[HN Gopher] YouTube Removes Windows 11 Bypass Tutorials, Claims ...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       YouTube Removes Windows 11 Bypass Tutorials, Claims 'Risk of
       Physical Harm'
        
       Author : WaitWaitWha
       Score  : 842 points
       Date   : 2025-11-07 20:50 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (news.itsfoss.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (news.itsfoss.com)
        
       | ChrisArchitect wrote:
       | [dupe] More discussion:
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45744503
        
         | bigwheels wrote:
         | _YouTube is taking down videos on performing nonstandard
         | Windows 11 installs_
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45744503 - 9 days ago, 497
         | comments
        
       | brulard wrote:
       | Although the reason was absurd, videos were eventually restored.
        
         | superxpro12 wrote:
         | TBH the title is clickbait given the outcome.
        
           | fortran77 wrote:
           | And we see how many people here on HN don't read the article.
        
           | makeitdouble wrote:
           | Are you arguing that                 - the videos haven't
           | been removed            - the removal part of the story
           | doesn't matter much, and shouldn't be the focus in the title
           | ?
        
         | im3w1l wrote:
         | Isn't the damage done though? Like if they were down at the
         | time when people were told that win10 reached end of support
         | and it's time to get on 11 does it matter that they are up now?
         | 
         | Anyway I doubt youtube did this intentionally, but it does show
         | how vulnerable their system is to false reports.
        
           | bbarnett wrote:
           | But did someone on Microsoft's pay, a Google employee with
           | elevated access, flag it?
        
           | lazide wrote:
           | DMCA has always been buried in false reports. Every system
           | gets gamed, and this is a particularly easy one to do so
           | with.
        
         | superkuh wrote:
         | The point is to prevent viral videos from getting widely viewed
         | during their peak. To cut it off. It doesn't matter if the
         | block is removed some days or weeks later and then there's a
         | trickle of traffic. This is the status quo for corporations
         | that wish to suppress content on Alphabet's platforms. Another
         | well known recent example is Forbes attacks on Gamer's Nexus
         | investigative documentary on the GPU black market that competed
         | with their video.
        
       | rs186 wrote:
       | > Rich appealed both immediately. The first appeal was denied in
       | 45 minutes. The second in just five.
       | 
       | > The platform claimed its "initial actions" (could be either the
       | first takedown or appeal denial, or both) were not the result of
       | automation.
       | 
       | Didn't know YouTube can improve their review time from 45 minutes
       | to 5 minutes without automation. I bet it's pure magic.
        
         | candiddevmike wrote:
         | I'm sure someone is figuring out a new version of the DMCA that
         | prohibits circumventing data collection "in the name of
         | preserving copyright".
        
           | ronsor wrote:
           | If the DRM can't spy on you, you could be a pirate!
        
         | dlgeek wrote:
         | I mean... documenting the details of the investigation to
         | support the first decision and relying on the documented
         | details the second time would easily explain that.
        
           | baobun wrote:
           | I would love but probably be horrified to see the documented
           | support for "serious physical harm or death".
        
         | cortesoft wrote:
         | I am reading that to mean that they are automatically denying
         | the appeals because it was a human who chose to take the action
         | so it can't be appealed.
        
       | WesolyKubeczek wrote:
       | Risk of physical harm? Should I perceive that as a... threat?
        
         | twelvedogs wrote:
         | Satya Nadella will kick in your door
        
         | bossyTeacher wrote:
         | The sci-fi movies warn us about evil robots. Turns out the evil
         | entity was Microsoft and other big tech companies all along
        
           | throw262144 wrote:
           | Indeed; those who are worried about the possibility of
           | paperclip optimizers should take a look at the profit
           | optimizers that exist today.
        
         | AnimalMuppet wrote:
         | You see, Windows 11 has new, improved, patented prevent-the-
         | computer-from-physically-beating-up-the-user technology. But
         | this technology requires an online account; you can't trust a
         | local-only account to prevent the computer from beating you up,
         | _because it 's on the computer in question_ (duh). So we
         | prevent you from learning how to bypass the requirement for a
         | remote account for your own physical safety.
         | 
         | /s, in case that wasn't _blatantly_ obvious...
        
         | 1000100_1000101 wrote:
         | Perhaps someone at Microsoft threatened physical harm to a
         | Google engineer if they didn't remove the videos... and they
         | caved into their demands rather than reporting the threat, or
         | perhaps did both.
        
         | pndy wrote:
         | Perceive that as being hit in szczepionke /s
        
       | system2 wrote:
       | What's next? Utilman.exe tutorials removal?
        
       | g42gregory wrote:
       | Unfortunately, this brings an obvious question:
       | 
       | If they sensor something like this, how could we trust platforms
       | with the actually important subjects?
        
         | nicce wrote:
         | We can't anymore. Simple as that.
        
           | damnesian wrote:
           | we put way too much faith in them. It's easy to fake
           | authoritative when your substance is virtual.
        
             | lazide wrote:
             | lol, the evening news was always a laugh if you knew
             | anything about the subject matter.
        
             | zahlman wrote:
             | Suppose we hadn't done so; what alternative method of
             | disseminating information might we have used, that would
             | have had within a few orders of magnitude of the same
             | reach?
        
               | squigz wrote:
               | The implication here is that YouTube enabled the reach it
               | got; whereas in reality the reach was induced because of
               | the faith we put in it. Had we not done so, then whatever
               | alternative method of communication we did put our faith
               | in - like blog posts, or self-hosting videos - would have
               | had the same reach.
        
           | pdonis wrote:
           | I agree with this except for the "anymore" part. We _never_
           | could trust them. It just wasn 't as obvious before as it is
           | now.
        
             | Der_Einzige wrote:
             | We will anyway because the "put a camera directly on those
             | in power" approach ala CSPAN is boring.
             | 
             | Most Americans literally can't imagine news as anything
             | other than entertainment.
        
         | pimlottc wrote:
         | *censor
        
         | reactordev wrote:
         | You can't.
        
         | vlucas wrote:
         | You can't, and this was readily apparent in 2020 with Covid.
         | Even doctors presenting factual information got censored and
         | de-platformed by YouTube.
         | 
         | The only real competing video platform that promises no
         | censorship is Rumble ( https://rumble.com ), but it has a
         | _very_ right-wing slant due to conservatives flocking to it
         | during all the Covid-era social media censorship.
        
           | chasd00 wrote:
           | Yeah the moment they started I knew it was doomed to fail.
           | Get it wrong once and your credibility is ruined. They should
           | have never tried to censor content outside of what is legally
           | required and therefore defined.
        
             | aucisson_masque wrote:
             | I kind of agree but laws vary from countries to countries.
             | It's quite an hassle to know what is legal in one country
             | and not in another.
             | 
             | Take freedom of speech for instance, half the thing you can
             | say in usa would be deemed as hate speech in Europe.
        
           | autoexec wrote:
           | I looked at the front page alone and it's full of right wing
           | hot takes and neo-nazis. If a platform wants to accept white-
           | supremacists that's one thing. When it's right on their front
           | page though it's being actively promoted.
           | 
           | Rumble isn't going to save the internet.
        
             | myko wrote:
             | Right, it is explicitly a neo-Nazi platform
        
               | krapp wrote:
               | >Right, it is explicitly a neo-Nazi platform
               | 
               | We call those "free speech" platforms nowadays, because
               | apparently the only free speech is Nazi speech.
        
               | treyd wrote:
               | It's because the only valid argument nazis have for why
               | they should be allowed to broadcast what they have to say
               | is that (in most jurisdictions) it's not literally
               | illegal to.
        
           | MYEUHD wrote:
           | If you want to avoid censorship, self-host Peertube and have
           | peave of mind.
        
             | davidmurdoch wrote:
             | That's just self censorship, since no one will see your
             | videos there
        
               | layer8 wrote:
               | You can do both.
        
           | zahlman wrote:
           | > promises no censorship... has a very right-wing slant
           | 
           | https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/01/neutral-vs-
           | conservativ...
           | 
           | > The moral of the story is: if you're against witch-hunts,
           | and you promise to found your own little utopian community
           | where witch-hunts will never happen, your new society will
           | end up consisting of approximately three principled civil
           | libertarians and seven zillion witches. It will be a terrible
           | place to live _even if witch-hunts are genuinely wrong._
        
           | stOneskull wrote:
           | odysee is similar but maybe with more of an
           | anarchist/conspiracy theory slant than rumble
        
         | Simulacra wrote:
         | We can't. From COVID to wars, YouTube is like public access TV
         | from the 80s with scam preachers. We have to take it with a
         | bucket of salt.
        
         | portaouflop wrote:
         | This implies we could ever trust them.
        
         | Magnets wrote:
         | like they did during COVID
        
         | makeitdouble wrote:
         | > trust platforms
         | 
         | Framing it in terms of trust is already problematic.
         | 
         | We don't trust the NYTimes or Washington Post, they are a
         | source of information that needs to be taken with shovels of
         | salt and require additional research to get to anything
         | trustworthy. And we always understood that was their role.
         | 
         | We don't trust supermarkets or retailers to give us important
         | pricing information, we do the research to get anything
         | actionable.
         | 
         | Why is trust involved for YouTube ?
        
           | hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
           | Because unlike NYT or Washington post, anybody can upload a
           | video in seconds, which implies a reasonable level of freedom
           | of speech.
        
             | throwaway290 wrote:
             | How is freedom of speech lead to trust? it's more the
             | opposite, when it's free for all anyone can lie and have
             | their lie amplified.
        
         | lawn wrote:
         | They removed hundreds of videos documenting Israel's human
         | rights violations.
         | 
         | The answer is no, we can't.
        
         | yard2010 wrote:
         | We can't and we shouldn't, these people only care about making
         | more money, even if it means teenagers contracting diseases in
         | the process. They are then using the money to shape the public
         | opinion about them. The societal norms should change in a way
         | that makes these people miserable the more they are successful
         | IMHO.
        
           | port11 wrote:
           | I'm not even sure I know who Billie Eilish really is but she
           | was all over Reddit for telling billionaires to donate their
           | money.
           | 
           | More or less, the charitable and responsible approach to
           | being ultra-rich, and which has disappeared in this century.
           | 
           | I see the people in charge of these big corporations as
           | lizards, given every decision they take seems to be anti-
           | Humanity. We should cherish non-profits, small businesses,
           | having a good and boring life, doing normal things. Instead
           | we idolise being successful, rich, or famous. What a stupid
           | system...
        
         | npteljes wrote:
         | Did we ever trust them?
        
       | Madmallard wrote:
       | Why is this allowed to occur?
       | 
       | Why is Microsoft allowed to operate in such a user hostile way?
       | 
       | Why aren't people like up in arms massively tanking their stock
       | value, boycotting, reputation harming in every legal way possible
       | en masse?
       | 
       | Like are people just careless and distracted 24/7?
       | 
       | Like surely this should just not be a thing?
       | 
       | I just don't understand how inhumane hostile behavior is just so
       | rampant and like allowed to exist in our society.
        
         | mostlysimilar wrote:
         | Because the only mechanism to hold these mega corporations /
         | billionaires accountable is government, and they're already
         | powerful enough to have waged massive information wars
         | convincing people to fight each other instead of them.
        
           | hilbert42 wrote:
           | Eventually, enough is enough.
           | 
           | 1789.
        
           | immibis wrote:
           | That's actually not the only way we can hold them to account.
        
         | pants2 wrote:
         | Why should I care that much what Microsoft is doing? I sold my
         | Windows 11 computer long ago and haven't looked back. In fact,
         | more user-hostile they get the better that is for the Linux
         | ecosystem which is better for me!
        
           | 1718627440 wrote:
           | I think it will be better with a little bit higher
           | marketshare, but once the masses come in they demand stuff
           | like kernel-level anticheat, DRM and to never accidentally
           | run things in a terminal and then it will become way worse.
           | Linux is as user-friendly as it is, because it is used by
           | professionals and power users and the masses use something
           | else.
        
             | daveguy wrote:
             | That's why we have different distributions. Let one of the
             | distributions cater to those who don't want control of
             | their own computer.
        
               | 1718627440 wrote:
               | Yes, and this is how a healthy OS market should look
               | like, but a lot of distros use the same kernel.
        
           | tux1968 wrote:
           | Linux can exist because there is a huge industry producing
           | inexpensive open hardware. If that industry transitions to
           | producing only locked down hardware, it will hurt Linux and
           | all open source software. Be careful what you wish for.
        
         | marcyb5st wrote:
         | Because people like my mom don't know there is an alternative
         | and people like my dad thinks OSS has ties to communism
         | (really, I wish I was joking) and MacOS is for hipsters.
         | Doesn't matter that I work for a FAANG company and we use and
         | contribute to OSS or that my work laptop is a Mac.
        
           | bitwize wrote:
           | Wait... OSS doesn't have ties to communism?
           | 
           | Then what have I been using and supporting it for?
        
       | WXLCKNO wrote:
       | Bit beside the point but Windows 11 is the first version since
       | Windows 3.1 that I haven't used.
       | 
       | Nuked my Windows 10 install and put Pop OS on it + a MacBook
       | separately.
        
         | noir_lord wrote:
         | I've dual booted since the 90's and have run Microsoft OS's
         | somewhere since the 80's.
         | 
         | I _had_ Windows 11 (kept it around for gaming), I binned it a
         | few weeks ago.
         | 
         | Don't game enough to justify it any more (haven't even tried
         | gaming on linux yet).
         | 
         | Juice was no longer worth the squeeze.
        
           | saubeidl wrote:
           | Gaming on Linux is quite good these days, as long as you
           | don't need any kernel-level anticheat for multiplayer.
           | 
           | Proton is an impressive piece of software.
        
             | BolexNOLA wrote:
             | Bazzite baybeeeee
        
           | elzbardico wrote:
           | I don't game much, but as a parent, we have both a ps5 and a
           | xbox. Frankly, console graphics are good enough for me. I
           | don't see much point in having a gaming PC.
           | 
           | Actually, I would trade visuals for better games. Most games
           | nowadays are better enjoyed as movies than games.
        
       | golemotron wrote:
       | And now 'physical' becomes as hyperbolized as 'violence.'
        
         | phkahler wrote:
         | No, "physical harm".
        
         | Supermancho wrote:
         | A small step. Some of us have seen it weaponized in my
         | lifetime, some think it's ridiculous until it's not.
        
       | shevy-java wrote:
       | Google censors the world, together with Microsoft.
       | 
       | Well - it is time that the rest of the world censors these two
       | corporation. I don't want them to restrict information.
       | 
       | People will find workarounds by the way. This is now a Streisand
       | effect - as people see that Google and Microsoft try to hide
       | information from them, they will now look at this much more
       | closely than before, with more attention.
       | 
       | (Having said that, my bypass strategy is to not use Windows 11
       | altogether. I don't depend on it, having used Linux since 21
       | years now, but my machine to the left is actually using Win10,
       | for various reasons, such as that I can fix problems of elderly
       | relatives still using Windows. But I won't use Win11 ever with
       | its recall-spy software. I also don't care that it can be
       | disabled - any corporation that tries to sniff-invade on me, is
       | evil and must be banned.)
       | 
       | Edit: Ok so the video was restored. That was good, but still, we
       | need an alternative here. Google holds WAY too much power via
       | youtube.
        
         | tacker2000 wrote:
         | Also Visa/Mastercard are big silencers...
        
           | hammock wrote:
           | What do you mean?
        
             | worthless-trash wrote:
             | Possibly referring to them pressuring companies from
             | selling adult contact they dont like by threatening to cut
             | off payment capability.
        
             | dns_snek wrote:
             | Payments providers engage in censorship and moral policing,
             | e.g.
             | https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/29/mastercard-
             | vis...
        
             | tacker2000 wrote:
             | The first instance that I remember was when they stopped
             | Wikileaks from taking donations back then.
             | 
             | Nowadays they censor by putting pressure (by denying
             | payment capabilities) on sites that offer content that they
             | dont agree with.
        
             | stevenjgarner wrote:
             | I realize crypto has become dominated by the investment
             | community, but money is not just a store of value. As a
             | medium of exchange, fiat currencies use money to implement
             | monetary policy and control. Electronic exchange of fiat
             | currency is a permission based activity, and significant
             | transactions are simply disallowed and users often
             | debanked. You don't have to wait for a monetary system to
             | collapse before crypto has meaningful value. That value can
             | come from simply not being subject to corrupt monetary
             | policies and control.
        
         | Aurornis wrote:
         | > This is now a Streisand effect - as people see that Google
         | and Microsoft try to hide information from them
         | 
         | This comment section is wild.
         | 
         | The videos are up. Microsoft and Google weren't meeting in
         | secret backrooms to censor this one channel. The most likely
         | explanation is that a competing channel was trying to move
         | their own videos up in the rankings by mass-reporting other
         | videos on the topic.
         | 
         | It's a growing problem on social media platforms: Cutthroat
         | channels or influencers will use alt accounts or even paid
         | services to report their competition. They know that with
         | enough reports in a short period of time they can get the
         | content removed for a while, which creates a window for their
         | own content to get more views.
         | 
         | The clue is the "risk of physical harm". People who abuse the
         | report function know that the report options involving physical
         | harm, violence, or suicide are the quickest way to get content
         | taken down.
        
           | bithead wrote:
           | Either that or microsoft and/or google will send someone to
           | my house to Raymond Reddington my ass if I install W11 with
           | only a local account.
        
           | silisili wrote:
           | A tale as old as time. A long time ago I worked in DDoS
           | prevention and the bulk of our first customers were competing
           | gambling sites and online eyeglass retailers.
           | 
           | Why? Because they were all paying people to DDoS each other.
           | Kinda silly, but good for business.
        
             | neuvarius wrote:
             | Eyeglass retailers are scum of the earth so no surprises
             | there.
        
               | worthless-trash wrote:
               | As I have limited dealings with eyeglass retailers, why ?
        
               | ornornor wrote:
               | Selling a 2$ piece of metal wire and a 15$ lens of
               | polycarbonate for obscene markups.
               | 
               | It's also a monopoly, luxottica owns practically all
               | brands and dictates the prices.
        
               | jachee wrote:
               | Zenni Optical is the antidote. Even my too-blind-for-
               | Zeiss-VisionPro-inserts prescription in the highest
               | refractive index lenses is under $100 for a full pair.
        
               | silisili wrote:
               | The landscape is a little different now than then.
               | 
               | At the time(and really, even now) people would get their
               | eyeglasses from their local provider. Who cares,
               | insurance probably covers some or all of it. Even getting
               | contacts or glasses as a prescription was like pulling
               | teeth, since they wanted to keep it in house.
               | 
               | So the new market of get your prescription, then buy
               | online was born. And it was like the wild west, not full
               | of eye care professionals but...mostly less than above
               | board places all fighting for your click.
               | 
               | Think about it...if you finally decide to Google eyeglass
               | frames or such, you were entering a whole new realm. And
               | why fight over SEO, when you can just take your
               | competition offline, as most people will click a link,
               | watch it load for 5s, then click back and try the next.
               | 
               | I have no idea if the industry is still shady or not, but
               | 20 years ago, it was full of nothing but bad actors.
               | 
               | I don't know if it matters at all to the conversation or
               | not, but none of the actors(gambling or eyeglasses) were
               | based in the US, despite their domain names and courting
               | US customers. The DDoS company was based in the US.
        
               | estebarb wrote:
               | Just a reminder that "insurance covers" doesn't mean
               | society doesn't pay for it: all the people pay for it.
               | The insurance company paying causes prices raises for
               | everyone else, same country and abroad. So the whole
               | world ends up paying more for that "insurance coverage":
               | more for the product, more for the insurance, more in
               | taxes that fund public free healthcare...
        
               | zugi wrote:
               | > Who cares, insurance probably covers some or all of it
               | 
               | Exactly, this is why vision "insurance" is basically a
               | scam, supported only by US tax laws that enable employers
               | to offer vision "insurance" tax-free, while people buying
               | their own eyeglasses have to pay with after-tax dollars.
               | 
               | Except where insanely inflated, glasses cost at most tens
               | of dollars. Certainly not the kind of thing one needs
               | insurance to cover.
        
               | kees99 wrote:
               | > 2$ and 15$
               | 
               | That estimate is way to high. More like 90 eurocents
               | (~$1) for the whole thing, assembled. That's retail
               | price:
               | 
               | https://www.action.com/de-de/search/?q=lesebrillen
        
               | skrebbel wrote:
               | I never thought I'd live to see the day a link to Action
               | got posted on HN but alas, it has arrived! Show those
               | Dollar General losers across the pond how it's really
               | done
        
               | nativeit wrote:
               | lol. Available languages include 4 kinds of Dutch/German,
               | 3 kinds of French, 2 kinds of Netherlands, 2 kinds of
               | Swiss, 1 kind of Spanish, and no English. Really defined
               | their market, I suppose.
        
               | lukan wrote:
               | Seems to cover most of EU languages. So that seems to be
               | the market. Though switzerland is not part of the EU. But
               | the no english option is weird as hell, as english is
               | more and more lingua franca in europe.
               | 
               | (swiss is not its own language btw. but italian, german
               | and french)
        
               | nutjob2 wrote:
               | Action is awesome. Shopping there you quickly realize
               | that almost everyone (except Action) is selling junk from
               | China that they bought for pennies at huge markups.
        
           | braiamp wrote:
           | The problem here is that companies seems to not be the wiser
           | to such tactics and creators are left holding the bag by such
           | aggression.
        
             | lazide wrote:
             | The law doesn't allow companies to do anything other than
             | what they are doing.
        
             | 10000truths wrote:
             | They are absolutely aware of these sorts of abuses. I'll
             | bet my spleen that it shows up as a line item in the
             | roadmapping docs of their content integrity/T&S teams.
             | 
             | The root problem is twofold: the inability to reliably
             | automate distinguishing "good actor" and "bad actor", and a
             | lack of will to throw serious resources at solving the
             | problem via manual, high precision moderation.
        
             | xboxnolifes wrote:
             | Content hosts are damned if they do and damned if they
             | don't. If they take their time and are cautious with
             | reports, people end up swamped with garbage that people
             | complain about. If they try to be quick to clean up the
             | garbage, some clean stuff get caught and people complain.
             | 
             | The only frequent obvious problem I see is Youtube not
             | telling people why their videos get hidden or taken down or
             | down ranked. Long time creators get left in the dark from
             | random big changes to the platform that could be solved
             | with an email.
        
               | andrepd wrote:
               | In the olden days this would simply be solved by...
               | having customer support befitting the size of the
               | company. Of course nowadays that's "inneficient".
               | 
               | We have companies with _billions_ of customers but
               | smaller customer service than a mid-sized retailer from
               | the 90s. Something is not right.
        
               | throwaway743 wrote:
               | This is the problem.
               | 
               | IME it's especially bad with Admob. They've purposefully
               | kept their email contact option broken for years and the
               | only "help" you can access is from their forum, which is
               | the absolute worst and never provides any meaningful
               | resolutions. It's awful.
        
               | immibis wrote:
               | Companies listen to small claims lawsuits.
        
               | hdgvhicv wrote:
               | Google, Facebook etc does have support for some
               | customers. If you have a $10m a year advertising account
               | with them I'm sure you'll have an account manager.
               | 
               | People posting on these sites as content creators aren't
               | customers.
        
               | ghssds wrote:
               | What became of the old ruse of simply not listening to
               | contents that one find objectionable? Now it needs to be
               | nuked from orbit yesterday to make sure nobody's pure
               | eyes glance at it.
        
               | immibis wrote:
               | The world got more connected and we all had to suffer the
               | consequences of other people consuming propaganda, so we
               | decided it should be banned, except for the ones who
               | consume it, who decided the same process should be used
               | to ban reality and only allow propaganda.
        
           | crooked-v wrote:
           | The problem I see with that attitude is that it's excusing
           | companies with immense profits from having even the tiniest
           | modicum of actual human review for things.
        
             | ocdtrekkie wrote:
             | As long as the bad behavior is profitable, platforms aren't
             | going to fix it: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/06/meta-
             | reportedly-projected-10...
        
           | rezonant wrote:
           | Stop making so much sense
        
           | blueboo wrote:
           | In certain niches, the marginal value of kneecapping the
           | competition exceeds the viable budget for counteracting
           | gaming. It may be a quirk of this reality's hyperparameters
           | that a UGC media monopoly inevitably suffers from this. Or
           | maybe at a certain point it hits their bottom line and better
           | enforcement is contrived.
        
           | fastily wrote:
           | > They know that with enough reports in a short period of
           | time they can get the content removed for a while
           | 
           | This can be accomplished with bogus dmca notices too. Since
           | google gets such a high volume of notices the default action
           | is just to shoot first and ask questions later. Alarmingly,
           | there are 0 consequences (financial or legal) for sending
           | bogus dmca notices
        
             | chii wrote:
             | it is a weapon the music industry wanted, but now has this
             | unintended consequence.
             | 
             | I think it's high time google stopped acting as judge jury
             | and executioner in the court of copyright enforcement.
        
               | immibis wrote:
               | The law says they have to.
        
               | hdgvhicv wrote:
               | The law also says a counter claim can be immediately
               | filed. Google don't follow that part.
        
               | lazide wrote:
               | Google has nothing to do with filing a counter claim
               | except accepting it if filed. The content owner is the
               | only one who is allowed to file it.
        
               | hdgvhicv wrote:
               | Google do not immediately reinstate on counter claims.
        
             | gundmc wrote:
             | Action against DMCA abusers has happened in a few
             | instances, but it's still largely an unsolved problem
             | without sufficient deterrence from abuse.
             | 
             | https://techhq.com/news/dmca-takedown-notices-case-in-
             | califo...
        
           | gusgus01 wrote:
           | They have a history of removing videos that describe things
           | they don't like under the guise of "harm", eg Linus Tech Tips
           | video on De-Googling your life:
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apdZ7xmytiQ
        
           | ddtaylor wrote:
           | > Microsoft and Google weren't meeting in secret backrooms to
           | censor this one channel
           | 
           | That's not the argument IMO. They don't have to be
           | intentionally malicious in each action. A drunk driver
           | doesn't want to kill a little girl in the road. Their prior
           | choices shape the outcome of their later options. A drunk
           | driver decides to get behind the wheel after drinking. A
           | large company makes a decision to make more profit knowing
           | there are repercussions and calculating the risk.
        
             | lazide wrote:
             | The DMCA laws prescribe the process. Google (or any other
             | party) isn't allowed to decide for themselves what is or is
             | not a valid DMCA complaint.
             | 
             | Complain to Congress, they're the ones who set this up to
             | work this way.
        
               | RobotToaster wrote:
               | > they're the ones who set this up to work this way.
               | 
               | Who lobbied for it to work that way? I'm assuming google
               | aren't entirely innocent here.
        
               | ninkendo wrote:
               | The DMCA is from 1998. I don't think Larry and Sergei
               | were taking a break from inventing google so they could
               | lobby congress from their Stanford dorm room.
        
               | smw wrote:
               | Google had only been founded a month before, I don't
               | think they had vast lobbying powers yet!
        
               | zeven7 wrote:
               | From what I remember Google fought against DMCA abuse by
               | media companies and lost.
        
               | iamtedd wrote:
               | This isn't a copyright issue. DMCA doesn't apply.
        
               | lazide wrote:
               | False DMCA claims are commonly used to take down videos
               | like this.
        
               | jeremyjh wrote:
               | And were not in this case.
        
               | kevin_thibedeau wrote:
               | DMCA covers circumvention of protection measures.
        
           | not_a_bot_4sho wrote:
           | Thank you for the sane reply
           | 
           | People are so quick to assume conspiracy because it is
           | mentally convenient
        
           | Arch-TK wrote:
           | YouTube claim these were not automated actions. This
           | explicitly rules out "algorithm/LLM makes a stupid mistake"
           | but also seems to rule out "hits a threshold of community
           | reports and gets automatically taken down pending manual
           | review".
           | 
           | Also, it doesn't even need to be collusion between Microsoft
           | and Google, but to pretend like that's never a thing is to be
           | ignorant of history.
           | 
           | Stop defending these big companies for these things. Even if
           | your version of the story is true, the fact they allow their
           | platform to be abused this way is incredibly damaging to
           | content creators trying to spread awareness of issues.
           | 
           | But also, do you seriously think there is a massive amount of
           | competition at the scale of a 330k subscriber channel for
           | people to bother pulling off this kind of attack for two
           | videos on bypassing Windows 11 account and hardware
           | requirements?
           | 
           | Regardless of what happened here, Google is to blame at least
           | for the tools they have made.
           | 
           | As for Microsoft, I don't think there's anything disagreeable
           | with saying that they've tried hard to get people to switch
           | to hardware with their TPM implementation and lying about the
           | reasons. Likewise for forcing Microsoft accounts on people. I
           | am not certain they were involved in this case, but they
           | created the need for this kind of video to exist, so they are
           | also implicated here.
        
             | intended wrote:
             | > But also, do you seriously think there is a massive
             | amount of competition at the scale of a 330k subscriber
             | channel for people to bother pulling off this kind of
             | attack for two videos on bypassing Windows 11 account and
             | hardware requirements
             | 
             | Enough to cause this behavior. I don't know if theres a
             | mathematical or organization law or something, but it seems
             | like theres always a way to abuse review mechanisms for
             | large communities / sites.
             | 
             | Never enough manpower to do review for each case. Or
             | reviews take a long time.
        
               | ethbr1 wrote:
               | > _Never enough manpower to do review for each case._
               | 
               | Manpower at a given salary cost.
               | 
               | All content platforms _could_ throw more money at this
               | problem, hire more  / more skilled reviewers, and create
               | better outcomes. Or spend less and get worse.
               | 
               | It's a _choice_ under their control, not an
               | inevitability.
        
           | miki123211 wrote:
           | So Google is between a rock and a hard place here.
           | 
           | If they don't react quickly and decisively to reports of
           | "possible physical harm", even if the reports seem unfounded,
           | they'll eventually get the NY Times to say that somebody who
           | committed suicide "previously watched a video which has been
           | reported to Youtube multiple times, but no action was taken
           | by Google."
        
             | franga2000 wrote:
             | You can act quickly and decisively and also correctly. Take
             | the average number of reports per day times the average
             | length of a reported segment times two, divide effective
             | work hours per day by that number and hire that many people
             | to process reports. Congrats, your average time to
             | resolution is 24 hours.
             | 
             | If that's too expensive, your platform is broken. You need
             | to be able to process user reports. If you can't, rethink
             | what you're doing.
        
               | mcherm wrote:
               | Please explain what kind of magic your solution uses to
               | ensure that reports always come in at a perfectly even
               | pace without any peaks or valleys. Because without that,
               | your proposed approach will not work.
        
               | macintux wrote:
               | Perhaps the current process becomes the backlog
               | management system. This isn't an insurmountable problem,
               | were the incentives in place.
        
               | StackRanker3000 wrote:
               | Not saying you're wrong in this particular instance, but
               | there are all sorts of areas where we accept that harm
               | will occur at scale (e.g. that 40,000 people per year die
               | in motor-vehicle incidents just in the US). How do we
               | determine what is reasonable to expect?
        
               | ethbr1 wrote:
               | We require auto manufacturers to include certain safety
               | features in their vehicles, to decrease deaths to a
               | socially acceptable level.
               | 
               | The central ill of centralized web platforms is that the
               | US never mandated customer/content SLAs in regulation,
               | even as their size necessitated that as a social good.
               | (I.e. when they became 'too big for alternatives to be
               | alternatives')
               | 
               | It wouldn't be complicated:                  - If you're
               | a platform (host user content) over X revenue...        -
               | You are required to achieve a minimum SLA for
               | responsiveness        - You are also required to hit
               | minimum correctness / false positive targets        - You
               | are also required to implement and facilitate a third-
               | party arbitration mechanism, by which a certified
               | arbitrator (customer's choice) can process a dispute
               | (also with SLAs for responsiveness)
               | 
               | Google, Meta, Apple, Steam, Amazon, etc. could all be
               | better, more effective platforms if they spent more time
               | and money on resolution.
               | 
               | As-is, they invest what current law requires, and we get
               | the current situation.
        
               | intended wrote:
               | It's even worse when you think about what happens when
               | it's NOT English + NOT mainstream content.
               | 
               | I really wish someone could tell me that either
               | 
               | 1) Yes we can make a system that enables functional and
               | effective customer support (because this is what this
               | case is about) no matter the language
               | 
               | 2) No we can't because it's fundamentally about manpower
               | which can match the context with actual harm.
               | 
               | Whatever I suspect, having any definitive answer to this
               | decides how these problems need to eventually be solved.
               | Which in turn tells us what we should ask and hope for.
        
               | ethbr1 wrote:
               | > _a system that enables functional and effective
               | customer support_
               | 
               | I'm not saying that it's humans, but it's humans.
               | 
               | Augmented by technology, but the only currently viable
               | arbitrator of human-generated edge cases is another
               | human.
               | 
               | If a platform can't afford to hire moderation resources
               | to do the job effectively (read: skilled resources in
               | enough quantity to make effective decisions), then it's
               | not a viable business.
        
               | john01dav wrote:
               | > If a platform can't afford to hire moderation resources
               | to do the job effectively (read: skilled resources in
               | enough quantity to make effective decisions), then it's
               | not a viable business.
               | 
               | But, it is viable. Many profitable businesses exist that
               | don't pay for this.
               | 
               | One may instead mean that they want such businesses to be
               | made non viable, in which case we should critically
               | consider which business models that we might currently
               | like other consequences of may be made non viable. For
               | example, will users suddenly need to pay per post? If so,
               | is that worth the trade-off?
        
               | ethbr1 wrote:
               | Businesses that are profiting off un-paid-for
               | externalities aren't socially sustainable businesses.
               | They're just economic scams that happen to be legal.
               | 
               | Imho, we should do what we can to make sure they're
               | required to pay for those externalities.
               | 
               | Then, they either figure out a way to do that profitably
               | (great! innovation!) or they go under.
               | 
               | But we shouldn't allow them to continue to profit by
               | causing external ills.
        
           | dns_snek wrote:
           | Your theory is baseless given that YouTube claimed that
           | decisions weren't automated:
           | 
           | > The platform claimed its "initial actions" (could be either
           | the first takedown or appeal denial, or both) were not the
           | result of automation.
        
             | Andrex wrote:
             | YouTube frequently claims this and are frequently caught
             | lying. (Oh, you really watched this one hour video and
             | reached your decision in an email sent 96 seconds after the
             | appeal was submitted? Yeah okay...)
             | 
             | They'll silently fix the edge case in the OP and never
             | admit it was any kind of algorithmic (OR human) failure.
        
               | dns_snek wrote:
               | I'm aware that there's a chance that Google is lying, I'm
               | just pointing out that their comment doesn't make any
               | sense if they believe that Google deserves the benefit of
               | the doubt.
        
           | xbar wrote:
           | Google incentivizes takedown vote abuse. 1. 3 Strikes rules
           | for channels 2. Automatic takedown systems based on votes 3.
           | Incentivizing competing channels with ads 4. No
           | verification/limits/punishment of bogus takedown voters and
           | vote bots 5. Lack of democritized, universal takedowns of
           | equivalent content
           | 
           | Does Microsoft unfairly benefit from Google's takedown
           | tirefire? I do not know.
           | 
           | But if I were designing a voting system for takedowns it
           | would be: 1. 1 non-DMCA takedown vote per user per year 2. No
           | takedown votes for accounts less than 1 year old 3. Takedown
           | all equivalent content when a video is voted down. 4.
           | Verification of DMCA ownership before taking down DMCA-
           | protected content.
        
         | portaouflop wrote:
         | The reality is most people don't care about this.
         | 
         | And if they do care they will find workarounds as you said.
         | 
         | Nothing will change, the frog has been sitting in boiling water
         | for more than a generation now and the newbloods never
         | experienced the computational freedom you hold dear; they will
         | happily use whatever corporate surveillance technology is being
         | forced upon them. They will even defend it to the bone if you
         | try to take it away
        
         | WorldPeas wrote:
         | and what phone do you use? There's no way out from that
         | perspective (apple included), privacy and interoperability
         | should not be mutually exclusive.
        
         | jacquesm wrote:
         | It wouldn't be the first time that something gets posted on HN
         | and then miraculously is resolved.
        
           | layer8 wrote:
           | As the article notes, it was already resolved, and that
           | happened five days ago.
        
             | jacquesm wrote:
             | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45744503
        
         | abdullahkhalids wrote:
         | Elderly relatives are the best candidate for switching to
         | linux.
         | 
         | They need to do what? Browser, zoom, email client. They are
         | never going to install anything.
         | 
         | All of these have great options on linux, and they work just as
         | well.
         | 
         | Just put them on Debian stable and be done with it.
        
           | thunky wrote:
           | Chromebook.
        
             | XorNot wrote:
             | A locked in Google platform while Google is helping
             | Microsoft implement mass data collection...
        
               | aeroevan wrote:
               | Most of them can be turned into a vanilla linux laptop
               | fairly easily, and even support custom coreboot firmware:
               | https://docs.mrchromebox.tech/
               | 
               | That being said, it's also pretty easy to get a full
               | linux shell and even install gui apps via flatpak or
               | whatever.
        
             | more_corn wrote:
             | Chromebook is absolute garbage
        
             | fsflover wrote:
             | So that all your chat history with the relative goes
             | straight to train Google ads? No, thanks.
        
           | rjdj377dhabsn wrote:
           | Yep. While my mom was working she needed too many Windows-
           | only applications. But once she retired, I set her up with a
           | Linux desktop and it's been smooth sailing.
        
           | more_corn wrote:
           | I installed zorin on an old machine that was given to me
           | because it wouldn't run win 11. I like it a lot. Debian
           | based, clean smooth UI. Just tell them Microsoft improved the
           | user experience with windows 11.
        
             | mjevans wrote:
             | X X Windows L.E. => (e)X X Windows (Wayland) L.E. (Linux
             | Edition)
             | 
             | Even the one major 'windows' app that my mom needs to use
             | is going Web only... so I figure if I install Debian Stable
             | + Widevine that'll cover 99.9% of the use case and I gain
             | an OS that just works correctly.
        
           | stOneskull wrote:
           | i think a good ubuntu is a bit better than just debian for
           | this. probably linux mint or kubuntu. for just debian, then
           | mint debian edition or mx linux would be best, imo
        
             | fsflover wrote:
             | > imo
             | 
             | Any particular reasons?
        
               | stOneskull wrote:
               | i just fret about grandma using plain debian. my first
               | thought is i want to give her puppy linux. it's probably
               | fine if she lives in firefox though.
        
               | marcosdumay wrote:
               | What do you believe Ubuntu has that Debian doesn't and
               | will make their lives easier?
        
           | analog8374 wrote:
           | I installed Debian (with Mate desktop) for 3 different
           | elderly ladies.
           | 
           | All 3 give it a solid thumbs up. "It never crashes", "It's so
           | easy", "It's fast", "None of that Windows bs".
        
           | WhereIsTheTruth wrote:
           | Linux is under control of the same companies
           | 
           | Besides, all major distributions (Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu)
           | ship with a shim signed by Microsoft, and systemd..
           | 
           | *BSD is the only escape, but for how long?
        
             | stevenjgarner wrote:
             | I feel your passion, but I feel this is a little
             | hyperbolic? I feel your passion is directed more at UEFI
             | secure-boot than at Linux. I am no lover of the UEFI
             | secure-boot world, using shims as a first-stage boot loader
             | component whose job is to bridge the firmware's trusted key
             | infrastructure (typically Microsoft's signing key) to a
             | Linux (or other non-Windows) bootloader/kernel chain.
             | 
             | > Linux is under control of the same companies
             | 
             | Linux is indeed open source, so are you trying to say that
             | "Linux is EFFECTIVELY under control of the same companies
             | VIA UEFI WITH SECURE BOOT ENABLED"? Or is there a big-Tech
             | cabal controlling Linux in another manner? I get that most
             | big-Tech companies are major contributors to open source
             | projects.
             | 
             | > all major distributions (Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu) ship
             | with a shim signed by Microsoft
             | 
             | Having a shim signed by Microsoft makes no difference if
             | these distributions are being installed on hardware without
             | UEFI firmware implemented on the motherboard's SPI flash
             | e.g. motherboards from Purism (Librem Laptops), System76
             | (Thelio, Galago Pro, etc.), Framework Laptop (2021 -), Star
             | Labs, Raspberry Pi / Single-Board Computers and uncountable
             | DIY PC builds with motherboards (ASUS, ASRock, Gigabyte,
             | etc.) that expose Secure Boot options. It is usually only
             | when consumer hardware is being used from major OEMs (Dell,
             | HP, Lenovo, etc.) that ship with only Microsoft's key in
             | the firmware trust database.
             | 
             | > and systemd
             | 
             | You are suggesting that "systemd" is also part of the lock-
             | in or control (in your mind) of those distributions. But
             | strictly in the context of shim and Secure Boot, systemd is
             | not the same issue: systemd is an init-system/process
             | manager in userland, not part of the firmware/boot loader
             | signature infrastructure. Major distros use systemd, so
             | from a "vendor/lock-in" narrative they may lump bootloader
             | trust and systemd governance together. But strictly
             | speaking your assertion is more of a opinion/ideological
             | piece than a formal technical dependency.
             | 
             | > *BSD is the only escape
             | 
             | Not true. Not all Linux distributions use it -- Tails,
             | Qubes OS, PureOS, Alpine, Void, Gentoo, etc., deliberately
             | avoid it. Most minimalistic, privacy, or DIY distributions
             | refuse the Microsoft-signed shim route because their users
             | are expected to control their firmware settings or use
             | owner-controlled keys.
        
           | kro wrote:
           | I installed them Mint and they said it's better than Windows
           | due to all the built-in free apps (like public TV)
        
         | pndy wrote:
         | Maybe not totally related but I remember a comment from few
         | years which lets say, was "dismissed" at the time by votes
         | where user said that Google doesn't innovate when it comes to
         | web standards but pushes own agenda by planted people at W3C.
         | To ensure their browser will work for them and not for the
         | user.
         | 
         | Microsoft on the other hand seems to be reheating the old
         | Palladium/Trusted Computing concept enhanced now by Copilot.
         | This idea was already criticized over 20 years ago as a
         | dangerous attempt of turning desktop machines to uncontrollable
         | appliances which would run only approved software and serve,
         | access approved safe content rigged with DRM. And frankly, with
         | all this play with chat control, age verification it's hard to
         | not see some similarities. Maybe that's where this is all
         | going.
        
         | nalekberov wrote:
         | Microsoft is just a video game company to me, I can live
         | without its products and be happier. With Google though, things
         | are bit different, they have Google Maps and YouTube, which I
         | use nearly on daily basis. I can probably replace Google Maps
         | with something else, even though that will probable be a
         | downgrade in terms of user experience, however replacing
         | YouTube is impossible, so many unique content in it.
         | 
         | (a big) But YouTube has grown to be such a monopoly, that they
         | now dictate what we are going to be able to watch on the web.
         | 
         | This is sadly so hard to change, so many creators are now
         | literally working "for" YouTube, and there are so many quality
         | videos there.
        
           | kelvinjps10 wrote:
           | You can replace the frontent yt-dlp invidious mpv etc
        
             | ranger_danger wrote:
             | I think it's only a matter of time before youtube starts
             | injecting ads directly into the video stream, and only
             | allow streaming it at the actual playback speed.
             | 
             | They might even put the ads in different places for
             | different users to throw off things like Sponsorblock.
        
               | mapontosevenths wrote:
               | Its wild to me that you watch enough YouTube to care, but
               | won't pay for it. Its a service, either pay or put up
               | with the ads.
        
               | Marsymars wrote:
               | The problem for me is that "enough to care" is like a
               | video every couple months. $8/video is poor value.
        
               | mapontosevenths wrote:
               | Fair enough. Thats why there is an ad supported version.
               | 
               | I consider my time to be valuable, and really hate ads
               | though so removing even a few minutes of ads are worth
               | the $8 to me.
        
               | Larrikin wrote:
               | Every single video platform that has ever existed has
               | added ads after some number of users are paying.
               | 
               | Also you can block the ads so you have the third option.
        
               | hdgvhicv wrote:
               | And if YouTube do that then I will unsubscribe. Just like
               | I did with Amazon.
               | 
               | Until that point I'll continue to pay. Content creators
               | tell me they get more income from premium subscribers too
               | so win-win.
        
           | Marsymars wrote:
           | Replacing YouTube with a drop-in substitution is obviously
           | impossible, but it's not _that_ hard to replace with a
           | different hobby. I 've never used YouTube to any significant
           | degree, and manage pretty well without it.
        
             | EbNar wrote:
             | Same. It is quite difficult for me to understand the
             | current YouTube addiction... I can go literally years
             | without even opening it.
        
           | p2detar wrote:
           | What is so much of value in YouTube that you cannot live
           | without? The platform has turned into clickbait conspiracy
           | board, exactly because creators are trying to adapt to the
           | algorithm. Apart from fun gaming channels, there are very few
           | channels where you can actually learn something. It's mostly
           | noise.
           | 
           | I'm having much more trouble imagining life without Google
           | Maps that without YouTube.
        
             | Podrod wrote:
             | Google Maps is garbage as well, full of inaccurate shit or
             | meme stuff people added but the process of getting it fixed
             | has been made worse and worse over the years.
             | 
             | The report system has been gimped massively,can't even type
             | in reasons any more just have to select from some limited
             | options and hope for the best. Took me over half a year of
             | reporting a permanent street closure near me for them to
             | actually change it and all the whole they were happy to
             | direct people and cars down it . Other times they just
             | outright reject reports without any reason.
             | 
             | Directions have got more sucky over the years.
             | 
             | More and more advertising has creeped into the maps as
             | well, seeing the logos for stores and restaurants over
             | other places and when zoomed out because they paid to be
             | boosted.
             | 
             | I only use Google for street view and, on google earth, for
             | historical aerial imagery these days, not for navigation.
             | For that I use apps that use OSM like Organic Maps or now
             | CoMaps.
        
               | p2detar wrote:
               | Google Maps has a practical value. I know why I use it -
               | I want to get to somewhere, I open the app, type my
               | destination and I'm given a route. Most of the times it
               | has worked very well, in numerous different countries
               | that I visited.
               | 
               | I find it hard to extract the same practical value from
               | YouTube. There have been cases where I would see how
               | people repair stuff and to some degree it has been useful
               | but it is hard to find that "useful" type of video you
               | look for among all the noise. Product review videos are
               | always kind of fishy, because reviewers are mostly
               | sponsored. So I can't quite get to extract anything of
               | great value from YouTube.
               | 
               | Btw, thank you for the Organic Maps tip. Looks really
               | really cool!
        
           | tmtvl wrote:
           | I've had a pretty good experience with OpenStreetMap to
           | replace Google Maps. For YouTube it depends on your needs. If
           | it's just entertainment there's Nebula, Odysee, Nicovideo,
           | Twitch, Dailymotion, et cetera. For more educational content
           | the alternatives can be a bit hit-or-miss.
           | 
           | That said, YouTube has been auto-dubbing videos using an
           | algorithm that overdubs English spoken by people with an
           | accent, which I consider discriminatory (if not outright
           | racist), so I'm trying the various alternatives now. In a few
           | months I think I'll have more of an opinion about them.
        
         | squarefoot wrote:
         | The video was restored because of the noise the takedown
         | created. Small creators have no voice and for every big channel
         | that can ignite a PR backlash there are potentially thousands
         | that would disappear without trace or chances to be restored.
         | YouTube has been unreliable for years, but AI just makes it
         | even more so; how could one base their business on such an
         | unprofessional and unstable partner that appears managed by
         | kids with too much power in their hands? An alternative is
         | badly needed asap.
        
           | ranger_danger wrote:
           | > The video was restored because of the noise the takedown
           | created.
           | 
           | Source:
        
             | themaninthedark wrote:
             | > Rich appealed both immediately. The first appeal was
             | denied in 45 minutes. The second in just five. > The
             | platform claimed its "initial actions" (could be either the
             | first takedown or appeal denial, or both) were not the
             | result of automation.
             | 
             | If they claim that a non automated review occurred but then
             | still took down/denied appeal, what caused them to change
             | course?
             | 
             | What is your source that the restoration of the video was
             | not because of the noise?
        
             | immibis wrote:
             | Pattern recognition, an innate skill in most humans. When
             | most bogus takedowns are not reversed, but the more people
             | you see talking about them, the more likely they are to get
             | reversed, you can easily see the pattern.
        
         | tombert wrote:
         | > (Having said that, my bypass strategy is to not use Windows
         | 11 altogether. I don't depend on it, having used Linux since 21
         | years now,
         | 
         | I'm not quite that cool, but I have been using it full time
         | since about 2009, so I'm not too far behind :)
         | 
         | The only time that I have to use Windows is because I have to
         | play tech support for my parents, because despite considerable
         | effort on my end, I have been completely unsuccessful at
         | convincing them to move to Linux or Mac. It's a little
         | annoying, because when I bring up the subject they act like I
         | should just "live and let live", but that's a really stupid
         | argument when they're saying this _while I am fixing their
         | computer_. Somehow this is lost on them.
         | 
         | I have complained about this a bunch of times on here, but I'll
         | say it again: If you work on Windows Update, then you should
         | consider any career other than software engineer. Windows
         | Update has made the world a worse place because it
         | disincentivizes updating your computer, leading to an increase
         | in open. Update software isn't allowed to suck.
        
           | duskdozer wrote:
           | Obviously it depends on your relationship, but it's not
           | really nice of them to insist on your tech support like this
           | AND refuse to make it easier for you AND be ungrateful (?)
           | for it. You could set a date after which you won't help
           | anymore unless they switch to Linux or Mac.
        
         | tartoran wrote:
         | Windows 10 is also the stop I'm getting off at. Windows 11 does
         | not serve me and it does not suit my needs. Windows 10 was not
         | too great either, debloated was somewhat manageable to run on
         | one of my machines. It's inertia of all these years, my first
         | windows installation was Win 95. But Windows 11 is a horror
         | show I don't want take part in and warn anyone that could be
         | tricked into using to stay away.
        
           | stOneskull wrote:
           | kde is fun!
           | 
           | so is xfce but i'm too old for tweaking so much
        
             | jwrallie wrote:
             | I love xfce. It is so stable and practical.
        
         | hammock wrote:
         | > Google censors the world
         | 
         | It's literally their mission: to organize the worlds
         | information.
         | 
         | We just didn't understand it at the time.
        
         | ccppurcell wrote:
         | I'm a bit of an LLM skeptic but chatgpt could probably explain
         | this kind of thing pretty well and a) it's interactive so you
         | can ask if you don't understand a step b) there will be no
         | filler to pad the content for ads (well not at the moment
         | anyway)
        
         | analog8374 wrote:
         | What if they censor you for a good reason. Is it ok then?
        
         | itsthecourier wrote:
         | most games run in Ubuntu with steam now, Google workspace
         | replaced excel for the great majority of tasks online and I
         | ubuntu improved a lot drivers support.
         | 
         | I'm happy to work in Linux and see the great improvements they
         | did thru decades
        
       | mindcrash wrote:
       | Once the masses discover that KDE is just as user friendly as
       | Windows these days, ...
       | 
       | ... _and_ that it is relatively easy to run (most) Windows apps
       | they love through Bottles (https://usebottles.com/), and/or
       | WinApps (https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps)...
       | 
       | ... _oof_
        
         | Pxtl wrote:
         | I've been doing my first journey w Linux as a daily driver and
         | I'm not loving Mint+Cinnamon, what's the best distro for KDE?
        
           | limagnolia wrote:
           | The better question would be what is the best distro for you.
           | Personally I like Debian. But I don't know enough about you
           | and how you use your computer to say for sure what is best
           | for you.
        
             | Pxtl wrote:
             | Devops-heavy development, but been a Windows desktop user
             | up until now, with linux just running on servers.
             | 
             | I'll probably go with Kubuntu just because I want something
             | as vanilla as possible with the largest support-base.
        
               | limagnolia wrote:
               | I used Kubuntu for years, but ultimately moved away from
               | the Ubuntu based distros due to Canonical cruft. I
               | haven't really missed anything going with vanilla Debian.
        
               | petepete wrote:
               | I'd recommend Fedora KDE, it's vanilla and well used
               | enough to be able to easily find answers.
               | 
               | https://www.fedoraproject.org/kde/
               | 
               | Ubuntu based distros are fine too, but there are a few
               | weird things to get to grips with like Snaps.
               | 
               | There's really not much difference between most distros
               | these days so I'm sure if you like one you'd like the
               | other.
        
               | simoncion wrote:
               | I've found Gentoo Linux to be a good developer- and
               | sysadmin-oriented distro. It requires a _lot_ more work
               | up-front than most any other distro but -IME- once you
               | have it running, it just keeps running and upgrading just
               | fine. If you wish, you can even subject yourself to
               | systemd, as that 's a supported init system.
               | 
               | As a bonus, if you don't want to build everything from
               | source, there are prebuilt packages available.
               | Instructions for how to use them are in the "Installing
               | the base system" section of the Gentoo Handbook. I've not
               | used the Gentoo-provided prebuilt packages, but I do use
               | my own prebuilts. I've found the process of using them to
               | be well-documented and fairly straightforward.
        
           | 1bpp wrote:
           | Don't worry too much about distributions, they'll mostly just
           | affect package formats and default settings, but imo Debian
           | is the best choice for stable desktop computing, with the
           | best overall support and community.
        
           | baobun wrote:
           | It would help to know what it is you are not loving with
           | Mint+Cinnamon... My picks for a beginner-friendly batteries-
           | included Linux dist for KDE:
           | 
           | - You can install KDE on Mint without switching distro or
           | reinstalling[0]
           | 
           | - Debian (caveat: packages can be out of date if you need the
           | latest-greatest of something)
           | 
           | - Fedora (caveat: two major OS upgrades per year can feel
           | like a chore)
           | 
           | - EndeavourOS (caveat: Requires a bit more expertise and
           | grease to properly maintain)
           | 
           | - Aurora (caveat: Still young project and I'd still consider
           | it a bit experimental and adventerous)
           | 
           | - kubuntu (caveat: snaps. Accept them or learn how to
           | disable)
           | 
           | KDE Linux is a thing and something to keep an eye on but it's
           | still in alpha/beta and probably not ready for your use just
           | yet.
           | 
           | [0]: Caveat: it's possible that some DE service might not be
           | disabled properly from your old setup and conflict with KDEs
           | variety if you keep the cinnamon packages around
        
           | stOneskull wrote:
           | kubuntu, kde neon, or mx linux kde version (which is debian)
        
           | tmtvl wrote:
           | OpenSUSE has traditionally done a bunch of work on making
           | sure other software works well with KDE (for example patching
           | Firefox to use the KDE file chooser). Much of that work is no
           | longer needed with new tech like the XDG desktop portal
           | stuff, but Tumbleweed is still a fairly solid system (up to
           | date, stable, GUI system administration tools, automatically
           | installs packages with AVX3 if your CPU supports it,...).
        
           | frm88 wrote:
           | I switched from Windows 10 to Nobara KDE plasma ~1 month ago.
           | It's a Fedora based distro, so most of the Fedora
           | documentation applies. I came from server Linux but Windows
           | desktop (20 years or so) and I'm amazed how similar it is and
           | reacts. It comes with Libre Office, Steam etc. pre-installed
           | and while the Libre software is certainly different and needs
           | getting used to - for me, coming originally from Wordperfect
           | and Quattro Pro it was no challenge. There are some minor
           | bugs which I attribute mostly to the Nvidia 580 graphics
           | driver, like distorted fonts in certain mouse positions, but
           | these are really minimal and I won't deep dive (yet) into
           | that. Support online via discord which isn't optimal, but at
           | least there is support.
        
         | o11c wrote:
         | Unfortunately for right now, KDE has recently released major
         | version 6, which is also about as _stable_ as Windows (meaning,
         | very not). This is reminiscent of the KDE 4 transition and much
         | worse than the KDE 5 one.
         | 
         | For example, half the time I try to log in or unlock the
         | screen, it just ignores my password. Fortunately, I have
         | discovered that pressing Escape triggers a crash, and I have to
         | deliberately trigger a segfault by pressing Escape, in hopes
         | that next time the password will be accepted.
        
           | mkl wrote:
           | Plasma 6 is nearly two years old, and is totally fine in my
           | experience. The transition was more like 5.x to 5.y. The
           | biggest change is Wayland by default (X11 is currently still
           | available, so might be worth a try).
           | 
           | It sounds like your problem may be with SDDM (the login
           | screen program) rather than Plasma itself. You could try an
           | alternative: https://alternativeto.net/software/sddm/
        
           | baobun wrote:
           | The only issue I have on my Plasma 6 laptop is also lock-
           | screen related: About 20% of the time keyboard input is
           | ignored/blocked after coming back from sleep. Closing and
           | reopening the lid usually sorts it. Haven't seen what you
           | describe.
           | 
           | I did have some earlier snags which all went away after
           | switching from Wayland session to X11 session.
        
           | pndy wrote:
           | Gotta be something specific to your machine - for me version
           | 6 is way more stable than 5 was. That line would crash doing
           | sillies things like resizing task bar or applying settings.
           | Now I feel as good with CachyOS and Plasma 6.5.2 as I was
           | with W2K or W7
        
           | skirmish wrote:
           | Changing the KDE theme into something other than the default
           | Breeze breaks the whole Plasma: black screen with a cursor
           | instead of the SDDM login screen. Hit this while setting up
           | an Arch system for my wife, spent hours rebooting with
           | recovery USB image and tweaking configuration until it all
           | worked again.
           | 
           | Wouldn't call it stable.
        
             | simoncion wrote:
             | Point of order: SDDM is entirely unrelated to the KDE
             | project.
             | 
             | I've been using the Breeze Dark theme for approximately
             | forever and I've never run into the problem you're
             | describing. However, I've very rarely used SDDM... I find
             | its default rainbow-colored background intolerable and use
             | LightDM instead.
             | 
             | Do you happen to remember configuration that you ended up
             | having to change, and is that computer running Nvidia
             | graphics hardware with the closed-source drivers?
        
             | tmtvl wrote:
             | SDDM is garbage and I've switched to using lemurs now (for
             | whatever reason graphical display managers are terrible.
             | GDM doesn't allow changing the mouse cursor theme, SDDM
             | doesn't show battery percentage, LightDM doesn't do fonts
             | properly,... the KDE people are apparently working on a new
             | DM, but the info I got was vague as anything and may as
             | well have been referring to the KDE LightDM greeter).
        
               | simoncion wrote:
               | I wouldn't say that SDDM is _garbage_. Apparently, it
               | sets the environment variables  & etc. needed to enable
               | automatic HiDPI scaling that a shockingly large number of
               | Wayland proponents insist Xorg doesn't support. [0][1]
               | 
               | [0] <https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/SDDM#Enable_HiDPI>
               | 
               | [1] Manual scaling (even non-integer scaling) works fine
               | as long as you have a settings editor that will speak the
               | XSETTINGS protocol, and a daemon running that can be
               | queried. GNOME has both by default. KDE has the settings
               | editor, and you might need to install xsettingsd or
               | similar. The quirk I've found is that while GTK programs
               | accept the display scaling changes immediately, QT
               | programs must be restarted to adopt the changes.
        
               | badsectoracula wrote:
               | > automatic HiDPI scaling that a shockingly large number
               | of Wayland proponents insist Xorg doesn't support.
               | 
               | Assuming they know what they're talking about and not
               | just parroting whatever they read others mention, usually
               | when someone says that "Wayland does $THING that X11/Xorg
               | doesn't do", this is really a shortcut for "X11/Xorg
               | could technically do $THING, if enough developers and
               | projects cared about it, but that would be a massive
               | undertaking and it is easier to convince developers do
               | $THING if we can control most of the stack to only do
               | $THING in one particular way we want by working from a
               | clean slate".
               | 
               | Since you mentioned environment variables, not sure what
               | SDDM exactly is doing, but in the case of HiDPI scaling
               | under Xorg the only method for HiDPI i'm aware of that
               | uses environment variables is Qt's
               | `QT_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTORS` which is a semicolon-separated
               | list of per-screen scaling factors that Qt applications
               | can use to automatically scale themselves depending on
               | the screen the window/application is in. Considering SDDM
               | is written in Qt, i'll guess that this is what it set.
               | 
               | But the thing is, this is far from enough if you want
               | "robust" support under X11/Xorg. The reason is that a
               | typical X application under a typical X desktop has
               | multiple components: an X server (which i'm going to
               | assume it is Xorg for now - other X servers are basically
               | Xorg forks and sync with its features), a window manager,
               | an optional desktop compositor and a widget toolkit on
               | the application's side (not strictly needed as an app can
               | use its own adhoc code for that but let's assume it uses
               | one since this doesn't really matter in this case).
               | 
               | The behavior you need for robust HiDPI support is for the
               | application to use the proper scaling for each of its
               | toplevel windows depending on the connected output the
               | window is in (note: this may or may not actually be
               | relevant to DPI - someone may have bad eyesight and want
               | their 27" 1440p monitor to be 150% scaled) and have that
               | be done automatically - ideally, transparently from the
               | user's perspective - as they move windows between outputs
               | and/or add/remove outputs (e.g. connecting/disconnecting
               | or turning on/off a graphics tablet with an embedded
               | monitor would add/remove an output).
               | 
               | Now, _technically_ , Xorg does provide the necessary core
               | functionality to implement the above, however the issues
               | begin when you start considering _who_ is going to
               | implement it and _what_ part of the stack is responsible
               | for which aspect of supporting window scaling.
               | 
               | Ideally, what you'd want is for applications should be
               | able to scale each of their toplevel windows arbitrarily
               | based on notifications from the underlying system as the
               | user interacts with the application windows (note: this
               | is not necessarily limited to just the user moving
               | windows between outputs - a user could, for example,
               | select an option from their window manager to scale a
               | window at 200% or 300% - this could be useful when doing
               | video streaming or recording videos for example).
               | 
               | So, in an ideal world, the following should happen under
               | X11/Xorg:
               | 
               | 1. Widget toolkits can scale their widgets arbitrarily
               | (ideally not just at fractional level but also sub-100%
               | level too - useful when using secondary screens with a
               | low resolution).
               | 
               | 2. Window managers can receive RandR events for output
               | DPI changes and use that information to maintain a
               | scaling factor for each output (the user could also
               | specify custom per-output scaling too).
               | 
               | 3. As the user interacts with the windows, the window
               | manager sends notifications to the windows/applications
               | whenever a window needs its scale changed. The widget
               | toolkits use these notifications to scale their windows'
               | contents.
               | 
               | Ignoring a few details, the above is basically what
               | Wayland does since it started from a clean slate where
               | they could dictate everything from scratch.
               | 
               | However X11/Xorg already has a lot of software already
               | written for it and there are a few snags in the way:
               | 
               | 1. Pretty much no toolkit supported arbitrary scaling, so
               | they had to be extended for it. Since Wayland needed
               | that, toolkits that need to support it added the
               | functionality anyway (e.g. Qt and Gtk) though not without
               | issues along the way (AFAIK Gtk didn't support fractional
               | scaling for a long time). Though not all toolkits have
               | support for this.
               | 
               | 2. Window managers must be extended to monitor outputs
               | via RandR and send appropriate notifications whenever
               | windows move across outputs to those windows. This would
               | also need some new notification protocol (most likely a
               | new version of EWMH). However...
               | 
               | 3. ...toolkits must _also_ be extended to support these
               | notifications - supporting scaling isn 't enough if they
               | do not know when to scale. This introduces a problem
               | because...
               | 
               | 4. ...window managers will have to deal with toolkits not
               | supporting the notifications. One way would be to just
               | ignore them, but another way is to do the scaling
               | themselves. However, there is another issue here.
               | 
               | 5. When using (and having enabled) a desktop compositor
               | scaling can be easy (especially when dealing with edge
               | cases like a window lying across the edge between two
               | monitors :-P), but without one, the window manager needs
               | to scale the window itself (there was a Xorg branch by
               | Keith Packard that introduced server-side window scaling
               | but AFAIK it was never merged) without affecting the rest
               | of the desktop - and of course do the appropriate
               | coordinate transformations for various events (e.g. mouse
               | motion). Moreover since a desktop compositor can be a
               | separate program than a window manager (many -if not
               | most- X11 window managers are not desktop compositors),
               | they both need to somehow coordinate with each other.
               | 
               | 6. Since this requires all window managers (and desktop
               | compositors) to be updated, the inevitable result is that
               | there will be a lot of them that will not be updated for
               | quite some time, so applications (or realistically,
               | widget toolkits) will need to also handle HiDPI scaling
               | themselves by doing the RandR queries and automatically
               | sizing their own windows based on output. This is a
               | subpar option because the application does not know the
               | window manager's own state and you can end up with the
               | two "fighting" with each other. Also the window manager
               | cannot do desktop-wide configurations (it is actually
               | blind to them).
               | 
               | 7. Obviously whatever protocols in place (as i wrote
               | above, probably a new EWMH version) are used, they'll
               | also need to let the components (window manager, widget
               | toolkit) provide information for when any of the above
               | are in place so the proper action is taken (e.g. a
               | toolkit should not try to do the output tracking itself
               | if the window manager supports it and a window manager
               | should not try to do scaling itself if the widget toolkit
               | supports it - but both need to inform the other about
               | this).
               | 
               | As you can hopefully imagine, the above require the
               | developers of all window managers, all desktop
               | compositors, all widget toolkits and applications not
               | only to coordinate with each other but also handle
               | various cases in case the user used something in the
               | stack that did not support things.
               | 
               | With Wayland since everything was done from scratch,
               | there were less people that needed to be convinced to
               | cooperate - and in practice since Wayland originated from
               | RedHat and the GNOME ecosystem, convincing the
               | appropriate GNOME and Gtk developers to cooperate was
               | probably a coffee break away :-P. Meanwhile Qt would
               | already need to add (or already had, not sure when it was
               | added) support for scaling/HiDPI anyway for Windows and
               | macOS, so the infrastructure was there.
               | 
               | The current situation is that Qt, currently, supports the
               | #6 i mentioned above since it can be implemented without
               | needing support from window managers, desktop compositors
               | or specifying new protocols (something that seems to be
               | much harder than it should be - e.g. AFAIK Cinnamon
               | implemented a very trivial X attribute for displaying a
               | percentage for windows in a taskbar/icon overlay -think
               | of download percentage- but despite the developers'
               | attempt to have others adopt it, i do not think it saw
               | much adoption). But this is really the "fallback
               | solution" when everything else is just not there, it is
               | not the ideal one.
               | 
               | That said, from a technical perspective there is nothing
               | theoretically stopping Xorg desktop environments having
               | top-notch robust HiDPI support. What blocks everything is
               | convincing the developers of the various components of
               | the desktop stack to cooperate, implement and support it.
        
           | tmtvl wrote:
           | As someone who's been bouncing back and forth between Arch
           | and Tumbleweed for a while now I had a very different
           | experience. The transition from KDE 4 to KDE Plasma 5 was
           | terrible, plasmashell would crash all the time, tons of stuff
           | would break between updates, and I had to switch to running
           | awesome for a while (which is fine, awesome is pretty great).
           | The transition from Plasma 5 to Plasma 6 was basically 'these
           | 2 KWin scripts don't work any more' and everything else was
           | fine.
        
       | insane_dreamer wrote:
       | There are a lot of videos on YouTube about things that have a
       | "risk of physical harm" and this is what they choose to pick on??
        
         | __loam wrote:
         | It's all automated, of course there are false positives
        
           | autoexec wrote:
           | If a company chooses to automate something that should not be
           | a defense. They should still be held equally accountable for
           | their actions no matter if they employ a human or an
           | algorithm to do their censorship for them. If they know their
           | software/automation is shit and keeps screwing up, they're
           | still making the choice to continue using it.
        
         | damonachey wrote:
         | I would think this selective action could / should open them up
         | to litigation for all the other harmful things on their site
        
       | henvic wrote:
       | Feels like AI going wild with censorship regardless of what they
       | say lol
       | 
       | I wonder if this is because Windows 11 has been used in critical
       | systems to a certain extent?
        
       | gorjusborg wrote:
       | I no longer run a Microsoft OS on any of the computers I own.
       | 
       | This type of behavior is the reason.
       | 
       | Linux is good enough for most everything I do, for the rest is
       | MacOS.
        
       | Pxtl wrote:
       | Meanwhile AI products occasionally talk kids into killing
       | themselves and that's okay.
        
       | Evidlo wrote:
       | The videos were restored, though...
        
       | Simulacra wrote:
       | Oh this is going to get the Streisand effect.
        
       | hshdhdhehd wrote:
       | They cant remove all the Ubuntu installation tutorials surely?
        
       | wafflemaker wrote:
       | So why shouldn't I use the windows 11 on the other partition that
       | I use for games that don't run on Linux or run with degraded
       | performance?
       | 
       | (Yeah, it's Nvidia, no, I didn't do my homework and bought Nvidia
       | for a Linux PC).
       | 
       | While it may make sense for others, I don't find system that can
       | lock up for 11 hours for updates suitable for anything other than
       | occasional gaming. But why shouldn't I use it for it? I already
       | think twice before getting any game that doesn't run on Linux and
       | gave EA WRC Rally a downvote after they rug pulled Linux users.
       | (A game that run on Linux on the beginning got borked with
       | anticheat. A racing game, so you don't cheat your friends by
       | having 1s less on that race you all compete on).
        
         | prmoustache wrote:
         | There is no worse usage of windows than the occasional one
         | given the huge amount of updates it starts to download whenever
         | you start it up after a long period unused.
         | 
         | I guess it might be useful if you only keep it offline but in
         | that case you aren't playing games online and thus you would be
         | fine gaming on Linux given the only downside is lack of
         | anticheat support.
        
         | heavyset_go wrote:
         | A Windows update will eventually overwrite your bootloader and
         | you won't be able to boot into Linux without some fuckery.
        
           | simoncion wrote:
           | My Windows "fun" was when it decided that the "unknown" space
           | immediately after its little boot partition was free for it
           | to expand into. (Imagine not being able to recognize an ext2
           | filesystem...) After repairing that disaster, I ensured it
           | would never happen again by putting Windows onto its own
           | harddrive. That's worked for a great many years.
           | 
           | Though, now that I've quite a bit of personal experience with
           | how good Steam/Proton is for video games, I think I'll
           | reclaim the surprisingly large amount of space that Windows
           | is taking up.
        
       | henriquemaia wrote:
       | The video in question does present a risk of death... to Windows.
       | 
       | (Nah, that wording is but a generic legalese sounding way of
       | casting a huge net to get all sorts of fish.)
        
       | lenerdenator wrote:
       | The whole Windows 11 saga can be titled, "Dr. Bashlove, or, how I
       | stopped worrying and learned to love the *NIX".
       | 
       | Hard to believe this is the same company that made Windows 7.
       | Coulda just ported WSL and security fixes back to that and
       | stopped there. But nooooo.
        
       | sleepyguy wrote:
       | Massgrave...that is all...
        
         | lax4ever wrote:
         | Even easier, Schneegans
        
       | zelphirkalt wrote:
       | Maybe they mixed it up with mental harm from using Windows 11 and
       | that's why they removed Windows 11 content.
        
       | googlryas wrote:
       | Can anyone provide any attempt at rationalizing their decision?
       | Could your computer overheat and explode if you do this? Could
       | hackers take over your computer and play a flashing light pattern
       | that will give you an epileptic seizure?
        
       | fortran77 wrote:
       | > Then came the twist. YouTube eventually restored both videos.
       | The platform claimed its "initial actions" (could be either the
       | first takedown or appeal denial, or both) were not the result of
       | automation.
       | 
       | The videos are back. It's also possible that a group of people
       | "brigade" reported his posts for some reason. YouTubers attract
       | haters, too.
        
       | puppycodes wrote:
       | I forsee a lobby to the government for further restriction on our
       | freedom of speech by google and others as these companies can't
       | compete with open source and decentralized alternatives that are
       | beginning to offer really well made alternatives.
        
         | hilbert42 wrote:
         | That will only happen if we let it.
         | 
         | Observations indicate we're approaching a point of inflection.
         | We've had about three decades of Big Tech running a serfdom,
         | unless power starts shifting back to users we'll be locked-in
         | serfs for good.
         | 
         | I reckon most of us don't actually realize how much trouble
         | we're in already.
        
           | zahlman wrote:
           | > That will only happen if we let it.
           | 
           | What actions could we take that actually matter here?
        
             | userbinator wrote:
             | Stop using Windows 11.
        
       | chmod775 wrote:
       | This is meek and seems almost resigned. I don't understand how
       | discourse and responses around these kinds of strange,
       | bewildering, or stupid corporate decisions is always so _nice_.
       | This corporate bullshit _thrives_ in respectful environments
       | where nobody needs to be afraid of being told how it is and
       | publicly humiliated for their obviously disingenuous or stupid
       | behavior.
       | 
       | When you're dealing with full-on idiots like that "support
       | specialist" (AI?), all bets are off anyways. Might as well tell
       | that clown that what he just said is the dumbest shit you've
       | heard all week.
       | 
       | Take off the gloves and burn some bridges if you have to, the
       | world will be better place for it.
        
       | 0xcb0 wrote:
       | You can watch the latest Hollywood movies for free on YouTube and
       | they don't care about any copyright, but if it's for showing a
       | genocide to the world or bypassing Windows tutorials, YouTube
       | lost it's spirit.
        
       | BobbyTables2 wrote:
       | This is a blessing in disguise.
       | 
       | Now more people will be motivated to migrate AWAY from Windows
       | since they will have no bypass.
        
         | hilbert42 wrote:
         | _" Now more people...."_
         | 
         | Yes, some will but unfortunately in actual per
         | capita/percentage terms it'll be pathetically small.
         | 
         | Do you really think the marketers, economists and social
         | scientists at Microsoft haven't got that figure off to a tee
         | aready?
         | 
         | It's a certainty they have and they've figured it just amounts
         | to noise in the grand schema of things.
         | 
         | .
        
           | pnt12 wrote:
           | It's often a mistake to think that companies are these
           | perfect union of ultra rational agents, just because they
           | have a lot of employees and money.
           | 
           | See: Windows 8, Windows Phone.
        
       | tmoertel wrote:
       | If anyone at YouTube Trust & Safety is reading this article, I've
       | got a real problem for you to solve.
       | 
       | There are channels that exist solely to pump out AI slop
       | seemingly designed to trick gullible seniors into identifying
       | themselves in the comments. I suspect the scammers will go after
       | these people later in pig-butchering or related scams.
       | 
       | For example, the "Senior Secrets" channel pumps out videos such
       | as "Over 60? Add THIS Powder To Your Coffee To Walk like You're
       | 40 Again! | Senior Health Tips." (I won't link to the video, but
       | you can easily find it with a search.) The video makes bold
       | health claims justified by citing what appear to be scholarly
       | research studies, such as:
       | 
       | > University of California, San Francisco (2023). "Mobility
       | Enhancement Through Nutritional Supplementation in Older Adults."
       | Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences, Volume 78, pp. 445-453.
       | 
       | However, none of the cited studies and papers are real.
       | 
       | The deeply concerning thing is that the video's narrator invites
       | the seniors who are duped by these claims to identify themselves
       | and reveal their age and locations in the comments. From the
       | transcript at 1m44s:
       | 
       | > "Before we begin, tell us in the comments now your age and
       | where you're watching us from. We're reading and replying to
       | every single comment, so drop your comments below."
       | 
       | I've already reported this content to YT, but I've seen no
       | apparent follow-up.
       | 
       | Disclaimer: I used to work at Google, but not in anything YouTube
       | related. If you're in YT and want to reach out, my contact info
       | is in my HN profile.
        
         | jagged-chisel wrote:
         | I'm curious to hear whether any YouTubians[O] take you up on
         | that.
         | 
         | 0 - idk. Can't call employees "YouTubers"
        
         | chipsrafferty wrote:
         | They don't care. There's a ridiculous amount of AI slop on
         | YouTube.
        
           | tmoertel wrote:
           | This isn't merely AI slop. This is AI slop that appears to
           | have been designed to specifically target a vulnerable
           | audience for the purpose of later running financial scams
           | against them. It ought to be in a different category
           | altogether.
        
         | lozenge wrote:
         | Age and city isn't all that identifying, I don't see anything
         | useful there that isn't already in census etc. They are just
         | doing it because YouTube promotes highly commented videos,
         | hence the old saying "like, comment and subscribe"
        
           | tmoertel wrote:
           | It's not the age and location that are concerning. It's that
           | the seniors _who are especially susceptible to being misled_
           | will identify themselves as such. Further, if you look at the
           | comments from these seniors, their YT usernames often reveal
           | their real names.
        
       | isaacremuant wrote:
       | This is what the crowd shouting misinformation and "protect X"
       | asks for all the time.
       | 
       | You want nanny states and nanny corps and authoritianism through
       | and through (remember covid policies?), you'll get this more and
       | more.
       | 
       | You either start rolling back all that BS in the name of freedom
       | (no, not freedumbs) or you can't really complain.
        
       | geor9e wrote:
       | "Risk of Physical Harm" is the kind of reason Tony Soprano would
       | say
        
       | WarOnPrivacy wrote:
       | Mount a Windows 11 ISO. Open an administrative command window.
       | Navigate to the new drive letter. Enter this command:
       | .\setup.exe /product server /auto upgrade /EULA accept
       | /migratedrivers all /ShowOOBE none /Compat IgnoreWarning
       | /Telemetry Disable
       | 
       | I've used this to upgrade 10 to 11 on non approved hardware,
       | going back to at least 2nd gen Intel CPUs. I've used it to
       | upgrade existing Pro, EDU and IOT that didn't want to upgrade.
       | 
       | The install window will say server but it isn't.
        
         | EvanAnderson wrote:
         | Does this work with 25H2? I haven't tried it yet.
        
           | WarOnPrivacy wrote:
           | Yes. I've done Win10 to Win11 with a 25H2 ISO. I've also used
           | it to push 24H2 to 25H2 when WU wasn't offering the upgrade.
        
             | EvanAnderson wrote:
             | Thanks. Good to know it still works. I've got a few
             | unsupported machines I need (ugh, not want) to do.
        
         | lax4ever wrote:
         | Schneegans.de autounattend XML files generator
        
         | fukka42 wrote:
         | Crazy how windows 11 objectively works fine on pretty much all
         | hardware you'd expect but Microsoft is insisting it doesn't and
         | we need to upgrade
        
           | yard2010 wrote:
           | They are lying to make money. It's a common tactic.
        
             | austin-cheney wrote:
             | No they will make the same money either way because they
             | are selling the OS, not the hardware. They are requiring
             | only newer hardware to limit their surface of exploitation
             | and reduce their compatibility list.
        
               | dymk wrote:
               | Microsoft and their OWM partners sell hardware and have
               | done so for a very long time.
        
               | Forbo wrote:
               | They also sell a license with the new hardware. The bulk
               | majority of the public never buy hardware without an OS.
               | So yes, they are making more money with each new hardware
               | sale. Plus the increase of forced advertising means they
               | make more per user, effectively double dipping.
               | 
               | Why do you feel the need to defend a convicted monopolist
               | for engaging in user hostile behavior?
        
             | api wrote:
             | They might sell more Windows 11 if it ran on more hardware.
             | How does this make them money?
             | 
             | It's worth asking, but I think there's an answer: they want
             | the OS to be transformed into an interface to their cloud
             | where recurring revenue is easier. To do that, they need to
             | make it more like a mobile OS and more locked down. TPM
             | helps this.
        
               | dymk wrote:
               | Dropping windows 10 support is a pretty big lever to
               | apply pressure to get people to upgrade to 11. Oh turns
               | out you also "need" to buy new hardware to run it.
        
               | Fabricio20 wrote:
               | Dropping windows 10 support is a really reasonable
               | decision. The focus is on 11, it's been out for almost 5
               | years. I'm guessing they are close to releasing 12 at
               | this point, maybe in a year or two. Supporting three
               | entire fully fledged oses is quite alot of work. I also
               | understand supporting newer hardware, they dropped 32bit
               | on 11 and moved the instruction set up a bit. You gotta
               | do a cutoff somewhere and I'm happy that they are at
               | least allowing us to use the improved performance our
               | modern CPUs have. I'm not happy with alot of stuff, but I
               | get this at least.
        
               | tyami94 wrote:
               | I'd argue it's probably time to drop 32-bit x86 support,
               | but the rest of this stuff is arbitrary and doesn't have
               | any tangible benefit except conveniently providing
               | hardware manufacturers with an excuse to unload new
               | hardware onto people when there's nothing wrong with what
               | they have. (not to mention, pardon the conspiracy theory,
               | they're probably trying to use the TPM to turn the PC
               | into a smartphone-like platform)
        
               | HighGoldstein wrote:
               | > They might sell more Windows 11 if it ran on more
               | hardware. How does this make them money?
               | 
               | Given the free Win 7/8->10->11 upgrade path, almost every
               | end user who'd want a Windows license probably already
               | has one. This leaves enterprise licensing and computer
               | manufacturers (laptops, mini-PCs, desktops), who wouldn't
               | care about this because they'll have newer hardware
               | anyway.
        
           | RobotToaster wrote:
           | They want everyone to have neo-clipper-chip "TPM"s.
        
             | luciferin wrote:
             | My understanding is that TPM is secure, and Win 11 still
             | supports TPM. Am I mistaken and/or misunderstanding your
             | statement that Microsoft is enforcing a hardware
             | requirement with a known back door?
        
               | baby_souffle wrote:
               | TPM can be secure. But secure for whom against what?
               | Microsoft and "against you" are not implausible answers
               | to that question...
        
               | web3-is-a-scam wrote:
               | TPM is not secure. At all. At least when when you're
               | using Windows.
               | 
               | https://youtu.be/t1eX_vvAlUc
        
               | jabwd wrote:
               | Do you also have a source thats not a youtuber? Would be
               | far more interesting to read on apparently it being a spy
               | chip rather than just a HSM.
        
               | web3-is-a-scam wrote:
               | It's not like these things aren't publically documented
               | by Microsoft.
               | 
               | You just need to be able to translate their doublespeak.
        
               | nativeit wrote:
               | Apparently not.
        
               | web3-is-a-scam wrote:
               | Sure let's just centralize hardware attestation to
               | Microsoft's cloud tied to a Microsoft account with keys
               | you can't change what could possibly go wrong?
               | 
               | This is all publicly documented by Microsoft you just
               | need to translate their doublespeak.
               | 
               | Google is doing does the exact same thing and people were
               | sounding the alarms when they did it but Microsoft gets a
               | pass?
               | 
               | Use ChaGPT to outsource your critical thinking for you
               | because I'm not gonna do it.
        
               | tyami94 wrote:
               | Here's a significantly more credible (stacksmashing)
               | video that demonstrates how ineffective some TPM
               | implementations are. If the TPM was integrated into the
               | CPU die, this attack would likely not be possible.
               | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTl4vEednkQ
               | 
               | Despite the TPM being a pretty good and useful idea as a
               | secure enclave for storing secrets, I'm concerned that
               | giving companies the ability to perform attestation of
               | your system's "integrity" will make the PC platform less
               | open. We may be headed towards the same hellscape that we
               | are currently experiencing with mobile devices.
               | 
               | Average folks aren't typically trying to run Linux or
               | anything, so most people wouldn't even notice if secure
               | boot became mandatory over night and you could only run
               | Microsoft-signed kernels w/ remote attestation. Nobody
               | noticed/intervened when the same thing happened to
               | Android, and now you can't root your device or run custom
               | firmware without crippling it and preventing the use of
               | software that people expect to be able to use (i.e.
               | banking apps, streaming services, gov apps, etc.).
               | 
               | Regardless, this is more of a social issue than a
               | technical issue. Regulatory changes (lol) or mass revolt
               | (also somewhat lol) would be effective in putting an end
               | to this. The most realistic way would be average people
               | boycotting companies that do this, but I highly doubt
               | anyone normal will do that, so this may just be the hell
               | we are doomed for unless smaller manufacturers step up to
               | the plate to continue making open devices.
        
               | tyami94 wrote:
               | I've looked into this fella before because he didn't pass
               | the smell test. He's running a grift selling schlocky
               | cell phones and cloud services. His videos are
               | excessively clickbait-y and show minimal understanding of
               | the actual tech, it's more or less concentrated
               | disinformation and half-understood talking points.
               | GrapheneOS devs also had something to say about him:
               | https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/20165-response-to-
               | dishonest...
        
               | tliltocatl wrote:
               | Secure against what threat model?
        
             | verandaguy wrote:
             | I've had to learn about TPMs to figure out if they're the
             | right technology with which to integrate a product I've
             | worked on. I don't agree that they're a "neo-clipper-chip"
             | in any real way based on my exposure to them.
             | 
             | While I'm not a cryptographer... I never really understood
             | the appeal of these things outside of one very well-defined
             | threat model: namely, they're _excellent_ if you 're
             | _specifically_ trying to prevent someone from physically
             | taking your hard drive, and _only_ your hard drive, and
             | walking out of a data centre, office, or home with it.
             | 
             | It also provides measured boot, and I won't downplay it,
             | it's useful in many situations to have boot-time integrity
             | attestation.
             | 
             | The technology's interesting, but as best as I can tell,
             | it's limited through the problem of establishing a useful
             | root-of-trust/root-of-crypt. In general:
             | 
             | - If you have resident code on a machine with a TPM, you
             | can access TPM secrets with very few protections. This is
             | typically the case for FDE keys assuming you've set your
             | machine up for unattended boot-time disk decryption.
             | 
             | - You _can_ protect the sealed data exported from a TPM,
             | typically using a password (plus the PCR banks of a
             | specific TPM), though the way that password is transmitted
             | to the TPM is susceptible to bus sniffing for TPM variants
             | which live outside the CPU. There 's also the issue of
             | securing _that_ password, now, though. If you 're in
             | enterprise, maybe you have an HSM available to help you
             | with that, in which case the root-of-crypt scheme you have
             | is much more reasonable.
             | 
             | - The TPM _does_ provide some niceties like a hardware RNG.
             | I can 't speak to the quality of the randomness, but as I
             | understand it, it must pass NIST's benchmarks to be
             | compliant with the ISO TPM spec.
             | 
             | What I really don't get is why this is useful for _the
             | average consumer._ It doesn 't meaningfully provide FDE in
             | particular in a world where the TPM and storage may be
             | soldered onto the same board (and thus impractical to steal
             | as a standalone unit rather than with the TPM alongside
             | it).
             | 
             | I certainly don't understand what meaningful protections it
             | can provide to game anti-cheats (which I bring up since
             | apparently Battlefield 6 requires a TPM regardless of the
             | underlying Windows version). That's just silly.
             | 
             | Ultimately, I might be misunderstanding something about the
             | TPM at a fundamental level. I'm not a layperson when it
             | comes to computer security, but I'm certainly not a
             | specialist when it comes to designing or working with TPMs,
             | so maybe there's some glaring a-ha thing I've missed, but
             | my takeaway is that it's a fine piece of hardware that does
             | its job well, but its job seems too niche to be useful in
             | many cases; its API isn't very clear (suffering, if
             | anything, from _over-documentation_ and over-
             | specification), and it 's less a silver bullet and more a
             | footgun.
        
           | p_ing wrote:
           | The unsupported CPUs lack the support for Virtualization
           | Based Security, which is a major security feature in Windows
           | 11.
           | 
           | https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-
           | hardware/design/de...
        
             | xbar wrote:
             | It is not a mandatory feature.
        
               | p_ing wrote:
               | Yes, it is mandatory for OEMs.
        
             | rstat1 wrote:
             | VBS is also in Windows 10 and has no problem working on
             | CPUs that aren't "supported" in Windows 11
        
               | p_ing wrote:
               | This is incorrect. Not all CPUs supported by Windows 10
               | supported the VBS feature.
               | 
               | Microsoft is making the VBS mandatory for OEMs, hence the
               | CPU needs support, hence the ~7 year old minimum
               | requirement for CPUs in what Microsoft supports for
               | Windows.
               | 
               | Yes, you can disable it during setup as a workaround, but
               | it's exactly that. And why you'd want to make your system
               | less secure, well I'll leave that to the exercise of the
               | reader when they'll turn around two weeks from now and
               | complain about Windows security.
        
               | rstat1 wrote:
               | Most of the requirements for that feature are UEFI
               | features or a TPM, and have nothing to do with the CPU
               | 
               | The actual CPU requirements are VMX, SLAT, IOMMU and
               | being 64 bit, which have all been available on the Intel
               | side at least, since at least 2008, with some coming
               | available even before that.
               | 
               | The CPU requirement was just an attempt to force people
               | to buy new hardware they didn't need. Nothing more.
               | 
               | A perfect example of this is the Ryzen 5 1600. Its not
               | officially supported but meets every single one of the
               | requirements and had no trouble enabling the feature in
               | the run up to the release of Win11 (before it was blocked
               | for no reason). I know this because I did it.
               | 
               | Also they marked all but one 7th Intel Core CPU as
               | unsupported, and the one they did add just so happens to
               | be the one they were shipping in one of their Surface
               | products. No way you can tell me this list was based fact
               | and not the whims of some random PM when they do stuff
               | like that.
        
               | WarOnPrivacy wrote:
               | > and why you'd want to make your system less secure,
               | 
               | I'd offer that the likely goal here is the most usable
               | system possible, working with what one has. If folks are
               | here, there's usually a lot of necessity factors in play.
        
         | jonathanlydall wrote:
         | Thanks, this is great.
         | 
         | Just a note for others that that the language of the ISO needs
         | to match what you used to install Windows 10.
         | 
         | For example, I installed Windows 10 with the "International
         | English" ISO and if I try this with the Windows 11 "US English"
         | ISO, then it doesn't let me do an upgrade where it keeps
         | installed programs and drivers.
        
         | dlcarrier wrote:
         | ...going back to at least 2nd gen Intel CPU.
         | 
         | Would that be the 4040 or the 8008?
        
           | xattt wrote:
           | Physical harm realized because boot took eternity.
        
             | moritzwarhier wrote:
             | Only if you work in a hospital. And who would be crazy
             | enough to build hospital IT on Windo.. oh, wait.
             | 
             | I haven't tried Win11 on personal hardware so far, but
             | since Win8, boot times are not much of an issue in my
             | experience.
             | 
             | Making the whole OS the vehicle for a rent-seeking vendor
             | lock-in scheme built to make you pay more and more to keep
             | up the same set of functionality is more of a problem I
             | think.
        
           | WarOnPrivacy wrote:
           | > Would that be the 4040 or the 8008?
           | 
           | Heh, yeah. In the moment I couldn't come up with the brief,
           | unique descriptor and reached for the modern shorthand.
        
         | Der_Einzige wrote:
         | Will this work on a version which is part of LTSC or IoT or
         | whatever factory debloated version microsoft makes? As in, will
         | the upgraded version preserve the IoT or LTSC designation and
         | "debloatedness"?
        
           | WarOnPrivacy wrote:
           | > Will this work on a version which is part of LTSC or IoT
           | 
           | I've used the command with a Win11 LTSC/IoT 24H2 ISO. I
           | upgraded Win10 LTSC/IoT 21H2 to Win11 24H2 LTSC/IoT. I've
           | done this on two old notebooks, a Dell Core2Duo and a
           | Thinkpad T430.
        
             | Der_Einzige wrote:
             | Can I modify the command to go from regular windows 10 to
             | debloated windows 11? Do I just need debloated ISO for that
             | to work automatically?
        
               | WarOnPrivacy wrote:
               | I don't know yet. I've got a Win10 EDU I'm going to try
               | to upgrade to Win11 IOT but I haven't pulled the trigger
               | yet. It's in place doing some NAS duty atm.
               | 
               | The command doesn't ask any questions so there's no
               | opportunity to tweak it. I'm getting a recovery plan in
               | place before I pull the trigger on mine.
               | 
               | edit: I might also go another way. There are some other
               | setup methods that might be a better fit for cross-
               | upgrading Windows types. I'm actively investigating but
               | it may be a month before I'm in a position to try them
               | out.
        
             | uxcolumbo wrote:
             | What's the benefit of upgrading from W10 IoT to W11 IoT?
             | 
             | Any specific features?
             | 
             | W10 IoT gets support until 2032 I believe.
        
               | WarOnPrivacy wrote:
               | Mostly to see what works. In this case tho I've found
               | some remote management on workgroup PCs works better when
               | it's Win11->Win11 (instead of Win10->Win11).
               | 
               | ex: With Win10->Win11 I get a fair number of crashes when
               | remotely viewing the event log mmc.
        
         | seam_carver wrote:
         | Oooo, might try this with my 2011 PC.
        
         | jqpabc123 wrote:
         | _Windows cannot parse the provided command line options_
        
           | WarOnPrivacy wrote:
           | It's possible something got lost in HN's formatting.
           | 
           | The line should look like this:
           | https://i.postimg.cc/VLHfF4H3/commandline.png
           | 
           | If it's correct, I'd like to know some specifics, if you
           | don't mind. Current OS and ISO you're working with.
           | 
           | I've never had this fail and if there's an instance where it
           | will, I'd like to know about it.
        
         | jasomill wrote:
         | Or just use Rufus[1] to create a bootable USB installer from
         | the ISO.
         | 
         | Another trick that should still work, though I haven't tested
         | it with newer Windows 11 builds: to create Windows 11 install
         | media that will install and boot via BIOS -- useful on machines
         | where Windows doesn't work correctly under UEFI, e.g., older
         | MacBooks that only work properly with Windows when booted via
         | CSM -- create writeable, BIOS-bootable Windows 10 x64 install
         | media, then replace the install.wim file with one from an
         | appropriate Windows 11 ISO.
         | 
         | [1] https://rufus.ie/en/
        
       | roody15 wrote:
       | Windows 11 attempts to remove local only account is the last
       | straw. I have mostly moved away from Windows already but if they
       | fully implement this will never recommend to anyone period. I
       | manage 2600 computers where I work and am down to less than 150
       | running windows ... could see this reaching 0 in just a year or
       | two.
        
       | dev_l1x_be wrote:
       | Risk of Physical Harm of losing profit.
        
       | vismit2000 wrote:
       | It wasn't wrong, there is no bigger harm one can do to self than
       | using Windows!
        
       | suzzer99 wrote:
       | This happened to me when Amazon KDP's fraud prevention AI
       | hallucinated that my Kindle version was plagiarizing my paperback
       | (yes, it's the same book).
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40992654
       | 
       | Unfortunately, I'm not sure a human ever really looked at my
       | case, or was strongly disincentivized to go against the AI. I got
       | nothing but bland, contentless denials of my appeals that got
       | vaguer each time. And I was never able to go viral, so I'm banned
       | from KDP for life for complete nonsense.
        
       | zahlman wrote:
       | I think this is the same story as
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45744503 ?
        
       | ddingus wrote:
       | Bullshit, horseshit, cows hot.
       | 
       | The whole win 11 thing is embarrassing.
       | 
       | They are this far in, pushing features nobody asked for and is
       | there any wonder the numbers blow chunks?
       | 
       | None.
        
       | dietr1ch wrote:
       | "to organize the world's information and make it universally
       | accessible and useful"
        
       | godsmokescrack wrote:
       | Governments (we the people in general) have the right and duty to
       | regulate corporations, non-human entities which exist at our
       | regulatory pleasure. The US and the EU could easily rip
       | Google/MS/Apple to pieces if they wanted to. Hit some other media
       | conglomerates while they're at it. Vote or something.
        
       | gmerc wrote:
       | CachyOS.
        
       | mkbkn wrote:
       | Thanks Google and Microsoft, I am going to write a blogpost on
       | how to bypass Microsoft's shits and archive the page as well.
        
       | cpncrunch wrote:
       | https://archive.ph/K0tKm
        
       | antegamisou wrote:
       | > Risk of Physical Harm
       | 
       | Yet ChatGPT is not responsible for having led to suicides.
        
       | tom89999 wrote:
       | As if people would not talk to each other or post such
       | instructions elsewhere.... What a clumsy attempt to censor that.
       | As if we now would love Microsoft for their shit and crap they
       | produce since centuries. I only got a gaming machine running it
       | here, all my private data will stay on another linux machine
        
       | afarviral wrote:
       | Huh I must have just got in on time as I set up a local account
       | about 12 hours ago following a tutorial.
        
       | ibbtown wrote:
       | But there is a harm. Just had to repair a pc of my family,
       | because you are able to install windows 11 on a MBR Partition
       | without EFI Boot. Has to convert it and fix some stuff, but it
       | still starts only every second boot (srsly)
        
       | blitzar wrote:
       | > Claims 'Risk of Physical Harm'
       | 
       | Elaborate please YouTube.
        
       | spl757 wrote:
       | OBAY
        
       | sylware wrote:
       | And how you would install a dual boot with some mainstream
       | elf/linux distro?
       | 
       | Is dual boot still a thing with all the effort from microsoft to
       | make that hell or impossible?
        
       | phreack wrote:
       | It's like they want people to bypass Windows 11 altogether. I've
       | finally bit the bullet and gone to Linux recently. Certainly
       | dying by 512 cuts and counting, not for the faint of heart, but
       | I'm surprised at how much of my daily usage I've been able to
       | replicate. I'd say 80% of life works, unlike previous attempts.
        
         | wohoef wrote:
         | In my experience 120% of my daily usage from windows works on
         | Linux.
         | 
         | Where are the friction points for you?
        
       | gond wrote:
       | I cannot recommend NTLite enough.
       | 
       | If it has to be Windows, just remove all the shit of Win11
       | yourself, set it to unattended installation with a local account,
       | remove the hardware requirements barrier while you are at it,
       | remove the games, controller add-ons, virus scanner and whatever
       | else you would like to (the windows store?) and create your own
       | LTSC.
       | 
       | This isn't a solution to the problem and missing the point of the
       | whole argument. But if it has to be Windows, I would recommend to
       | try it.
       | 
       | 1] ntlite.com
        
       | Anduia wrote:
       | > YouTube eventually restored both videos
       | 
       | Okay, nothing to see here then. Just some sensationalism around a
       | content moderation mistake.
        
       | SurceBeats wrote:
       | Google used to proudly say "Don't be evil"... But they just
       | forgot to add "let us take that part".
       | 
       | When tech giants start deciding what technical knowledge is too
       | "dangerous" for users to access, we've crossed into a different
       | kind of territory. Installing an OS on your own hardware is now
       | physical harm? That's some creative interpretation of their
       | policies. The irony is that this kind of censorship just
       | validates why people want to bypass these systems in the first
       | place, nobody wants corporations deciding what they can and can't
       | do with their own machines.
        
       | Pooge wrote:
       | Those of you who don't use Linux as a daily driver: why?
       | 
       | What do you need in Windows that is not possible in Linux? Its
       | slowness to justify your 40-hour work week?
        
         | reddozen wrote:
         | the games I play don't support Linux
        
           | Pooge wrote:
           | Isn't dual-booting convenient for you? I've never done it
           | myself.
        
             | rkomorn wrote:
             | I like Linux, it's my laptop daily driver, but there's
             | nothing I would do on Linux on my gaming PC that I can't do
             | on Windows.
             | 
             | Linux just has no upside over Windows in a dual boot
             | context.
        
               | Pooge wrote:
               | > Linux just has no upside over Windows in a dual boot
               | context
               | 
               | If you do dual-boot and don't care about the privacy of
               | the data you put into Windows, I guess so.
        
               | rkomorn wrote:
               | If I dual-boot, I have to maintain both OSes no matter
               | what.
               | 
               | I also personally keep no data on my devices, but if I
               | did, having data that I need to reboot to get to would be
               | friction I don't want.
        
               | Pooge wrote:
               | > I also personally keep no data on my devices
               | 
               | Now I get your point. But still I would prefer to access
               | my "personal" accounts from a device I trust.
               | 
               | Do you use a cloud service for your files?
        
               | rkomorn wrote:
               | Yep. I've been a paying Google Workspace user for almost
               | 20 years now (in the various iterations of the product
               | name).
               | 
               | Some stuff goes in GitHub, none of which I actually truly
               | care about though.
               | 
               | I'm sure you'll groan. :)
               | 
               | But hey, if it's good enough for Cloudflare and Datadog
               | (two past employers), it's good enough for me.
               | 
               | I also may be weird because I don't own any media and I'm
               | perfectly happy with the streaming model. I enjoy not
               | having the mental load of thinking about self-hosting and
               | backing up terabytes of stuff.
               | 
               | I feel "lightweight" and I like it.
        
               | Pooge wrote:
               | Yeah it makes it very easy to be OS-independant. I have
               | backups of my whole home directory so if anything goes
               | awry I can just reinstall software as I go and restore my
               | config files from the most recent backup.
               | 
               | I have a Nextcloud instance for family to store files,
               | though.
        
             | subscribed wrote:
             | Dual booting with windows running on the same box? Sooner
             | or later windows WILL destroy the other system.
        
               | rkomorn wrote:
               | That or you'll get into an argument with
               | UEFI/Windows/Bitlocker.
        
               | jimangel2001 wrote:
               | I've been dual booting windows/arch for almost 1 years
               | now. Except the rare case that windows fucks my grub and
               | I have to mkconfig again it'd been smooth sailing.
        
             | Fabricio20 wrote:
             | Dual booting is the worst possible combination, given that
             | any windows update will kill the linux bootloader (major
             | update to be fair, but it will happen and then you have to
             | recovery iso to fix the bootloader every time). Plus having
             | to disable all boot optimizations on the windows side
             | because of tainted filesystem that linux can't figure out
             | without risk of data destruction. I'd rather just use a VM
             | - but the same games that don't run on linux also dont want
             | you playing in a VM.
        
               | righthand wrote:
               | This is no longer true, and has been for close to a
               | decade now. If you sandbox the Windows bootloader in a
               | directory it will not be able to mess up your custom boot
               | loading config, especially booting to the kernel from
               | UEFI.
        
           | Ylpertnodi wrote:
           | The Daws of my choice do not run on Linux.
        
         | 1970-01-01 wrote:
         | Because the ads are the devil I know and can be defeated. Linux
         | for desktop has been the bottom contender YoY because it is
         | still not reliable enough for daily use, especially on laptops.
        
           | Pooge wrote:
           | > it is still not reliable enough for daily use
           | 
           | I don't know what your requirements are because I can say the
           | exact same for Windows.
           | 
           | > especially on laptops
           | 
           | I agree with this but only if you have Nvidia drivers.
        
             | 1970-01-01 wrote:
             | My requirement is not to have a random Linux evening.
             | Whenever I try Linux, it eventually involves one or two of
             | these Linux evenings to get something working or something
             | fixed. I'm just done with those. Windows on laptop will
             | sleep and wake consistently without bluescreen. Once the
             | ads are removed, its great. I much prefer battling ad
             | injection to battling critical functional issues. Ads can
             | be ignored until I do something about them; Kernel
             | panicking and locked up screen cannot be ignored.
        
               | Pooge wrote:
               | Granted, I don't use the sleep feature because I'm on a
               | desktop and seeding Linux ISOs.
               | 
               | But whenever I run into an issue after an update, I just
               | rollback and wait for a few more days because it usually
               | gets fixed. More often than not, it's not even an issue
               | that deserves to rollback, let alone spend a whole
               | evening troubleshooting.
               | 
               | Next time you try a Linux distribution, may I suggest
               | openSUSE Tumbleweed with KDE Plasma?
        
               | 1970-01-01 wrote:
               | I exclusively use Linux on servers now. I'm not really
               | trying anything for desktop anymore.
        
         | rkomorn wrote:
         | Distros like Mint, Ubuntu, Bluefin, etc all annoy me to the
         | same extent as Windows.
         | 
         | Distros like Arch, NixOS (my current laptop driver) or even
         | Debian require a bunch of tinkering to get some things to
         | behave properly.
         | 
         | Also, I get tired of all the tech "reboots", eg the 3 or 4
         | different ways of setting up network or DNS, pipewire vs
         | pulseaudio vs whatever, Wayland vs X11, etc.
        
           | Pooge wrote:
           | > require a bunch of tinkering to get some things to behave
           | properly
           | 
           | > the 3 or 4 different ways of setting up network or DNS,
           | pipewire vs pulseaudio vs whatever, Wayland vs X11, etc
           | 
           | Sounds like a problem with your distribution. I've been on
           | openSUSE Tumbleweed for _years_ and I 've never had to tinker
           | with _any_ of those.
        
             | rkomorn wrote:
             | Ah yes. The Linux user is always holding it wrong.
             | 
             | In my case it stems from having to deal with multiple
             | distros (and multiple generations of distros, eg 3 LTS
             | Ubuntus) professionally.
             | 
             | In other cases, distros give a choice on which tools to
             | use, usually because the new one is better (but also
             | happens to come with its own new bugs).
             | 
             | Unrelated, I love that any "why aren't you using Linux?"
             | question is actually almost always just a thinly veiled
             | "let me tell you why you're wrong" plant.
        
               | Pooge wrote:
               | > The Linux user is always holding it wrong
               | 
               | That's actually the opposite of what I said. All those
               | issues seem to come from the fact that the user didn't
               | choose a distribution where it's "one-click install".
               | 
               | If you came to me and said "I tried Arch Linux and my
               | installation broke after every update", I think it's fair
               | to say that it's something you should've expected
               | _before_ you installed the distribution. It 's unfair to
               | make the comparison for stability between Windows and
               | Linux if your only example is Arch Linux.
               | 
               | So yes, I maintain that the distribution choice is
               | important and that if you _constantly_ run into issues,
               | it 's probably a problem with your distribution (or your
               | use thereof).
        
               | rkomorn wrote:
               | "You chose the wrong distro" is very much in the "you're
               | holding it wrong" vein, in my book.
               | 
               | If there's one thing I'll admit to "doing it wrong" it's
               | that I've been on a distro-hopping binge the past few
               | years because I've (fortunately) not actually needed my
               | laptop as a daily driver, so I've experienced a bunch of
               | them and, so far, none of them have given me a compelling
               | reason to stay.
               | 
               | Many have been interesting (particularly NixOS and
               | Bluefin), some have been easy until you decide you want
               | to get away from defaults (Mint comes to mind). All of
               | them have had some quirks/issues.
               | 
               | I haven't tried a SUSE in probably 25 years so maybe
               | that'll be my next hop.
               | 
               | Mind you, I've had Linux devices for 30 years and I was
               | also a FreeBSD-as-my-main-desktop user for about a
               | decade, so it's not like I'm not into this kind of tech.
        
               | Pooge wrote:
               | I see. Sorry if I came off as trying to invalidate your
               | experience. That's not what I meant.
               | 
               | I've tried about 4 or 5 distros before settling on
               | openSUSE Tumbleweed (now on my 4th or so year). Linux
               | Mint, Fedora, Kubuntu, Solus, Manjaro...
               | 
               | Ironically, I find Tumbleweed (a rolling distro) more
               | reliable than all the others I've tried. I can't say it's
               | stable per se, but if something breaks you can rollback
               | very easily. Doesn't break often, though.
        
             | subscribed wrote:
             | It was the same problems on the Fedora and Ubuntu since
             | ever (I have Linux-based work laptop). Also on Fedora i had
             | to upgrade very slowly, so they could release bugfixes -
             | stable new releases were always crippling my ** Dell
             | somehow.
             | 
             | Easier to work on than Windows but my Linux pisses me off
             | every day.
             | 
             | Problems with docks, forgetting all monitor setups except
             | for the last dock (I use three, two at the office, one at
             | home), Zoom ALWAYS having problems with screensharing,
             | Network Manager issues since forever (can't VPN like a
             | human being, have to use vpnc like an animal), etc, etc.
        
             | badsectoracula wrote:
             | I've been using openSUSE Tumbleweed for years and while it
             | is decently stable, it is far from perfect.
             | 
             | For example i think the first issue any new user will face
             | is with many codecs not being available in the official
             | repository distros, making various sites (and video plays)
             | unusable. The solution to _that_ one is simple, add
             | packman, which is a community repository that contains all
             | codecs - but IIRC packman is not mentioned anywhere during
             | the install, it is something you need to search for (it is
             | in the wiki). However, packman very often conflicts with
             | the official repos when it comes to updates, making all
             | GUI-based ones (that do not seem to handle cross-repo
             | conflicts like zypper) pretty much unusable as they always
             | give up in the presence of a conflict. And unfortunately
             | some comments i 've seen (mainly on Reddit) from people
             | working on the distro seem to indicate at least a minor
             | hostility towards using packman, so i do not see this being
             | solved any time soon.
             | 
             | For an experienced Linux user this is a trivial issue,
             | something that i doubt most (long time) openSUSE Tumbleweed
             | users would even think about, but for someone new to Linux
             | it can be a larger issue they wont find in distros like
             | Debian (though they may find other issues :-P).
             | 
             | There have been other issues i had with openSUSE
             | Tumbleweed, like -e.g- at some point after an update every
             | 3D game had some significant input lag regardless of vsync
             | state. I never solved that one, i just rolled back updates
             | (snapper is _great_ for that, but again an advanced Linux
             | user feature) until at some point -months later- the
             | problem stopped happening. Though now i have another issue
             | where the X server randomly starts not updating the screen
             | for random numbers of milliseconds - essentially it feels
             | as if the entire thing is stuttering - but weirdly enough
             | there are no CPU or GPU usage spikes and it doesn 't seem
             | to be relevant to CPU/GPU usage at all. If anything, it
             | does _not_ happen at all if there is some OpenGL or Vulkan
             | program running in a window (so it doesn 't affect games at
             | all, just regular desktop use) and sometimes i just end up
             | running vkcube in another virtual desktop (it doesn't
             | matter if the output is visible or not) to avoid it. My
             | guess is that there is some sort of scheduling bug in the
             | modesetting driver as i never had that issue with the
             | amdgpu driver (my guess is the modesetting driver doesn't
             | get as much testing as the amdgpu driver on AMD GPUs), but
             | the amdgpu driver causes the X server to hang after i
             | suspend and resume my desktop since i got a RX 7900 XTX (it
             | did not happen with my RX 5700 XT, which was rock solid),
             | so it is choice between the lesser evil.
        
         | Netcob wrote:
         | If Windows keeps going in this direction, I will try again.
         | 
         | But in the past 20 years I tried using Linux on the desktop a
         | couple of times.
         | 
         | It always ends the same way - out of the blue it refuses to
         | boot. Of course there's usually a solution, but I just really
         | don't like that my PC can just suddenly decide that I'll be
         | troubleshooting for the rest of the day, usually in front of
         | some very minimal "maintenance" CLI. And that's if I got the
         | time - I may have to use my laptop for the rest of the week,
         | now dreading the weekend instead of welcoming it.
         | 
         | Right now I'd have to do a bunch of research first. Would I
         | still be able to play all the games I play with my friends once
         | a week? I have 3 monitors, one of them has a different DPI than
         | the others, did they fix that by now? I got a stream deck, will
         | that be essentially useless? Is my webcam / mic supported? Do I
         | need to learn about various audio architectures before I can
         | ever use a mic again? Which ones of the dozens of apps I use
         | every day can be made to run under Linux?
         | 
         | It'll probably take a 40-hour work week to get to like 90% of
         | where I was on Windows, and then I'd consider myself lucky that
         | I got that much to work at all. And then I'd start waiting for
         | the first "troubleshooting day".
         | 
         | With all that negativity I have to also say that I adore Linux
         | on the server. When all you need in terms of hardware is
         | basically a CPU and any number of storage devices and all you
         | get in terms of UI is SSH, Linux is far superior to anything
         | else.
        
           | righthand wrote:
           | If you want to avoid boot issues, stay away from Arch-based
           | platforms. Their goofy pacman installer has borked my boot
           | numerous times. I prefer Debian-based or specifically for
           | recent-enough-packages-and-stable desktop, Debian Testing.
        
             | puika wrote:
             | Wouldn't all boot issues caused by pacman shenanigans be
             | solved by setting up snapper or equivalent? Luckily haven't
             | experienced one so far
        
         | Saris wrote:
         | My time involved in making Linux work right mainly, there's
         | always minor issues that take a lot of effort to solve. Like my
         | audio interface has CH 1&2 working fine, but CH 3&4 are at half
         | volume no matter what I do, and after waking from sleep it
         | stops working entirely. And this is an interface with no
         | special drivers needed.
         | 
         | Also Lightroom and Fusion 360 don't run on Linux, fusion kind
         | of works through wine but barely, and lightroom does not work
         | at all.
         | 
         | Half the time I woke it from sleep the lockscreen would be
         | broken and unresponsive too, requiring a reboot.
         | 
         | Overall its just too much time to figure out these problems,
         | windows just works with very little involvement on my part.
        
         | detritus wrote:
         | Software that's unavailable on Linux? That I use literally all
         | day, every day?
         | 
         | I get that's a car-aazy answer, but here I am.
        
         | Jaxan wrote:
         | Because it doesn't work reliably on the surface pro 4. Yes, I
         | have tried surface-linux, and no it doesn't work well enough.
         | When shutting down, the machine actually doesn't shut down and
         | my battery was dead the next morning. The boot process
         | sometimes hangs. The OS doesn't properly differentiate between
         | finger and stylus. It doesn't seem to do palm recognition.
         | Etc...
         | 
         | I know this is a special case: hardware with specific Microsoft
         | firmware. But I imagine that other people have other specific
         | cases.
        
         | y-c-o-m-b wrote:
         | This is what I posted last time:
         | 
         | > I so badly want to jump ship entirely, but there's several
         | things holding me back. I do music production as a hobby and
         | Ableton Live doesn't play nice with Linux. In fact it seems
         | anything that is resource intensive without native linux
         | support has some issues. I'm also an MS stack developer, so
         | things like Visual Studio Pro aren't available (although I've
         | been using Cursor IDE more and more these days). Lastly I have
         | some games acquired through "the high seas" in which a work-
         | around doesn't exist for compatibility.
         | 
         | The responses I got were to switch to different software. No,
         | no, and no. I paid a lot of money for Ableton Suite and poured
         | many many hours into learning how to use it; it's the DAW I
         | prefer to use, I don't want to switch.
         | 
         | Having said this, I did try to dual boot recently with Linux
         | Mint, and once again ran into headaches getting my Logitech
         | mouse buttons to work.
        
           | vorpalhex wrote:
           | Ableton seems to run under Proton (a compatability layer
           | intended for games) with reasonable-but-slightly-higher-
           | latency of 16-20ms per user reports.
           | 
           | This should generally work for games of various origins as
           | well.
           | 
           | Extra mouse buttons should generally map correctly. For me,
           | my Logitech MX Master 3 works under Arch. You may need to add
           | udev rules if your mouse generally works but additional
           | buttons don't seem bindable.
           | 
           | Try an Arch linux based distro, Omarchy or Manjaro. Most of
           | these tweaky things will generally work better since you will
           | be on the latest versions of software.
        
             | Der_Einzige wrote:
             | If Linux was so good shit would run faster not slower.
             | 
             | Objectively if you want to run desktop performance
             | intensive software, Linux is not the primary place unless
             | it's AI/HPC or crypto related. Linux is a bad choice for
             | gaming and people like you who try to pretend like it's not
             | are wrong and they should feel bad for spreading lies on
             | the internet.
        
       | 1970-01-01 wrote:
       | Funny, because all the LLMs are more than happy to spit out the
       | steps. Alphabet, if you want to get ahead, you need to be sure
       | you're consistent. It's literally 4 clicks to get the same info
       | from your sister product.
        
       | john_alan wrote:
       | Anyone still using Windows for anything but gaming is an idiot.
        
         | juangacovas wrote:
         | And you know it because you're forced to use windows somewhere?
        
       | president_zippy wrote:
       | We really need some antitrust enforcement right about now.
       | 
       | When second and fourth largest companies by market cap find it in
       | their financial best interest to collaborate with each other, we
       | have a problem.
       | 
       | In healthy markets, two companies that harvest and sell data as a
       | major source of revenue would want to pull an Auric Goldfinger
       | and disrupt one another's data collection practices to decrease
       | the supply and increase the price of ad-relevant data.
        
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