded with Windows, and could no more opt out of using it than
| I could opt out of using electricity in my house.
|
| edit: I don't read good, nevermind.
| recfab wrote:
| GP specified "internal revolt", i.e. Microsoft employees. The
| composition of the customer base is a non-sequitur here.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Oh, I am not a good reader this morning.
| jmaygarden wrote:
| You did make good standalone points. Monopolies have
| strong downsides.
| gregw2 wrote:
| re: "corporate clients, who get this stuff removed"...
|
| I am currently at a Fortune 100 company and only wish my IT
| department would keep up with / disable all the ways
| automated MS(N) news feeds keep cropping up via Edge and
| Windows default behaviors, sometimes seemingly as part of
| automated updates.
|
| Every time I think I have turned one off, there is yet
| another way Microsoft enables some kind of news feed in its
| system by default.
|
| I have been through three rounds of exploring how to disable
| these sort of features in the last 6 months with windows
| 10+edge, and resent the time I have to spend trawling and
| searching how to turn each particular money grab off.
|
| I really don't want the distraction at work, thank you!
|
| P.S. Edge has been slightly more stable (and memory-efficient
| with many tabs?) under low-memory conditions than Chrome so I
| ended up starting to use it to avoid reboots at times. Wake
| up Google!
| neltnerb wrote:
| Same, every time I run windows update on my lab with 22+
| computers somehow (to no one's real surprise) OneDrive
| reappears, Edge keeps getting reset as my default PDF
| viewer on the regular (acrobat reader DC is installed), and
| lately the search bar added a bing icon to access AI
| search.
|
| As usual, figuring out how to disable it took an exercise
| in asking "what would I call this feature if I didn't want
| anyone to find it and disable it".
|
| I hate that I have so much OS specific software, definitely
| heading towards setting up a test computer with Linux to
| see how much I can get to work. It will be harder than it
| sounds but some of this stuff is legacy executables from
| Windows XP so getting them to run on Windows 11 might be
| just as much of a stretch.
| blooalien wrote:
| > ... "definitely heading towards setting up a test
| computer with Linux to see how much I can get to work."
|
| I've personally been on Linux since my Windows XP /
| Windows 7 days (used to dual-boot before gaming on Linux
| got hella easier). I learned that the secret to
| successfully sticking with Linux as a "daily driver" is
| to stay fully aware that it's _not_ Windows, and trying
| to forcefully shoe-horn it into Windows-like habits is a
| recipe for reinstall.
|
| First and most important Windows habit to break is
| downloading your software from random websites. Install
| _everything_ from your Linux distro 's "package manager"
| (basically similar to an "app store" on other operating
| systems, except it has nearly _all_ of the software
| available for Linux in it). Only install software from
| outside the package manager when you 've no other option
| available.
|
| Secondly, you should _not_ generally be trying to find
| ways to run your Windows software under Linux for the
| most part (unless there happens to be a Linux-native
| version available), but rather seek out _alternatives_ to
| the software you 'd normally use. Instead of seeking out
| programs by name or brand, seek out software by the task
| it performs. Look for the Linux program that does the
| task you need done (example; Instead of wasting time
| trying to figure out how to install PhotoShop on Linux to
| alter or create an image, try out GIMP or Krita).
|
| The "easy-mode" way to find these software alternatives
| is this nifty website https://alternativeto.net/ - where
| you can search the name of a program you know does the
| task you need, and you'll get a list of similar software
| that does that task. You can then further filter the
| search results by software license, operating system, and
| other details. Also handy for finding neat software for
| your phone or tablet as well.
|
| Anyhow, you absolutely should not be afraid to follow
| through on your thought to give Linux a try. It ain't
| nearly the same beast it was way back when I first
| started using it. It's generally for the most part easier
| to work with than Windows (and sometimes even easier than
| Mac), and it's lighter on system resources and runs on a
| wider range of hardware. You may find you enjoy it enough
| to install it on your entire network, as I have. Hell, I
| don't even keep a Windows virtual machine around anymore,
| thanks to WINE (and Valve/Steam's Proton fork of it)
| making even that need mostly obsolete for me.
| neltnerb wrote:
| Thanks for the advice, I've used Linux on my own computer
| for twenty years.
|
| What I don't know is if I can get legacy LabVIEW code,
| hundred thousand dollar equipment with drivers designed
| for windows XP, and obnoxious stuff like microscope
| camera drivers and software to work.
|
| No games thankfully (or not, I suppose, games on Linux
| work fine for me).
| Symbiote wrote:
| That is a special situation, and isn't going to be
| straightforward -- just like it wouldn't be
| straightforward to move to Windows 11.
|
| Certainly worth testing, but the general advice above
| isn't going to help with the special software for the
| instruments.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| Does Microsoft add these feeds to LTSC editions as well
| now, or does the F100 in question scrimp on buying those?
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| the current LTSC is nov 2021. the next one will probably
| come with incrementally more crap but we'll have to see
| godsfshrmn wrote:
| Yeahhhh this crap is on every computer in the hospital I'm at
| (minus the ones on XP of course)
| dvngnt_ wrote:
| I would assume there's a group policy to disable it
| Symbiote wrote:
| Almost all of it was already disabled on my work computer
| (...months since I booted Windows...), and most of
| settings were completely disabled due to group policy.
| neltnerb wrote:
| I noticed that nice new bing AI enabled search bar at the
| bottom will generously help you provide PII to openai
| now...
|
| It's amazing that this stuff gets added without thought of
| consequence.
| mgerdts wrote:
| > and you can't turn it off!
|
| At least on windows 11 pro workstation, this is a right click
| and a preference setting or two away. The start menu can be
| moved to the left corner where it has long been with a taskbar
| setting. I did this as recently as yesterday with media dated
| February 2023.
| whoisthemachine wrote:
| Just recently, my partner's PC had to be wiped because
| BitLocker was surprise enabled by Windows 11, and I hadn't set
| her PC up with an online Microsoft login, so we couldn't get
| the BitLocker key that we never knew we needed.
|
| So your data is now hostage to Microsoft, and if you didn't
| read the full manual when setting up your partner's new Windows
| PC, you now lost her data. Writing about it, it feels like
| ransomware, except I guess we don't have to pay anything yet,
| other than an account that Microsoft can gather metrics from.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Doesn't windows make you sign in to an account during the
| install?
| psychphysic wrote:
| I didn't realise how much this bothered me until you brought it
| up.
|
| On my low end laptop occasionally I can't even close it or
| click away and it takes a minute or two to decide to go.
|
| Insane.
| jccalhoun wrote:
| The Edge team is working overtime to add in more and more
| "features" and it is just becoming more and more irritating.
| mihaic wrote:
| As a Windows user since version 3.1, ever since Windows 11 I've
| been thinking of migrating to KDE+Ubuntu.
|
| It's sad that Microsoft clearly has talented developers, but
| their product people seem to be like an Apple that is openly
| hostile.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The difference is that Apple, at least until Catalina/Big
| Sur/Ventura, had _good taste_.
|
| They force you into their workflows or design conventions, but
| they were generally good or at least bearable.
|
| Whatever good taste Microsoft had, it evaporated shortly after
| the release of Windows 7.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| OS X is slowly backsliding, too. It's not as bad as showing
| literal advertisements in the OS, but they're also trying to
| unify their mobile and laptop/desktop experiences, and it
| results in a worse experience on my laptop.
|
| I think I'm about two OSX upgrades away from switching to a
| *nix OS as my daily driver, though I don't know what I'll do
| for some niche software like Clip Studio Paint.
| zvmaz wrote:
| It's also obscure what really gets sent to Microsoft, and what
| not. There was a Linux based OS that warned the user at every
| single application trying to phone the internet[1], even Gnome
| Calculator.
|
| [1] https://subgraph.com/index.fr.html
| sph wrote:
| There is no reference to GNOME calculator in that page.
|
| Given the extraordinary claim, please link better proof. I
| cannot imagine GNOME calc phoning home, unless you crashes and
| you have manually enabled debugging telemetry post-
| installation.
| zvmaz wrote:
| > There is no reference to GNOME calculator in that page.
|
| It is at the bottom of the page I linked to, under
| "Application Firewall". There is even a screenshot.
| philposting wrote:
| It looks like it's getting currency exchange rates from the
| IMF, not phoning home.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| The claim was not extraordinary. Many calculator apps have
| currency conversion.
| sph wrote:
| Fetching currency data is not phoning home. And how is
| currency conversion supposed to work without contacting an
| external service?
|
| Let's not dilute the original meaning. Phoning home means
| sending telemetry and other usage data to its creator and
| associated third parties, and this data exchange is not at
| all necessary for the program to do its job.
| zvmaz wrote:
| Note that in the example shown in the website, Gnome
| Calculator is not phoning home, but imf.org; probably a
| benign thing; it just showed how much control one can have
| over one's computing.
| edandersen wrote:
| Wait until this chap sees the Crypto Wallet actually being added
| to Edge.
|
| https://twitter.com/thebookisclosed/status/16367594878299176...
| password4321 wrote:
| This feels like an April Fool's joke, yikes!
| eh9 wrote:
| So, in the same way pixels have been found to illegally transmit
| protected health information (PHI) back to the social giants,
| MSFT is just sending any data in text boxes to their servers...?
| They'll just deal with the class action when it comes...?
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| What worries me is that I know there's some VP at Microsoft right
| now trying to figure out how to convey the Windows/Edge
| crapware/adshit/tracking bloat experience to Github. One day it
| will happen.
| tmikaeld wrote:
| And Microsoft wonder why on earth people jump through their
| arsenal of hoops to switch from Edge to any other browser as a
| default.
|
| This would be it
| surgical_fire wrote:
| The weird thing is going for Chrome, that is another bloated
| corporate mess.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| It is your fault for using the successor of Internet Explorer
| jiripospisil wrote:
| It would be interesting to hear what people outside of the HN
| bubble (or outside of tech in general) think about this. I bet a
| lot of people like seeing the news right after starting the
| browser because that's exactly why the opened the browser in the
| first place.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > I bet a lot of people like seeing the news right after
| starting the browser because that's exactly why the opened the
| browser in the first place.
|
| Does anyone, besides maybe the elderly (out of habit), use a
| _desktop computer_ to read (clickbait, low-quality) news
| instead of their phone?
|
| As an anecdote, I know a non-technical Windows user who unlocks
| their machine by clicking the "like what you see?" prompt on
| the lockscreen backgrounds as a way to dismiss the (stupid)
| lockscreen and get to the password prompt.
|
| Doing so opens a Bing search for some bullshit (in Edge
| obviously) which she just leaves in the background as she moves
| onto her actual work-related application. I bet this looks
| great in metrics and "engagement", while being totally fake
| engagement and not actually representative of the usefulness of
| this "feature". I wonder how many other useless features are
| misused by non-technical users where all the "engagement" is
| actually just accidental clicks.
| aflag wrote:
| Even if the main purpose of people powering on their desktop
| PCs is not reading the news, I'm sure many (if not most) will
| still go through the news before, during and/or after they do
| the main activity they set out to do.
| [deleted]
| bdw5204 wrote:
| I wonder how many of the clicks on online ads in general are
| just accidental clicks. Especially clicks from phones where
| it is extremely easy to accidentally load the ads. This
| question will probably never be answered because it is a
| vital business interest of Google, Facebook, Microsoft and
| every company that makes phone apps that it not be answered.
| joseda-hg wrote:
| My phone has recently started to randomly detect taps in a
| specific segment of the screen, the placement is just right
| to trigger ads if im not careful
|
| My normal tolerance for ads is basically 0, so I expect a
| change on what gets shown to me until I replace my phone _,
| which will be interesting, because ads I get shown are
| targeted to me pretty accurately
|
| _ From the location and other problems, I'm guessing the
| battery has swollen, so it will have to be pretty soon
| [deleted]
| crimsontech wrote:
| Some maybe, my guess is most people would just set their
| favourite news site as their home page if they wanted.
|
| It's not like what Microsoft shows is a good source of news
| either.
| mdasen wrote:
| > Partly I'm hoping that somebody at Microsoft will wake up to
| the unrealised potential of Edge and start treating it like
| Safari: a utility that end users can trust to have their back and
| preserve their privacy in as many circumstances as possible.
| Apple doesn't try to make revenue from Safari because they don't
| need to.
|
| I understand what the author is getting at, but Apple does make a
| lot of money off Safari. Their deal for Google to be the default
| search engine makes them a ton of money.
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/johanmoreno/2021/08/27/google-e...
|
| "Sacconaghi estimates that Google could be paying nearly $15
| billion in 2021 for default placement. This is an increase over
| the roughly $10 billion Google paid last year for the
| exclusivity."
|
| That's essentially $15B in pure profit.
|
| The issue isn't that Microsoft wants to make money from Edge.
| Apple makes plenty of money from Safari while making sure Safari
| keeps that space as "a utility that end users can trust to have
| their back and preserve their privacy in as many circumstances as
| possible." _The issue is that Microsoft is looking for all the
| edge cases to milk marginal profits out of._ Microsoft could just
| have Edge feed Bing traffic and make money off ads on Bing - but
| they want more!
|
| The issue isn't always making money vs. not making money.
| Sometimes the issue is restraint. It's why I'm sometimes
| skeptical about companies trying to optimize things too much.
| Maybe your profits are increasing, but are you doing long-term
| damage to your product and brand that will see bad long-term
| effects? "We've found that we can increase ad revenue by adding 7
| more ads to the page." Then a few years later customers have
| left. It can be really hard to pass up what seems like free money
| and what seems to be working. Whether it will be sustainable
| money is the question, but often one that isn't asked.
| thimabi wrote:
| > Microsoft could just have Edge feed Bing traffic and make
| money off ads on Bing - but they want more!
|
| That won't work if users switch their default search engine to
| Google, what many of them probably do. And Edge's user base is
| relatively small anyway.
| mrweasel wrote:
| While I'm sure that the shareholder love this, from the outside
| it looks like that last desperate acts from a company try to
| avoid bankruptcy.
| binbag wrote:
| You think Microsoft are at risk of bankruptcy? Why?
| mrweasel wrote:
| No, not at all. That's my point. All these ads, data
| collection and selling of data, that's just unnecessary.
| Microsoft don't need the additional revenue, yet Edge is
| filled with stuff that I'd only expect from a shady online
| gaming company, or a company that's severely short on cash.
|
| As others have pointed out, maybe it's actually "features"
| that adds value for the general public, maybe it's just
| greed. In any case from my point of it taints the image of a
| company that's otherwise highly respected.
| bell-cot wrote:
| For any company of Microsoft's age & size, "doesn't need"
| is completely orthogonal to "corporate executive greed".
| You probably should "rightsize" your level of respect for
| MS.
| mrweasel wrote:
| > You probably should "rightsize" your level of respect
| for MS
|
| Maybe it would be better if Microsoft tried to live up to
| the standard and ideal that people like me expects from a
| company in their position. Realistically you're right, it
| would be easier for me to adjust my expectations, but I
| won't because I see no evidence that I'm not morally
| right.
| JohnFen wrote:
| That would be better, yes, but the reality is that's not
| something you can control, and it's very unlikely to
| happen.
| bitwize wrote:
| Don't anthropomorphize the lawnmower, dude.
| graycat wrote:
| There is a LOT of discussion here about the Microsoft Web browser
| Edge and Windows 10/11. I have some questions.
|
| Background: At present I'm a heavy user of Windows 10 Home
| Edition, Firefox, KEdit, Rexx, etc. From a move, I have a Windows
| 7 Professional system in a box and am eager to get it running.
| That system has the 100,000 lines of code for my Web site I'm
| eager to get on-line. I'm considering plugging together a
| _desktop_ computer for a Web server, with, say, some 16 core AMD
| processor, solid state memory for much of the file system, e.g.,
| the SQL part, running some version of Windows Server 2019.
|
| (1) Simple question: This thread has many mentions of a _widget_.
| What is a _widget_? Maybe I use them nearly hourly, but I don 't
| know just what they are, what the _definition_ is.
|
| (2) My understanding is that with Windows Server, can turn off
| the automatic updates. Is that true? Hopefully.
|
| (3) I am guessing that with Windows Server I can still run
| software that has long, commonly run on Windows, e.g., KEdit,
| Firefox, Rexx, some IBM code in Fortran for the classic applied
| math of linear programming, a Fortran compiler, Adobe's Acrobat
| PDF reader, Knuth's TeX mathematical word processing software,
| .... Is this true?
|
| (4) I'm guessing that Windows Server will have less of the
| intrusive, unrequested popups, suggestions, recommendations, etc.
| about shopping, weather, travel, news, celebrities, etc. than
| Windows 10/11 have. Is that true?
|
| (5) Generally, if I want or need to leave Windows 7 Professional,
| I hope to move to some version of Windows Server and just stay
| away from Windows 10/11. Is that doable?
|
| Thanks!!
| nubinetwork wrote:
| That's not even all of them... Edge routinely takes over file
| association of pdf files, even if you have Adobe Acrobat
| installed. At work, we had to apply a whole slew of GPO and logon
| scripts to force Windows into using Acrobat.
| password4321 wrote:
| However bad Edge is, Adobe Acrobat Reader is worse.
|
| I understand it is a necessary evil for some of the forms
| stuff, digital signatures, and the full edition for editing.
| dblitt wrote:
| Now you can have both!
|
| https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2023/02/08/adobe-
| acrobat...
| happybuy wrote:
| Wrote a similar article for Safari's Dangerous Defaults:
|
| https://www.magiclasso.co/insights/safaris-dangerous-default...
|
| These articles came out in the same week, so it looks like one
| inspired the other or was just serendipitous timing.
| pityJuke wrote:
| Oh, the Bing button does have an opt-out. It's a Registry Option
| or a Group Policy option (or create a custom shortcut with some
| launch argument). Because of course they have to make it as
| annoying as possible, and impossible for a traditional user.
| plorg wrote:
| There also used to be a setting that would turn this off, but
| it isn't present in the version with the button. That same
| option can be chosen with a command flag, but that requires
| editing the Edge shortcut.
| speg wrote:
| Oh man, as a longtime Mac user I have zero patience for this.
| Unfortunately my corporate laptop is a Windows one and when that
| giant, gaudy big blue Bing icon showed up in my toolbar yesterday
| I dropped everything to try and disable it.
|
| I was disappointed but not surprised there was no setting for it.
| A quick search online led to some policy and registry settings
| but the corporate policies my company has in place wouldn't allow
| those. Thankfully I found a command line option and quickly made
| a new shortcut which worked.
|
| Back to work without that giant B looming over me.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Any job that forces me to use a Windows machine for a
| significant amount of time is a job I will not take. The only
| way to fight against this bullshit is to make it a downside for
| the companies that deploy it, and in turn, their supplier
| (Microsoft).
| 404mm wrote:
| Same. It became one of my interview questions and I haven't
| had windows as my primary work machine OS for 9 years now. If
| I have to work with it for 8 hours a day then it becomes part
| of sanity. Protect your peace :)
| pluc wrote:
| Mind sharing that shortcut for fellow corporate-policy
| dwellers?
| justinclift wrote:
| Did you know that out-of-the-box, Edge will transmit the content
| of your text boxes on web pages to the Microsoft Editor
| service for the purpose of grammatical suggestions? I
| have no idea how this concept got past legal but hey,
| it's on by default now.
|
| Holy shit. :(
|
| At what point are some of the major government legal departments
| actually going to step up and sort this shit out?
|
| It is _so_ , so, so, so, so far past overdue. Yet _nothing_. :(
| Ygg2 wrote:
| > At what point are some of the major government legal
| departments actually going to step up
|
| Why would they? It's cheap intelligence on their opponents.
| Bypasses those pesky constitution laws. Win-win.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Chrome does the same thing for textboxes if you use enhanced
| spell checking.
|
| _> Enhanced spell check Uses the same spell checker that's
| used in Google search. Text you type in the browser is sent to
| Google._
| imajoredinecon wrote:
| The difference is that Google has come under enough
| historical privacy flak that they now aggressively privacy
| red-team new functionality like this and do things like make
| it opt-in.
| justinclift wrote:
| That seems new?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Is there an actual example of what these "enhanced" spell-
| checkers provide over basic ones that run locally? To me it
| seems like spell checking is a problem that Word from over a
| decade ago solved well enough (and ran fine on that era's
| hardware).
| delecti wrote:
| A normal local spellcheck requires you to be much closer to
| the word than an "enhanced" one. As an example, if I search
| Google for "nucrusift" ("microsoft", but typed with my
| right hand one space to the left, a fairly common category
| of typo IME), it suggests a search for "Microsoft". The
| built-in spellcheck in Chrome (which I'm using to type this
| comment) does not offer any suggestions to correct
| "nucrusift".
| pseudalopex wrote:
| iOS's local spell check suggested Microsoft.
| delecti wrote:
| I just tried for myself, and that was the keyboard's
| auto-complete, not the OS's spell-check, a subtle but IMO
| important difference. I think it's reasonable to _expect_
| the keyboard to catch that kind of typo, given it
| inherently has to do that kind of fuzzy logic to
| determine words anyway.
|
| When I entered that same string into iOS Safari in a text
| box replying to your comment, deliberately bypassing the
| keyboard's auto-complete, it had no suggestions.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Marking unrecognized words, suggesting spellings, and
| auto correct are 3 different features if you want to
| split hairs. The distinction is not relevant to the claim
| a layout aware suggestion could not be produced locally.
| delecti wrote:
| I didn't say it _could not_ be produced locally. I was
| just providing "an actual example of what these
| "enhanced" spell-checkers provide over basic ones that
| run locally." I'm merely speaking to what is, not what
| could be.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| They use ngrams[0] and provide much more current
| dictionaries that won't flag non-dictionary words that are
| popular phases (think Urban Dictionary-like words/phases).
| The closest thing to something like Grammarly, Microsoft
| Editor, or Google's Enhanced spell check that you can run
| locally is Language Tool's local HTTP (java) server[1]
| combined with the Language Tool extension, and installing
| an ngram database[2]. But that won't give you the up-to-
| date phase information and you'll get red-squiggles under
| common phases that aren't dictionary words yet (e.g.
| Fluffernutter, Copypasta, Deplatform, et al).
|
| Is it worth using these services given the privacy
| implications? Only you can answer that. I personally wish
| we had better local offerings, but I just don't think
| anyone wants to fund it when there's almost no revenue to
| be made.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-gram
|
| [1] https://dev.languagetool.org/http-server.html
|
| [2] https://dev.languagetool.org/finding-errors-using-n-
| gram-dat...
| 5- wrote:
| what about that newer dictionary cannot be provided by a
| download?
|
| your browser probably updates itself every week or so.
|
| there is absolutely nothing about these kinds of services
| that require running them on someone else's computer,
| save for conspiratorial reasons.
|
| see also: machine translation (apple offline translate,
| firefox translations et al work just fine on your
| machine).
| throwbackhere wrote:
| Your comment reminded me of the new grammar checking feature on
| my phone. It better not be what I think it is.
|
| EDIT 1: I just checked and, fucking hell, it's grammarly!
| Samsung sneaked in an update that was silently leaking
| everything I wrote to fucking grammarly. This can be disabled
| by pressing the gear button and accessing the hidden writing
| assistant menu.
|
| Good hardware is not worth risking my private information.
| Samsung, this will be the last time I buy a phone from you.
|
| EDIT 2: Couldn't find anything about this on Samsung's website.
| Found more information on grammarly:
| https://support.grammarly.com/hc/en-us/articles/440798862017...
| jasonlotito wrote:
| > Samsung sneaked in an update that was silently leaking
| everything I wrote to fucking grammarly.
|
| It's not leaking if it's intentional. Leaking makes it sound
| like it was mistake.
| kzrdude wrote:
| Thanks for the notice, so that I could turn it off. My kbd is
| Gboard though, so it should be unaffected, by that particular
| thing. I would recommend Gboard. I use it for better
| multilingual support.
| web3-is-a-scam wrote:
| Why would governments be opposed to free mass surveillance.
| Microsoft is one of the biggest cronies in Washington.
| justinclift wrote:
| It also surveils politicians, higher end public servants, and
| other law-involved decision makers who you'd think would have
| a problem with it.
|
| Maybe there's a blackmail and bribery department looking at
| what those people have been writing? (/s)
|
| Lets see if that "backlash against big tech" thing actually
| goes anyone. One can hope. :)
| favaq wrote:
| It helps to read TOS/EULA/etc. If you agree to something then
| you shouldn't be complaining about it.
| justinclift wrote:
| Oh, there's no chance in hell I'll ever use Edge personally.
| Learned a long, long time ago not to trust MS.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| No. In many places getting consent by deceptive/malicious
| means is illegal, and EULAs cannot override laws. That's why
| Google's cookie popups now have a "reject all" button after a
| $170 million fine.
| otikik wrote:
| Well I have an EULA in my living room closet that allows
| everyone who wants to complain. If you don't agree you can
| find my closet and write your name on the exception list. You
| must use Cyrillic letters.
| pongo1231 wrote:
| Yes, have us let tech giants see how much dystopian shit they
| can get away with without any kind of pushback because their
| ToS has a vague remark at page 30 that might grant them the
| ability to do so. That is the kind of future we want.
| macintux wrote:
| 10 years ago it would take a month of workdays. I have to
| imagine it's much worse now.
|
| https://www.techdirt.com/2012/04/23/to-read-all-privacy-
| poli...
| favaq wrote:
| Then don't use the software, you can't just sign a contract
| and then back off because you didn't have time to read it
| before you signed it.
| justinclift wrote:
| Interestingly, when I booted up a Win10 VM (with internet
| access) a few weeks ago some Edge window appeared, took
| over the screen, and wanted to _force_ me to go through
| their preferences /setup wizard.
|
| By "force" I mean "giving no other options". No "skip",
| "do it later" (or similar), and no way to quit.
|
| Had to outright kill the task in the windows process
| manager, as there's _zero_ chance I want anything to do
| with Edge.
|
| So "don't use the software" is workable for people who
| know how to kill tasks.
|
| But MS will be pulling that shit on average consumers
| too.
| omoikane wrote:
| There is a website that summarizes terms of services:
|
| https://tosdr.org/
|
| The about page says it started in June 2012, shortly after
| that techdirt article.
| dboreham wrote:
| I use an arm surface when traveling (google doesn't ship an arm
| binary for chrome so I use edge). This has driven me nuts. To
| stop Edge from displaying ads and add-inducing news stories on a
| new tab, you have to install a third party extension. Microsoft
| disables that extension every few weeks.
| shp0ngle wrote:
| I am using edge as I like the vertical tabs... the only browser
| that has this feature, kind of, is Safari; but safari extensions
| suck (if you tried to ever build one, you would understand why).
|
| It's otherwise very user hostile but just I love the vertical
| tabs so much
| cycomanic wrote:
| I've been using vertical tabs in Firefox for longer than Edge
| existed. Currently I'm using the treestyle tabs extension, but
| there are others.
|
| I find it interesting how we have a perfectly viable
| alternative in Firefox, but even many privacy informed users
| still promote Edge or Chrome. The author is a perfect example
| of this, he says he wants to box his "privacy exposure" to as
| few companies as possible. That would somehow make sense if all
| "companies" (in the broadest sense) were equal, but Firefox is
| made by a non for profit with the explicit goal of keeping the
| Internet free and private. And for the argument regarding
| Apple, Apple is perfectly happy to milk you for all your
| private data as well, they just keep it all to themselves. Why
| else the locking to their ecosystem.
| soundnote wrote:
| Brave has vertical tabs built in, designed to work much in the
| same way as Edge's (you'll need to enable a flag. Then right
| click a tab)
| shp0ngle wrote:
| Oh I will try it then.
|
| I disliked how Brave includes all the crypto nonsense when I
| tried it last. Yes you can turn it off, but you can say that
| about Edge too.
| Frenchgeek wrote:
| I've never used Edge: I usually use my Windows machine solely for
| gaming so I've had no need for it. But one day, that browser
| started itself to tell me of all the new.. Well, whatever it was,
| I killed the process before it could end its spiel. So now, I'll
| never use Edge.
|
| I don't know what their marketing department believe their core
| business is, but selling adware and spyware isn't a viable long
| term strategy.
| wildmXranat wrote:
| Wait until you find out about the trap that is "default page or
| home page" in Edge... What poop show.
|
| I installed Windows 10 LTSC and am not looking at a regular,
| retail level Windows ever again. They are shoving distractions
| and spyware into every app
| srvmshr wrote:
| > _If they offered privacy-enhanced ad-blocking Chromium with
| opt-in MS integration I think they would eat Chrome's lunch. It's
| a strict improvement in every way and I would absolutely love to
| see it._
|
| I wish Microsoft really paid attention to this. This is the core
| reason why people jumped to Brave (despite the crypto wallet
| connection & byzantine ad revenue sharing, which I _assume_ sends
| some kind of telemetry too). I personally don 't like it, but
| having a feature rich Chromium-based, modular features browser
| would be nice. This is such a missed opportunity.
| trustingtrust wrote:
| Almost every default setting from companies like Microsoft and
| google with have tons of telemetry enabled to 'serve' you better.
|
| I believe Ooshutup like tools can help up to a certain extent.
| tyingq wrote:
| There's also the dark bit where changing your default browser in
| Windows doesn't apply globally.
|
| That is, some UI widgets will still open Edge even if you change
| the default.
|
| There used to be an awesome open source project called
| EdgeDeflector that would fix that. Microsoft got wise to it and
| found a way to neutralize it, which killed the project.
| https://github.com/da2x/EdgeDeflector
| pseudalopex wrote:
| MSEdgeRedirect should work still.
| rejectfinite wrote:
| Edge has been getting worse and worse. I switched to Firefox and
| Vivaldi instead. Chrome, just in case I need it.
| Neil44 wrote:
| It's all very well turning these off but they'll get reset at
| some point when there's an update anyway.
| [deleted]
| coffeefirst wrote:
| Yes. In a lot of ways Edge is a better Chrome that doesn't force
| you to make your Browser Syncing account the same as your default
| Google Account.
|
| But they keep adding invasive features without asking. There's
| supposed to be a setting for Discover but it's not actually
| there.
| pluc wrote:
| The only reason to use Edge is because your corporate policy
| forces you to. There is _no_ other reason whatsoever.
|
| If you must, use Chrome if you'd rather send all that data to an
| advertising company in exchange for a familiar UI. Otherwise, use
| Firefox.
| fbdab103 wrote:
| Not corporate policy, but something is borked with the internal
| SSO. Only about half of my internal sites work with Chrome. So,
| I am frequently relegated to working with Edge because the
| Microsoft admins prioritize streamlining all of the account
| stuff. Everything else is an unsupported workflow.
| skrebbel wrote:
| Edge has lots of great features and UX elements that set it
| apart. Eg proper vertical tab bar, profiles with great UX,
| "turn site into desktop app", well-designed website
| translation, etc. Chrome has some of these and Firefox lets you
| piece it all together with lots of add-ons but it's not the
| same.
|
| Firefox is my daily driver, but for a long time, before all
| these user-hostile misfeatures were added, Edge was Pretty
| Great As Well in my opinion.
| tripdout wrote:
| The collections feature is really useful as well.
| soundnote wrote:
| Brave has vertical tabs nowadays, though they're still behind
| a flag. But they've gotten pretty and stable enough that I
| don't miss Edge at all.
| manderley wrote:
| "Turn site into desktop app" is a Chrome feature, and has
| been for many years. Chrome calls it "Create shortcut - Open
| as window".
|
| Website translations and the profiles UI is very similar to
| Chrome as well.
| password4321 wrote:
| Edge dev tools has "edit and resend" built in.
| pluc wrote:
| "Edge dev tools" are Chrome dev tools that were Firefox
| developer tools.
| mshroyer wrote:
| I use it because it does better than Chrome or Firefox for my
| laptop's battery life. It's an unwanted hassle to stay on top
| of these new privacy settings though, and I wouldn't recommend
| Edge to a non-technical family matter for that reason.
| soundnote wrote:
| Why use Chrome when you could use something like Ungoogled
| Chromium if you don't need backend services, or Brave if you
| want an end to end encrypted independent sync backend?
| shp0ngle wrote:
| Vertical tabs
| soundnote wrote:
| Are built in in Brave (still behind a flag, though, but
| already in perfectly usable shape)
| LBJsPNS wrote:
| ...are easily added to Firefox if desired.
| shp0ngle wrote:
| not really, it keeps the horizontal one, so it still takes
| space.
|
| Apparently Brave has it now though.
| [deleted]
| Kwpolska wrote:
| I use Firefox as my primary browser, and Edge as the secondary
| browser for things that don't like Firefox or for when Firefox
| does weird things. I don't have Chrome installed on my PCs
| (both work and personal), because I don't need it.
|
| Also, Microsoft is not primarily an advertising company. They
| make money by selling software to businesses, such as Windows
| Server, SQL Server, Microsoft Office (or Microsoft 365).
| soundnote wrote:
| From 2020, "Web Browser Privacy: What Do Browsers Say When
| They Phone Home?"
| https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Doug.Leith/pubs/browser_privacy.pdf
|
| > We find that the browsers split into three distinct groups
| from this privacy perspective. In the first (most private)
| group lies Brave, in the second Chrome, Firefox and Safari
| and in the third (least private) group lie Edge and Yandex.
| password4321 wrote:
| Occasionally Edge works up the nerve to force logging into my
| Microsoft account to continue with a modal login dialog that
| cannot be avoided unless I terminate the process.
|
| I'm not sure what triggers this or if there's a way to disable
| it, but it doesn't appear if I restart a new instance.
| psyclobe wrote:
| This Edge bullshit pushed me off the edge; I'm all Linux now.
| Kwpolska wrote:
| Microsoft does not force you to use Edge. There are some places
| where it will launch Edge instead of the default browser, like
| the start menu search or widgets, but they are quite pointless
| anyway. For all your other web browsing, you can just switch to
| Firefox and forget Edge is a thing.
| elboru wrote:
| Microsoft feels like two totally different companies. One company
| can produce amazing concepts and products. But then, the other
| company comes and adds nasty "features" on top to ruin
| everything.
| discreditable wrote:
| Imo, so many of Microsoft's dark patterns are a direct result
| of them owning bing. Bing has bad market share, so MS takes
| every chance they get to show it to users. Start menu web
| search, Edge defaults, dark patterns abound just to get
| eyeballs on bing.
| kzrdude wrote:
| Bing's assistant (chatbot) is also a good example of the nest
| technical side. There are some people there trying to make
| new technology accessible to many.
|
| Hampered by other things in the same pattern, right now
| requiring an Edge User agent.
| [deleted]
| jorvi wrote:
| That's because it is. There's Consumer Microsoft and Enterprise
| Microsoft. Enterprise Microsoft products are mostly really
| great. Anything that's tied to the consumer side can't make its
| returns on fat B2B contracts, so they are forced to extract
| value otherwise.
| ChatGTP wrote:
| Teams?
| soundnote wrote:
| Is heavy but mostly very good?
| shp0ngle wrote:
| > Enterprise Microsoft products are mostly really great.
|
| I see you haven't actually used Azure Devops. (Their
| "enterprise github", sort of.)
| guhidalg wrote:
| I have, it is actually really good. I remember being crap
| >5 years ago but lately I find it much nicer than GitHub.
| What makes you dislike ADO?
| Lendal wrote:
| I wouldn't call it "Dark" if switching it off is so simple and
| right there in front of your face. "Rapacious" is a great
| description though, and one I would see used in the title
| instead. These "features" shouldn't be default, they are
| extremely annoying and they are numerous. Some are arguably
| useful. But it's not "Dark" if you can switch them off right in
| the main interface where you'd expect, and doing so actually does
| what it says it will. Otherwise, this is an excellent article.
| Thanks for the tips!
| foobarbecue wrote:
| "dark" as in the tech term "dark pattern." User-hostile
| defaults are generally considered a dark pattern.
| gibspaulding wrote:
| For everyone complaining about telemetry/popups/general bullshit
| in windows 10/11 itself, go download O&O Shutup 10+ and let it
| flip all of its recommended options. It gives the nice sane
| default that Microsoft should have in the first place.
|
| Slightly off topic I know since I don't think it will change
| things in Edge itself, but for that, you can go install your own
| preferred browser just like the last 28 years.
| lapcat wrote:
| From 2020, "Web Browser Privacy: What Do Browsers Say When They
| Phone Home?"
| https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Doug.Leith/pubs/browser_privacy.pdf
|
| > We find that the browsers split into three distinct groups from
| this privacy perspective. In the first (most private) group lies
| Brave, in the second Chrome, Firefox and Safari and in the third
| (least private) group lie Edge and Yandex.
| [deleted]
| oneplane wrote:
| If you accidentally click on the Sign In button in Edge, it locks
| into an infinite loop asking for your credentials until you
| either enter them or kill the process in task manager. No amount
| of clicking cancel actually cancels it, and since it's a modal
| dialog you also can't continue using the browser.
| uni_baconcat wrote:
| I quite like MS365 and Edge works great together. But there's
| just too much adverts and unrelated content from MSN.com pushed
| to the index tab. Also, they ruined the PDF experience when
| changing the engine from EdgeHTML.
| soundnote wrote:
| Old Edge was a really nice ebook reader.
| satoshiiii wrote:
| Wait until ChatGPT11 is embedded with Bing, Edge, and Windows.
| And it cannot be turned off because it will make the user's life
| easier according to MS' sales team.
| soundnote wrote:
| I wanted to sleep tonight.
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(page generated 2023-03-18 23:01 UTC)