Most Windows issues and annoyances can be fixed pretty easily with registry tweaks. This specific issue requires you to go trough the major effort of changing a single 0 to a 2.
As long as its still easier to completely debloat windows instead of debugging Linux, your so called win is still far away.
And the demolition plans are in a disused washroom in the basement behind a sign that says "beware of the leopard." That's an absurd justification.
Normal users are not going to root around in the registry and twiddle things to mske the OS treat them with respect. Most of them won't search for it, and many of those that do won't have the skills to deploy a registry hack or identify legit info instead of malware or pranks.
The right answer is a third button-- "No, forever." We all know it's the right answer; I'm sure even Microsoft has focus group data. It doesn't exist because someone in Redmond's bonus is tied to how many people are cowed into signing up for OneDtive.
I've got a CS degree and 15 years of dev experience, and have come to the conclusion that you can't negotiate in good faith with Windows anymore. It is going to take you down whichever hellpath their biz-dev team demands, and any attempts to fight it are going to be undermined and replaced with a new set of hacks or a differeny gauntlet of dark patterns for a few months later.
Maybe LTSC and Enterprise versions are a bit better, where they might have to preserve the goodwill of big dollar corporate customers instead of chasing some trifling revenue hack, but do we as ordinary users on home/pro licenses not deserve the same respect? And even there, don't those business customers have to spend undue effort crafting and deploying policies to cram the endless stream of spam back in the box?
Normal users are not going to root around in the registry and twiddle things to mske the OS treat them with respect.
I absolutely agree with you, and this statement is absurd, given the context.
Recently I decided to try out gaming with linux. What was planned to be a weekend project turned into multiweek project, and it included a lot of "rooting around" to get things working the way I wanted them to. Maybe it's linux treating me with respect, when I have to start planning for hibernation when I'm partitioning the drive. Maybe it isn't.
(Aside, Valve has done great work with proton. It's time to reconsider, if games are keeping you from switching over.)
For background, my first linux was debian in late 90's. I went through gentoo to ubuntu, until I got mac for work about a decade ago. By then my home rig was single booting windows.
So, given my history with debian, I started with ubuntu, only to realize I don't like its current state. Next up was pop_os, because it's heavily recommended for gaming. After some time I came to conclusion, that everything I know about linux on desktop is badly outdated, so I might as well go heavy and try arch. I chickened out, though, and went with manjaro. It's actually quite nice, save for that hibernation.
Well, as you noticed a lot has changed since Debian in the 90s. While Manjaro has a lot of problems, and while I've found I need to reinstall it every 6 months or so because I'm not very l33t, it's still honestly very easy and very straightforward, and definitely better than Arch if you don't know what you're doing.
If you approach Manjaro with a plan for regularly backing up your data, you can reinstall it with ease whenever you need to, and the reinstallation will be fast and easy. It works out of the box with Steam, and it doesn't ask you to pay close attention to it's backend while not having the problems you noticed with Ubuntu, and best of all it's free and it's not Windows. I run Manjaro and I'm pretty happy with it overall, when though I'm sure I'd be better served with Arch if I ever took the time to really figure it out properly. Good luck, I hope whatever you pick works out well for you.
"Simply find the registry value and know to change it from 0 to 2 to turn off this specific recurring ad on your own machine." No thanks, I can actually just begin adless and remain adless with one simple trick.
they always leave off that registry change gets reverted on the next update and it's now a new change you have to do to turn off the new ad showing up. I also don't need to change my country location to uninstall a built in browser. Also do you think the registry is just something everyone knows how to use. It's cryptic as hell and I know they are following a guide on some site. At least when i change a config file there are comments above the change most of the time not cryptic dword codes.
I was about to object that config files are also cryptic but you have a hell of a point that they contain comments. They are also usually are set up in a way to retain the contents across distro updates.