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Microsoft Is Spamming Windows 10 File Explorer With Ads For OneDrive Storage (digitaltrends.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Digital Trends: While Microsoft is addressing some other complaints about Windows 10 in the upcoming Creators Update -- such as privacy concerns over the data that's being transmitted and issues regarding how the operating system updates itself -- the company seems intent on retaining Windows 10's advertising functionality. In fact, it has apparently been adding OneDrive commercials to File Explorer, ExtremeTech reports. Basically, you might start seeing a new promotion for OneDrive when you're perusing your file structure in Windows 10. OneDrive is baked into Windows 10 and can't easily be uninstalled, and Microsoft wants to make sure you know that the 5GB of free OneDrive storage can be easily upgraded to significantly more space. Turning off the OneDrive advertising isn't without consequences. You can go to the View menu in File Explorer, then Options, and select "Change folder and search options." In the next window, select the View menu, then scroll down to and uncheck the "Show sync provider notifications" option. Note that while this should disable the OneDrive ads, it will also stop you from seeing potentially important notifications from OneDrive. The report notes that, while these OneDrive ads aren't new, "they seem to be showing up more often for more people."
The Facebook of operating systems!
So that's why it keeps popping up; I assumed I was accidentally clicking on the systray icon.
So my friends, which one of these should i look up, and suggest me Linux distros.
I'm gonna VM them to try them out and completely purge Windows 10 from my life.
with win10 home edition, is it even possible to stop this from happening at all? Some obscure registry hack somewhere?
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
How much longer will it be before we are denied access to applications we've paid for unless we sit through more fscking adverts?
We're already having to rent software. We are denied the first sales right to sell digital products - even in the EU were it is legal, and our OSes are having stealth updates and invariably breaking existing functionality, or reverses settings in anti-consumer direction.
Since all of Microsoft's cloud services are intrinsically backdoored by the Three Letter Agencies, you might as well just email all your documents directly to them.
"Note that while this should disable the OneDrive ads, it will also stop you from seeing potentially important notifications from OneDrive."
Who the hell uses OneDrive and why should anyone care about "potentially important notifications" from a spammer?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Ok, ok, I want to pay! Sell me a version of Windows 10 that doesn't suck!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Is this a free OS where the user is the product, or is it a "Pro" product where users pay nearly £200/$200, yet is exploited for additional revenue. Microsoft don't seem to know. Given the price of the product I don't want any commercial stuff in the core Windows shell. Promoted apps on the launcher, popups telling me Edge is faster than Chrome, and this, are not acceptable. The only place it's acceptable is in the Store.
Nobody wants to use it in the first place, you fucking idiot asshole. They're shoving OneDrive down people's throats as part of an operating system they paid for, and making it hard to disable it. Then it whines at you.
Say what you want about Apple, but they would never do shit like this.
i really disliked how "baked in" one drive was if you want a different or no cloud. its one of those things that should be more adon even if installed by default.
Leela: Didn't you have ads in the 21st century?
Fry: Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio, and in magazines, and movies, and at ball games... and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts, and bananas and written on the sky, and in Facebook and Windows 10 File Explorer. But not in dreams, no siree.
#DeleteFacebook
Here's some more tips to improve your career chances -
- don't forget to learn all about football so you can fit in round the water cooler.
- it doesn't hurt if you can at least pretend to like the same cookie cutter women as everyone else so you can join in the wolf whistles
- on social occasions only drink branded beers. A whisky chaser is OK, but cocktails are definitely out
- acceptable hobbies are 5 a side football, jogging and perhaps martial arts (but nothing obscure - stick to karate or kick boxing)
- only wimps do lunch. A sandwich at your desk is ok
- remember to always put down work colleagues, especially if the boss is around
- the boss is always right and will respect you telling him so
Yep, right, Mr. Nadella.
I need a new computer. I'm just about to bite the bullet and do it, Win10 and all (games).
And then this comes out. Every time I'm about to do it, Microsoft pulls some new underhanded bullshit.
Seriously? I'm talking about shelling out _actual money_ for Win10 (I build my own PCs) and then this comes along?
I think I might let my old box limp along a few more years (decades?) until Linux gaming is workable.
A slashdot poll should be made concerning whether we like the new Slashdot theme or not.
I personally think it is like invisible in a bad manner. It's harder to navigate.
So sorry, we do not provide that option.
If I turn off sync notifications, onedrive, which I don't use, will stop bugging me completely?
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
don't use onedrive. you can then turn off all the sync stupidity and then miss out on the ads for something you aren't using.
then research how to delete it from the system. so much baked in stuff that is unused and not needed.
Just use another cloud provider or NextCloud. Then you can disable notifications with 0 drawbacks.
"...Note that while this should disable the OneDrive ads, it will also stop you from seeing potentially important notifications from OneDrive.
Er, important notifications?
If I don't intend to use OneDrive at all, I'd love to know what the true impact is of disabling yet another advertising "feature".
With the amount of shit going on with this OS, I can already see a market for a dedicated corporate firewall appliance that updates its anti-telemetry ruleset about as often as an A/V signatures.
"potentially important notifications from OneDrive"
There ain't no such thing.
I had to uninstall one drive for multiple clients yesterday because every time they tried to open a local file they received 'the file is corrupt' due to issues with microsoft's cloud.
Just exiting wasn't a good enough solution to the problem.
When the addons break LOCAL functionality when there are issues with the cloud - that's just ridiculous.
It all depends on being able to connect to Bing. And if one blocks bing at the physical level oh well.
Why haven't people uninstalled this shitty malware from their computers yet? How badly do you need to be fucked by Satya before you realize what's happening?
If they ever come out with Windows 10 Vacuum Edition, I'm sure it won't suck.
...it will also stop you from seeing potentially important notifications from OneDrive.
Since I have not, do not, and will not ever use OneDrive, there is no such thing as "important notifications from OneDrive." So, absolutely no downsides beyond the ones implicit in using Windows 10 at all.
Windows 10 is a clusterf**k.
I am so happy with my Windows 7.
...then what do you expect?
Now, are these same ads in the version people have paid for? If that is the case, then they have a much more serious reason to complain, especially if this is happening on business computers.
I guess you could always still not buy windows 7 and be ad-free again like the rest of us.
I saw the ad this morning and was confused. I already have Office 365 installed and I have 10 TB of storage (which they keep telling me they will restrict to just 1 TB but it hasn't happened yet). Why show me an ad for something that I already own? I'm using a Microsoft account and it's installed on this system... they have to know that I already have it but they just don't care. The only thing holding me to Windows at this point is Unity 3D. If they get a good linux build for that then it's Debian all the way for me.
So if I turn off the advertisements, I miss important notifications from OneDrive. The only people that this would be a problem for, are those who are already using OneDrive. In which case.. why is Microsoft showing advertisements for OneDrive to people already using OneDrive? It's like they're trying to make people stop using OneDrive.
I've never seen one of those adds, but then again I use directory opus.
I've been running W10 Pro since early last year. I never get baked in ads. I never get unpleasant updates that change my settings. When the Anniversary update installed, I rolled back because it broke the task bar and have not had any issues other than that. Guess I'm a snowflake.
I usually don't mind targeted ads, but blanket ads are terrible. That being said, I went to G2A to see if they still seemed to be behaving like scum (they do) and got shown G2A ads for awhile.
That is seriously pissing me off, as you have to close the ad to get it to go away.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Switch to directory Opus and don't worry about it. (And be more productive at the same time).
http://www.gpsoft.com.au/
I must have been going through a rough patch when news of the opening of the "Facebook equivalent" hit Slashdot, but I heard nary a peep about it out of Microsoft. No wonder nobody used it.
Maybe it's only on Insider builds at the moment? I'm on an Insider build and it's there.
Might I recommend Q-Dir as a possible general purpose explorer alternative.
http://www.softwareok.com/?sei...
If you like multi-pane file managers a la Norton Commander or Midnight Commander, you might enjoy this. Not open source, but it does appear to be unencumbered freeware.
There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
For all the "but Google!" BS, on Android I've never been spammed on my home screen or in apps that are a part of basic phone functionality. Any of the ad-supported apps I've installed are upfront about it.
The more I read about Windows 10's bullshit, the more I'm glad I dodged that bullet. When Windows 7 dies, my last Windows partitions will get nuked or else isolated from the net. I already run Ubuntu+Cinnamon on my important desktops.
Oh, no! You have walked into the slavering fangs of a lurking grue!
Yup. How's a hoover like a PC running Win10?
Turn them on and they'll suck.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Only a fool gives over his proprietary data to big corporations that claim a permanent unrestricted license to it. If you use the cloud you are giving them something for nothing. Easy access woohoo, won't help you when they send you takedown notices for your own content.
Turn them on and they'll suck.
Tell that to my girlfriend...
"Windows 10, the most advanced advertising system, errr, I mean "operating system" we've ever released!"
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
"it will also stop you from seeing potentially important notifications from OneDrive."
Then how will you know for sure that the NSA has copied your files?
Microsoft isn't desperate for ad money. So why the ads? They should design their OS in such a way that people want to use it.
good ole m$...
I feel sad for people who can't afford macs, but i guess there's always linux.
I just bought a Samsung tablet, which had Orifice bloatware pre-installed on it - it keeps spamming me about OneDrive as well
If you allow Windows on your computer anymore, you are relinquishing ownership of it to Microsoft. Take back ownership of your computer TODAY, install Linux.
Win 7 to Win10 support.
Versions up to 3.9.0 were open source (later versions no longer are due to code poaching sadly.)
Provides all the class start menu looks plus the Win9x/NT4/2K taskbar stylings.
Not 100 percent positive it gets rid of the ads, but I don't remember seeing them the one or two times I trialled Win10 with it.
Malware and Bloatware into one OS. I must commend them on a job well done. I only use Debian Linux now because of this, except Windows 7 on my gaming computer because of this. Upgrade to Windows 10, it is better they say. All that I can tell is that it adds a tablet UI (read ugly and unusable) with a windows store so they can sell you crap, creating an add ware enabled bloated operating system that spy's on you. Oh and it is now a service so all the updates that break "the service" are now forced down your throat. Windows, because a big corporation thinks that their is a way to pick up a turd from the clean end.
Turn them on and they'll suck.
Tell that to my girlfriend...
It sounds like you don't know how to turn her on.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Yep, I also want to pay to get a decent Win 10 version as I paid my Win 7 license a few years ago.
I do NOT want a free lunch, I want a nice OS and I'm willing to pay for it. Sadly, Microsoft is no longer interested in selling a nice version of Windows to people. Also, while they may tweak a few things now and then it's pretty clear what I want from Windows (basically an updated version of 7, with an UI adapted to mouse usage, no ads, no forced Microsoft services and no spying) is fundamentally opposed to want Ms seem to wan from 10 so a "nice" version of 10 will never happen.
"OneDrive is baked into Windows 10 and can't easily be uninstalled"
Actually it's under programs and features now and can be uninstalled in seconds.
I'm at the point where I'm now just exhausted from seeing news like this, which is probably what they've been trying to accomplish in the first place.
Our choices are:
Use Google's os and get fucked over for privacy. The lackluster choices for decent desktop applications means that Chromebooks continue to be nothing more than glorified physical web browsers that are useless without always-on internet, for the foreseeable future.
Use Microsoft's OS and get even more fucked over by privacy, cause they can siphon literally anything off of your hard drive without your by or leave. They also force advertising into your OS, which is especially offensive since the average person *must* run Windows 10 because they don't have any other choice, especially for games. And if THAT wasn't bad enough, Microsoft is such a lousy track record for updates, that there are better than even odds that some update they push (which you have zero control over), will completely hose your system. So from one day to the next your computer can break due to no fault of your own.
Use Apple's OS, which out of the bunch, is actually surprisingly good, at least as far as privacy is concerned. I'm biased, but (as a casual gamer) I consider MacOS to be the best of the bunch because it's very easy for non-tech savvy users, while still giving you a whole lot of power if you want it. You actually have the option of turning stuff off, and Apple actually honours those settings. You can have as much or as little control of the OS as you want (and by control, I mean stuff that's actually important. I don't consider arbitrarily changing the colour of your menu bar background to be important). HOWEVER, they completely and shamelessly take the utter piss out of their hardware, charging a stupid amount of money for what they give you while giving you ZERO control over it. They seem to think a $4000 computer is a disposable appliance like a toaster, and if you don't like it... well... fuck you.
Use Linux, and have complete control of the OS, but the level of maintenance and knowledge required (even today in 2017), is still several levels beyond any other OS, with no guarantees that even basic functionality that you take for granted in other systems will work. While improving, general driver support is still dubious, and you may as well forget about using the latest shiny if it uses a new chipset. Desktop software ubiquitous in other OSes flat out don't exist, and the OSS equivalents are... lets be honest here... crap. Even 'flagship' software like Evolution is inexplicably lacking so much polish, that you start to wonder why you bothered to install Linux in the first place.
So yeah... having seen computer history unfold over the last few decades, it honestly seems like things are getting worse, without any sign of that trend changing.
If you're using a a "free" service
1. Windows 10 hasn't been free in almost a year. It's still possible to get it free if you're disabled (or a liar), but for the general public, the free offer ended July 29 2016 and Windows 10 costs money.
2. Linux is free and doesn't show me any ads.
"Windows 10 Enterprise N LTSB" I have this running in a VM and it doesn't suck, though getting it activated does.
Running WIndows 10 Enterprise. It's basically the good version of Windows.
If you are still using Windows 10 after all the terrible shit that's already come, you have earned this.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Ohh kind of like how theres about 20 ads on every page of slashdot?
You know those idiots out there still using Windows XP to surf the web, which Firefox just recently informed us they will stop supporting moving forward?
That's me a few years from now with Windows 7.
Life is good for now...
I often wonder if Microsoft is really just running an experiment to discover how much garbage users will actually tolerate.
"Let's say a mobile OS is a desktop OS!"
"Let's remove the start menu!"
"Let's make UAC do ridiculous things!"
"Let's force updates and reboots whenever we want!"
"Let's dump advertisements in weird places!"
As an aside, I could probably make a killing by writing an ad-blocker for the OS...
An internal system operation returned the error "The operation completed successfully.".
"it will also stop you from seeing potentially important notifications from OneDrive."
Well, fuck. That's ruined my day.
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This hosts file trick you're suggesting is useless on these types of ad, because Microsoft sites and ads are whitelisted by the Windows OS itself and type of host file can block this. Sorry to burst your bubble.
Playing Windows games in an emulator, whether it's Wine or something else, incurs a performance penalty that I'm not comfortable with. I play mainly 3rd person MMO's and when a raid group is balls to the wall on a boss, any chop is unacceptable. What games are you playing? Original Wolfenstein 3D and Tux Racer?
Windows users said we were paranoid, they mocked us when we warned them, they laughed at us. WHO'S LAUGHING NOW? I AM! HAHAHAHAHAHA!
I so hope microsoft will continue down this path. Do it MS, just do it, more and moar and MOAR!
Did. Works as designed.
Problem seems to be at your end.
Ticket closed.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I don't use Explorer. Directory Opus ftw
FC Closer
It only shows up when you're clicked on the "This PC" line. While I don't like it on simple principle, it's hardly "spamming" and it's not occupying any space that I could use for anything, nor is it cluttering it up.
Slash dot refuses to post anything I submit, as I dared submit a few conservative leaning stories.... So I can't submit this.
The real story IMHO is how badly One Drive does its job, it truly sucks beyond sucking, is dumber than a bag of hammers, etc.. What's worse is that when you complain on their forums you get Microsoft Engineers telling you all these grand fantasies about how it works, and when you counter with actual engineering use cases they ignore you.
One Drive is not an external drive and it is not cloud storage. It's a shadow volume for selected files and folders that maybe sometimes but not on any schedule maybe makes a copy of files on your desktop that you really can't use on another computer unless you have an insane Internet connection and an SSD. Anyone who is stupid enough to trust this thing for backup will lose data. Your files are "available" on another computer but if you actually USE them the changes don't sync back, and god forbid you try and manually sync. Google One Drive Sync Errors.... So many people have had their critical files ERASED by One Drive.
I really, really need what One Drive does. And really, this is about as simple as it gets to make it work properly. Only Microsoft could take something this simple, and screw it up this bad. It's even worse than their total inability to have a decent FTP client, or talk to a WebDAV volume - when these technologies have been out for 20 years now.
Murphy was an optimist