this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2023
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KDE: Welcome to Linux. Do you like the UI of Windows? Well we have an excellent offering for you if that’s your choice. There’s also other DEs that you may select from if that’s your choice.
Windows: Here’s an ad bitch, fuck your choice.
I wish Microsoft kept Windows as a paid product, instead of making it effectively free (with things like free upgrades from older versions) and sticking ads all over the place.
Um Windows 11 Home costs 145€ from ms directly... Free updates yeah, but I'm guessing that's so people aren't stuck without updates eventually.
It's because for Microsoft a user using Windows for free is better than a user using some other OS.
At least when the user uses Windows for free they still tell everyone at work and home that you have to run Windows because there's just nothing else out there.
I doubt that is a reason most people switch. But I suppose it is a valid concern for Microsoft
Correct, but that's cost is only if you buy windows 11 for a machine that has never had windows on it,
11 is free for any windows user that has 10. It also comes pre installed on most PCs you buy and very rarely is that cost of the license noted on the device your buying (unless you use the customize settings on an online store)
I'm also pretty sure there are still ways to upgrade to 10 from 7 and 8. Windows did this to make it harder for people to switch to a different OS because most people remember when they had to "pay" to upgrade to the latest version.
That's because you're paying the manufacturer for the licence and yes they likely get a discount but it's still a lot of money you could save.
The average consumer either doesn't go to the manufacturer site or doesn't care enough to look into alternatives. They want something that gets their school/work done.
As some in the IT field who regularly deals with people that have a 4+ year degree and then tell me they are "tech illiterate" is astounding.
In the past they were hand held so much that the previous techs had a password book of everyone's password for multiple applications.
Luckily with a lot of pushback from our current members about how insecure and dangerous that is that has changed, but we still have users even after 3 years since the change message us through a depreciated system asking for their password.
Where does the average consumer get their computer then? Also I do know a few people using lubuntu instead of windows on their laptops.
Knowing a few people running lubuntu doesn't make it an average. That is just a personal bias.
From experience almost all the computers I serviced over the last few years were either bought at Walmart, Best buy or Amazon that could also be a bias, but it spans over multiple cities with a good hundred clients The only time I started to see computers that were consistently bought from the manufacturer is in a business environment. But the specific one I'm in doesn't support Linux at all within production.
I never said it did, I was just trying to explain/give examples that Linux isn't just for tech professionals.
If that means that they didn't even look at the manufacturer site, that surprises me, I've found often that some stats are just left out of product descriptions, which to be fair is the same on manufacturer sites (I've never found SSD speeds for instance) but nonetheless there's usually a lot more info than looking at the label in a store. Even my less tech savvy relatives managed to figure that out, but then did ask me about the relevance of some stats.
I believe they ended the free update from 7/8 to 10 when windows 11 was introduced. And I doubt ms is still selling windows 10 licenses.
Ah I just checked there used to be a loophole by going through a disability program or using an alternative authentication method provided by Microsoft that would activate the 10 license after the update. Looks like it was patched in September 2023 though.
yeah yeah windows bad. (i completely agree)
Windows serves ads? Where?
Edit: Why are people mad that I don't see adverts on Windows?
Right just in the browser, start menu, notification panel, and whatever it’s called that pops up when you accidentally hover your cursor over the weather thing in the bottom right by the clock/calendar for .2ms too long.
Supposedly it’s being trial run in file explorer on 10/11 and will be present at launch on 12
Soon enough, the lock screen will play ads like a gas pump. Also, you have to watch the whole ad before you can unlock it.
In the settings menu they advertised Microsoft 365 too.
The only ads I see are the clickbait garbage MSN shit that the browser defaults to but I've disabled it. I don't really see ads other than that. Then again I live in Europe and I upgraded from a purchased copy of Windows 10 so maybe there are lesser or greater degrees of advertising Microsoft puts on users depending on their location, version of Windows 11 etc.
i only use win 10 at work there i don't see ads but things like it asking if i want edge as default and the search bar popping back into the task bar still happens
Win 11 has sponsored apps in the start menu. Also I think if web search is on it shows you little popups about bing, even in win 10.
The built-in antivirus complains if your OneDrive is full, showing the same "Action needed" icon as if you actually had a virus.
You get ads in windows? I thought linux users were supposed to be savy. That's just sad, man.
question if a mechank can repair gas cars but can't repair electric cars is he a bad mechanic?
I see zero adverts. What you describe is news to me. I wonder if it's regional?
I use machines daily that are Win11 home and Win11 pro.
The only change I've made to Win11 is turn off web search in the start menu.
You don’t have to remove candy crush etc from your start menu? Lucky you. I certainly did.
My solution was to migrate to Windows 10/11 Enterprise. No ads, no nothing. The LTSC versions are even better but they’re a little too barebones for my use case. Keep in mind that those SKUs cannot be activated legally but as with anything: There are ways to circumvent that issue.
But.. DAE Windows bad!?
Well, apparently you need to illegally use the enterprise edition to make it tolerable, so...
You make it sound as if I have to evade the police and steal it from a store lmao. It's pretty openly available and even a simple utility like RUFUS can disable all the shit in the iso itself before making it a bootable drive.
Naw man. This is a linux enthusiast sub. It's just how they are. Kinda fun to wind them up, though. XD
Still, you have to violate the TOS and forego any kind of official support to get a usable product...
Why do you even need official support for windows?
These links to install things like Candy Crush are only seen until you remove them. Once removed, you never see them again. This is no different to a lot of physical products and software products - including FireFox.
Software managers in some distros like Mint have 'Featured' apps that highlight some applications; applications like WhatsApp, Dropbox, Spotify, Skype, etc - smells like adverts to me.
I don't use the Microsoft Store on Windows, nor do I use software managers on Linux. But what do you expect with these, it's like going to eBay and complaining you see adverts.
And those install links are ads. MS doesn't put them there with out benefit. Otherwise they might offer links to Steam or LibreOffice.
Imagine lol.
Interestingly you don't address the mentioned product placements in Linux. Okay, ciao.
Okay. Original person this whole thread spawned from. I think you all went down the rabbit hole of "what's an advert" and lost the entire point of my comment which is lack of choice.
But before I address that choice thing let's address the "Ads" of Linux as you would call it. The "Featured" apps in a lot of software managers for Linux are selections that come from folks who manage the distro wanting to ensure that people know that "Linux can do that stuff that Windows can". The "Feature" is not there to promote Dropbox and pray get some money, it's there to point out to people "we can do that here as well, just FYI."
So you may feel that the featured in the software managers is "ad" but you can ask the folks who run the distro how they arrived at what's there and pretty much every case it's so they can show that the distro has some feature parity with what people are expecting. Now you do mention Firefox and they are indeed hawking their own product. Interestingly, Mozilla maintains a page about just this thing. And it's come up time and time again in mailinglists. Distro builders absolutely have the option to disable this in their repo, but by default build, it's allowed and default options is how a lot of distros choose build the package. And it's this later part that leads me to the point of my original comment.
CHOICE. Long story short because I feel I've already made this comment pretty long. You don't get choice in Windows. There's not some magic build that you can use to do away with all that Candy Crush and what not and still be this side of the TOS for the OS. And for Linux there is choice. It's less about ads and more about "do you get a say in any of this?" With pretty much every Linux distro, you always have the option to become a contributor in some manner. (As an aside) This is actually the friction that a lot folks talk about with how RedHat and the Fedora project have been doing things lately. They're sort of removing this option for the general public to have a line of commentary into the project. It's a bit more complicated than that, but even with the notions that they're toying with, it's been met with pretty strong reactions against what they're doing. And lots of distros have pointed out, that they are going to be doing the opposite of what RedHat is doing going forward on that front. (but I digress)
But that all said, looking at Windows. You don't get a say in the build process. There's not an option for you to rebuild the software stack to your liking for distribution between your machines. There's what the SKU offers and then there's just finding some other OS. And yes, that's not ignoring that enterprise Windows allows pretty much all of these things to not be a thing via group policy objects in the active directory, but it still sticks to the core aspect of only if your SKU offers that option and you need to use that SKU in accordance with the TOS for that SKU. Those are your options. That's the thing and while I'm sure the debate about "what constitutes an ad or not" is a noble one to have, I think you all lost the entire point of my original comment to debate this point that's not really a point that anyone was making to begin with. And also your view on that point of "what's an ad" is poorly informed from the Linux distro makers perspective. There's a need to point out to users coming from Windows or Mac and trying "Linux" for the first time that "we can do that too". That's distinctly different from Microsoft's goal of letting you know that you too can sign up for OneDrive.
I haven't gone down a rabbit hole at all. There are only three very short and sweet comments from me on the subject.
I think it's interesting that people frame it differently depending on whether it's Linux or Windows. Product placements in Windows are called adverts. Product placements in Linux and software people run on Linux are called helping the user.
I'm just here to defend the position that Windows doesn't serve adverts. At least to me on any of the Windows computers I've used in the past several years on both pro and home editions. I haven't used any of these tricks or scripts that attempt to cripple Windows either. I've only disabled web search in the start menu because I think it's a stupid feature. And yes there are product placements on the start menu by default but they're never to be seen again after you delete them in the first 30 seconds on the very first boot up.
I use Linux and Windows, so i'm not a hardcore Windows user come here to troll. Although, it feels like I would have received less negativity if I had trolled. 😂
With Windows and adverts, maybe it's a your mileage may vary situation based on your region or something. All I know is, I see zero adverts on Windows.
Okay fair enough.
Have you ever gotten a windows update? (The sponsored bit came back regularly with most updates for me, I've barely used windows though.) Also by software managers I'm guessing you mean the ones with a GUI or do you install everything manually?
I've never experienced those links coming back. I only ever see them again when I buy a new computer/laptop or if I reinstall Windows.
And yeah I mean the GUI ones.
Ok, maybe they changed that, they were definitely coming back for me and I HATED it.
These are annoying as heck but I don't consider them ads at all. Sure they probably launch some ad riddled page, but no direct ads in windows.
They can all be turned off and I am a bit annoyed that our desktop team hasn't turned them off in our org's standard images. I cringe anytime I have to remote in to troubleshoot with a user. Thankfully it isn't very often.
DEFINITION FOR ADVERTISEMENT
noun
a paid announcement, as of goods for sale, in newspapers or magazines, on radio or television, or on the internet.
a public notice, especially in print.
the action of making generally known; a calling to the attention of the public
Just because it may not be trying to get you to buy Coca-Cola doesn't mean it isn't an ad.
Outside of EU.
Nono Win11 has sponsored apps automatically pinned to start menu (at the latest with the next update) and Win10 has weird things in the search bar promoting ms edge and other things. Also there's some news thingy in the task bar that's really annoying to disable (and I forget how to each time)