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Here We Go Again: Microsoft's Popping Up Ads From the Windows 10 Toolbar (pcworld.com)
Mark Hachman, reporting for PCWorld: When Microsoft's Windows 10 deadline passed, many heaved a sigh of relief, thinking that Microsoft's obnoxious popup reminders had finally been laid to rest. Surprise! Microsoft's at it again, reminding users to sign up for Bing Rewards by using Edge, Windows 10's built-in browser. My colleague Brad Chacos was hit by the ad after hours, reported it, and immediately erased Edge from his toolbar. Here's what we know: The popup doesn't seem to appear if you use Edge frequently (Brad does not). Personally, I've never experienced a similar ad, though I use Edge as well as Bing Rewards, meaning there's no need for such an ad to appear. A notification here, a suggestion there: Microsoft's gently slipped in promotions for Office as well as its third-party apps off and on since Windows 10 was launched, and then sneakily reset those options once the Anniversary Update launched last summer. But here's the problem. Brad turned off his ad settings; the Anniversary Update reinstated them. Brad says he turned off the ad settings again -- and once again, Microsoft reinstated them.
I run windows 7 SP1 and I have NO problem. Auto updates OFF.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
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Why in the world did Microsoft go through such great lengths to get its customers to upgrade to Windows 10, if they were not planning to gather customer data and monetize it.
ANY OS is an alternative to the malware, adware, crapware that is Windows 10.
Don't like Linux, get a Mac, or a Chromebox / Chromebook.
Windows was important in the 90s. Wake up that is so last century.
-- http://anonet.org -- The internet the way it was meant to be. Check it out, you may be surprised.
It's viable for the vast majority of people. Either that or I've been easily using a non-viable OS for more than 15 years without noticing that it doesn't work. The fact that you personally prefer the garbage MS is pushing doesn't make it a viable alternative to Linux either.
Just because people aren't currently using it doesn't mean it wouldn't be better for them than what they're using now.
The good news is that Windows and Linux have exactly the same amount of support (unless you're an enterprise paying a fortune to MS on an annual basis). And the Linux UI on most distros is far more user friendly than the Windows one (don't confuse familiarity with ease of use, they aren't related)
With my personality, I'd be miserable. Not being able to schedule updates when I want (or completely opt out of them) is something I not only take for granted, but something I insist on. Same with ignoring my privacy settings. And shoving ads down my throat (after I opted out of them) would drive me mad.
So, I guess Windows 10 is for the meek, and as we know, they will inherit the Earth.... right?
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Delete that fucking malware from your computer and install some other operating system.
Yeah no kidding. What the hell is this crap, anyway? 'Rewards' program? What the hell? Is this a supermarket chain now?
Personally, I've never experienced a similar ad, though I use Edge as well as Bing Rewards, meaning there's no need for such an ad to appear.
Mark Hachman (more like HACKman if you ask me), stop being a Microsoft shill, you're embarassing yourself. No ostensible computer operating system should be popping up unwanted ads for anything, even if it's for parts of itself. It's just utterly absurd. Microsoft and Windows 10 has become a very, very bad joke, and I don't even want to say what I'm starting to think about the people who honestly think it's 'good' in any way, shape, or form.
Yeah no kidding. What the hell is this crap, anyway? 'Rewards' program? What the hell? Is this a supermarket chain now?
It's a consumer-grade OS. What's wrong with borrowing a concept from another area of consumer economics?
Microsoft and Windows 10 has become a very, very bad joke, and I don't even want to say what I'm starting to think about the people who honestly think it's 'good' in any way, shape, or form.
Well I for one think it's great. I'm thoroughly enjoying these stories, and reading about Windows users being pissed off by this stuff. They could stop at any time, but they continue to line up to accept more abuse, so I might as well have a good laugh at their expense. It's not like they weren't warned; MS has been an abusive vendor for at least 3 decades now. If that isn't enough warning, I don't know what is.
Windows 7 still has majority market share my a large margin. Programs will still be working for quite a while.
No sig today...
Steam is OK for a minority of older and/or second-rate games. Yes, it's improving, but it's just not there yet. When it gets the triple-A titles I actually want to play, available on release date not years later, then you better believe I WILL there with bells on and bucks in hand, but until then, that's a Nope.
See, I built my homebrew box as a GAMES machine, first last and foremost. That unfortunately leaves me right now with no truly workable alternative, and until there is, Linux shills like you can go right on kidding yourselves.
If you can't trust your operating system, you can't trust anything on your computer. Linux might not be user-friendly, but at least it's not actively user-hostile. Resetting user settings is hostile. Showing ads is hostile. And automated updates means they can run any code they want on your machine, which requires trust or at least naivete. And to be honest, user-hostile is much harder to debug than any Linux problems you might have.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
That and the volume licensing going form a 250 seat minimum to a 500 seat minimum means that most small and medium businesses are screwed. And they are the majority of workers in the US. And if they start to switch to Linux and Mac, things for MS will get bad fast.
They'll keep getting more intrusive until too many people start bitching about them, back off just slightly from there and hail their "Consumer-friendly" stance of not shoving ads up your ass every 45 minutes.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I just got a Dell precision with a touch screen and Ubuntu preinstalled. It has ports, has super-fast wifi, has 32 GB of RAM and everything works out of the box with Linux.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
They didn't make 7 better than vista. They just rebadged vista and changed the default UAC policy, nothing else and waited until the CPUs caught up. The winSxS bloat that is in 7 came from vista.
Windows 8 was where they did a ton of optimization so that the runtime resource requirements dropped down to almost XP levels, though the winsxs bloat remains. And Windows 8.1 made something useful out of 8 (got rid of most of Metro crap, though I actually like the tile interface for start page). 8.1 Update 1 broke the improvements to metro a little. If you have software today that works on 8.1 changes are in 5 years it will still work, and allow you to do the same as you do today, be it word processing, gis, cad, endpoint simulation, etc.
There is no reason to have a computer connected to the internet 24/7, use a gateway, allow internet access only when needed.
Except these days most people /are/ paying for Windows 10, either by purchasing it from retail (a tiny minority) or as a hidden cost included in the price of their new PCs (everybody else). While OEMs usually receive a large discount from Microsoft, Microsoft isn't giving Windows10 away for free to them either. I read that only about 30% of Windows 10 users are those who received the free upgrade; the larger majority purchased the new OS when they bought a new computer.
So it's ingenuous to claim that adverts are acceptable because Windows10 is free, because for most people it was not.
Windows was important in the 90s. Wake up that is so last century.
Some of us grown-ups have to use our computers for *work* and can't just choose whatever OS has the prettiest icons, you know. That's why Windows still runs the vast majority of the world's workstations.
I don't respond to AC's.
If you want to sell your soul to play the latest worthless piece of shit "game" -- go for it. There hasn't been a new revolutionary game in well over a decade.
I'm sure the rest of Slashdot values your opinion of what they should, and should not, be enjoying as part of their own entertainment time.
But for those times that I must play something that isn't available on my OS of choice, I have a PS4.
Oh, a system from Sony, eh? Yeah, take that Microsoft. Ownership of a Sony product will truly show the world your disdain for questionable corporate practices with closed-source software.