[HN Gopher] Outlook is Microsoft's new data collection service
___________________________________________________________________
Outlook is Microsoft's new data collection service
Author : jlpcsl
Score : 464 points
Date : 2024-01-11 15:36 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (proton.me)
(TXT) w3m dump (proton.me)
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| I get absolutely positively outraged when a paid for product such
| as Operating System or MS Office starts bombarding me with ads.
|
| I _get_ that this was entirely predictable (see XKCD exhibit 1),
| and that once we allowed it in websites and webapps there were no
| real barriers left to downloaded installed native local apps, and
| my outrage is too little too late.
|
| And I get that saying "I'm now installing Linux on my laptop"
| is... nice but irrelevant. 0.01% of userbase doing that will make
| laughably no dent.
|
| But it's really really getting too much. Grumble Grubmle
| everybody get off my lawn! :-/
|
| Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/743/
| pierat wrote:
| That XKCD sums up why I *WONT* pirate programs.
|
| That's how Adobe got to where they are. People pirated their
| stuff (and bought legitimately), got their stuff trapped in
| their formats. Then they turned the screws and locked people
| out of their own content. Autodesk did the same exact thing
| too, with Inventor and Eagle.
|
| Your personal data is too important to be used as some
| ransomware (read: proprietary programs). Cause then, it's not
| just the finding an alternate program, but figuring out how to
| export.... if they even let you.
| xnx wrote:
| Don't GIMP, Paint.net, and Photopea all open Photoshop files?
| Lock-in sucks, but Photoshop is much easier to give up than
| something like Salesforce.
| ParetoOptimal wrote:
| They do, but compatibility isn't perfect and fixing
| anything requires huge reverse engineering knowledge or
| prior knowledge.
|
| See:
|
| "... PSD is not a good format. PSD is not even a bad
| format. Calling it such would be an insult to other bad
| formats...
|
| If there are two different ways of doing something, PSD
| will do both, in different places. It will then make up
| three more ways no sane human would think of, and do those.
| PSD makes inconsistency an art form...
|
| Earlier, I tried to get a hold of the latest specs for the
| PSD file format. To do this, I had to apply to them for
| permission to apply to them to have them consider sending
| me this sacred tome. This would have involved faxing them a
| copy of some document or other, probably signed in blood. I
| can only imagine that they make this process so difficult
| because they are intensely ashamed of having created this
| abomination..."
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=575122
|
| https://layervault.tumblr.com/post/56891876898/psdrb
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6129237
| dirtyhippiefree wrote:
| >I can only imagine that they make this process so
| difficult because they are intensely ashamed of having
| created this abomination...
|
| There is no shame in that game.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > Then they turned the screws and locked people out of their
| own content
|
| How did Adobe do this?
| jampekka wrote:
| Probably referring to the SaaS turn?
| robertlagrant wrote:
| But you still have the current software and your current
| files. Who's locked out?
| vetinari wrote:
| That last, non-rented version might not run on the
| current hardware.
|
| Like CS2, which ran on PowerPC Macs. Intel and ARM macs
| need not apply.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Didn't they go well beyond CS2 though? Why did you pick
| such an old version? We ran Adobe on Intel Macs well
| before SaaS. In fact, we were running Adobe Premiere
| before Final Cut was released.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| That's not locking you out of your content, though. If
| Adobe vanished then we wouldn't say that they locked us
| out of our files when a new chipset came along. I don't
| think they have a mandate to deliver future changes to
| their software for nothing that maintain chipset support
| for anything we might buy.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| * Adobe switched to subscription model.
|
| * Locked-in (for various reasons) userbase moved in to
| subscription model en masse, begrudgingly and
| complainingly
|
| * Now, as soon as you stop subscription, your software
| stops working, and your catalogue will not work with pre-
| subscription files
|
| We can debate semantics of "turned on the screws" and
| "screwed over", but take it on my word that most of us
| are feeling thus :). Yes we were hoisted by own petard
| and choices.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| I'm not criticising that. I'm saying if you have a copy
| of the version you bought (or pirated!) then you aren't
| locked out of your content back in the day.
| sonicanatidae wrote:
| I do both. If I get legitimate use out of an app, I purchase
| it, but I also pirate a copy and store it on the NAS. I
| bought it and I will own a copy forever. They can just get
| over it. They were paid.
| pge wrote:
| After 20+ years on Outlook, I recently switched to Thunderbird.
| Not quite as full featured and a little slow at times, but it's
| finally a viable replacement for Outlook.
| Duanemclemore wrote:
| Welcome to the fold! I've used Thunderbird since it was
| released. It's always been a great product imo. The whole time
| I've had outlook provided by whatever office or institution I
| was associated with for comparison. Given the choice, even
| almost 20 years ago I'd have taken t-bird head to head.
| boplicity wrote:
| I wish I could use Thunberdird. It grinds to a halt far too
| often for me. We have very large inboxes, so maybe that's a
| factor.
| timvisee wrote:
| It handles 150k messages in a folder without a sweat for me.
| Do you have more?
| dangrossman wrote:
| My Thunderbird profile folder is 22GB in size. I have
| hundreds of thousands of emails in it. The fact that it can
| handle all my large mailboxes is why I still use it.
| nolongerthere wrote:
| I'm curious, you used the outlook desktop client for personal
| email? I feel like that use case is very unusual. My biggest
| issue is that we use O365 so are kinda forced into using
| outlook to get all the benefits, of the tight integration, but
| outlook is becoming less and less usable, I just don't see how
| thunderbird is a better alternative for O365...
| pge wrote:
| yes, I used Outlook desktop for both work (2 O365 accounts
| with different organizations) and personal email (multiple
| gmail accounts). With a job change, I am no longer on O365
| (new company uses hosted gmail), but I understand there is a
| plugin for Thunderbird to work with O365. I much prefer
| having the same client for all my email accounts, and Outlook
| worked for that purpose. It was better for O365 calendaring
| within the office, but it did not play well with google
| calendar. Thunderbird plays well with both (with a plugin for
| O365).
| havaloc wrote:
| I do some tech support on the side. No one, and I mean no one
| wants to pay for email. So here we are.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| I pay for proton mail and am quite happy to do so. In fact I
| pay for everything I use on the internet if I can. Kagi,
| proton, etc, unless there's an open source option. I even buy
| the family versions and share with my parents.
| sonicanatidae wrote:
| The problem is, even when email is paid for, like an O365
| account, the clients are still forced into being the product.
| worble wrote:
| I pay for Migadu and very happy with it
| zeagle wrote:
| Me too. Another vote for them.
| moose44 wrote:
| The cool part about Proton is they bundle a lot of their
| services. You aren't just paying for email--you're paying for
| VPN, encrypted cloud storage and more.
| tiahura wrote:
| Why is it cool to pay for stuff you may not use?
| moose44 wrote:
| You're missing the point, however, I'll entertain it.
|
| Most services just offer a paid email. Proton offers all of
| its services for an extremely low monthly price. Not to
| mention their security protocols are among the best.
|
| Everyone uses email. Most use a VPN (everyone should) and
| almost everyone utilizes some form of cloud storage.
|
| I started off purchasing to use their VPN and now actively
| use all 3.
| computer7050 wrote:
| Why should everyone use a VPN?
| tmikaeld wrote:
| Why should everyone use a VPN?
|
| It's a false sense of security and a waste of resources.
| The ones making the money are datacenters and middle-men.
| moose44 wrote:
| Using the internet in general is a false sense of
| security. If you want total security crush all of your
| technology and go live in the woods.
|
| The point of cyber security tools like VPNs is to limit
| tracking, data sharing and reduce the potential for
| malicious actions to be taken against you.
|
| You can't honestly say not using a VPN is better than
| using one. What's the alternative? Unencrypted web
| traffic? Your ISP harvesting your web data and selling
| it? Exposure on public networks?
| tmikaeld wrote:
| > Unencrypted web traffic?
|
| I don't know if you're aware, but basically all sites on
| the internet use something called SSL these days.
| However, SSL is useless if you use a VPN that also
| provide DNS servers (which most do) - because the
| provider could listen in on all of your traffic by
| hijacking the handshake, DNS and traffic to and from any
| target server - making it much easier to create a user
| profile, because you're authenticated to the VPN.
|
| Also, third party cookies are blocked in the mainline
| browsers by default, making VPNs even more useless.
|
| Most if not all of the ISPs also use dynamic IPs, making
| it unlikely to be cross-site-tracked based on IP sources.
| moose44 wrote:
| What does that have to do with your ISP having access to
| this information and selling it? In addition to using
| public networks?
|
| Additionally, 3rd party cookies may be blocked but cross-
| site are not.
| okamiueru wrote:
| Is it limiting tracking, or potentially exposing a
| untrusted middleman with knowledge of _all_ your traffic,
| and who it belongs to?
|
| What is the difference between the ISP knowing this and
| being a problem, but the VPN sitting with the exact same
| information, also knowing it?
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| I mean, sure, it really depends on who is providing the
| VPN. With Proton, you're already using them for your
| email, so if they were a bad actor, you're basically
| fucked already. If you have ProtonMail, then the choices
| are 1/ No VPN, so your ISP _will_ collect this data, 2 /
| a popular VPN provide who _will_ collect this data, or 3
| / Proton who say they won't and they've already got you
| email too if they are liars. Option 3 is the lowest risk
| of event if they are good actor, but also the potential
| damage of an event, if they are bad actor, is much higher
| since they have more data including email based 2FA.
| moose44 wrote:
| Like I said above, the best option is to not use
| technology at all. If you want to use it, you play the
| odds and attempt to limit nefarious activity against you.
| moose44 wrote:
| ISPs knowingly collect it and sell it. Proton (at least
| according to them) do not collect it. You must choose
| your VPN carefully.
| gtvwill wrote:
| Am my own isp.... I rarely use a VPN. Fixed ip and all.
|
| Your VPN doesn't protect against squat when it comes to
| the agencies that might be watching. Hell it doesn't even
| protect much against marketers fingerprinting your
| movement around the internet. You leave a plenty big
| breadcrumb trail that isn't just IPV4.
|
| Honestly VPNs have been a great marketing example of the
| last 5 years. You all buy something without needing it or
| knowing why t f you have it. Yes using internet without
| one is better. Why? It's cheaper for starters.Auth.
| faster! No relay slowing down your connection!
|
| VPN best use isn't on consumer end. It's on orchestration
| end as another tool to guarantee you are who you say you
| are via another layer of auth.
| bastard_op wrote:
| It's like Apple offering a default "privacy vpn", and
| lately now google too, it's really just a way for them to
| slurp your data as well what you're visiting, dns
| resolving, basically everything you do over the network.
| Even worse is apple enables it by default for all their
| devices, so all day long firewall logs for customers fill
| with "proxy avoidance" drops for apple proxy service as
| that's what a firewall should do in a corporate
| environment, treating this as data exfiltration.
|
| What does Apple _really_ do with that information? I at
| least know what Google or Microsoft is doing, by example
| of this article.
|
| I just laugh as Apple users misplace their trust and
| think they're somehow secure for it buying an iphone, at
| least Microsoft users know the insecure mess they're
| stuck with.
| sbuk wrote:
| > Not to mention their security protocols are among the
| best.
|
| What does this even mean?
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| You mean the VPN? Because we all use cloud storage these
| days.
| xn7 wrote:
| They also have offers where you only pay for email || vpn
| || cloud-storage. Their payment structure is somewhat
| confusing, but very flexible.
| mulmen wrote:
| I happily pay for email.
| hdhdjdjd wrote:
| This is an email client. Not email server.
|
| > your IMAP and SMTP username and password are transmitted to
| Microsoft in plain text.
|
| What the heck?
| NoZebra120vClip wrote:
| > > your IMAP and SMTP username and password are transmitted
| to Microsoft in plain text.
|
| I think that is not true. I think that is a lie on Proton's
| behalf.
|
| When I set up the email client, it connects via OAUTH2 to the
| other services. It's connected as an app and not via
| credentials. If it connected via bare credentials, then it'd
| be a "legacy app" and you'd need to generate an "app
| password" for it, but you don't.
| miles wrote:
| >> your IMAP and SMTP username and password are transmitted
| to Microsoft in plain text.
|
| > I think that is not true. I think that is a lie on
| Proton's behalf.
|
| Sadly, it is all too true:
|
| Microsoft lays hands on login data: Beware of the new
| Outlook https://www.heise.de/news/Microsoft-lays-hands-on-
| login-data...
|
| Warning: New Outlook sends passwords, mails and other data
| to Microsoft https://mailbox.org/en/post/warning-new-
| outlook-sends-passwo...
| tobz1000 wrote:
| I pay for ProtonMail but understand that most wouldn't. AFAIK
| they still offer a decent free tier, which I'm happy to help
| support.
| thelittleone wrote:
| I'm happy to pay and I do.
| dgellow wrote:
| Enough people to make protonmail profitable it seems
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| Why say no one?
|
| Do you pay for your personal emails? I do (Fastmail) and I'm
| very happy. Same with search (Kagi) and many other services.
| Spivak wrote:
| How does this jive with the fact that people using Outlook are
| almost surely paying for email because it's their work's
| Exchange server?
| rekoil wrote:
| In this case Outlook isn't actually _Outlook_ , it's the
| replacement for Windows Mail which they're now calling
| Outlook, not what you and I think of as Microsoft Outlook.
| kemotep wrote:
| This is a new version of the Mail for Windows app. Outlook
| for Windows is free. Outlook that comes with the Office Suite
| is not, it costs money.
|
| So you could have two different Outlooks on your Windows 11
| computer now. Just like there could be 3(!) versions of Teams
| installed (Teams for Home with Friends and Family, Teams for
| Work or School, and New Teams for Work and School).
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > No one, and I mean no one wants to pay for email. So here we
| are.
|
| This Outlook risk hangs over my client's head because they
| opted to pay. Last year they moved from self-hosed Exchange to
| hosted-Exchange + Office 365 + all the recurring fees (and
| support costs).
|
| Paying rent to reside in MS's surveillance hydra isn't a
| terrific bargain.
| BongoMcCat wrote:
| I pay for a mailbox.org account.
| iamthirsty wrote:
| I pay for Fastmail (for now), iCloud Mail, and have paid for 15
| years. I know I'm the outlier, but it's not _no one_ or
| services like Hey wouldn 't exist at all.
| ziddoap wrote:
| > _No one, and I mean no one wants to pay for email._
|
| I and several people I know are happy to pay for email. Every
| report like the one linked here makes me an even happier paying
| customer.
|
| Perhaps you have a different definition of "no one".
| stronglikedan wrote:
| A charitable interpretation of "No one, and I mean no one"
| would be an incredibly small fraction of a percentage of
| people to the point of being insignificant and irrelevant to
| the conversation.
| int_19h wrote:
| There's enough people paying for email that there is not
| one, but several farly large providers of such services -
| Proton Mail among them, but also e.g. Fastmail.
| okamiueru wrote:
| You're wrong. I don't need more than one data point to make
| that conclusion.
|
| I pay for protonmail, and I'm very happy with what I get. I can
| even use it as a client for receiving and sending email from my
| own domain. So, if ever I were to want to get away from it, my
| accounts won't be tied to the email provider.
| nolongerthere wrote:
| This is talking about the paid outlook desktop app, not the
| free email service. There are many issues with the new version
| of the paid app, the main one being its really just a webview
| for wrapper for the website. You could just as easily pin the
| tab and have the exact same experience.
| rtcode_io wrote:
| I pay for Amazon WorkMail (through AWS) and couldn't be
| happier. $4 per user (50GB mailbox) per month. Gets the job
| done. Integrates like a charm with mail clients, lets me use
| multiple domains!
| skrebbel wrote:
| You're writing this comment in response to an article by a
| company that _only_ exists because people want to pay for
| email.
| sonicanatidae wrote:
| I'm am sick to death of being forced into being targeted by Ads.
|
| I already run Pi-hole and use Brave, now I have to avoid Outlook.
|
| Thanks microsoft. We don't have enough attack vectors already, so
| it's nice for you to compile all of our information to make it
| much easier for bad actors to gain our information. I'm sure the
| pittance fine levied against them, not if, but FUCKING WHEN, they
| get breached will teach them a lesson.
|
| /End -Rant
| thesuitonym wrote:
| If you're upset about ads, why are you using Brave? It was
| developed by an adtech company to steal ad revenue from
| websites and direct it toward their CEO.
| kornhole wrote:
| I am often confused by people who have loads of money, live in
| big houses, and drive nice cars who are not willing to pay a few
| bucks a month for a private email inbox and other services. I
| assume they are trapped or too lazy to buy a domain and make the
| necessary changes. What other reasons could they have?
| nolongerthere wrote:
| Most people still have no idea how a website works, they don't
| understand what a domain is, how to attach email to it or what
| the difference is between gmail and email. for 80% of people
| gmail is effectively personal email and the desktop outlook app
| is work email, there is no further thoughts on this subject.
| vohk wrote:
| I think that's the largest factor. You started with Hotmail,
| Gmail, or iCloud depending on when you made your first
| account, or what phone you chose, and then... why change?
|
| The UX is typically better, and that was especially true back
| when Gmail was taking over the market and introduced everyone
| to the concept of never needing to delete old mail. Good
| looking apps are available for every device, with minimal
| setup. Deliverability is so good most people have no concept
| of ending up in their contact's spam folder. It's what your
| friends and family are using, and its free.
|
| Concerns like privacy or being able to change provider
| without losing your address are abstract and out of sight.
| Almondsetat wrote:
| Simple: invent some magical way to take all my accounts that I
| have ever registered with my 15 years old email account and
| change the address to a new one
| int_19h wrote:
| Those can be migrated piecemeal over time (and possibly never
| for those that you don't care about). Most webmail providers
| these days let you operate another mail account via their
| interface, so it is all completely integrated in a single app
| with no need to switch back and forth.
| thesuitonym wrote:
| Look in your email settings for "Forwarding rules"
| Almondsetat wrote:
| How does that solve Microsoft selling my emails?
| kornhole wrote:
| It doesn't but can help you quickly start using a new
| single inbox. Over time, you can change the addresses
| with the senders to go direct to your private box.
| partiallypro wrote:
| I have almost 20 years of emails on Gmail, migrating is
| incredibly difficult and time consuming. So, I just have a
| forwarder to Gmail and use Mailgun to transform my Gmail into a
| white labelled email and pay pennies.
| moose44 wrote:
| Paying for Proton's services is a no brainer to me. $11 a month
| for access to VPN, encrypted email, encrypted cloud storage and
| more.
|
| Will gladly pay to not have my data shared with 772 3rd parties.
| moose44 wrote:
| Nextdns.io is a great (free) addition to this.
| rekoil wrote:
| NextDNS Pro is also EUR25/year. Super reasonable and
| ridiculously good product.
| moose44 wrote:
| Agreed. I don't make enough queries a month to need a pro
| account but would gladly pay if needed.
| rekoil wrote:
| My network makes 3,401,347 queries in a month, that's
| more than 11x the limit, but regardless, the price is so
| reasonable that even if I didn't exceed it I couldn't
| really motivate not paying when the service is as good as
| it is.
| moose44 wrote:
| With that many queries, do you utilize the business tier
| or just the pro? Asking because I'd like to get this
| service on my company's computers.
| rekoil wrote:
| Just the Pro, but this is my home network, it's just that
| I'm a Pro user hehe.
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| Agreed. I just switched my personal email over to Proton after
| already using them for my business email for a year or so.
|
| The webmail is slick (and refreshingly simple) and I'm really
| liking their iOS Mail app which is a huge improvement from the
| old version from a year or two ago.
|
| Hope they continue to invest in Calendar and Drive (encrypted
| storage) - both need a bit more work, but are usable enough for
| now.
| moose44 wrote:
| I concur. I also enjoy the ability to create alias emails. I
| do use a mail forwarding service but it's nice to be able to
| split things up.
| izzydata wrote:
| I'd rather pay hundreds of dollars for software upfront than a
| monthly subscription. But I'm still considering paying for the
| cheapest Proton option.
| moose44 wrote:
| I agree. I utilize the annual plan so it's a bit cheaper.
| WithinReason wrote:
| They recently added automatic mail forwarding, so I pulled the
| trigger as well.
| thesuitonym wrote:
| Let me start by saying that I don't think Proton is a bad
| company in any way, and I have no evidence of any kind of
| malfeasance, but I still must ask...
|
| Do you have an exit strategy if Proton goes the way of
| Microsoft or Google? Those two only had apathy and inertia
| keeping people in their ecosystem, but Proton kind of has you
| locked in, because you can only use their proprietary apps to
| access encrypted emails. Yes, I know you can use IMAP, but my
| understanding is that any email sent via IMAP isn't encrypted,
| and any encrypted mail can't be downloaded via IMAP. Either
| way, just because they have IMAP turned on today, doesn't mean
| they won't turn it off tomorrow in the name of security.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| I really love Microsoft but I really also hate their data
| collection stuff because it comes at a cost of performance and
| user experience.
| dangus wrote:
| Why would you love Microsoft?
|
| I can't say I "love" any corporation.
| Almondsetat wrote:
| https://img.ifunny.co/images/cb3e3fdac1e137657a1728d9cbfc933.
| ..
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| I mean, I like some key tools they make: Visual Studio, and
| Visual Studio Code come to mind. MSN Messenger was also a
| huge part of my life, literally spent a lot of time with my
| wife over MSN in our early years of knowing each other.
| Microsoft is a massive company, there's loads to hate and
| appreciate all at once.
| bastard_op wrote:
| That's crazy that only because of GDPR they expose how nasty
| Microsoft is selling your data or allow an opt-out, and
| particularly NOT anyone else including the US. I do hope more
| mainstream media picks up on this.
|
| This ought to be classified as adware itself now by malware
| detection. Obviously Windoze "Defender" won't have a problem with
| this I'm sure, no conflict of interests there.
| Pesthuf wrote:
| And yet every time someone praises EU big tech regulations
| here, someone from the US inevitably complains it's just the EU
| being anticompetitive and that they should also deregulate so
| they can have big tech of their own.
|
| The things we learn thanks to these regulations keep proving
| why they're necessary.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > every time someone praises EU big tech regulations here,
| someone from the US inevitably complains it's just the EU
| being anticompetitive ... The things we learn thanks to these
| regulations keep proving why they're necessary.
|
| The thing-to-learn from the EU rollout:
|
| The public is a stakeholder and needs to be represented by 1)
| folks correctly knowledgeable to do so and 2) be invested
| with enough weight to not be overruled by govs & corps.
| qwertox wrote:
| Somewhat related:
|
| https://workspace.google.com/intl/en/terms/subprocessors/
|
| https://cloud.google.com/terms/subprocessors
| binkHN wrote:
| Wow. Eye opening. Thank you.
| shizcakes wrote:
| What's eye opening here?
|
| These are basically all tech support providers. I'm not
| saying Google is a privacy-centric company, but this effort
| to enumerate subprocessors is admirable.
|
| The internet becomes a worse place when folks criticize the
| superficial _number_ rather than the _intent_.
| binkHN wrote:
| The sheer number of processors. I agree and appreciate this
| level of detail, but do you know this for all the companies
| that have access to your data? I don't, so I found this
| enlightening.
| eitally wrote:
| Where else do you think TVCs come from? Keep in mind that
| although these are subprocessors, the Accenture, et al
| employees handling Google user data are red-badged and
| employed under Google contract terms, which explicitly
| dictate controls around allowed and disallowed systems
| and user data access.
|
| TBH, it's not that it would be impossible for either
| Google or a subprocessor to conduct themselves
| nefariously, but I don't think it's practical or
| reasonable for anyone to expect that they would. Google
| pays Accenture, for example, >$1b/yr for services. They
| absolutely would not want to put that cash cow at risk.
| jsnell wrote:
| How is that in any way related? What do you think is being
| described on those pages?
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| I wonder what the University of California, which is totally in
| on Office 365. I would hope that the University would take a
| strong position...but feel less than confident..surely a business
| account with M$ will mean something right?
| rdudek wrote:
| Doubt it. Microsoft offers sweet deals for academia.
| CharlesW wrote:
| This post is pretty horrifying. If you're in the Apple ecosystem,
| Apple Mail and iCloud Mail (standards-based, supports custom
| domains) has been as reliable as any mail provider and client
| I've ever used.
| boplicity wrote:
| As a newsletter provider, I can say that iCloud is problematic.
| People who actively want our newsletters often have trouble
| getting them. iCloud will bounce their emails back for no good
| reason.
|
| Eventually our subscribers will get in touch with us asking why
| our emails are no longer getting sent to them. This is with
| very low spam rates, DKIM, and DMARC set up. There's also no
| good way to contact the iCloud postmaster, which is an option
| for every other major email service.
| Cacti wrote:
| Well that's... problematic. There's no business tier support
| with icloud?
| CharlesW wrote:
| System admin can get direct support from Apple's iCloud
| Mail postmaster team at icloudadmin@apple.com.
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/102322 has a list of the
| information they want in order to diagnose and address
| delivery issues.
| boplicity wrote:
| That's new contact info! Thank you for the note. :)
| CharlesW wrote:
| In case it's helpful, https://support.apple.com/en-us/102322
| has a handy bulk mail deliverability checklist and the direct
| email of the iCloud Mail postmaster team.
| ezero wrote:
| I had been happy with Apple for many years but encountered some
| really terrible experiences lately. There was a systematic
| problem on Apple's side (related to the recent increase in
| iCloud subscription fees) and they cancelled my extra iCloud
| storage. To be fair they did give me a refund for the extra
| storage prior but I thought it was related to the pricing
| changes and didn't think much of it. Other than that there were
| no warnings until the extra storage expired and they sent me an
| email saying the storage is full. I resubscribed immediately
| but iCloud mail could not send or receive anything for several
| hours afterwards, except for receiving emails from Apple.
|
| I also have had several instances where iCloud Drive would take
| forever to sync. The most recent time got so bad (100% cpu
| usage that persists after killing the process when I added 5KB
| worth of files) that I stopped using it completely. Tried
| Microsoft OneDrive instead and it synced at good speeds and
| gave me no problems.
| RockRobotRock wrote:
| It's supposed to be. They offer a competing service, after all.
| squarefoot wrote:
| For those using Outlook only for email, thus not tied other
| services, I would strongly suggest taking a look at Claws Mail.
|
| https://www.claws-mail.org/index.php
|
| It's lightning fast compared to Outlook, and very
| stable/reliable. Also available on Windows.
|
| Outlook .pst files (both mail and contacts) also can be easily
| ported to Mbox or other standard formats, then imported into
| Claws Mail, by using the readpst utility which is part of libpst
| utilities, available on various Linux distros. On Debian it's
| part of pst-utils.
|
| https://www.five-ten-sg.com/libpst/
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| GTK apps on Windows always stand out, in a bad way.
| jesprenj wrote:
| I'm used to claws-mail, so I'm using it daily. But I think it's
| quite terrible -- there are regular delays every minute for a
| couple of seconds and in that period, most buttons on the UI
| are disabled. I think that whenever it does something with IMAP
| most of the functionality is locked. Also I think it doesn't
| implement IMAP push and it has to poll for new mail every
| minute.
|
| Also opening a mail that's 30 MiB in size (pictures) and has to
| be downloaded just freezes the entire UI.
|
| I'd like to advise people to use other software, but I don't
| know of any perfect email clients:
|
| * sylpheed/claws-mail has this locked UI problem
|
| * mutt doesn't render images and has a steep learning curve
|
| * thunderbird has software bloat, doesn't work on my low end
| hardware
|
| And other recommendations?
|
| Webmail is also mostly broken. I liked prayer, but it also
| doesn't render images IIRC and roundcube dropped the classic
| theme on new versions, and the new theme has less information
| density.
|
| I like the classic HTML UI of GMail and OWA, though.
| krackout wrote:
| I confirm the issue of delays/freezing of Claws-mail. I
| really liked the simple UI, but freezing too often, couldn't
| stand it. I had searched about it, I got some answers that's
| it's single threaded if I recall well.
|
| Since you mentioned mutt and it's steep learning curve, I
| recommend you another TUI MTA/mail app. It's nmail
| (https://github.com/d99kris/nmail). Simple, Pine/Alpine like
| interface, has great features (for example, saving mails in
| sqlite - can be viewed offline). Also the developer is active
| and friendly, in case you find bugs or have any proposals for
| enhancements.
| int_19h wrote:
| On Windows, Vivaldi (https://vivaldi.com/features/mail/) is a
| surprisingly good option. You can just ignore the browser
| part, and even set up all the toolbars so that only stuff
| that is relevant to mail is there.
| binkHN wrote:
| > ...it appears the company has transformed its email app into a
| surveillance tool for targeted advertising.
|
| It's not just Microsoft's email, it's all of Windows too. I tried
| Windows 11 for the first time not too long ago and it's an
| abomination of an ad delivery vehicle that makes ChromeOS look
| magnificent.
|
| After too many years of Windows, I finally bit the bullet and
| installed Linux on my desktop. Within a few weeks I was more
| productive than I was on Windows and my OS is no longer trying to
| sell me something constantly, and I should have done it sooner.
| TheCleric wrote:
| Windows 11 looks like how IE6 would get after installing too
| many "toolbars".
| ljoshua wrote:
| I'm curious to know where your productivity boosts came from,
| as those are always a good motivating factor for me to try
| something new.
| binkHN wrote:
| I feel my productivity boost comes from KDE/Plasma, a
| surprisingly good desktop environment (DE) that's almost too
| configurable. The ability to tweak almost every element of
| the DE, especially as it relates to shortcuts, has already
| allowed me to move around the environment faster and more
| readily. Also, *nix has always had the ability to do "Focus
| follows mouse," and I used something similar in Windows, but
| it just works better in not Windows. Combine this with a
| superior file manager in Dolphin and an extremely
| configurable launcher in KRunner and I'm flying around the
| desktop in ways that Windows just can't. There's more too,
| but these are probably the biggest.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Watching this "fall of Gnome" with KDE's recent popularity
| makes me feel strangely vindicated about liking a
| configurable OS.
| PcChip wrote:
| I've been using kubuntu for ~2 years now at work and I feel
| like I need to watch some KDE tutorial videos so that I can
| learn these tips and tricks too, because I love KDE and
| what you describe sounds wonderful
| samstave wrote:
| EDIT: ( _For being downvoted about steam and now the ease of
| install games on linux - read my whole post. Also, I dont put
| steam on my linux machines specifically to have my own walled
| mental garden from my distraction proclivity ADHD game mind -
| Games are what built my career - and as much as I have loved
| them - as I get older, I can only play less and less)_
|
| -
|
| For me; Its harder to fall into the _" Oh - Ill just intall a
| bunch of these old games" distractions... or "what new games
| can this bitch run (slaps laptop's lid)"_
|
| --
|
| Also, since Linux has evolved to effectively run an F-ton %
| of the internet - thousands and thousands of devs, techs,
| ops, indies, etc have just made the experience so much
| better.
|
| When I first started with Linux in the mid-90s - I had to
| hire four promising consultants to help me transition a ETF
| process by FTP from SUN Microsystems to my company where I
| was head of IT, to build scripts to create manifests from SUN
| to us, via FTP - watch the directory, and parse the new-
| fangled XML that SUN was trying to establish.
|
| Ill never forget the first call with SUN and our execs (we
| physically manufactured all Software Box Sets of SUN's
| software, manuals etc - then packaged them and shipped it -
| so if you bought SUNos/Checkpoint or any Intuit or certain
| games' companies physical products - we manufactured and
| shipped it)
|
| So we were using flat files for the transfer or order
| information for SUN and had some wonky scripts on these four
| linux FTP servers.
|
| I was not to familiar with Linux at this time - but hired
| Dave Sifry, Chris DiBona and some others to re-do our FTP
| flat file ETF process to access SUNs new XML requirement.
|
| We didnt know what XML was at the time - and I infamously
| said on a call with SUN "OK let me understand. You have your
| current _crappy_ etl process and you want us to rebuild our
| pipeline to support your new XML standard.
|
| (The sales people were jumping up and down at me on the call
| because I called SUNs current practice "crappy" while I was
| on the phone with a bunch of execs...)
|
| Anyway - I went to our Linux Consultants and I talked to
| Sifry and I said "If I were you, I'd take your team and start
| a Linux Support Company."
|
| A few weeks later Sifry and I have a sit-down, and he told me
| that him and team had created a new company - called
| "LinuxCare" to offer some of the first enterprise support....
|
| We talked about me joining, but we never came to an
| agreement, and I believe Dave was one of the first
| 100-millionaires in the linux space on paper after LinuxCare
| took off a bit....
|
| (they used to be in the Macromedia building's basement level
| in SF after that...).
|
| So back then, productivity came from the server side for
| workflows...
|
| Now - you can achieve exceptional productivity because you're
| not at the Childs Table when it comes to the UI-first
| (windows) vs UX-first (linux) utility platform that became a
| desktop.
|
| But that took decades and millions of people contributing to
| how Linux can be empowering.
|
| ---
|
| But if you just look at the productivity in technological
| evolution Linux has contributed to computing, I personally
| feel its a Tier-1 level contribution, and now you can just
| rely on FN awesome tools, for free, written by millions of
| smarter people than an induvidual, to make speed to
| deployment of anything (even if its to gaming) faster, easier
| and you arent spinning mental cycles on "what the fuck is
| /usr/sbin?" _" Where the heck do I grab these dependencies
| from? What the FUCK is a make file?_
|
| _--- Neither of the people replying to me read my whole
| post._
| thesuitonym wrote:
| > For me; Its harder to fall into the "Oh - Ill just intall
| a bunch of these old games" distractions... or "what new
| games can this bitch run (slaps laptop's lid)"
|
| Not to ruin your productivity but it's actually insanely
| easy to install a bunch of old games on Linux these days.
| And plenty of new games run just fine thanks to the
| advances Valve has been making with Proton.
| samstave wrote:
| I know - but its just another step of effort...
|
| top 100 games on some torrent sites tell the story of
| where games are landing
|
| https://i.imgur.com/1rT2wCL.png
|
| EDIT: YOU REPLIERS ARE KILLING MY PREMISE! MAKING HARD TO
| NOT INSTALL GAMES ON MY LINUX DISTRO! So by making it
| "insanely easy" you are promoting why I dont want to
| install them!!! xo :-)
|
| Thanks for keeping the DNA of my comment alive!!!
| blibble wrote:
| if you've bought it on steam it's exactly the same effort
| as windows
|
| double click to install, wait a few minutes for the
| download, press play and it launches
|
| as someone who grew up compiling different forks of wine
| with various patches to try to play half-life in the
| 2000s the improvement is quite incredible
| realusername wrote:
| You can just open it straight into steam with proton and
| that's it, there's no effort nowadays. And being old
| games, the compatibility might even be better than
| Windows 11...
| bbarnett wrote:
| _But that took decades and millions of people contributing
| to how Linux can be empowering._
|
| But then someone created systemd, the end.
| snailmailman wrote:
| For me, i3wm makes me a lot more productive. Instead of
| mashing alt tab, I have dedicated hotkeys for every virtual
| desktop, which is dedicated to specific apps/workflows. With
| one hotkey I always go to the program I'm looking for. In
| windows I have to just mash alt+tab. But also if the window
| was in split screen it gets separated from whatever it was
| paired with, so I have to scramble to bring both windows into
| focus briefly so they are in front. It's such a mess of
| window management.
|
| In Linux. If I had something setup on desktop 3, win+3 takes
| me to it every time. No matter if that's one window or
| multiple. It's always one hot key away. And then one to get
| back. I never get lost in a sea of applications that look
| identical in the alt+tab thumbnail.
|
| I haven't found a way to replicate this in windows. The
| closest is "never group things on taskbar" so I can at least
| click specific firefox windows directly. But that no longer
| exists in windows 11, so I guess I won't use 11.
| angrysaki wrote:
| I tried virtual desktops for a while and I'm pretty sure I
| was using this app for hotkeys to each desktop.
| https://github.com/hwtnb/SylphyHornPlusWin11
|
| (I don't use virtual desktops anymore so I don't remember
| that well)
| deadbunny wrote:
| I've always described i3 as like being efficient in vim.
| Once you've learned the hotkeys and settled on where things
| live it just gets out the way and muscle memory takes over.
| za3faran wrote:
| Which distro are you using?
| binkHN wrote:
| Currently running Debian (Trixie to handle new hardware), as
| it was the first distribution I played with many many years
| ago, but I don't know if it's my final destination (though I
| don't care to "distro hop" either so).
| mike256 wrote:
| After Ubuntu began to use all those snaps I tried Debian in
| 2020. Switched to Debian Buster (10) and soon back to
| Ubuntu because it was not usable for me. In 2023 I tried
| again with Debian Bookworm (12) and I'm not missing
| anything. It's a great distro.
| eitally wrote:
| In my experience with desktop Linux for a family set of
| users, only some of which are computer-savvy, LinuxMint was a
| really good option that provides a familiar UI/UX for Windows
| users, and generally "just works". I preferred mucking about
| with KDE and was also generally happy with Kubuntu.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| It's for state surveillance too
| samstave wrote:
| :%s/state/MIC/g
| libraryatnight wrote:
| It just seems like a stupid move this late in the ad game when
| people are starting to figure out they hate it a lot. I've
| never heard more techno-laymen talking about privacy and
| advertising than now and MS is just hopping on the train.
|
| It's like they're drug dealers adding fentanyl as if it's a
| sales perk after everyone's learned about it killing the users.
| stravant wrote:
| You know what people hate even more though? Paying for
| Windows.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Very few people have ever paid for Windows in a way that
| was visible to them. The majority of Windows users have
| always just used the Windows that was pre-installed on a
| computer that they bought.
| antfie wrote:
| The cost of the Windows license was part of the overall
| laptop cost. So buying a new laptop with Windows
| installed means Microsoft gets some profit from that.
| snarfy wrote:
| Windows is dead the day I can play all modern PC games with
| anticheat in Linux using Proton or similar, without also
| getting my account banned for 'hacking'.
| beebeepka wrote:
| there are dozens of us. dozens!
|
| The big question is how are they going to do it without
| giving the vultures root access
| juujian wrote:
| I hear about this all the time and it's yet to happen to me.
| Granted I don't play many triple A online multiplayer games,
| but those seems to have fallen off the cliff anyways.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| If we look at Bethesda, Activision, and Xbox game studio,
| given the hundreds of titles combined with some of if not the
| largest franchises in video games, I would be doubtful that
| day is coming. Something drastic would need to occur. A part
| of me thinks think we're further away today then we were 10
| years ago.
| ok_dad wrote:
| Once proton works on everything, the companies that make
| the software than bans you will fix their stuff to work in
| those confines as well. Valve makes the biggest, VAC (edit:
| I was told EAC was bigger below, but that it supports
| Linux), and they also make proton, and they own steam, so
| they'll be able to force other companies to submit in any
| case. I'm more worried about peripherals myself, since
| there are some gaming peripherals that were made with
| windows in mind only. AAA game developers only have the
| power if people choose to load their launchers (EA's for
| example) but most people I know avoid those and use Steam
| or Epic stores or GOG or whatever for non AAA games.
|
| Edit: I am "posting too fast" it seems (a few messages per
| hour, I guess?), so here's a response to a comment below
| here about the mixed-OS household:
|
| I wouldn't mind using macOS or Linux, and I actually would
| pay if I could install macOS on my PC tower. I might be the
| idiot here, jumping out of the MS frying pan into the Apple
| fire, but I find macOS to be just fine for my use, and not
| too locked down overall when it comes to running the
| software I need on it and it's very well integrated with
| some of my other tech stuff. Sure, I can't tweak every
| aspect of the OS, but I don't mind how it works out of the
| box so I am cool with that. It would also be nice if I
| could use some of the macOS features on other platforms,
| like iCloud, Messages (whatever the blue-bubble messages
| are called), and iPhone integrations.
| Projectiboga wrote:
| I'm guessing dual boot will be the transition step. I
| don't game so I just got a used dell without an os
| installed and went with Linux, printing and scanning are
| my only difficulties so far. So I'm totally a mixed
| household, Wife and our TV are macs, Teen son is windows,
| and I'm Linux, using boot-camp on a Macbook for the
| occasional scanning.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| I'm saying that the companies that make these games, many
| have been swallowed up by MSFT, so it would fantasy to
| believe they're going to change their position or hire
| people to make changes to a game that is a decade old.
|
| Kernel level cheat engines (not VAC) will catch you on a
| different OS 100% of the time. EAC is vastly more popular
| for detecting in game cheating, versus VAC which scans
| the users computer for possible cheats and typically
| doesn't work well when it comes to preventing cheating if
| at all.
|
| Many companies invest heavily in kernel level anti-cheat
| and having to support multiple OS's when the other two
| big OS's account for less 0.5% of the profit, I just
| don't see business folk lining up to ensure non-windows
| users can play video games given the fact it's probably
| Microsoft making or publishing the game in some capacity.
| FridgeSeal wrote:
| Even EAC has Linux support though, and enabling Linux
| support basically amounts to a config change for devs.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| It does, but they're not kernel modules and run in
| userspace so no game studio that values their game or
| protecting players from cheaters uses it, and it is not
| just a config change.
| dmonitor wrote:
| There are a few Microsoft games that have received
| patches to enhance Linux (Steam Deck) support, like the
| Halo game collection.
|
| Could change if Linux numbers on Steam hit double digits,
| though.
| imiric wrote:
| > A part of me thinks think we're further away today then
| we were 10 years ago.
|
| I don't see how that can be true. Valve has made huge
| strides in pushing Linux gaming forward, and thousands of
| Windows-only games are playable on Linux, sometimes even
| with better than native performance.
|
| The small percentage of games that have anti-cheat
| mechanisms or intrusive DRM (Steam notwithstanding) that
| are problematic on Linux are likely games that don't
| deserve my money or attention anyway.
|
| Disclaimer: I do still game primarily on Windows, but
| mostly because I find dealing with Linux issues (whether
| that's related to games or otherwise) much more annoying
| than dealing with Windows' spyware. I can reasonably handle
| the latter, but nothing is more frustrating than having
| non-working software when I just want to unwind for a
| while. I think these are not unsurmountable issues and am
| pretty hopeful the state of Linux gaming can only improve.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| I agree. Gabe Newell doesn't forget. It's a long march,
| but it could happen. Interesting that the Switch supports
| Vulkan, as well.
| KETHERCORTEX wrote:
| He doesn't get younger either. So one day the direction
| may quickly change.
| internet101010 wrote:
| This is why I just hypervisor all the things. Passing
| through GPU, sound, and USB devices is easy.
| nickstinemates wrote:
| This is the way for sure. I use my main OS as a
| hypervisor and pass through to various VMs as needed.
| ParetoOptimal wrote:
| I'm against DRM and to an extent, anti-cheat.
|
| If we are talking about games whose compatibility will
| increase Linux adoption though, most of those have anti-
| cheat and DRM.
| lpapez wrote:
| > A part of me thinks think we're further away today then
| we were 10 years ago.
|
| I am more optimist than this, mainly because of Valve. They
| contributed a lot to Linux gaming and are now in a position
| where they can pounce and steal Microsoft's cake.
|
| Microsoft simply cannot allow themselves to slip up on this
| anymore and I feel like we are at a point where one more
| major blunder or a scandal from Microsoft could
| irreversibly sway the tide towards Valve and Linux gaming
| in general.
| drbawb wrote:
| Not sure I share this opinion, I game on a combination of
| Linux w/ a Windows 11 VM every day. I'm only really aware
| of two titles that are actively user-hostile with anti-
| cheat: Rainbow Six Siege and Valorant. Thankfully I'm not
| interested in playing either of those. I definitely will
| not run them, out of principle, unless they reverse their
| stance on considering a VM to be cheating.
|
| The hoyoverse titles used to detect VMs, but it seems to
| have calmed down. (I was able to try Honkai Star Rail with
| no obfuscation effort on my part.) NVIDIA stopped caring
| about VMs in their GPU drivers a few years ago. FatShark
| almost made the anti-VM mistake with the new Warhammer 40K
| Darktide anti-cheat; I refunded the title during early-
| access and told them why. They reversed course before
| launch and that also works in a VM. - I've played many
| Blizzard properties (but not WoW) in a VM as well, though
| they tend to hate networked storage, for reasons I don't
| yet understand. (Had to setup iSCSI because my CIFS share
| over 10Gbit/s paravirtualized NIC was "not good enough", I
| guess.)
|
| Windows runs in a Hyper-V VM by default now, anyways, so
| "running in a VM" as a heuristic is of questionable utility
| to me. (It's how the "Core Isolation" feature is provided.)
| The real irony is _I can 't even use the VM to cheat,
| anyways._ The guest's memory is encrypted by default.
| Modifying it, or even reading it, from the host-side would
| be prohibitively painful. I guess a VM would perhaps
| obfuscate emulated/scripted inputs, but I use real devices,
| and a real USB hub on the guest anyways, because the
| latency and functionality of the emulated HIDs is awful.
|
| Thankfully Steam is very pro-consumer: if a title I
| purchase does not run in the VM, or on Linux via Proton, it
| gets instantly refunded. The nice thing is it is actually
| in Valve's interest financially to push back on these devs:
| both to prop up the value of the SteamDeck, and to stop
| people like me from getting refunds.
| int_19h wrote:
| The other problem is video streaming. Last I checked, some of
| the popular platforms wouldn't serve even Full HD content to
| Linux clients (this despite having Widevine etc enabled).
| Almondsetat wrote:
| >an operating system capable of doing basically anything from
| physics simulations to movie editing is dead once people can
| play videogames elsewhere
|
| isn't that something
| ryan29 wrote:
| Microsoft is betraying user trust with their Windows strategy.
| A lot of people trust Microsoft, but I wonder if there's a
| critical mass where the narrative switches to one where the
| default for most people is to distrust them.
|
| Their products behave too similar to those of bad actors.
| Recently I had a relative over and was helping them with some
| computer stuff. They had an odd PDF viewer on their laptop and,
| when I asked them about it, they called it Adobe. It was _not_
| Adobe Reader.
|
| I assumed it was the result of clicking through a paid search
| result and installing something from the internet, but they
| insisted they got it from Microsoft. I was confused for a while
| because it wasn't an app from the Microsoft Store.
|
| Then they explained to me how they got it. They clicked on
| start, searched for "PDF", and "installed Adobe Reader from
| Microsoft". The icon for the app they had was obviously made to
| look similar to Adobe Reader and they had no idea the start
| menu search is a free for all of Bing results.
|
| They're not stupid and I can't really blame them for
| misunderstanding. When they showed me, I could see how it would
| be reasonable to mistake the search result (or ad?) for an app
| recommendation. The result had an icon and everything. The
| weird thing is that I can't reproduce it on my PC. I don't get
| the same results that look too much like recommendations, so
| either I'm on a different release cadence for Windows or I've
| disabled some of those unwanted features.
|
| The user should be able to trust everything in the OS. A built-
| in search feature that exposes users to bad actors is extremely
| frustrating to see.
| jxramos wrote:
| very frustrating, gonna have to be on the lookout for this
| with family. Thanks for the tip.
| nightski wrote:
| To be fair, I've had similar things happen to my relatives
| with the iOS and Android app stores as well. Installed some
| random 3rd party app instead of what they wanted because it
| looked convincing.
| int_19h wrote:
| This is worse because the user in question had the
| "recommendation" pop up in the _Start Menu_ - i.e.one of
| the most fundamental pieces of Windows UX - not even in the
| app store.
| soraminazuki wrote:
| App stores are literally where you go to install third
| party apps. Meanwhile, people don't expect crucial system
| UI to push ads. It's not even comparable in terms of user
| hostility. Even more so when dark patterns are used to
| effectively conceal that it's an ad.
| systems_glitch wrote:
| At a previous job, we used Macs to do Java and Ruby
| development, and I thought that was an OK compromise to not
| having to maintain a bunch of Linux workstations, but still a
| compromise.
|
| One time the shop took a subcontract for a bigger local shop.
| They were all Windows. Whenever we had to work with their devs,
| it seemed we fought Windows as a platform on which to run
| development tools as much as we did actual application
| problems. I know there's massive shops that live like that, but
| I know neither why nor how.
|
| (n.b. this was around 2014, I don't know how Windows has
| changed since then)
| RowanH wrote:
| Ran a small software dev shop (~100 staff) inheriting
| windows. My god, never again... The amount of lost
| productivity was insane. Soon as went out to start my SaaS
| company, back to Mac, without a shadow of a doubt. I might
| actually reboot once every few months on Mac whereas my IT
| manager at the windows shop suggested as a solution to some
| problems shutting down everytime people were finished for the
| day !
|
| The windows shop was non stop hardware, software issues.
| Laptops (whichever brand) are absolute junk with very short
| lifespans. Blue screens...
| cyberax wrote:
| I did a contract gig for a Windows shop recently, and I was
| pleasantly surprised by how well everything worked. WSL2 made
| a lot of things soooo much easier.
| AJ007 wrote:
| Windows is dead.
|
| Most games can run on Linux fine ( https://www.protondb.com/ ),
| some even run better.
|
| After some problems with pop-ups I nuked my parent's Windows
| install and put Linux on the machine. They had no problems
| using it.
|
| Between those two use cases, why use Windows at all?
|
| A strong warning, the direction Microsoft is going with
| Windows, Apple is heading in now. I'll put down money that by
| 2026 iOS and MacOS will no longer be usable. It's good that
| desktop Linux is now ready for prime time. We can win on mobile
| too.
| wetbaby wrote:
| > why use Windows at all?
|
| I wish I had the same optimism. I have a Fedora partition
| that gets wiped and reinstalled every release and there's
| always some showstopper or things are slightly worse that
| make me unable to commit. I'm not settling for 'slightly
| worse'. The display server situation on Linux is depressing.
|
| I don't like were Microsoft is heading, but it's way too
| early to claim Windows is dead.
| aembleton wrote:
| Why do you keep reinstalling Fedora? It might be worth
| trying a different distribution, although whatever it is
| thats forcing you to reinstall every release might affect
| all distributions. Its not something I've experienced with
| Mandrake, Suse, Mint or Endeavour.
|
| I agree with your point though - Windows is not dead; for
| me its a lot of the photo editing applications that I want
| to use don't run well on Linux.
| gerdesj wrote:
| Mandrake - my third or fourth distro. Rather old school
| these days 8)
| KETHERCORTEX wrote:
| > Windows is not dead
|
| I think that's exactly the problem. It's too alive, so
| they can bastardize the experience in any way.
| wetbaby wrote:
| > Why do you keep reinstalling Fedora
|
| Because it's a partition I use to test Linux and rather
| than upgrade I'd rather start over from scratch.
|
| As for the distro choice, Fedora is ahead of Ubuntu but
| not as bleeding edge as Arch.
|
| I'm sure there's plenty arguments for using x distro over
| y. Fedora is just what I landed on.
| fourteenfour wrote:
| Why do feel Apple is going in the same direction as
| Microsoft? Do you think in 2026 Apple will be selling users
| data to advertisers and have spam search results show up in
| the Finder?
| RajT88 wrote:
| Emphatically yes.
| RyanHamilton wrote:
| Ironically the longer and more trusted a company becomes,
| the more data it gathers, the more potential money it can
| make by going to the dark side. It only takes one bad CEO
| thinking of short term profit to see the $$$ and cash in
| that data and goodwill. Similar to MS it will take 5-10
| years for people to realise what's happening and spread the
| word. By then that person may have cashed out. Is every CEO
| of Apple or any company for 100 years going to have a long
| term privacy mindset. I think the only viable way is for
| the company not to have the data or for them to only
| service highly knowledgeable users that would move quick if
| things went to change. But that means the majority must
| always lose their privacy. It feels similar to the trade
| off for adblocking.
| fourteenfour wrote:
| Sure, I think most people would agree with you but why
| the strong warning about macos being unusable by 2026?
| They're making plenty of cash and seem pretty privacy
| focused under Tim Cook.
| waynesonfire wrote:
| > Windows is dead.
|
| Yes, with WSL to keep it afloat just long enough to steal
| your private data before it sinks.
|
| It use to be the case that your private data would be sold to
| advertisers but that model is changing with the privacy laws,
| user starting to not tolerate it (e.g. see poor Google search
| results), and moats that are starting to fall apart (e.g.
| Apples app store).
|
| Just in time for the next frontier. This time, the goal is to
| to feed GPT models with your private data. Windows and
| Outlook seem like excellent funnels to do just that. The best
| GPT model will require the most intimate data and at the
| lowest price possible. MSFT is positioned to do just that.
| rustcleaner wrote:
| OMG I switched to Qubes OS and haven't looked back! I value
| privacy and operational security over gaming and smooth 4K
| playback. Snowden showed that, yes, we do live in _that_ kind
| of world today...
| sureglymop wrote:
| What device are you running Qubes on? Its unfortunately a
| little hard to find a powerful laptop that can run qubes
| due to Xen.
| ParetoOptimal wrote:
| Multiplayer and games requiring anticheat are still
| troublesome, some don't work at all.
|
| When the games run however, I agree they typically run
| better.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| VR is still very very difficult on Linux though. I still run
| Windows on my gaming pc for that reason.
| Arisaka1 wrote:
| As someone having to write .NET Framework for his day job, I
| made the switch back to 10 when I started noticing the small
| things that affect my experience. Edge was aggressive when I
| would try to download Chrome, Windows 11 updates prompting you
| to reset your browser settings, lack of taskbar customization
| options from 10 (I like my system tray minimal).
|
| Everything shows a company too complacent and focused on their
| own business needs. C# and .NET are the exception because they
| fought hard to antagonize Java in the corporate world, and
| while they missed the "billion devices" train for being too
| forceful with pushing Windows Server instead of going
| multiplatform, they still won over a decent market share.
| drbawb wrote:
| >After too many years of Windows, I finally bit the bullet and
| installed Linux on my desktop.
|
| Use Linux at home since 2020, and have recently switched to a
| Mac for work. Windows is gone from my life, relegated to doing
| maintenance-work from a VM for the poor saps still stuck on it.
|
| There's no separation of concerns at Microsoft: the allure of
| recurring revenue from ad-tech and online-services is polluting
| Windows and Office in a really bad way. I need my operating
| system and productivity software to (a) work, (b) function
| reliably offline (Office doesn't), and (c) work in perpetuity
| for as long as the hardware lives. (Windows hasn't since 10,
| arguably 8.)
|
| Apple seems to understand that the core stuff needs to be free,
| and the free stuff can't compromise on their privacy & security
| core-values _to be free._ They also come with apps that are
| reasonably worth using, and they use iCloud to sync and
| integrate that stuff seamlessly across their device-family.
|
| What Apple charges money for is actual value-added service. You
| want Music? They've got that, streaming _or_ purchased. You
| want TV? Same deal. You like books? Yep, got that too. Want
| some curated news? They 'll sell you that. - Signed up for all
| this stuff and have run out of storage? Predictably they'll
| sell you more of that, too.
|
| What's more is Apple understands _the meaning of no._ - I can
| turn that stuff off _easily_ , _and permanently_ , right when &
| where the nag occurred. No resorting to things like registry
| edits, group policy hacks, hacking the installer, etc. No
| gamification of the fucking _Settings_ screen. No ads in my
| fucking _Start menu._ I can hide or remove their apps just like
| any other app. (As a concrete example: for ages I have had to
| hack Explorer to get rid of personal-OneDrive, which I don
| 't/can't use since I _am not even logged into a MSFT account._
| The equivalent to disable iCloud is a very clearly visible
| setting in Finder 's settings.)
|
| I won't lie, it hasn't been perfect, but the amount of UI
| polish, the ease of cross-device integrations, and the feeling
| of Apple actually valuing the customer-relationship, are _miles
| ahead_ of whatever the fuck Microsoft is doing. Modern
| Microsoft feels like a Facebook or a Google, and that 's
| _really not meant as a compliment._
|
| If Microsoft wants recurring revenue, they need to start
| providing real services. Windows isn't a service. Office isn't
| a service. I highly suggest they start emulating Apple, or
| they're going to get left behind.
|
| Redmond, start your photocopiers.
| dist-epoch wrote:
| > Although this transfer is secured with Transport Layer Security
| (TLS), according to Heise Online, your IMAP and SMTP username and
| password are transmitted to Microsoft in plain text
|
| So like every login form in the world, which sends the username
| and password in plain text over SSL. This is pure FUD.
| tambre wrote:
| But it isn't a password for Microsoft's services that's being
| sent. It's your username and password for another service you
| probably didn't intend Microsoft to have your credentials for.
| And it's intended.
| NoZebra120vClip wrote:
| No, it's not. It's an OAUTH2 connection like a sane app.
| Proton is ostensibly lying about this credential setup. No
| app does that anymore.
| snailmailman wrote:
| Either way, Microsoft servers get access to your email
| accounts so that you can view them locally. Why should
| Microsoft get access to my Gmail or Protonmail? Their
| servers don't need access to my email.
|
| Old outlook didn't do that. Thunderbird doesn't do that.
| This is completely unnecessary for a mail app. My computer
| can check my email. No reason for Microsoft servers to do
| it on my behalf.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > Proton is ostensibly lying about this credential setup.
|
| Not sure what your evidence is for lying. Because they're
| not. When creating an IMAP account, c't
| was able to sniff the traffic between new Outlook and the
| Microsoft servers. It contained the target server, log-in
| name and password which were sent to those Servers of
| Microsoft. Although TLS-protected, the data is sent to
| Microsoft in plain text within the tunnel. Without
| informing or inquiring about this, Microsoft grants itself
| access to the IMAP and SMTP login data of users of the new
| Outlook.
|
| ref: https://www.heise.de/news/Microsoft-lays-hands-on-
| login-data...
| NoZebra120vClip wrote:
| > you probably didn't intend Microsoft to have your
| credentials for
|
| But you just gave Microsoft your credentials! How could you
| not intend that?
|
| They're pretty clear about this: if you set up a 3rd party
| IMAP account, then yeah, credentials get used. If you set up
| an OAUTH2-capable account, then it uses that instead. That's
| why it's a lie, because of course if c't has some custom
| bespoke IMAP server, it's going to need credentials, and the
| user is going to intentionally hand them over so it can
| retrieve the mail.
| thesuitonym wrote:
| It's one thing to give the locally installed instance of
| the Outlook client your password, it's another for Outlook
| to send it in plain text to Microsoft's servers.
| int_19h wrote:
| I don't think it's clear at all if you're using the "New
| Outlook" _app_ as opposed to web client. Traditionally,
| desktop email clients would handle credentials by directly
| using them to log in, not by sending them to a web service
| that logs in on their behalf.
| wharvle wrote:
| If they mean usernames and passwords for _third party mail
| servers_ , then it is notable, since a traditional email client
| doesn't do that. They only send the credentials to the server
| they're authenticating against, not also to the email client
| vendor.
|
| That it's happening as plain text (notwithstanding TLS on the
| transfer) distinguishes this from some kind of credentials-sync
| system (think: LastPass or Keychain) which wouldn't necessarily
| need to have the credentials in plaintext to function.
| canopener1145 wrote:
| This only applies to free accounts, i.e., accounts that have M365
| Personal or Family don't have the Advertising section
| surge wrote:
| Yeah, this just follows the rule of if its free, you are the
| product, not the customer. You're going to get ads and
| relinquish your data in exchange for the service.
|
| For proton, I assume they have a free tier (I don't know I pay
| for it). So I guess they let people know to push adoption or
| get people to make the jump, but the assumption is they have
| some conversion rate to paying customers. For those that never
| want to pay for email as their usage scales, they're better off
| staying.
| akaike wrote:
| But even then, they still collect data or am I wrong? You won't
| have ads but they still have access to your data etc.
| TheCleric wrote:
| I'm doing a heavy amount of assumption, but I'd be surprised
| if MS would so thoroughly piss off their enterprise users.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > This only applies to free accounts,
|
| This is not true.
|
| My business clients on hosted Exchange are paying for O365 Biz.
| Their local Outlook app has a _Try The New Outlook_ switch in
| the upper right corner. That 's all it says.
|
| The one employee who clicked it (before I could warn them)
| found the local _paid-for_ , Outlook app transformed into web-
| based Outlook running in Edge.
|
| All of the same issues mentioned in the article were first
| discovered in this New Outlook by German researchers.
|
| This client made a point of purchasing local-run Office apps.
| Web based Office is a non-starter. In this case, MS is using a
| deceptive method to hijack my client into running software -
| they they explicitly paid to not have to use.
|
| Microsoft's behavior in this is clearly unethical.
| stackskipton wrote:
| New Outlook described in article is not PWA Outlook you have
| with "New Outlook for O365". PWA Outlook for 365 is different
| from this.
|
| Part of Microsoft Problem here is they have 4 things they
| call "Outlook". Outlook the Consumer Desktop Application
| which is privacy nightmare referenced in this article.
| Outlook the personal free email hosting service (old
| Hotmail), Outlook the Business Desktop Application most
| people know. New New 365 Outlook which is just WebView2
| Outlook.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > New Outlook described in article is not PWA Outlook you
| have with "New Outlook for O365". PWA Outlook for 365 is
| different from this.
|
| Okay. And?
|
| As I mentioned in my post, the same behaviors discussed by
| the Proton researchers were also discovered by German
| researchers in the "New Outlook". Does the purchase channel
| matter here?
| teekert wrote:
| It's g. d. everything. I haven't installed a light switch for the
| light on our landing yet, so I need the Hue app and every day it
| slaps an ad in my face. Some days ago my wife came to me: Sonos
| is blocked by an ad I can't close! I looked at the screen and
| there's a super small cross at the top right. She's also been
| complaining her "email changed", indeed it's outlook now, and
| damn it I pay for email not to have this s*t. Maybe I'll get her
| to use Linux now (her laptop is perfectly fine but can't do
| win11) or at least Thunderbird. Damn it, I pay for email, paid
| for Hue, paid for Sonos speakers, paid for that laptop. F off
| with those ads!
|
| Enshitification galore!
|
| (I'm a proud customer of Proton but only for my business, for the
| whole family I find the cost just a tad to high to justify so I
| have a small local provider)
| autoexec wrote:
| It's crazy to think about the amount on insight outlook's data
| collection must provide on the inner workings of so many
| companies across so many different industries, even their own
| competitors. There's no way Microsoft isn't at least _trying_ to
| use that data for their own benefit, yet somehow the company is
| still such a mess.
|
| Companies just blindly trust MS with their data and even force
| their employees to hand their personal data over in the process.
| I've pushed for my company to stop leaking so much
| company/employee/customer data to MS, but as long as the
| corporation doesn't personally experience how that data is being
| used/abused and they aren't being fined or hauled into court over
| it I doubt much will change.
| sabarn01 wrote:
| We don't have access to that data internally. We can't access
| customer data outside performance metrics about the service. At
| least for the normal dev there is no real way to get access to
| what the customer does.
| gtvwill wrote:
| They can access your whole tenant and everything in it. Have
| had some pretty wild support calls where MSFT has had to
| crawl through a tenants data specifically the schedule
| system. It was ultra broken. They can literally just give
| themselves permission and roll in. If you can't your just not
| high enough up in a support team.
|
| Their use of 3rd party and external tools for adjusting
| registry during licensing problems is wild.
| sabarn01 wrote:
| You can get access with customer permission for a limited
| time window which is audited. In the normal course of
| business no.
| graypegg wrote:
| The reality here is that no one will trust a pinky
| promise. Especially not from Microsoft. You're fighting a
| good fight but it's a losing battle no matter how locked
| down it feels from your POV.
|
| "Can we have access to X, but don't worry, we don't let
| anyone look at X unless Y happens" is a bit suspicious
| when "grant X permission when Y happens" isn't an option.
|
| Even worse when the access to X is only disclosed to
| users living in a jurisdiction requiring it.
|
| Microsoft's many brand and marketing folks have a big
| uphill battle if they want to convince me otherwise. Or
| they can just stop collecting data.
| sabarn01 wrote:
| Like telemetry? We have to collect customer data that's
| what we get paid for. As for pinky promises we are SOC
| compliant and externlly audited.
| https://learn.microsoft.com/en-
| us/compliance/regulatory/offe...
| JohnFen wrote:
| > We have to collect customer data that's what we get
| paid for.
|
| Which is one of the many reasons why I will not allow
| Microsoft products on my machines.
| sabarn01 wrote:
| If you write a document and store it in sharepoint online
| we have to keep that data as does any online offering.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Is that what you were referring to? The phrase "we have
| to collect customer data" implies a different thing
| entirely, so I misunderstood.
|
| My objection to Microsoft's methods in this regard isn't
| the data that customers voluntarily and knowingly store
| on Microsoft servers, it's the collection of data about
| customers, their machines, and the use of their machines
| that happens behind the scenes.
| sabarn01 wrote:
| We collect telemetry about user actions and the successes
| of our service. All the data we collect is about how the
| service runs and we only look at it via aggregation.
| Internally we have training every year about what you can
| and can't collect and under which scenarios. It gets
| stricter every year.
| graypegg wrote:
| Welcome to my local bakery! We have to collect your
| credit card number before you enter. No one can access
| your credit card number though. I write it on a piece of
| paper and put it in a safe. Here, look at this list of
| people that have seen me put credit card numbers into a
| safe!
|
| I'm sure you understand, we need to collect your credit
| card number because that's how we make money at this
| bakery. No I will not explicitly explain how. Don't you
| feel like I've improved your experience?
| sabarn01 wrote:
| The document I linked explains how why and when. It also
| explains how we verify that and who does the
| verification. Also O365 customers have access to audit
| logs and the rest. At some level everything is about
| trust there is no way you can verify any large
| organizations activities.
| autoexec wrote:
| Are these external audits just SOC checklists where
| they're basically just looking at policies and processes
| for employees or are teams of auditors routinely coming
| into each office and data center to physically examine
| servers and trace network cables while taking an
| independent inventory of all the hardware that sensitive
| data touches and the software running on that hardware?
|
| SOC compliance and external audits can help keep things
| reasonably secure and prevent the totally
| careless/incompetent handling of data, but I'm skeptical
| that they would typically be robust enough to detect
| Microsoft's own equivalent of Room 641A let alone the
| _actual_ hardware installed by the feds which MS itself
| isn 't allowed to touch.
| sabarn01 wrote:
| I don't know if I can say what we have to turn over to
| the auditors that isn't in the public document. As to
| verifying the hardware we buy our hardware from other
| companies who have their own controls. If you dig far
| enough down everything ultimately comes to trust as no
| one can verify everything.
| jjulius wrote:
| >The reality here is that no one will trust a pinky
| promise. Especially not from Microsoft.
|
| I'll just chime in to say that, while I appreciate the
| sentiment the user is conveying, I certainly don't trust
| a Microsoft pinky promise.
| com2kid wrote:
| > They can literally just give themselves permission and
| roll in. If you can't your just not high enough up in a
| support team.
|
| That is what a support team is for.
|
| And those access elevations will be tracked and audited,
| just like at any other organization that handles sensitive
| data.
|
| This isn't some super duper secret, when shit breaks there
| needs to be a, well secured, escape hatch for the people
| who fix things to crawl in and make repairs.
|
| Prior to cloud hosting, Microsoft could get permissions to
| remote in to your servers, or prior to those days, send
| someone physically out with a laptop and a debugger.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > And those access elevations will be tracked and
| audited, just like at any other organization that handles
| sensitive data.
|
| But surely you can see that saying this is still the same
| as just saying "trust us". It's very, very hard to trust
| Microsoft.
| com2kid wrote:
| Not having those protections in place would be a company
| ending event for Microsoft. The legal system would crush
| them, and customers would leave in droves.
|
| And the number of markets Microsoft completes in now is
| _tiny_. This isn 't the 90s where Microsoft competed in
| slews of consumer and business markets. The potential
| upside from the Cloud team slurping up secrets from
| competitors in literally ANY other business segment, is
| dwarfed by the losses that would hit MS.
|
| Now of course that doesn't mean some corrupt fool in
| sales won't risk destroying the company so he can make
| his yearly bonus (that very thing has brought down
| companies before!), but Microsoft internally has a _lot_
| of motivations to ensure that doesn 't happen.
|
| So, don't trust Microsoft saying "trust us". Trust
| Microsoft being greedy and wanting to keep growing the
| cash cow that is Azure Cloud.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I wasn't talking about Azure. I was talking about
| Microsoft's software products such as Outlook, Windows,
| etc.
|
| Rergardless, my point is that Microsoft saying that they
| have audits and controls in place is exactly the same as
| them saying "trust us". They're just saying "trust that
| we have effective controls in place".
| sabarn01 wrote:
| What exactly can an org do. We hire outside verifiers and
| then meet their standards.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Sure, I understand. The thing is that a company has to
| already have a measure of trust in order for the
| verification to be of reassurance to people. Hiring
| outside verifiers is absolutely better than nothing, but
| it's not a thing that inherently instills a high degree
| of confidence.
|
| What an organization can (and should) do is to behave in
| a way that earns people's trust over time. Microsoft
| actually had a window of opportunity to do this. They
| even made a very public campaign proclaiming how they
| weren't like the Microsoft of old and were more
| trustworthy than they used to be. And for a while, I even
| thought that perhaps a real culture change really did
| happen. But their behavior (especially around Windows and
| Office) is uncannily similar to that of other companies
| of questionable trustworthiness.
| trympet wrote:
| You don't have to take their word for it. See the SOC
| audit reports for yourself:
|
| https://servicetrust.microsoft.com/DocumentPage/6ee23fc7-
| 20d...
| JohnFen wrote:
| That document doesn't seem to want to load for me, so I
| can't really comment on it one way or another.
| trympet wrote:
| https://learn.microsoft.com/en-
| us/compliance/regulatory/offe...
| phillipcarter wrote:
| > It's very, very hard to trust Microsoft.
|
| The utterly massive enterprise market that values
| security and privacy and also pays Microsoft oodles of
| money says otherwise.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Well, I think most enterprises are more concerned with
| liability than anything, and as long as they can blame
| any breaches/security issues on Microsoft, that addresses
| most of their concern.
|
| Also, people aren't enterprises. Microsoft doesn't treat
| people like they treat enterprises.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| On one hand we have:
|
| sabarn01> _We don 't have access to that data internally. We
| can't access customer data outside performance metrics about
| the service. At least for the normal dev there is no real way
| to get access to what the customer does._
|
| On the other hand we have:
|
| Microsoft> _We and 7xx Third Parties access Outlook data on
| user devices._
|
| Taking both you and Microsoft at face value, we seem to have
| two fairly different assertions.
|
| Customer concerns could be allayed if their shared data was
| fully auditable at any time by the customer. This would
| include what buyers of this data can see.
| pxeboot wrote:
| Outlook (the app) is not the same as outlook.com (the email
| service) or Exchange Online (what most companies use). Data
| from one product/service could be used in different ways
| than others.
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| >> blindly trust MS
|
| We were sold on (in my mid biz) Microsoft being all-the-things
| compliant: HIPAA, GDPR, etc.. and this is why we put all our
| data there. As long as they keep touting this, businesses will
| keep on feeding them data.
| sabarn01 wrote:
| We have to certify every O365 service for all of these. We
| also have to certify all of our dependencies.
| borissk wrote:
| Companies that use GMail/Google Workspace also weak a ton of
| private employee information to Google, without giving said
| employees much choice.
| remus wrote:
| I mean, I don't think that's unreasonable. You are being paid
| by your employer after all, and part of the deal is that you
| agree, to a large extent, to do things the way your employer
| wants.
|
| If you think it is a big issue you can of course talk to your
| employer about it and see if they will change, but they're
| also free to disagree with you.
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| Wouldn't surprise me. After all, Microsoft has always been
| built on a process of reimplementing/porting/integrating what
| others have made/invented before them, then doing a bunch of
| shady/clever business moves to corner the market.
| zeruch wrote:
| I don't think it's "new" at all, but it is getting renewed focus,
| but also as it ties into the OS side of the house overall.
|
| They want to basically make windows machines, telemetry kiosks
| for every bit of data they can extract.
| whalesalad wrote:
| "New" as if this has not been happening forever?
| hnthrowaway0328 wrote:
| I'm wondering if someone can recommend a Windows email client for
| gmail and outlook. The official ones are so slow especially for
| Outlook that it dies for half a minute when opening up. I do have
| multiple accounts so that could be the reason, but there should
| never be 30 seconds of non-responding when opening up the app.
| thesuitonym wrote:
| Thunderbird is great.
| bad_user wrote:
| "Microsoft changed" indeed.
| stevefeinstein wrote:
| This doesn't seem apply to a paid corporate Office 365
| subscription. My work outlook doesn't even have the Advertising
| Preferences item in settings.
| account-5 wrote:
| This is why I'm paying for my email service, and use Linux with
| thunderbird.
| gavin_gee wrote:
| Im not disregarding that there are some dubious data uses here in
| the consumer version of the new outlook client. But I would be
| careful to not conflate this to all enterprise versions of the
| outlook client in office 365 paid plans.
|
| Protonmail is using this to drive demand gen for their services.
| doesn't make them wrong but understand the motivation and how
| they are pitching the narrative.
| alemanek wrote:
| My paid for version of Outlook on MacOS tried to get me to
| route all my email, Google workspace, through Microsoft's
| servers to "improve my experience". So, yeah Microsoft is dead
| to me now. I moved to the Sparkmail (v2) client instead.
|
| Proton mail may be trying to capitalize on this newish
| development but they are also not wrong.
| pfrex wrote:
| Don't you need to provide your credentials to sparkmail in
| order for the app to able to sync across multiple devices?
| how is that any different from what Outlook tried to make you
| do?
| theonlybutlet wrote:
| I don't know if it's all in my mind, but Microsoft's targeted
| advertising in its apps' come across as extremely tacky. Everyone
| else is probably collecting the same data but it feels less
| slimey on the surface.
| redbell wrote:
| In some way, unrelated to the topic, I became too concerned to
| have a consent pop-up without the "Reject All" being clearly the
| default CTA. Having both buttons marked as "primary" makes it
| easy to trick the user to choose "Accept" by mistake.
|
| Another place where I encounter this behavior is the pop-ups
| shown by web browsers for sites asking for special, sometimes
| weird [1], permission like "location" which took me about five
| seconds to make sure I pick the "Block" button.
|
| I hope this sort of behavior gets regulated by the corresponding
| authorities.
|
| 1. I once hear a youtuber say: _Why on earth a wallpaper app
| needs to access my and manage my phone calls?!_
| Too wrote:
| Microsoft realized all of their power users already moved to
| Linux years ago and they might as well fuck whatever sheep that
| are left even more royally over?
| wkat4242 wrote:
| This is only if you don't have a paid account though. I have
| office 365 for business and I don't get these popups.
|
| Not that it justifies the behaviour of course but it's not always
| the case.
| stevesimmons wrote:
| Microsoft Teams on my phone yesterday pushed a Power BI ad into
| my work chat timeline.
|
| I couldn't find a way to turn off these ads.
|
| Great way to destroy trust, Microsoft!
| saos wrote:
| How does Proton mail make money?
| wslh wrote:
| Has someone tried the Tiny11?
| oDot wrote:
| People are hailing Linux, but there's one big elephant in the
| room -- app sandboxing. While Microsoft surely tracks the Windows
| user, any software may be tracking the Linux user.
|
| I've been on Linux for more than a decade, and even with
| advancements like Flatpak, Linux is very far from the protections
| Android, iOS, Mac and Windows have.
| Arnavion wrote:
| App sandboxing is less of a concern when the software you use
| is built from source in your distro's package repository, and
| is maintained by distro maintainers whose interests align more
| closely to yours than the software manufacturer's. Ironically,
| Flatpaks are software from upstream and thus harder to trust.
| oDot wrote:
| Yet comments here mention Steam, gaming, photo editing
| software, and I myself do video editing -- all of those are
| not going to be packaged by Debian.
| Arnavion wrote:
| My comment is very clearly about open-source software, yes.
| Also for photo editing and video editing there is open-
| source software, and there's no reason for Debian to not
| package it.
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