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.

Comments

Simple

[Dunbal]

Delete that fucking malware from your computer and install some other operating system.

Re: Simple

[Dunbal]

I run windows 7 SP1 and I have NO problem. Auto updates OFF.

Re: Simple

[r_naked]

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.

Re: Simple

[green1]

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.

Re: Simple

[Stuarticus]

I don't have any real problem with these ads as they are non-intrusive and are often very timely, just the other day I was talking to my wife about anti-virus and an ad for one popped up at just the same time, talk about handy. Now I don't need o search, I just talk about things in range of the microphone and wait for the ad to pop up! -definitelynotshilling

Re:Simple

[Rick Schumann]

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.

Re: Simple

[Krojack]

And just how long will that last? At some point programs won't work well if at all for Win7. How many people you see still running Win2k (or Win98) and say they have no problems?

Re: Simple

[Krojack]

There are still thing that won't run on any of these the I enjoy such as Overwatch.

Re:Simple

[Grishnakh]

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.

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

See? The computer suffers from malware called "Brad" that turns off repeatedly the advertisements on Microsoft's system. Microsoft fixes the symptoms without charge, but if the attack persists, I am pretty sure that the EULA will have a passage somewhere allowing them to deal with the problem posed by Brad more thoroughly before it impacts their ad revenue.

Re: Simple

[Joce640k]

Windows 7 still has majority market share my a large margin. Programs will still be working for quite a while.

Re: Simple

[manu144x]

Fortunately, the huge majority of the market agrees and as long as Windows 7 is widely used, there will be software support for it. Microsoft thinks they can force people to do anything just because they are Microsoft, but the truth is there is a reason that all ATM's are still running on Windows XP and are still produced with Windows XP embedded. When windows 10 will get the majority share it will mean it will have stabilized and Microsoft came to their senses. Like it was with Vista. They tried for a few years to push users to get it, spend millions, if they could have sold it at gun point they would have. But in the end they just went back and made Windows 7 which worked well. Same with Windows 10. They will push it like crazy for as long as they can, and if it won't work, I can already smell a Windows 11 in the long run, even if they said they gave up that model.

Re: Simple

[houstonbofh]

The biggest lock they have is inertia. The difference between Windows versions (and Office versions) is less they the difference between old Windows and Linux (LibreOffice). But now the changes are getting bigger, and uglier, and they are annoying the crap out of people! So that "cost of change" metric is starting to slant more towards Linux or Mac. Hence the rises in both of those OSs.

Re: Simple

[Greyfox]

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.

Re: Simple

[I4ko]

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.

Re: Simple

[kelemvor4]

There is no reason to have a computer connected to the internet 24/7, use a gateway, allow internet access only when needed.

No reason except that most computers are used especially for accessing the internet. Maybe it's web, maybe it's usenet, maybe it's irc, maybe it's some client-server apps like Office364 or google for work. Most people I know use their computer mainly for accessing stuff on the internet. Sure, we also do things like write programs, or maybe edit a local document. Internet use is so common now days that not having your computer connected seems silly.

Re: Simple

[war4peace]

1. My soul has been sold off a long time ago. Selling it again would be illegal.
2. It's your opinion if you call games "worthless piece of shit" and I respect it. Now would be a stretch for me to expect you to respect mine?
3. There have been many excellent games in the last decade. Not my problem if you don't know about them.
4. Oh, a console gamer. That explains a lot.

Re: Simple

[WaffleMonster]

And just how long will that last? At some point programs won't work well if at all for Win7. How many people you see still running Win2k (or Win98) and say they have no problems?

Given Windows 7 has twice the market share of Windows 10 after a concerted year long nagware campaign to get users to switch for FREE it will easily be well past 2020.

Software companies are in the business of making money. You don't do that by alienating 2/3rds of your market..

DVDs were also supposed to be dead a decade ago but markets are not controlled by suppliers they are controlled by demand from paying customers.

I'm sure one day Microsoft's malware operating system will be able to override the user with ransomware popups in which failure to capitulate to new terms will cause your system and all data to be converted into a petrified brick as per terms you *agreed* to in an earlier EULA but that day isn't here yet or is it?

Re: Simple

[geekprime]

There aren't many "internet" programs that don't understand proxies, so you are pretty much wrong there, that will work for 99.7% of everything.

The real problem is it takes extra hardware and the real question is why the fuck should we have to?

Re: Simple

[fisted]

Generally speaking, if someone is able to abandon Windows, there's a good chance they may be able to abandon PCs altogether and simply use a tablet with a keyboard attached or even a smartphone for day to day computing and communications tasks.

There's an equally good chance that they are able to abandon Windows because they have reached a level of basic computer literacy that makes them realize they don't need $product to do $simple_task, for most simple tasks. And how to break down $large_task into those.

Re: Simple

[Streetlight]

Windows 7 still has majority market share my a large margin. Programs will still be working for quite a while.

And Windows 7 new adoptions last month were 10 times the adoptions of Windows 10.

Think of all those computers being borked or bricked with blue screens of death (or red depending on how your Win 10 was set up) when auto updates that you can't turn off update your machine.

Re: Simple

[DogDude]

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.

Re: Simple

[Darinbob]

The programs will keep working as long as they don't change. I suspect that Win2K used on today's computers is going to be blazingly fast compared to the bloatware in modern Windows. Sure, you have to use Office 95, but that was the last good version of Office anyway.

Windows 7 is also supported until 2020 anyway. Or are you the kind who buys a new car every year because eventually the old car will be obsolete so you upgrade immediately instead of waiting?

Re: Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re: Simple

[nitehawk214]

4. Oh, a console gamer. That explains a lot.

Surprised he did not claim to have "fucked yer mum".

Re:Simple

[Grishnakh]

It's advertised as "professional", but you can advertise anything as that. The new Macbook Pro is also advertised as professional and it's consumer-grade too, though with a business-class price tag.

A car company could easily advertise a tiny mini-truck as "professional grade" and make a lame commercial of someone dropping loads of gravel in it (after modifying the suspension heavily so it doesn't collapse), but that doesn't really make it so.

And this is a surprise? Why?

[QuietLagoon]

Microsoft has shown that the Windows 10 customer base is willing to put up with these types of pop-ups. Does anyone really think that Microsoft had no plans to show ads in order to monetize the Windows 10 users?

.
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.

Re:OS as advertising platform

[green1]

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)

Here we go again

[Grishnakh]

[eats popcorn]

This just keeps getting better and better. Go Satya!!

Hopefully, they'll next force full-screen advertising on startup, and periodically during use.

Re:Here we go again

[Rick Schumann]

Want to start a betting pool as to how long it'll be before they roll out a forced 'update' that turns Windows 10 into it's own ransomware, too? Imagine this: Clippy's protection racket

So glad I don't have any computer with Windows 10

[blind biker]

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?

Screwed either way

[wickerprints]

I've got money burning a hole in my pocket, but between this and the piece of shit MacBook Pro that was announced recently, I don't know what to do. Buy a Razer laptop and install Linux? The Surface Studio looked amazing but I refuse to use Windows on my personal computer.

Like this election cycle, it seems that personal computing seems to be on the same race to the bottom, in terms of which company can screw over their most loyal users the most.

Re:Screwed either way

[houstonbofh]

It would be good to learn it. It may or may not be the future of computing, and the end all be all of human computing existence... But learning how it works will be a good thing. More tools in the toolbox. (Be warned that everyone I know who learns it ends up switching.)

Re:Screwed either way

[sremick]

Dell Latitude or Precision Mobile, then install Linux. You can configure these exactly how you'd want.

Re:Screwed either way

[Greyfox]

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.

Re:And this is a surprise? Why?

[Rick Schumann]

This pic illustrates very clearly and concisely the general character (or lack thereof) and attitude of the Windows 10 'customer base' of which you speak. Need I say more?

You don't own your computer anymore

[scorp1us]

I realized about 10 years ago that the mindset trend was to stop respecting device ownership and leverage the install base as a market. You see this primarily on Win, but OSX too. Microsoft started this before giving away Windows 10 for free, but now it's somehow more acceptable because, hey you didn't pay anything for it. Well now you're finding out "free" still has a price.

The only place it doesn't happen is on Linux. Which, along with a non-obtrusive updater, has become my OS of choice.

Re:You don't own your computer anymore

[Somebody Is Using My]

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.

Bring them down from the inside!

[sgtsquid]

Here's an idea. If enough of us bought a single share of MSFT, then file a shareholder lawsuit arguing that this will kill the company long term, it would at least cause a big PR problem for them. Most people never hear the details of this stuff because it only gets covered in the tech news, but a lawsuit like this would make the mainstream news. It might even cause enough of a headache for MSFT to get them to back off on some of it.

Trust

[penguinoid]

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.

Re:So glad I don't have any computer with Windows

[houstonbofh]

Been running Win 10 since summer, yet to see an ad. Seeing one would probably make me change my tune, although I do have anti-beacon installed. I've played around with Ubuntu a few times, but you know what? When I hook my Win 10 laptop up to TV with HDMI cable, it works. When I do the same with Ubuntu, no sound. That's why people don't use it.

When I hooked a web cam up to Linux, it worked. When I did it in Windows it did not. This is why people use Linux.

This was totally true, but it sounds silly, don't it?

Unsurprising

[OneHundredAndTen]

What can you expect from a criminal organization? Consider yourself middle-fingered, Microsoft.

Re:Windows 10 Enterprise may be the fix for this

[houstonbofh]

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.

Your files are encrypted..insert credit card to...

[Tyr07]

New windows 10 anti-piracy feature to ensure no one has stolen your equipment.

Secretly encrypts all of your files and then disables access to them. You need to provide your credit card to unlock the files so they can 'verify' the owner of the PC is the correct owner. There's a small security processing charge that goes with it.

It spreads this secure features via floppy disks, usb drives etc to other system not infe..protected by windows 10.

Windows is for playing games.

[number6x]

This used to be true, but Windows 8 and 10 have changed that. The difference between Windows 7 and Windows 10 is much greater than the difference between Windows 7 and Linux Mint Cinnamon (or Mate). The move to Office 365, a subscriber service model, is also leaving many users cold. They are not moving from office 2000 or 2007 to 365. When Microsoft tries to force the choice and end support for the old versions, then Libre Office may start looking very good to many, formerly, loyal Windows fans.

I've been using Linux as my main desktop and laptop OS since 1997. Windows does not have support for the software I use. I used to be a pretty good hack at Windows back in the 3.0/3.1 days. Windows 95 was a nice upgrade. However, the cost of compilers, powerful databases, source control tools and other programming related software had me starting to use Linux more and more. I knew a lot of people back then who used to just pirate the tools they needed on Windows, but I didn't believe in stealing what I needed to work. After using Linux for a while, I knew I was done with the Windows environment. Linux is so far superior for my needs, there really is no comparison. (YRMV)

If you're happy with the Windows ecosystem, that's nice for you. I've gotten rid of a lot of aggravation in my work life by abandoning that platform decades ago.

Antitrust

[kat_skan]

Isn't this an antitrust violation? If just bundling a web browser was then surely changing the user's preferred apps to their own and opting users in to advertisements they've already opted out of in the guise of a security update ought to be.