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Windows 10 Is Just 'A Vehicle For Advertisements', Argues Tech Columnist (betanews.com)
A new editorial by BetaNews columnist Mark Wilson argues that Windows 10 isn't an operating system -- it's "a vehicle for ads". An anonymous reader quotes their report:
They appear in the Start menu, in the taskbar, in the Action Center, in Explorer, in the Ink Workspace, on the Lock Screen, in the Share tool, in the Windows Store and even in File Explorer.
Microsoft has lost its grip on what is acceptable, and even goes as far as pretending that these ads serve users more than the company -- "these are suggestions", "this is a promoted app", "we thought you'd like to know that Edge uses less battery than Chrome", "playable ads let you try out apps without installing". But if we're honest, the company is doing nothing more than abusing its position, using Windows 10 to promote its own tools and services, or those with which it has marketing arrangements.
The article suggests ads are part of the hidden price tag for the free downloads of Windows 10 that Microsoft offered last year (along with the telemetry and other user-tracking features). Their article has already received 357 comments, and concludes that the prevalence of ads in Windows 10 is "indefensible".
Microsoft has lost its grip on what is acceptable, and even goes as far as pretending that these ads serve users more than the company -- "these are suggestions", "this is a promoted app", "we thought you'd like to know that Edge uses less battery than Chrome", "playable ads let you try out apps without installing". But if we're honest, the company is doing nothing more than abusing its position, using Windows 10 to promote its own tools and services, or those with which it has marketing arrangements.
The article suggests ads are part of the hidden price tag for the free downloads of Windows 10 that Microsoft offered last year (along with the telemetry and other user-tracking features). Their article has already received 357 comments, and concludes that the prevalence of ads in Windows 10 is "indefensible".
I run Windows 10 on my notebook. First of all, I do not like it very much, but I can second that statement. At least if you have a Windows 10 Pro, turn off all the information sharing through the group manager, turn off Cortana and probably most importantly use Classic Shell there's practically now advertising.
Although I've seen popups that urge people to use Edge over Chrome of Firefox on Windows 10 machines of other people.
Are you sure about that? Both myself and my coworker were given Windows 10 Pro laptops, fresh install, no third party bloat. I started to complain about all the adverts and set about turning telemetry and ads off by any means neccessary. Meanwhile he says "I don't have any ads on mine". I walk around and there's literally big blinking animated squares advertising computer games on his monitor. Some people are so desensitised they can't even identify adverts that are staring them right in the face.
Ok this is going to sound like a shameless plug for Linux.
Win 7 was my last used OS from MS. I do have a win 8.1 VM I use on very rare occasions. ( Win 10 won't install as an upgrade on it. ) Win 8.1 was possibly the worst operating system I have ever worked with. What's with these invisible hot spots on the screen that you must magically know exist. Hot spots that just happen to be where the close on a window is. The tiles that are of No use to anyone that every used a computer. And the nightmare navigation of tiles menus and dialogues that essentially have no flow. The command line still after all these years is so utterly broken that only professional that live in the OS would understand it.
Now you have a Windows 10 that is like the article points out is simply and ad machine. Ad's which I expressly do not want to see. Do not want to have at all. Ads that eat resources. Ads that are yet another vector for infection and attack on my computers.
I want none of this garbage. Over the years I have used well probably all the major OS's out there. Some minor forks probably not. I have basically migrated everything to a Linux OS of some flavor. ( Some BSD in there ) And I've automated all of them. All my hosts do automatic updates, All hosts are scanned for the bad dudes. Even my routers and modems are now Linux. I've implemented a DNS blackhole for ads and malware. I've implemented backups and snap shots of all hosts. And I have built a central Network/Device health status that monitors basically everything.
All for the cost of the hardware alone.
Most of the shops I work in the first thing I do with the corp issued laptop is to clone the horrible MS OS nightmare they have on it to a VM image and run it as a VM on the same host. I then replace the original OS with a Linux variant. Now all of a sudden I have the ability to do all the corp BS stuff but I also have the ability to run my own development and test lab on that corp issued laptop.
Windows has gone down this path of making my computing life a royal pain in the backside. Where as Linux in the last few years has become fantastic OS for small tasks, server tasks, and even as a desktop. It's almost like MS doesn't want our business. Without MS as the OS there is very little if anything compelling me to purchase and use the other MS office tools. MS office tools are pretty horrible but since they don't play well at all with the whole computing eco system these days I really have no need to use them. So if the OS is annoying as hell and the alternatives aren't and the apps I use run on all OS's and/or browsers why do I need MS anymore?
( Excuse the typo's I'm dyslexic so it's difficult to see errors. )
And, somehow, Microsoft is responsible of the shit that NVIDA puts in its drivers, obviously.
Given that Microsoft is making the only platform where it is possible for Nvidia to show said slideshow of adds, yes, indeed, Microsoft might be sharing a bit of the responsibility.
(e.g.: under Linux you add the 3rd party repository from Nvidia containing the driver to you package manager, and then let the package manager handle the installation as with any other base or 3rd party package. At most, some package manager can show *textual* release notes or licensing information.)
(on the other hand:
- the official market for NVidia on Linux is professional users who use the cards for art rendering, scientific computations, etc.
They pay already premium for the card. And there might not even be a human user to see the ads during the upgrade of some node on the compute cluster.
- the biggest market for Nvidia on Windows is mostly gamers.
So shove as much ads as possible down their throats to get them to buy even more extra useless gizmos.
And don't be afraid, they'll come back to the (overfilled with ads) installer next week, when they need the latest patch with hacks for optimise that week's new game.)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I run Windows 10 Professional on both my personal machine at home (I use remote desktop pretty often) and work machine, and I have never seen these adverts. Is it a home edition "feature" only?
None of your examples are walled gardens. Android is a garden, but it has no walls. EA, Activision, Valve... they don't even make gardens let alone a walls. iOS is an actual walled garden, but you didn't bother to name drop it.
As someone forced to purchase new Windows 10 Licenses for 3 new-build PCs recently, I am extremely annoyed with Microsoft's strategy of using the Operating System to spy on and make money from their users. However, I don't see this situation changing - and here's why:-
When Microsoft licensed copies of earlier editions of Windows to large PC manufacturers [the likes of Dell, HP, Acer, Asus, Lenovo, and so on] they would charge something in the region of $15 per copy of Windows. That amount covered the cost of generating holograms and tracking the number of licenses issues, as well as adding [given the volumes involved] quite a bit to Microsoft's bottom line. However, this was quickly offset the moment you moved away from these volume channels to smaller vendors, local "Mom+Pop" PC support shops - because even though this channels were charged an awful lot more per license, there was also much greater piracy involved.
With Windows 10, Microsoft are charging $1.49 per month, or $9.99 per year to disable advertising just in their free desktop applications [i.e. Solitaire]. However, that payment does not stop your copy of Windows 10 from slurping vast amounts of usage data from your PC and sending it to Microsoft. Obviously, they then use that data to build detailed profiles which they sell to advertisers. Expect much more of this to happen in the future. The remarkable thing is, estimates suggest that Microsoft could be earning as much as $15 per year per user from this "sale" of their user base to advertisers and other consumers of bulk data.
So if you were Microsoft, and faced with generating an average one-off fee of $15 per paid copy of your OS, or earning $15 a year from "giving it away", which would you choose?
Much as I hate to say it, I think this is with us for good now. And, bad as it is, this isn't my greatest fear. No, what is worse is that my favourite GNU/Linux distributions could take a look at the Microsoft model and think, "Hey, we could do that" - and before we know where we are, everything has gone the Canonical/Ubunut route and all our favourite FOSS platforms are also shipping with spyware by default... Let's hope that doesn't come to pass...
I have two nVidia cards and regularly upgrade my drivers but don't see any advertising either. Same with general Windows 10 mucking about. I've been spending a lot more time on my system over the past 3 months as well and no ads.
I did buy Windows 10 Pro vs go with the downloaded version as I was building a new system and didn't upgrade my prior systems (still on 7). Maybe that has something to do with it?
[John]
Shit better not happen!