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The Black Underbelly of Windows 8.1 'Blue'
snydeq writes "Changes in Microsoft's forthcoming upgrade to Windows 8 reveal the dark underbelly of Microsoft's evolving agenda, one that finds pieces of Windows 8 inexplicably disappearing and a new feature that allows Microsoft to track your local searches cropping up, InfoWorld's Woody Leonhard reports. 'As Windows 8.1 Milestone Preview testers push and prod their way into the dark corners of Windows 8.1 "Blue," they're finding a bunch of things that go bump in the night. From new and likely unwelcome features, to nudges into the Microsoft data tracking sphere, to entire lopped-off pieces of Windows 8, it looks like Microsoft is changing Windows to further its own agenda.'"
A lot of the stuff the article gripes about are what Google has been doing for ages with Android: requiring a Microsoft account, funneling users to their services first, tracking your system usage, etc.
The only reason Windows gained market share in the 90s was because it went out of its way to not be a closed system. It's always sucked, it's just a matter of how little but that we still had control over our PCs than IBM and later Apple wanted us to have.
If Microsoft goes this route and enforces controls and advertising ala Google/Android styl Android will gain the lead as a desktop OS.
In short, the more Ballmer tightens his fist, the more users will slip through his fingers.
MS is the new IBM.
Apple is the new MS.
Google is the new Apple.
IBM is the new Google.
What goes around, comes around. Except for Dell and HP(/Compaq/DEC). They're just dead. (Agilent is the new HP)
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Ya, but at least you aren't paying extra for the privilege of being tracked like you do with a microsoft product. Its a trade off for 'free' services in google-land.. In the microsoft world you pay thru the nose AND get tracked.
Google is more upfront about it too.
( that said, neither is right.. but one is less bad about it )
Most people use Windows because they've been using Windows.
Windows 8 isn't really "Windows" as they knew it, it requires change. People hate change and if they're going to change, maybe they'll look at alternatives. If they have the cash, they might go for Macs (look at the sales figures lately).
If they don't... what's cheaper than Windows 8?
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Your're doing it wrong? Switching to Bing or Yahoo on my Nexus 10 works as expected for me.
Also, Android doesn't require a Google account - you're asked for one on initial startup, but there's a Skip button that bypasses it. If you go further, change a few key settings (such as search provider) and perhaps sideload one of the many non-Google app stores, your Android device can be used without Google ever seeing it.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Switching isn't the problem (From a market perspective Frankly they have more to fear from OSX then they do from desktop linux, no disrespect intended to linux intended) , its people staying put and not upgrading.
Consider how much trauma microsoft have had getting people of the decrepid Win XP. Now consider the problems getting them off the still very relevant Win7.
Unless your on a tablet or touchscreen machine, theres literally no reason to upgrade right now, particularly with the general dislike most people have for metro and metro apps.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
The problem is Desktop Linux is a bigger change for many of them.
If the Desktop Linux bunch had spent time making Desktop Linux a closer replacement for Windows XP, very many organizations and people would have moved over when Vista came out. More so with Windows 8.
Instead they do weird stuff to make Desktop Linux even less unattractive to people who don't want change.
ReactOS is still in alpha or Microsoft would have sued it to death.
For who? For you maybe. For the average, not particularly tech savvy consumer who just wants something easy to pick up, not at all.
Seriously, how many people are going to switch to Linux over this? Nobody.
Except a whole bunch of OEMs who used to be staunch Microsoft partners.
"HP shows off 21-inch all-in-one Android desktop
PC makers are experimenting with Android given that Microsoft's Windows 8 devices have struggled to attract consumers"
http://www.infoworld.com/d/computer-hardware/update-hp-shows-21-inch-all-in-one-android-desktop-221316
CoolShip,an android desktop computer that looks like a keyboard
CoolShip has a 1.5Ghz dualcore ARM processor inside.It is a low cost home PC,PC for elderly and children,also a solution of hotel PC for guests,educational PC.
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/coolship-an-android-desktop-computer-that-looks-like-a-keyboard
Acer shows 21-inch Android desktop
Taiwan's Acer is breaking Android out of its comfort zone and has installed the operating system on a 21.5-inch all-in-one desktop PC that is expected on sale in the U.S. later this year.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2040886/acer-shows-21inch-android-desktop.html
Get used to it.
Not a chance. I'm really enjoying the innovation and competition that's coming our way now the Windows monopoly's tumbling. Can't wait until Office is usurped as well!
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Well, not every direction away from Windows is productive.
For example... Unity. Departing from Windows in that direction was harmful. It's really hard to get used to it, and it isn't exactly self-explanatory. You have to become a power user to have more than half a clue of what you're doing and get it to stop being in your way. That's no good for office workers. It might work just fine for people who just want to surf the Web though.
Having something that works for a majority of people - both the home user world AND the office drone world - is what we need. Not something to scratch the itch of the UNIX guru 1%, because that part of the beast lives under the hood anyway. It has to be compatible with a huge variety of ways of thinking, and Windows has entrenched itself so deeply within the psyche of computer users that anything new absolutely needs to be similar and Just Work without loads of configuration.
Apple did the Just Work thing right. As much as I don't enjoy using their products, which seem to be designed to prevent you from doing anything that wasn't in their somewhat specific list of use cases, they got that right - it just works for their use cases. That, and they got the marketing right. Everyone was used to things being one way and they made something different look sexy to the general public. A particular Linux distribution could possibly be marketed well and succeed, but that would require dreadful amounts of money that FOSS just doesn't produce.
What's it gonna be? Something that only we enlightened Slashdot readers can really learn how to use? That's where we're at. Or will it be something that the common user will be able to be productive with?
Just watch, Android will emerge as a desktop OS someday, and it'll make waves...
The problem is Desktop Linux is a bigger change for many of them.
MATE is much closer to XP/Windows 7 than Windows 8 will ever be. Just because Gnome and Canonical have gone full metal retard, that doesn't mean everyone has.
If the Desktop Linux bunch had spent time making Desktop Linux a closer replacement for Windows XP, very many organizations and people would have moved over when Vista came out. More so with Windows 8.
Instead they do weird stuff to make Desktop Linux even less unattractive to people who don't want change.
The sad fact is that the newest version of KDE is a the perfect DE for anyone wanting to switch from Windows (XP, Vista, 7) to Linux: it's fast, full-featured, and looks and works much like the regular Windows desktop interface. Moreover, it's highly customizable and configurable, so a distro could easily make a theme for it that looks even more like Windows, and sets even more options to work by default just like Windows (but let users change from those defaults if they desire). The software is already here, minus that last bit to make the transition even easier for Windows refugees.
But instead of adopting KDE and pushing it as a Windows replacements, the mainstream distros are all dead-set on sticking with Gnome3 or Unity, interfaces which don't look or work remotely like Windows. Anyone who complains about this is met with comments like "Linux needs to be a pioneer, not copy someone else", and so Linux remains stuck in obscurity. And why Linux users so strongly want a DE that discourages configurability and modification, I have no idea; I thought Linux was supposed to be more attractive to tinkerers, but Gnome3's developers hate people who try to modify their holy UI.
most people use windows because every program works on windows. if every program worked on linux, a lot more ppl would use linux.
I'm probably going to get flamed here, but I've only recently tried unity and don't see what the fuss is about? Sure, network integrated search is a big turn off, but in terms of the UI I don't see any major problems with it? It can open multiple xterms, do drag/drop file management, and has a dock/application launcher. Is it the minor, fairly irrelevant UI semantics? I certainly find Unity less annoying than recent versions of KDE. And I'm sure KDE can do a lot of funky stuff I'm not attempting to use. Fact is, it is not intuitive in the slightest.
I understand performance did suck previously, but I've had no problems running it as a VM under OS X in Fusion, and i wasnt exactly liberal with resources.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
In addition to a lot of other misfeatures like shoving Microsoft Accounts down your throat, Microsoft actually went out of their way with Windows RT 8.1 to lock out the jailbreak that allows you to run non-Metro applications on Windows RT 8.0. Windows RT is basically just Windows 8 ported to ARM, desktop and all, but Microsoft made Windows RT unable to run any non-Microsoft program in the desktop -- all third-party applications *must* be Metro applications on the Windows Store. I really think that Windows RT is Microsoft's testbed for what they envision as the future of all of Windows, both desktop and tablet.
The jailbreak made Windows RT able to run unsigned applications on the desktop. Some open-source applications have now been ported to the jailbroken Windows RT environment. That's pretty much all the jailbreak allowed you to do -- run some desktop-mode open-source programs on Windows RT. The jailbreak doesn't seem to facilitate Windows Store application piracy at all -- at least, I haven't heard of such hacks.
And yet, Microsoft went well out of their way to block it. They revoked the certificate used to sign all RT 8.0 applications. They changed the debugger policy on RT to not allow WriteProcessMemory. They rewrote considerable portions of the Windows RT-specific lockdown DLL, wldp.dll. They marked csrss.exe as a DRM-related "protected process", even though it has nothing to do with DRM. This latter change applies to x86 as well, even though the change was clearly designed to target the method by which the Windows RT 8.0 jailbreak worked.
I'm working on a new jailbreak for RT 8.1. I already have code executing in kernel mode in RT 8.1, so it's just a matter of putting everything together. I'm going to wait until the 8.1 final release before releasing the jailbreak, though, to make things more complicated for Microsoft to fix.
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
Almost everything in the parent post is correct. But I also feel I've heard this post far, far too many times. I don't often have the "How Could Linux Gain Real Traction?" conversation any more. I already know all the lines. Anyone who's cared for long enough learned the lines in 2003--or possibly earlier: "The reason Apple succeeded where Linux...", "Linux just needs a critical mass to be accepted...", "People don't choose Windows; they are used to it because...", et al. Unfortunately, in all that time, little has changed. The reality is that even as all the different, fragmented little Linux distros and spins and flavors that were meant to be usable asymptotically approach the "It Just Works" point before most grow beyond their means and recede into bloatedness and metaphorical pretense, none has managed to offer something--anything--that Mac OS and Windows don't that ordinary people care enough about to incentivize the switch--and all the pains associated with switching. Believe me when I say I'm on the F(L)OSS side here as an idealist, but until/unless someone with some actual leverage comes along who sees how to seriously disrupt the desktop OS duopoly with some killer feature that everyone needs as they work to avoid twisting users' wrists, prove they can play that game better than Microsoft and Apple, somehow monetize it without becoming Microsoft or Apple, and are in it for the haul, things aren't likely to change. The closest Linux has come is Mark Shuttleworth. I'm not sold on his being that. My coworkers still complain about real problems with the Ubuntu boxen that have been forced on them. (Most) people don't want community gurus; they want support, familiarity (which includes not having peers staring cowishly at their desktops because they're running KDE) and a promise to go from A to B--repeatably. To the point about Android: I don't want a smartphone OS on my desktop. If Android changes enough to become Windows 7 with a Linux kernel, that will be nice. I don't exactly see it revolutionizing the desktop computing world, though. If Android Desktop came with some analogue to Adobe's Creative Suite and approachable full-fledged office and development environments that blew competition out of the water, we might be in business. But realistically, what I should really be doing right now is putting down the pipe and taking a cold shower to wake me from that dream.