Microsoft is using malware-like pop-ups in Windows 11 to get people to ditch Google
https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/30/23851902/microsoft-bing-popups-windows-11-malwareOpen linkView original on lemmy.world1419
Comments378https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/30/23851902/microsoft-bing-popups-windows-11-malwareOpen linkView original on lemmy.world
Microsoft really needs an antitrust smackdown with their repeated behavior.
So does Google though if we're being honest.
Microsoft saying “stop using Google” is actually totally fine with me.
But only if they’re saying “go get Firefox.”
Shouldn't Apple be the focus of efforts?
Well one is trying to crack down on people using adblockers and the other is lobbying governments they don't pay taxes to so that they are allowed to continue using forced ethnic slavery to make their products.
That didn't work in the 90s.
Or in:
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_litigation
Kuduos to you doing your HW. :)
Yes
In retrospect, DoJ didn't go far enough back then and ignored Microsoft's anti-competitive behavior with BeOS.
Part of it was Reagan massively weakened antitrust law after Ma Bell was broken up.
This is why we can't have good things.
Ma Bell, the ill communication
Which sucked because BeOS was really good for its time.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=MzosnPSETzk
https://piped.video/watch?v=6-zgv0CZfco
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
I was so excited to try BeOS back then. I don't think I ever got my hands on a copy, but it just looked so good.
I got to play with a BeBox for a few hours at a friend's store and it was pure joy to play with compared to what Apple and Microsoft had to offer.
Looking at the lobbying with the MS-Activision mess, and how broken the government here is. I'm sure they would of gave in.
Yes they do!
If you need more ammunition they recently also changed it so all links in Outlook opens in Edge even if it's not the default browser. You have to go to settings and find an entirely separate default browser setting to stop it.
I switched to Thunderbird because of that bullshit. It's getting worse. I'll be looking for a good Linux distro for my next laptop.
I didn't think that sort of thing happened anymore
It's because of shit like this that I'm glad I switched to Linux.
I wish I could. My gaming rig has an nvidia gpu and linux support really sucks because of the proprietary driver situation...
Steams new gamepad ui is a slideshow running at 5fps and I loose HDR so I have to remain on Windows for now. Every other desktop I own is UNIX tho.
Stop listening to everyone online. The driver situation "sucks" because of ideologies (which I happen to agree with), but from a functionality perspective Nvidia's Linux drivers are solid.
The same driver you install is the same driver they use in their half a million dollar DGX AI systems. And those systems don't run Windows. Only Linux.
Those drivers are stable, but older. I get errors playing new games because my drivers are always 5-10 versions older than their windows equivalents.
That could be a consequence of the distro you're using. I'm going to guess you're using Ubuntu and maybe an older LTS.
If that's the case you can switch to use the Nvidia driver PPA. It'll give you the latest drivers.
He's right about the new gamepad UI for steam though... it's completely unusable in Linux from my experience (the old big picture UI worked fine)
I don't know why you're having that issue, but I have three systems with Nvidia cards (1080ti, 2060 laptop, 1660 laptop) that I use Steam on and the new big picture mode is entirely usable. It's not perfect, and does hiccup someone's, but it works fine.
I'm guessing the laptops are using Optimus and are maybe running big picture using the integrated graphics, hence being smoother on them. 1080ti I don't know, maybe it's just in issue with RTX cards or something. iirc it was to do with HW acceleration but not sure
Nope. I made sure the Nvidia card is used for everything.
A few others have mentioned Pop_OS! for their Nvidia driver support which is what I'm running too. I think I'm on version 535.93 or something like that. Most of the Ubuntu downstream (Ubuntu, mint, pop_os, etc,.) already include The proprietary drivers in their repos. Pop_OS is known for Nvidia support being a bit quicker than the others.
I'd suggest looking into dual booting (thats what I do, there are a few things that work better on windows). It's super easy to set up, and it's an easy low risk way to see if it works for you.
My gaming rig has an Nvidia GPU as well, and it runs mostly without any problems (I've had to manually update drivers a couple of times) on POP!_OS
Can you try to run the big picture/ gamepad UI and see if it lag? This my only real issue blocking me from switching back
I have a RTX3070 and I never felt any lag using big picture/gamepad UI in Ubuntu/Manjaro/Endeavour.
But you can Dual Boot and only use Windows for gaming. I did that initially
I got a RTX 3080 myself and no matter what distro I used the new gamepad UI lagged so much that it was unusable.. maybe this has been fixed, I haven't tried it in a while.
Also are you using x or wayland?
Sadly I wont switch until this is resolved. But I use this rig only for gaming and navigate through gamepadui so I dont have to see Windows lol.
I use UNIX (Linux / macOS) on all other hosts.
Use X not Wayland on NVIDIA GPUs. I'm running nixos on my laptop / desktop and big picture works without issues on both hosts.
4800hs + 1650m / 13900kf + 3070
I was using X in all of those. Now I am on NixOS and Wayland, but haven't tried steam/big picture yet.
Curious about why both?
Started on Manjaro but I was annoyed when they let their SSL certificates expire several times so I moved to EndeavourOS. Now I am using NixOS, and I probably stay with it for a while.
Nix is a good tool, but don't think I'd personally want to give up the Linux FHS for it. Manjaro's management does indeed have a somewhat concerning track record.
I'm guessing they're distro hopping. People often jump from Manjaro to Endeavor to get a more clean Arch experience. This is what I did too, on my laptop a couple of years ago, and I've stayed on EndeavourOS since.
Do you ever run into upstream bugs, or Idk, package version incompatibilities, on Endeavour? The idea that the 2-week package grouping and delay might help avoid those is one of the main things that drew me to Manjaro.
I don't currently own a gamepad, so I can't help you. I hope somebody else can help.
I use a gaming laptop with an Nvidia GPU and linux support does not 'really suck.'
The only downside I have is one you wouldn't experience because you're not using a laptop.
Optimus/Bumblebee/IGPU switching/whatever?
It's just optimus now.
The issue is that in order for a program to use the dedicated GPU, I need to launch it with
prime-runprepended to it.There's probably some programs that you always want to run with the dedicated GPU, though.
Copy the launchers for those from
/usr/share/applicationsto~/.local/share/applications, and edit theExec=line to includeprime-run?Or, assuming
prime-runis inheritable (since otherwise apps that need renderer subprocesses wouldn't work), run an application launcher/menu itself withprime-run?Actually, it looks like
prime-runjust sets a couple environment variables anyway. So set those however you want for each program.What does "NVIDIA Control Panel" look like these days? It's been a couple years since I've seen it. No options in there?
I'm assuming you still want the IGPU and not the discrete GPU for rendering the desktop/simple programs, for power consumption and performance reasons, so you're not willing to just turn the IGPU off or stick your entire session under
prime-runor export its environment variables in~/.profileor whatever.It looks like there are also GPU switcher taskbar applets for both KDE and GNOME. This sounds like it would be easy enough.
…I think back when I was setting up a NVIDIA laptop, I might have just put a toggle for
optimus-managersomewhere, or something.I want to dual boot because I prefer Linux for everything but some niche games. Just never got around to it. This is pretty motivating.
Check https://www.protondb.com to check the status of compatibility of the game on Linux
My reason was that I had heard windows 11 was considering ads in their file explorer. Win10 already has enough prompts pushing edge and OneDrive. That, and many of my professors use Linux, and the ease with which they would install Python or C compilers was too much.
Do it. It's not as hard as it used to be thanks to systemd-boot existing. I literally reinstalled Windows the other day and nothing happened to systemd-boot. GRUB, is a bit of a mess though.
This is a good way if someone really Like some games not working on Linux. Also it can keep work and fun separated.
I can recommend setting up encryption when installing Linux system to make Windows programs unable to access your files.
The only issues I had with dual booting is an out of sync clock (due to Windows using local time), and Windows wiped one of my Linux drives (I installed Windows second, so unplug any unused drives before installing Windows). The last issue I am still unsure what caused it, however I remember installing Windows and the next time I use Linux the drive is empty.
SteamVR exists on Linux. HDR is coming
Running my Valve Index in Mint Xfce rn.
My man! (y)
Lookin' good!
Just a reminder that if you're using Windows, it's not your property but Microsoft's one
Right but licenses for pro are £200 RRP.
Don't then beg me to use your services, just fuck off and let me use Windows how I want
No different than Chrome.
They're talking windows in general
This goes for both chrome and bing: If a service is free, you are the product.
Linux?
You are the tester lol
True for Windows as well. Ever upgraded to a new version before the first SP? Linux just gets upgrades a lot faster than Windows (and I mean the conservative distros like Debian. Bleeding-edge distros are on a completely other level).
Don't even need to upgrade, you get to test monthly if you're not brave enough to hang a month behind.
Microsoft have been known to ship a product with thousands of known bugs on its release date. In the networking space (Windows NT), there were Technet CDs that were released to fix all manner of known bugs just so the corporates wouldn't have to wait for a Service Pack
Perhaps a better statement would be, if a for profit service is free, you are the product. Obviously it's possible for someone to make free stuff if they want to, but if someone is making money from you using something, but you aren't paying them, then they're making that money by selling someone else access to you.
Linux is just an advertisement to contribute to open source
Nothing Microsoft does is good. Nothing google does is good.
Choose an alternative that values you.
I don’t even value me, no corporation gives a crap. They want you and your recurrent income.
meirl
I want you and your recurrent income.
So don’t go with a mainstream option.
This “solution” completely ignores the volumes of software that is still only compatible with Windows. This is exactly the belief that Microsoft wants you to have: the illusion that you have a choice between Windows and other, equal alternatives. And before someone starts spouting off about WINE: it truly is a wonderful piece of software, and I don’t mean to disparage any of its talented contributors, but it will likely never even approach feature parity with Windows. I mean, it still can’t run the industry standard 3D modeling program.
This is always brought up but it isn’t actually that relevant. The 3D modeling profession is very small, hundreds of millions of general purpose computer users have no need for Microsoft.
I was confused as well because the industry standard (Maya) natively supports Linux. Until I looked up Solidworks and realized we're talking about 2 different 3d modeling/design fields.
I think that compared to video games, productive softwares, especially "industry standard" ones, rely more on Windows APIs at much more accuracy (and since Wine and its forks such as Proton have to rely on black-box reverse engineering to avoid copyright infringement), the API calls may not have the exact values 100% of the time which is more tolerable to videos games but much less on productive softwares.
Another reason is that most of these softwares unlike most video games are likely using many Windows' quirks or bugs and are likely less using standard (such as WinUI, DirectX,...) or cross platform toolkit (Qt, GTK,...), making reimplementing the environments and libraries to run the softwares much harder.
Oh, and not even counting that many of those softwares may also use kernel-level DRMs which Wine/Proton/Crossover/... are only userspace level to prevent pirates. This was actually a problem in video games too when many video games, mostly multiplayer ones implement kernel level anticheats or DRMs, until Valve contacted the anticheat/DRM developer as well as the release and popular of the Steam Deck make developers care more about Wine/Proton compatibility, but even then there are some developers still don't implement Wine/Proton compatibility or even worse ban Linux users for circumvent the artificial incompatibility.
I’m aware of the pitfalls.
Linux and Firefox with uBlock Origin.
I'll settle for one that has a vague indifference to me.
Slackware
The problem is that Linux's user experience is simply not good enough for normal users.
It's absolutely correct to blame Microsoft and Google. But Linux also needs to do more to appeal to non-tech people.
Hi, average user here, I've been daily driving Linux (primarily Ubuntu) for a decade or more. Most of my life in a computer is spent in a web browser, word document, or maybe a spreadsheet. Even at my office job it's the same, except for some proprietary time tracking and billing software. I'd imagine 90 percent of consumers spend the vast majority of their time on computers in the web browser. Most people don't mess around with much beyond that.
I just don't understand what is lacking in the Linux user experience. It's not any different from a Windows user learning to use a Mac computer. Figure out how to connect to wifi, figure out how to mess with the volume, open a browser and that's it.
I'm sorry, but I kind of doubt you are what I consider a "normal user", seeing as you're in a technology community on Lemmy. Just the fact that you are here indicates a higher than average tech literacy.
Look at us, all sophisticated over here.
Normal in terms of what they use their computer for
That’s probably not going to happen
I'm holding onto hope actually. I recently started dual-bootung into Mint and the installation process was a breeze. The only thing I could imagine a "typical" user finding difficult is setting up the flash drive for booting/installation. The UI is nice and familiar too. As a Linux newbie I hear that Mint is basically Ubuntu, and that (modern) Ubuntu is hot garbage, but even if it caused my computer to take an actual shit on the floor, it still beats Windows by a country mile.
I think (perhaps too optimistically) that with some more awareness we could see a fairly sizeable migration.
Why do you think it’s hot garbage?
I too am curious. I see this often here on Lemmy, that Ubuntu is shitty. I’m wondering why.
I will say they keep fucking up the window manager, and I personally always have to go and manually install unity. Which is annoying.
But other than that, I don’t see it as shitty. What am I missing?
Well, there is a transition away from X because it’s old, but wayland is still new. People are having issues. So, just use X, I say?
Other than that, it’s the most popular distro (or a forked version of it).
Buuuuut yes, a lot of “preference” comes down to the interface.
Mint is good I hear. I’d be more interested in Pop, myself.
I didn't mean to make it seem like I had any opinion either way, just that it has received some hate over the years. I did some research - admittedly it was cursory - and it looks like the issues are somewhat exaggerated.
Canonical, it seems, has made a number of poor decisions but apparently they pay attention to user complaints and revert / make adjustments accordingly. Some of the controversial things I saw were related to the Snap package manager, possible telemetry, bloatware, and some partnership with Amazon.
Some of those things were either nothingburgers or simply overblown (one person said the only thing they could see as bloatware was... a few board games), so I would take their anecdotes with a grain of salt.
Again, I'm a relative idiot when it comes to Linux, but my takeaway is that Ubuntu suffers from the typical growing pains / compromises that a relatively popular OS will inevitably encounter. Especially when most of the Linux userbase consists of power users who prefer having complete control (which is perfectly fair too!)
Use whatever distro fits your needs; as long as you ditch Microsoft, you're making a good choice :)
Which is why we're still stuck with Windows...
There’s always macOS.
Apple also doesn't care about you. It's also overpriced.
What part of the $1299 MacBook Pro and iMac, the $999 MacBook Air, or the $599 Mac Mini is over priced?
You would struggle to find the power of those for lower prices, especially with the quality and support Apple provides. And it’s nearly impossible to find hardware like that with full Linux support.
With the way the average person uses a computer, the Linux user experience would probably melt their brains. No offense to the average computer user, but we have seen time and time again that they are not the brightest when it comes to tech literacy or just don't care and refuse to care since it goes against the grain, so to speak.
Meh gamepass is cool for now. It will probably go up in price and become shitty when they get enough market share but until then it is super cool. And honestly I think bing/edge is now the better choice as a search engine/browser compared to Google/chrome. But no way I will give up my Firefox.
Edge (and that joke Brave) is chromium and that supports google’s control of the web. Firefox, or Safari on a Mac, don’t use google’s tech.
Firefox is the best for me. I thought chromium was open source though and not necessarily owned by Google.
Google controls it and allows people to use it so their own browser technology has the market share and can shape the web.
Denying google, a for-profit and evil company to shape a valuable public resource is dangerous.
There needs to be a legally mandated option to turn off all recommendations and tracking, and to require consent to enable it in the first place.
As usual, it's only Big Tech that's able to compete with Big Tech. They all love to throw their weight around when they can, and join forces when it's convenient.
Neither corporation should be defended or trusted with your data.
The only thing that's kinda funny here is the irony of Microsoft tryna poach Chrome users into their own... wait for it... Chromium-based browser.
Both of them also like to lease out their software and not actually let you own anything, expecting you to be happily complacent.
I've been using windows for nearly as long as it has existed and I used to always be happy with updates. Even windows vista, despite all its problem, still felt like an upgrade compared to xp.
Then windows 8 started changing things in a direction I was not happy with, but at the same time it also had improvements over win7. Windows 10 repeated that with plenty of bad things but still overshadowed by massive improvements in many areas.
At this point windows was at its peak in some areas, like stability (when was the last time you saw a BSOD without actual faulty hardware?) and usability. Multiple Desktops, WSL2, the new Terminal...so many great things added in win10 updates.
And then comes win11 and shits at everything. Removed a ton of core features that didn't need removing, broke a lot of compatibility with older stuff (something that Microsoft used to care deeply about) and adds... Nothing. It's been quite a while since win11 released and there's still nothing I can point at and say it does better than win10.
If you're going to do all sorts of stuff with my data you should at least try to make me happy with your product in exchange, not make me dread using it every time.
Well Windows 11 got me to use arch, for which I use btw
Hahahaha perfect
I tried installing arch but it would tell me there's no such thing as vda or something I looked it up but found no answer so I switched to pop!_OS
Love pop!_OS, Manjaro is a really cool and good fork of Arch that's easy to install if rolling distributions are something you're interested in
seems like a good idea to try it out, thanks. :D
Sometimes Microsoft is such a turd... I've seen this thing posted several times, however I didn't see the fix in this thread, so I'll post it here. Sorry, I couldn't find the Lemmy post that had the information on how to remove it, but I found one on Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/computerviruses/comments/149x25h/bgaupsell_what_is_this_bing_popup/jp896s0
It's basically a combination registry changes, and also directory modifications to prevent writing to the directory where
BGAUpsell.exeresides.It's pretty shitty we have to do this. Please, hold all your "switch to Linux" comments, because they are stupid, and superfluous; I see that dumb shit all the time since I came to Lemmy.
Finally, a person with an actual voice. I feel like the, "Switch to Linux," don't realize they sound like, "Just get an iPhone people." To me it all sounds like, "well if you don't like being in this country then just leave."
Linux is not the answer for all people the same as switching to an iPhone should never just be the answer.
I kind of get what you mean.
But I do find it kind of funny to compare the "walled garden" phone to the os that gives you the most freedoms. lol
Yeah it wasn't a great analogy.
It's not what they do it's the answers people give.
Compare them all you want but the day Linux truly becomes an OS you are crazy to think devs will keep all of of the stuff FOSS when their is money officially to be made. Just ask the RedHat users.
What else would be the answer, then? Windows is a commercial product by Microsoft. They will never get better unless forced to. They will keep getting worse for profit because, well, that's what they do.
The whole point about an open-source operating system is that you can make it yours, and nobody can take that away from you. And the more people use linux, the better it gets. Commercial closed sources products can never have the same qualities.
I don't get it. If a product sucks, why wouldn't you switch away from it?
"Don't suggest I leave my abusive husband, instead I'll complain about him to my friends until he magically gets better."
Christ, you guys sound like you have Stockholm syndrome.
AutoCAD, Revit, Photoshop, InDesign, SteamVR.
Pretty much sums it up.
If the alternatives are not there or lacking then people can't switch. If people don't use it and contribute (e.g. reports, donations) then it is difficult to justify creating alternatives.
This is not a stalemate however. It is a slow transition of pioneers frustrated with the status quo.
More importantly, the reason why all of those apps don't have Linux versions is not because of some anti-Linux conspiracy, but because Linux userspace has for most of its existence prioritized distro-packaged-and-provided software, at the expense and sometimes even exclusion of binary software distribution.
This is not just a technical limitation, but I'd also argue a cultural one, driven by folks who consider proprietary/nonfree software irrelevant and not worth supporting in a first-class way. Unfortunately, the companies who make both the software that entire industries are built around and the games that you play when you get off work disagree. Valve was probably the company in the best position to make native Linux games a trend, and the fact that they're more focused on Proton these days is pretty telling.
The only developers in the Linux ecosystem who I feel are taking the problem seriously are the Flatpak developers. They do amazing work, with great tooling that builds against a chrooted runtime by default. But it needs more widespread usage and acceptance, as well as better outreach to developers from other ecosystems who might've had horrendous experience making Linux builds in the past.
There is a future out there with native Linux builds of industry-standard tooling and even games. But it's a future the Linux community has to willing to actually work towards.
Is it not "serious" to work towards a better future because that's more difficult to obtain? There is a future out there where more industries are dominated by software that respects user freedom. The games industry has changed over the years and it is my hope people will not tolerate it forever. Even if I achive no impact with my games I can look back and see I tried for what I thought was the better moral outcome.
I do not believe that distros ignoring the problem of binary software distribution is actually accomplishing anything productive on that front. All it does is put a gigantic KEEP OUT sign for most outside developers who might have briefly considered porting their software. Package maintainers are also incredibly overburdened, and are often slow to update their packages even on rolling release distros.
Worse, it also inconveniences their userbase, pushing them to solutions their that bypass the distro completely such as third-party repos, Steam, Wine, Flatpak, Docker, or even running Linux in WSL. All of them function as non-free escape hatches, but all of them are inferior to distros getting their act together and deciding that binary software distribution is a problem worth collaborating on and solving together.
I tried to get wine to work on my RX580, and the card could t even support it. It's only the last few AMD video card generations that do.
Why not both? I don't see how proprietary software on Linux will slow down FOSS at all, and it'll only bring more users to Linux who otherwise have to use windows for their software, so overall more FOSS users in the community
And programs like Blender have already matured to a professional level, so I'm pretty optimistic that other FOSS apps will eventually follow, too
If the goal is software freedom for everyone then proprietary software working on Linux isn't the end goal. Maybe it's good - a step towards the end game - but I worry it's a peak which is difficult to get down and up to a higher peak. Proprietary software on Linux is convenience above freedom.
Yep, definitely have to pick the right tool for the job. If you use these things, you're stuck with Windows. Would be nice if you could install needed software on whichever OS you choose.
I'll add Visual Studio.
And, no, VS Code is not a comparable replacement no matter how many extensions you add. I say that as someone who uses VS Code for almost everything...except C#.
I've been running Linux on all the machines I own for years, but I still have to run Windows for work. Not everyone can just switch and I doubt there are many reading this who are unaware they could switch to Linux (or Mac, BSD, etc.).
Oh I also have one MacBook running MacOS because Apple decided to only allow iOS development and parental controls, of all things, on Apple devices running Apple software.
Yes MS and Apple suck but it's not as simple as "just switch."
Agreed. You're making compromises no matter what you choose as an OS.
The overwhelming majority of people who work on a computer are stuck with windows.
Another mass majority of people will buy a computer and use whatever is on it. They aren’t tech savvy enough to switch OS’s and they know how to use it because they use it for work.
You want more people on Linux? Get more companies to switch to Linux and get more box stores like Walmart and Best Buy to stock Linux OS’s on PC’s at sale.
Linux growth right now will be slow. It will still happen, but it’s not going to be fast. Steam released the steam deck which runs Linux and the OS saw a MAJOR spike in users. That’s because a device is being sold with Linux stock on it. Now do the same with laptops. Some will say desktops, but desktops aren’t as popular as laptops. It won’t hurt to package with desktops but laptops are key to that.
Honestly, I would like more people using it as support from companies would improve and my experience would get better, and competition breeds innovation. But I'm not going to push for it. I'm happy with what it does for me and I don't really care if other people use it or not. I just get annoyed when people complain without wanting to hear about solutions or alternatives. I know people who complain because they are chronic complainers and they are not interested in actually fixing any of their problems.
Because the product doesn't suck for everyone on the entire planet because you think it sucks.
"Christ you guys sound like you have Stockholm syndrome."
You guys sound like a fucking cult sometimes. Like Linux is this perfect OS or that doesn't break when a repository fails to update.
Wanna know what my first time with Linux was like, Everytime my mouse moved the screen refreshed. Every, frame.
Linux is not the answer for every person especially for my mom who barely knows how to send an email and the answer is to tell her how to boot from a live USB and expect her to understand partitioning a drive.
Look, I love Linux just as much as you guys but I also appreciate Windows especially doing the work I do. Linux is not the damn answer to everything.
And your analogy to abusing another human is honestly quite shit. Humans abusing another need to seek help.
I disagree, Microsoft is very abusive to both its users as well as other companies. Just because you want to bury your head in the sand about how they have zero respect for their customers, build shit software, are anticompetitive and have a stranglehold on the entire industry, that's on you.
I'm not suggesting you use Linux, honestly every OS sucks, but Windows actively works against you. If you want to complain about these problems deliberately created by Microsoft but reject any suggestions of something that might be a better alternative, you're just a whiner.
But hey, at least Apple didn't win the OS war. We'd all be stuck with only Apple hardware, no standards and walled gardens. I guess we can thank Microsoft for having an alternative to that.
Anyways, use whatever works for you. And I guess you can complain without wanting a solution to your problems, a lot of people complain like that.
Not backing down from your comparison of a computer OS change to domestic abuse is… definitely a take
Penguin sighing noises.
But I like being superfluous.....
What if I suggest switching to BSD?
BeOS is best OS ^^
I did try out Haiku a long time ago. I wonder how that's doing.
Only HardenedBSD.
Linux is not as great a replacement as every one makes out to be. The community is hella toxic. Frequently leads to them shooting them selves in the foot. Right now they're trying to pick a fight with Nvidia because they dared to call Linux's sacred GPL syscalls
The Linux community is full of elitist assholes who think they're special because they have the ability to install an OS. However, there are also amazing people making amazing tools, completely free of charge. You can't paint everyone with the same brush.
Honestly, I wish our governments would pump money and resources into open source operating systems so that we're not all bound to one OS under the complete control of one company.
My understanding of the Nvidia situation is that they are not respecting the kernel's GPL license, which isn't right. Nvidia has always done awful, selfish things, which makes sense as they are a market dominant company. It doesn't mean the Linux developers have to allow them to break the license agreement. Intel and AMD seem to be doing just fine, it's always Nvidia...
They do. The US NSA being of note with SE Linux.
Yes. Completely agree. The problem is, from my reading, is that Nvidia violated GPL by calling GPL functions as opposed to code stealing. The problem with GPL is that it forces everything to be GPL or you're in violation of the license. Link a GPL library, your code now has to be GPL. Called a GPL function, congratulations, your code has to be GPL. This critical fault in GPL has been brought up time and time again. Thankfully this issue is infrequently enforced. But that just means it becomes a ticking time bomb.
Let me be clear, I'm not defending Nvidia's actions. Just that in the blame game, GNU's toxic attitude should be called out
Interesting, I kinda figured that there was some funding by governments but not nearly enough. SE Linux I always assumed was maintained by Redhat, like many other Linux components.
That makes the Nvidia situation a little more interesting. I'd imagine other proprietary software uses GPL'd libraries, like Steam? Doesn't seem fair if only certain software is being targeted for violating the license. At the same time I'm annoyed how little Nvidia contributes back. It feels like AMD is creating open standards like Freesync while Nvidia won't let others play with their toys in the sandbox, like G-Sync.
I personally was elitist because of having a different taste which made me wish to use something open, more personal and more customizable. Do not mix us, please.
Corruption likes one or few big private companies to supply stuff. So it's maybe better that governments don't finance these things at all.
Well, on the other side of things - Nvidia has an official proprietary driver for FreeBSD.
Yeah well said.
I see it here on Lemmy all the time, and you can just see it in this whole comment thread too.
I've been a software engineer for decades. I know my way around Windows, OSX, and Linux systems. I'm not a casual computer user. I AM a gamer though, and jumping through hoops to play games on Linux is not worth my time. Unless there is a native Linux distribution of the game, you're jumping through hoops trying to get it to run through Proton, or whatever other means. Driver support is another thing... Yeah it's gotten better, but sometimes it just like forcing a square peg through a circle hole.
No thanks, I'm very happy with my native gaming experience.
And sure, for dev systems, or servers, Linux is great. All of my professional work is interacting with Linux based systems, containers, etc. I also work on a MacBook Pro, so I understand the tooling for Unix systems is great for that work.
My personal life though, I'm not fighting Linux just to game.
BTW Starfield is great... Check it out lol. I just did a quick search for "Starfield on Linux". First results are something like "Runs on Proton after some tweaks". I'm good.
Linux people like security, it's a security concern to give Nvidia's proprietary drivers such low level access
If their calls violate GPL then I don't even know why you're being sarcastic. Not acceptable. Copyleft licenses HAVE to be respected legally. Silly to pretend like the license shouldn't have to apply to Nvidia. If a user wants to install proprietary Nvidia drivers, they still can. But Linux isn't picking a fight, GPL is what makes Linux Linux.
I did this with the registry edits on my personal computer. However. This does nothing at all to help with those of us still seeing this stuff on work computers or places where we are not the administrator.
Know how to tell which Lemmy users are running Linux? Don't worry, they'll tell you.
I installed Pop OS on my laptop since it's pretty gaming friendly. Between that and the Steam Deck, Windows 10 might be my last version of Windows for personal use.
Coworkers have been complaining on Teams all day about how the Bing bar is suddenly showing up on their desktops. When did Microsoft stop giving a fuck about businesses? I wish to fucking god we could run Linux on our work machines.
I am so glad it wasn't just me! Like the article said, I legit thought I had some sort of malware on my machine. Which I guess is true, they just call it windows. I really only use my machine for gaming and every time I've tried to switch to linux I had all sorts of compability issues.
Open question to all. Is SteamOS all that it's cracked up to be? I'm still gonna have game by game issues right?
The only machine you wanna be using SteamOS on is the Steam Deck. Use a standard Linux distribution like Ubuntu if you're gonna do it on any other machine. The reason being that the version of SteamOS for generic PCs is horribly outdated, and the one on the Deck is very much built exclusively for the Deck's hardware.
Gaming mostly works out of the box with almost all games on Steam on Linux (SteamOS is not special in this regard) but there is an important caveat; be careful of games that use anticheat software - some work but others do not or may trigger bans. Check ProtonDB for your specific games to see if there are issues.
I use KDE Neon as my daily driver (LTS Ubuntu + latest KDE, which is the desktop environment the Steam Deck uses).
I haven't had many issues. For context:
I have to remote in to my work computer from home. I do that with Parsec, which I have via a Flatpak. Parsec has no issues and works identically to Windows.
I also have to use a specific VPN. This VPN requires a separate program on Windows, but in KDE it's baked into the OS.
Zoom is also a Flatpak. It has a few bugs that don't exist on Windows - namely Zoom likes to steal window focus whenever the host joins or someone shares their screen.
I also installed Flatpak Steam. I had to use Flatseal to give it more access than it had by default, but that was easy enough. You can go through your OS package manager but since KDE Neon is built on Ubuntu LTS those packages don't get updated frequently.
Most games run fine. Performance is usually a little worse than Windows, but I can still generally hit 60 - just with more dips than Windows has. Satisfactory and Jedi Survivor are the only games where I have seen noticeable issues compared to Windows. Baldur's Gate runs fine.
Some games are borked. These are usually games that rely on anti-cheat or intrusive DRM.
Running Windows programs can be tricky. Wine isn't intuitive to use. I usually use Bottles, but sometimes Bottles doesn't get the job done and I have to fall back to Lutris. Lutris is hard to use but generally pulls through. These are all Flatpaks.
I maintain a Windows installation on an old 2 TB NTFS hard drive. Linux gets my 4 TB SSD, but I've symlinked my documents folders to the NTFS drive so I can share things on Windows and Linux.
Sometimes I need to boot into Windows. Generally this is if I'm having issues connecting to my work computer on Parsec (these issues happened on Windows as well), in which case I need to fall back to RDP to go check on my work computer. My employer blocks me doing that from Linux, so I do it from Windows instead.
Otherwise, I usually boot into Windows to play Satisfactory, because it doesn't run well on Proton. Satisfactory's Vulkan renderer seems to implode on Proton as well for some reason; it causes flickering on X and crashes Wayland entirely. The DX12 renderer works but it just isn't as fast as it is on native Windows.
That said, I rarely boot into Windows. Maybe once every 2-3 months? But not beyond that.
Very close to my arrangement but I noted VPN + Firefox + non-trackers are treated suspiciously by most remote work systems so one way or another you have to keep a chrome browser close by to authenticate through those gates.
PS: These kind of detailed comments are he reason I believe in the fediverse. It is refreshing to see the community grow.
SteamOS is mainly for the Steam Deck not regular PC or laptop. For a gaming distro I would recommend one of PopOS, Manjaro or Garuda.
I suggest grabbing the live image for each of them, booting it, and seeing how it feels without committing to anything. I usually test to see if everything works out of the box on the live mode — music, video, network shares, wifi, any peripherals you might have like headphones, fancy mouse or keyboard etc.
Thank you for the suggestions! I mean, the SteamOS was really my only touch point for linux gaming, I haven't paid attention much to linux since trying wine out like a.... decade ago? I'll give those distros a look and see what feels right! ♥
Basically a good distro + Steam is similar to Windows + Steam, with all the proton stuff and the same (optional) big picture mode as the Steam Deck. It'll handle setting up most games for you real nicely.
For a DE personally I love Plasma; xfce or Cinnamon would be my next choices. I don't understand why so many power users like the modern gnome (Ubuntu default)
Random other tangent: I really miss the old Big Picture mode. Few things about the new one are good, but most is worse and a few things are relatively broken still. I know I'm in the minority thinking that though
As a recent penguin I don't get the gnome thing either. To each their own and whatnot but to me it just reminds me of the weird themes from the early 2000s. I clicked into plasma loved it.
But, you know, it's Linux. So I can try gnome and tweak it anytime I want to see if it grows on me. Love it.
Pop_OS is the least maintenance intensive of the three, from my experience - if that is a concern to you
I use a steam deck for about 2/3 of my gaming and I rarely have issues with games. That said, I mostly play indie games, but there is so much of my library that is supported that I'm never going to run out of things to play. Proton has really done wonders for gaming on Linux. Are you wanting to play multiplayer games or brand new releases? Or are you more of the patient gamer type?
I wouldn't run steamos on a full desktop, but you can still get a lot of the benefits just by using steam on Linux. Definitely recommend trying it out.
Oh I am definitely a very patient gamer, my GF talked me in to baulders gate with her. But it's been years since I bought something new. The majority of my steam library is indie stuff. I poked around on ProtonDB and it looks like 70% of my library is rated highly. So I am thinking this is a serious option for me. Gonna give days or two to think on it before committing to the hassle of a dual boot, but all these tools and comments are giving me a lot of peace of mind to try.
That's why they try to sell Windows 10 Enterprise instead of professional. You can block most of that in Enterprise.
I got that popup the other day. I'm this close to switching to Linux
Pretty impressed at just how many notifications, popups and systems MS creates to continually try and funnel you into bing. At some point it moves past being annoying and now I'm just surprised at their tenacity / endurance
That and fucking OneDrive. Autosave isn't able to function on O365 without OneDrive screw you microsoft
What's so bad about OneDrive?
It's a fine service if you want to use it. But I don't want to use it so it should stop forcing it upon me.
Last weekend I talked my wife into trying Linux on her desktop on an extra SSD I had, she loves it. Loves that she can customize everything, says it's faster (especially boot time), we put it on her laptop last night
You're not going to make me feel bad for Google
This is literally your OS's creator adding a backdoor, it could be anything bit they dont seem to care to do anything other than adware.
Joke's on them, I switched. To Firefox
I swear windows keeps getting worse, I have switched to MacOS 6 years ago and switched to Linux 3 years ago. I seriously never miss windows
A malware company using malware practices. Nothing to see here, gents.
Microsoft is using malware-like pop-ups in Windows 11 to get people to ditch Google for malicious google copycat Bing+Edge
Maybe it's because I disable things and go through the settings with a fine tooth comb after a fresh install but I never see this stuff. Not discounting others' experiences either. Can't imagine being inundated with this stuff like some are claiming they are.
I'm never installing windows 11.
I'm switching to full time Linux after Windows 10 becomes 100% obsolete.
Removed fluff
How are you guys seeing this? I constantly hear these complaints but never see it myself.
It just pops up randomly. Went to go make a coffee and when I came back there it was. I'm in the UK so it's not just happening to US people.
I'm just so confused. I've been running Win 11 retail since launch and before that I ran Win 10 since launch. I've never seen anything like this.
On my work laptop (surface pro) I get these popups randomly. Usually it happens when I restart or after an update. On my home laptop (also surface pro), I mostly get them when I need to open Edge or another program from home that I use for work. Usually because it's not set as the default. It happened enough that on my personal home laptop (which I'm choosing not to update to windows 11), I actually edited the registry to stop it from suggesting Bing, Edge, and Windows 11. On my work laptop I can't do that (no administrator access) so I see these things all the time. Full screen popups for Windows 11 (which has compatibility issues with some of the software I use for work), switch to edge popups (usually when I open a PDF in Adobe or similar), that kind of thing. I didn't set the defaults on the work laptop. It was issued to me this way. I am using it as the company I work for has intended and at up via their IT department.
To be fair though, I've seen Google do similar in Chrome when my default browser is set to Firefox at home. I have chrome for the occasional Google service I use that may require it for added use case. But it's not the default. Gmail is good for this. I see popup ads for Google Fi (which I use) all the time. Same with drive and the YouTube premium ads are everywhere. That's also not okay but at least it's just in the browser. I don't see this nonsense Everytime I wake the computer from sleep mode.
Depends on the laws of the country with the language you picked during setup.
e.g. use UK english or German for setup and change after.
At least until they switch to detect via IP range or whatever.
Oh maybe that's it. I've also never seen any kind of popup or ad (same thing for my Samsung TVs) that I've seen people mentioning.
I had no idea why I might be spared.
I'm in the US, using English as my language. Idk, this is weird.
I'm in the US and the only time I see mention of edge is when installing windows and then again when changing my default browser, which is kinda silly but not something I bother wasting mental energy to care about when it's something that shows up once and then never again. I would love to see legislation in the US match what some of the European countries have but considering how things could be, it's of least concern to me. I paid for Windows once in my life via an OEM license I ordered from a German retailer and I've had about 16 or so computers since then and all of those have either been custom built machines, used computers, or parted together boxes so if they want to bug me about installing their browser which effectively will recoup revenue based on data from me which varies from useless to misleading and probably becomes a net negative and moves them further from their goal. Then sure, I don't mind clicking that "no thank you" button
Yeah, same.
The yes and no button do the same thing.
I assume it's just a test they're running on specific groups of people just to see how effective it is in getting people to switch. I've never had any of these types of things happen to me either, so, yeah.
Makes sense. I guess I've been a very lucky boy.
Windows acting like oldschool viruses, giving random ad pop-ups 💀
Did you install an official version? I've never seen those.
I'm not sure how this is different from Google pushing popups in every Google app to switch to Chrome.
I don't recall seeing a popup like this from Google, but even still a popup in the os should be for important messages not for advertising
They do, and it's also mentioned in the article. While I agree, for many people the browser is effectively their os, and so we shouldn't discount the weight of browser notifications simply because they're not originating from the host os.
What's your point, exactly? Let's say we accept your premise that this is an unfair double-standard that Microsoft shouldn't have to respect... have you considered the logical conclusion that this creates? That the public should just... blithely accept Google-style nag prompts baked into literally any piece of software or hardware, even when they hold a paid license? I don't think a reasonable person would intentionally advocate for such a thing, so please help me understand what you really meant.
That's neither my premise nor the logical conclusion of the premise you invented.
A reasonable person should interpret my comment to mean that Google does the same thing, and if you feel a certain way about Microsoft for doing this, you should feel the same way about Google.
I see! Thank you for clarifying. I am very sorry for inventing premises and arriving at illogical conclusions.
While both companies are predatory I would never use Edge because its so bad and bloated its not even funny.
Edge is just Chromium now.
Always has been.
And I feel like that happened really quickly. It doesn’t feel like that long ago that Edge was a nice, nimble browser. Not this bloated naggy beast it is now.
I want the old Edge (pre-Chromium) back. It is the best EPUB reader. Simple yet elegant. Sad they doesn't bring it back.
Why not just use Calibre?
Calibre performance is worst then the old Edge in term of loading time. The old Edge loads almost instantly. Plus the interface is more user friendly then Calibre.
I find Edge better than Chrome at the very least. Granted, I don't use either as my main options, but between the two Edge seems more responsive and lighter than Chrome (and before anyone misunderstands, I know they both use the same engine, I'm referring to ... well, prior to Google, I would have referred to it as the chrome, but can't really do that now... the application around the engine).
Edge is better than Chrome. Which isn't that hard these days...
Really? I have tested Edge on other people's pc long time ago. Whats your opinion on it.
I daily edge at work because I just wanted to and I like how it integrates with our domain. It's fine, but I did have to spend some time turning off weird things like price trackers or whatever it was.
I still use Firefox at home though.
I use firefox all the time but I get random freezes and stutters when I'm watching YouTube. Is it because of the number of addons I have?
Run Firefox with all add-ons disabled for a baseline check.Then turn on/off hardware acceleration in settings
I found edge mysteriously on my phone yesterday I'm not sure if the culprit was the bing app or the Microsoft launcher (not my main launcher I was just curious).
One thing I do know is I didn't install edge myself I use mull.
In what wild wild west can one app install another on your phone?
One where F-droid exists?
Surely that permission must be granted on install, no? Can’t imagine installing an MS app and granting “install whatever you want” permissions
There is a permission for it yes.
On newer Android versions you typically aren't prompted when you install the app but rather the first time it attempts to initiate an install of another app (or update itself)
That was my thought also I am on Android 13 and even double checked the permissions on the two Microsoft apps I had installed. I'll be watching to see if this happens again or to anyone else as I immediately removed edge once noticing it.
Shouldn't be possible I would never voluntarily download it, yet it got on my device somehow.
I bet the Bing app is full of trackers.
OK, that really makes me suspicious that they're installing Bing via MS Authenticator app as well.. Bing app showed up on my phone and I just noticed it yesterday. Hmmmm.
They also rolled out some change where long pressing on text in android would suggest bing search. I found out that happens if you just have their outlook app installed. Never uninstalled something so fast.
You don't need to add "-like", The Verge. This fits the definition of malware.
The fucking bing bar pop-up!!
They should ditch the pop-ups and instead go ahead and make Edge/Bing the default without permission. There's nothing users can do but complain and accept it.
I mean on one hand, terrible behavior. On the other, good.
I mean, if it's just a switch to Bing it's not really any better.
I mean I see your point, but you cold also argue that anything that can weaken a monopoly is a good thing, in the grand scheme of things
Who’s monopoly are we talking about? If that’s the goal then Firefox + DuckDuckGo would be more sensible right?
DuckDuckGo's search results suck, is there another alternative I can use that gets its indexes from google? I don't care about censorship
I think Ecosia pulls results from Bing if that’s any better? I use them occasionally but generally prefer DDG.
I use StartPage but it's incredibly slow.
Ah yeh, I tried StartPage for a while. IIRC the image results page wasn’t so great. Not many filter options and so on.
Of course it would be more sensible, but that was not the point
Search wise? No. Competition wise? Yes.
Google has too much power.
And instead I simply dropped Windows.
Install Linux, problem solved
Good thing I don't use Windows.
Is that legal?
Probably not but they won't get punished. But if they do, the fine will be smaller than profits.
Pretty sure I remember it seeing something about you (the user) giving them (Microsoft, the actual owners of your computer) the right to do this written somewhere in that EULA that almost nobody reads and you can't even install Windows unless you agree. I'm not sure if it's legal, though. Some things in EULAs aren't legal, but the companies know that we won't challenge them on it.
Was just gonna say till I read that, EULA's become null and void if they conflict with Law
Something something pot called the kettle black
Perhaps I just did something stupid, but I just found Bing and anothernMS app in my Android phone's app list... never explicitly installed those. I do have Authenticator, though (for work). Has MS stooped to piggybacking their crap from others silently now?
Apps cannot install other apps without your permission.
You probably just have a shit phone with loads of shovelware on it.
LineageOS? plus Magisk (yes I have rooted it, so perhaps that allowed an opening somwhere). I will have to watch to see if anything re-appears I suppose.
lol I use Linux
Linux loves dual boot, windows is the problem and always has been. But as long as you install windows first and Linux second, there's no problem whatsoever, the installer detects your installation and automatically adds multiboot. Installing windows after Linux means that you will have to restore the bootloader.
Are you confident opening up the computer and replacing the storage device (probably SSD)? Dual boot can't screw up much of anything when you only put one OS drive in at a time.
lol
Lol I tried that, doesn't support like 95% of the apps I use. Or od switch.
Would be nice if they would at least support printing.
Very weird. Switched to Linux and haven't found anything I'm not able to run yet. Maybe takes a little more effort or there are some quirks, but running well most of the time.
I'm also a Linux user and plenty of professional software and games just don't work. Anything Adobe, MS Office, professional video editor except DaVinci, a good CAD program, etc. Most multiplayer games won't work either, and even some singleplayer games (like Nioh) just won't work properly.
If you want to use Linux like windows you most likely won't succeed. You have to be willing to make some changes to alternative programs, but as long as you persevere you will be unplugged from the Matrix and start enjoying the freedom of choices.
Who prints?
Lol
Some fields still do.
Let them fight.
yes, I just got a new (referb) laptop for the kids - fuck MS was anoying trying to install chrome on it (yes I know, but all their bookmarks/setting/etc in there...)
Old news, try to get something new to talk about!
But I already ditched it
After 30 years on MacOS (yes, I am older than dirt), I switched to Windows 11. I love it. With a few software add-ins, notably Better Desktop Tool and Start11, as well as a deep-dive into Settings/Notifications, etc., it's useable, comfortable, fairly Mac-like, and not too annoying. I guess I'm lucky as I don't have any UI/UX baggage from past Windows OSs to drag behind me. Yeah, it's different than MacOS, but I can get stuff done.
And it's pissing users like me off. I have one laptop for work and one for home. My work laptop has a professional work profile and for some of the programs I'm required to use I need Microsoft apps like edge and office. As a result I get these popups non stop when opening edge. I also am not an administrator on the work laptop so I literally cannot just decide to upgrade from windows 10 to Windows 11. If the damn thing would stop blocking my work flow with full page ads, that would be awesome.
This headline should be “Microsoft forces people to ditch Edge by using malware-like pop-ups in Windows 11 to get people to ditch Google.”
I've never seen this pop-up before. Do I already have Bing as default?
I find it ironical when a huge company diverts efforts into aggressive marketing instead of improving the product itself, it feels like a loss-loss
I am the only one that use Linux and bing as a default search? (On firefox) I personally think bing have better results than google right now
Disable it? I don't see it in W10 and i have disabled show me Windows news features.
this is an extremely funny admission that--much like meta blowing $14b on the metaverse even though it sucked--microsoft spent $10b on bing AI and it didn't move the needle at all
Frankly, I have no fucking sympathy for Windows users. They keep putting up with this shit, quit crying about it and take control of your OS.
Anyone who uses windows these days gets what's coming to them.
Weird way to spell Firefox