1y ago

Microsoft has gone too far: including a Game Pass ad in the Settings app ushers in a whole new age of ridiculous over-advertising

www.techradar.com

Windows 11 is getting out of hand with its push for advertisments, frankly - remember the recent full-screen pop-up to persuade users to install Edge or other Microsoft services? Then another advertisment was placed in the Start menu, and now Microsoft has finally worn my temper thin - with a new Game Pass ad coming to the Settings app.

This will likely arrive in the July update for Windows 11, or at least it’s almost certain to do so. It was present in the latest preview update Microsoft just released for the OS (and quickly paused due to a bug, but that’s another story). It’s also worth noting that the ad has been present in earlier test versions of Windows 11.

Windows @sopuli.xyz

Nemeski @lemm.ee

1y ago

Microsoft has gone too far: including a Game Pass ad in the Settings app ushers in a whole new age of ridiculous over-advertising

www.techradar.com /computing/windows/microsoft-has-gone-too-far-including-a-game-pass-ad-in-the-settings-app-ushers-in-a-whole-new-age-of-ridiculous-over-advertising

Privacy @lemmy.world

aa1 @lemm.ee

1y ago

Microsoft has gone too far: including a Game Pass ad in the Settings app ushers in a whole new age of ridiculous over-advertising

www.techradar.com /computing/windows/microsoft-has-gone-too-far-including-a-game-pass-ad-in-the-settings-app-ushers-in-a-whole-new-age-of-ridiculous-over-advertising

182 comments

- They should, but that's never going to happen unless political lobbying is made very illegal (like life ruining and business bankrupting illegal, not slap on the wrist, cost of business illegal)
- We should be able to charge them for ad time. You want to paint an advertisement on my car you have to pay me. Why should it be any different when you want to put ads on my work computer screen when I'm working with clients?
  
  I get what you're saying but that still gives them unsolicited permission to post ads in the first place.
  I want an operating system, not an ad system that also happens to be an operating system
- And it's not like w11 is free, the price of a PC with Windows installed comes with its' license's costs. It's not told to the consumer so they won't even know they are using a product they paid for, for them it's what a clean basic PC looks like. And that's what prevents many to care about it the same way they can be frustrated by a paid streaming plan with ads. To take is as a given, and shifting the Overtone's window of fucked up services even further.
- Because they own that wall. The owner of a wall (or poster space for that matter) can do whatever.
- Especially in a paid service, like why do I pay for these services if you're still going to advertise, track, or datamine? I know the answer is greed, why profit off of one option when you can profit off of all of them, but I, the consumer, am fed up with the customer abuse.
  
  Shit, I’m a web developer and I’m fed up with all the ads, tracking and stalking that goes on. It’s so ingrained like “why not use Google for analytics?” or “just host it on Amazon.” 90% of the services we use at work I refuse to use at home (and go as far as outright blocking them).
- You probably agreed to all of this in the billion page TOS so it's no unsolicited.
- But how will the wealth addled convince us pleblians to spend money on worthless garbage? Or convince us that we're ugly and not good enough so we buy their products? Oh the humanity!
  In all seriousness, advertising has had way too much of an influence on our culture and it needs to be properly regulated. I'm sick of being negged by beauty product ads.
- SoMeBoDy HaS tO tHiNk Of ThE sHaReHoLdErS!!!!!
They haven't gone overboard with THIS one, because they already went way the fuck overboard years ago and never got back on board
Man I'm gonna have to bite the bullet and make my next machine a linux one
- Microsoft has made the choice very easy for me. I still have an i7-7700k that works just fine. But that's "too old", so when Windows 10 hits end of life, I'll be switching over to Linux.
  
  I recommend Linux Mint. It's very beginner friendly and you don't need to use the console too much if that kind of thing bothers you. The GUI even looks very similar to a Windows 10 environment.
  
  I didn’t wait. I did it earlier this year and haven’t booted from my Windows 10 drive since then. My entry drug was Linux Mint. But I quickly switched to OpenSUSE Tumbleweed after because I wanted something that ran the KDE Plasma 6 desktop environment (I prefer how it looks and handles multiple displays). It isn’t that hard to learn the basics you need to use Linux, as long as you use a decently stable distro that you won’t need to troubleshoot at every update. In my limited experience, you only need more in depth knowledge when you try messing around with more "cutting edge" and less "stable" distros and are installing experimental features.
  I can’t believe that Microsoft is expecting everyone to get rid of their computer to switch to 11 once the support for 10 expires next year. I even revived an 15 year old laptop that only had 4Gb or RAM by installing Mint on it (and switching its HDD with an SSD I had kicking around). It’s fast and perfectly usable for everything but modern games now
  
  I hear you. It's been a burutal long slog of putting up with their crap for as-long-as-one-has-done-it no matter when anyone gets out. I made the switch to mac and linux many years ago and after a brief transition period, everything personal-computer-related became wonderful somehow. Well . . . "neat", anyway. Leaving behind extensive and difficult experience with everything from 3.1 to 95, to 98, ME, XP, Vista, 7, and 10. (skipped 8 for obvious reasons.) It had its good times but they're long gone. Good riddance. Best of luck to anyone still out there.
- I switched to Linux mint. No ragrets. It takes a bit of fiddling and a teensie bit of a learning curve. But it's way easier than Microsofts endless deluge of shit.
- I've had a good track record with PopOS.
  Steam works with about 90 ish percent of my games and all the software I use, there's a Linux version or proton can run it. Plus the OS is rock solid.
  
  +1 to PopOS. My only gripe is that they and Nvidia still haven't figured out how to move to Wayland, but once that happens (and we can all switch to cosmic), I'll be a happy camper.
- I took the plunge about a week ago with Pop!_OS. It took a good 3 or 4 days before I started to feel really comfortable with things. (Which is probably because I'm really picky)
  If you have the time to try it out (and remember, always dual boot so you have a fall back and can switch back when you need to) I recommend it. The last remnant remaining for me is Photoshop, and there's a GitHub page for downloading it with very few steps now.
  
  Try out krita, rawtherapee, darktable, for photoshop stuffs, depending on what you need.
  The Adobe stuff always held me back before but I finally just started messing with linux and trying stuff out. I don't need photoshop for professional use so I was fine spending the time trying to find alternatives for what I needed
  
  Another easy solution for Photoshop is to run a virtual machine.
- If you wanna game and want everything to work, get bazzite, i wanted to install arch, had huge probs with my nvdia card (i know, but it was gifted with the cudas in mind) so i used bazzite since i loved the steam OS look. I am so pleased, it works amazingly, and there was 0 problems during installation.
  
  The only thing stopping me is stupid vanguard for league. I'm close to just getting a clean league only mini pc and having my main one be Linux. I'll have to check out bazzite. I play the usual minecraft, terraria, ff14, indie games mostly so hopefully they run fine. I don't think I've played a AAA game in like 7 years.
People are abusing Google's ad distro platform to get malware onto people's machines. I see Microsoft signed up for the same firestorm of possibilities.
Microsoft, stop. My computer can only be so switched to Linux.
- I have run out of things to install Lunix on without getting fired.
  
  Have you installed it on an NES yet? Because that kinda happened: https://www.tomshardware.com/software/linux/you-can-sort-of-run-linux-on-an-nes-demo-shows-a-unix-like-os-running-completely-on-the-nes
  
  I could probably install Linux on my work MBP, but my boss would make me test on macOS, so it would kind of defeat the point.
  At home, everything is Linux except my SO's desktop, and that's a job I'm unwilling to be fired from.
- Been 100% linux for like 6-9 months now, these stories make me thankful for finally making the switch.
  I've tried to make the switch 3-4 times in the past and was stopped by 2 main things:
  Drivers / Laptops were tough to get set up
  Gaming
  The experience was so much better this time and I really have no regrets. I don't imagine I'll ever run Windows again outside of a VM
  
  I’ve been using Linux off and on for about 15 years now. It’s so much easier to use now compared to when I started. I understand why people might’ve avoided it in the past. But the list of excuses is getting pretty small these days.
  
  I've been full time for a year and a half now. I tried switching a bunch of times before that and same problems as you. I love it now, it's a pleasure to use my computer and know that it's not doing any bullshit behind the scenes.
  
  I've kept Windows installed on a spare drive for years now. I don't remember when I last booted into it on purpose, it was certainly more than a year ago, and was just to install Minecraft Bedrock to play with his friends (his friends bailed). My kids have only ever used Linux. :)
The thing that irks me the most is that those things work. They'll see a little complain from the most vocal ones, and that's it. The revenue will increase, their shareholders will be pleased, the OS will be worse, and we'll have no viable alternative.
Unless governments start to regulate the hell out of tech companies, it's only downhill from there.
Edit: about Linux, it's not viable if you're outside IT or rely on commercial software. That's a debate for another post.
- Why wont we have viable alternative ? We already have
- Agree with everything expect for the viable alternative. Linux is viable for many people
- Regarding Linux, what commercial software are you dependent on? More and more, it's all online, even Office.
  
  Adobe Creative Cloud, which despite the name is pretty much local. And although Microsoft Office works online, it has a series of issues that the desktop version doesn't have, like broken formatting on Word.
  
  Autodesk for myself, apparently its super dependant on .net and other windows framework so its not like they are going to make it linux compatible any time soon.
  
  Adobe Creative Suite. They will probably never release a Linux version
  Industry standard music production s/w
  Offbeat collection of educational/research s/w, creators of which don't know that Linux exists. They sometimes don't even support MacOS
  Office Suite which is compatible with MS Office shenanigans
I've never actually seen an ad in Windows... Like, literally ever. The worst I've seen is Windows trying to trick me into making edge my default browser.
If I believed all the articles on Lemmy, every part of the OS now has embedded ads, and the OS itself is recording everything I ever do against my will and without my knowledge.
- I see ads pretty much everyday in Windows. They're not as attention grabbing as traditional ads and I think this is part of why some people don't see them.
- Windows is selling data from what you do and making money and you just aren't noticing the ads are tailored to you.
  It's the type of thing that seems harmless, unless you are a woman searching for an abortion provider and Microsoft sells that, and then an ultra-right wing religious majority comes to power and decides to retroactively put to death all women who have had an abortion and use that data to put you to death.
  This surveilance mechanism is mostly harmless... until one day it's not.
- I’ve personally seen ads in the start menu. It was my last straw, convincing me to move to Linux full time.
- Yea same here. In all my years using a computer, I've never seen such a thing aside from "preinstalled" apps. Is this a regional thing?
- 0 ads too, windows 11 last update. Lemmy circlejerk is pretty much this. These threads are either fake news or ragebait, and the comments are just uninformed/untested opinions.
  That without saying that win11 ltsc exists now. At least is something to test.
- Win 8 was aggregious. 10 is more subtle (little notifications now and then)
  Enterprise is better
- when was the last time you installed windows? Also, what version? If you've only ever had it set up for you, then you may have only used windows that had already been cleaned of all the bullshit. This includes pc s provided by your work.
  For win10, the install iso provided by microsoft puts ads for games in the windows store in the default start menu. I have installed many win10 pc s over the years, and candy crush (among others) is always there.
- The second part is probably true, but ya, also don't encounter too many ads except for like some default game programs or something installed with the OS that are easy to remove from the Start menu and then you never see them again.
It is bullshit, and people will complain while continuing to use Windows so why should Microsoft care?
- The thing is that they still hold an iron grip on most creative users as all their software doesn't yet work on Linux. So we are left with little to no choice between enduring windows and Linux fanatics screaming "Just find an alternative software and relearn everything you've spent years learning and perfecting in your preferred one"
  
  Do those programs not work on WINE?
  
  It used to be somewhat better: Corel Linux and Creative apps existed...
- Lemmy folk forgetting that not every person cares enough to switch OSes.
  If you ever work tech support even at a basic level, you'll see. It's not even boomers or genZ. I helped a grown ass human who was my age at 40yo how to install a Firefox extension.
  
  Can y’all IT people please stop with the condescending “you don’t know how stupid people are about computers”, it seems like there is always one of you showing up in a comment thread to tell us that we can’t have the future literally all of us want including you all as well… because WE are too stupid and lazy about computers.
  I helped a grown ass human who was my age at 40yo how to install a Firefox extension.
  Were you as condescending to them in person as you are being in referencing them right now? Why is not knowing how to install a Firefox extension some indicator of foreclosure on the possibility of that person becoming computer literate along whatever metrics you define? There are plenty of smart people out there who can learn how to use a computer for very complex tasks who have just simply never learned about extensions for Firefox. This is a very feasible and normal reality.
  Do you know how to change the oil on your car yourself? Do simple plumbing jobs? Could you run a classroom of middle schoolers and keep them all focused while keeping your eye on the shy sad kid in the back who tends to disappear if you don’t engage them? What about basic healthcare changes or cooking? What about outdoor work or basic small engine maintenance? Do you even know shit about the most basic species of trees in your backyard? Do you know the species of songbirds you often hear outside your window? Do you even pay attention to that? Do you know how to drive a dirt bike extremely fast on a rough dirt road? Do you know how to adjust for the violent explosive power of turbo lag in a car with a turbocharger so that torque oversteer doesn’t launch you off the road? Do you know how to sew and repair basic garments? To weave? Can you even fish? Like could you literally even just catch a fish to save your life right now if I handed you a fishing rod unassembled with no instructions?
  My point is, don’t go looking for confirmation of how stupid or lazy people are or how limited their capacity is to evolve and grow by casting the shapes of their ignorance onto the floor and trying to read some magic language from that.
  Maybe they don’t know because they are hopelesssly stupid, but maybe not? If they are intelligent and they don’t know computers then those are the perfect people to teach linux. Then it is their first language instead of windows, many linux distro are perfectly fine for this at this point.
  See here is the bottom line, legions of IT people show up online always arguing they think they know that the average person is too dumb, lazy and uninterested in computers for Linux adoption to seriously take off in the personal computer market and challenge Microsoft, but y’all don’t know shit about humans. You are experts in computers who think that makes you experts in human potential.
  Go take some theater classes (or get an degree in education) and get educated before you start drawing conclusions about people when you really haven’t spent time closely studying how people engage with their potential and what situations facilitate that in basic human interaction and framing of conversations (both literal and abstract).
  I’m sorry if I snapped at you but I think it is existentially important to recognize here that we don’t know what people are capable of, you can’t know the essential capacity of people to change, don’t try to predict it. Focus on creating the material opportunity for change and the rest may follow depending on what people desire, no matter to us, we desire to create that positive opportunity for change because it is the right thing to do, not because we like the future growth charts of the things we believe are important and vital.
  
  Lemmy folk forgetting that not every person cares enough to switch OSes.
  Right, so if they don't care they're not going to complain very much about it. If they are going to complain what are they going to do about it? If it's "just complain and nothing else" then Microsoft doesn't care.
What's next Microsoft? Replace the windows os loading windows page with a 30s ad? Or have defender uninstall apps if a competitor pays enough? Maybe capture a screenshot of my screen every 3 seconds for AI analysis?
- Maybe capture a screenshot of my screen every 3 seconds for AI analysis?
  about that...
  
  Yep yep. Was hoping someone would call me out on that. 😝
- Come on man, stop giving them good ideas!
  
  Nah. I've been advocating for Linux for decades. For decades I've been trying to convince people to switch on its own merits, but none of that has been effective.
  It took Microsoft sabotaging their product for me to see the needle shift. So I'm done trying to convince people with carrots, it's time for Microsoft to convince the masses with sticks.
Microsoft is so confident in its desktop marketshare that they allow themselves to push the overton window on what users will tolerate.
The only competitor they can lose users to is Apple. And even then not everyone can afford an Apple computer, especially in the rest of the world
- Forget Apple. Without buying any new hardware, i managed to replace Windows with Ubuntu just a month ago. My most hated moment on windows was the time i saw the onedrive ad in file explorer... That felt way too intrusive.
Our office uses windows, and egde feels like malware to me
- I legitimately, non-ironically, prefer Edge over Chrome, and I cannot explain why; possibly brain damage, possibly too lazy to download Chrome or Firefox and setup my account for either.
  
  Edge and Chrome are basically very similar at this point. Firefox is my browser of choice these days. It's not perfect, but at least it isn't anti-adblocking and doesn't freak out when I block 8.8.8.8 like Chrome and the Google devices in my house. I'm moving away from Google as they move away from not being evil. Moving to self hosted stuff as much as I can for photos, email, file storage, and soon, home automation.
  
  For me it's a pragmatic desire to share information with as few megacorporations as possible.
  I deal with MSFT for so many other things, not all by choice - and Edge does everything I need it to do.
  As with many such questions, it's about the trade-off you are prepared to accept.
  
  I don’t really like chrome either to be honest
Microsoft has gone too far:
Just now, with this?
- Must've been asleep for the recall shenanigans
I switched to Linux Mint Debian edition when the Reddit thing happened. I'm glad I did before Windows got this bad.
- I made the swap after they forced Windows 7 update behavior to change. You used to be able to download updates but you got to choose when to install them. Then they changed it to either they're on and fully automatic, or fully off.
  At the time, I was running a computer repair company, and my work computer running Win7 was running a data recovery on an accidentally formatted drive for almost two days. After I had left and the program finished, Windows was all "Oh, the computer is idle now. Let me give you a 15 minute warning that I'm going to install updates and reboot if you don't cancel".
  After the second time, I formatted my work computer. Shortly after, I did the same to my gaming PC. Haven't looked back once.
  
  I love to hear it. Linux has done pretty much everything I've needed it to to and it's great to see a lot of programs are available for Linux natively.
Tbh me switching to Debian (using the KDE desktop experience) is feeling better and better, my PC runs over 3x faster, I have way more control over my own device, and everything works better than ever!
Win11 becomes a less and less appealing switch day by day... When I can no longer hold into Win10, I think I'll just have to jump ship to Linux.
Win10 is already quite privacy poor, but Win11 is straight up intolerable.
- My machine cannot run 11 because of the arbitrary hardware requirements so I was looking down the barrel of Win10 being no longer supported next year.
  I proactively installed Linux Mint on a second SSD I had kicking around just to see if I could live with it without making any commitments. I never looked back since then. I switched to OpenSUSE soon after though but that was because I wanted something that ran the KDE Plasma 6 desktop environment because I didn't like how Cinnamon was handling multiple monitors. But I haven't booted up my Windows 10 drive since then, other than to migrate some files I needed.
Should I point out the irony of this complaint being posted on a site with ads every other sentence and doesn't even show what the windows ads looks like?
It's a valid complaint and all I just laughed as I scrolled past all the blank "ad here" blocks to read the article.
Microsoft already knows that people keep windows around either because they want multiplayer games or are scared of linux.
- Or random application availability and/or ease of use.
  Two cases in point:
  Photo Mechanic. It makes it really easy/fast to sort through tons of photos. There are some Linux compatible alternatives, but they're just not as good
  Fusion 360. There are a couple of things you can do to make it work, but since Linux isn't officially supported the install process can be a bit fiddily and there's no guarantee that an update won't break things.
  Things are certainly better now than they have been in the past, but if you're somewhat time limited (eg your computer is more of a tool than a thing to spend time tweaking) Linux can still be a bit offputting - especially if some of the core applications you use aren't officially supported.
Solution is easy - just don’t use windows
I think this community exists only to complain about Microsoft. Not sure I ever see anything else.
- That is patently false.
  ...Sometimes we also complain about Facebook or Tesla.
- Wrong, this is the elon musk complaint forum. Always has been
- They do make it very hard to speak about anything else
  
  Thing is, most of these complaints are serious non issues.
- Yeah but it is mostly warranted.
  I wish we Apple-bashed more. Fuck Apple.
- Seems to me it's mostly complaining about Google.
- I read the title and thought, "Oh is this another ad for Linux?"
Lemmy: why aren't people using Linux? It's so easy
Also Lemmy: webp huh?
- What’s webp and why should I care?
  
  WebP is a raster graphics file format developed by Google intended as a replacement for JPEG, PNG, and GIF file formats. It supports both lossy and lossless compression, as well as animation and alpha transparency. Google announced the WebP format in September 2010, and released the first stable version of its supporting library in April 2018.
  The format has spotty support across applications and some vulnerabilities were discovered that required patch efforts last year. It's not clear why you should do anything.
  
  Google’s image format
  It’s smaller than png which a company that shows images really likes because it’s cheaper so to force adoption they convert a bunch of images to .webp on google images
  The problem is that 1. It hadn’t been adapted anywhere so people would have to convert it back to png to use 2. It is worse in every aspect to jxl files so Google has had to block the adaptation of jxl on the web as much as they can (jxl retains more quality and is half the size of webp)
  Currently only webkit browsers support jxl out of the box. Firefox has had it in their nightly builds for years now but have never moved it into standard
- Because you can't just double click on an .exe file and choose switch now without many more questions etc.
I hope they don't show an ad on my doctor's operating table computer while he's performing surgery on my heart and watching through a camera image. 😱
- Meanwhile I would pray they would while I am so my family can get that good money lol
Guys, I'll switch in a heartbeat to a Linux OS if any one you can recommend a stable OS that works on a Surface Go 2. It should support its touchscreen, of course, and a Surface Pen. Plus, a FOSS alternative to Journal would be stellar
- I've been running Bazzite on an old 1st gen Surface Book Pro that I had laying around. Touch screen and all the fancy keyboard stuff works great.
- I'm running Ubuntu on a Surface Laptop Studio. I really like it, though I have not yet gotten the touchscreen and pen working.
  If I figure it out (and I remember) I'll let you know.
- Have you looked into Mint?
  The linux mint forums make it seem like it works out of the box. I know that it worked out of the box for my Thinkpad x380, even the touchscreen, pen, and screen rotation.
  
  Same on my thinkpad y370
- A quick Google reveals https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface/wiki/Supported-Devices-and-Features#feature-matrix
  
  Do you really need a custom kernel for the surface devices?
- Your hardware has to have support for Linux, not the other way around.
- Idk Journal but you can give Xournal a try, it works pretty well and you can arrange all the buttons to your liking
  https://xournalpp.github.io/
- Mint is the only version you have a chance of liking if you are coming from windows. I know windows sucks and people low to pump Linux but most distros simply aren't user friendly.
  
  Thanks for the insight. I tried my hands at Kubuntu on an old laptop of mine and didn't mind the few differences too much. From what I've heard on Lemmy, Mint seems to be a good all-around suggestion for new Linux users, though
- Idk man but try OpenSuse, It's pretty cool. Here is the review that make me install it
Are you going to have to deal with a full-screen ad when you’re trying to open File Explorer eventually?
I was literally reading this sentence when the whole page grayed out and a window asking me to subscribe popped up.
If comsic desktop gets a perfect launch, it wouldn't be an over exaggeration to say, some amount of people will switch
- The Next Great Thing(tm) will not make a number of users that is significant to any real world scenario move away from Windows. The only approach that might have a chance to do that is something that looks and feels as close as possible to Windows. Yes even the parts of Windows that are bad. All of it, except the most glaringly obviously horrible stuff (like ads in menus). And that also includes all the programs a significant number of users care about either running there out of the box without having to jump through any hoops or a replacement fulfilling the same "looks, feels and operates almost identical" criteria.
  People care about something feeling familiar and not having to relearn stuff a lot more than about shiny new features.
  
  Considering ms has changed the look and feel of windows itself over the years, sometimes pretty drastically, there's some leeway there.
- I like pop_os, I run it on my laptop and will definitely be using Cosmic, but I think people are putting too much hope in it.
If you order the shit soup, don't act surprised if it tastes bad.
These people are CHOOSING to use Windows. They need to just STFU and use Linux or enjoy the shit soup they keep ordering.
I know that this expression desensitises people to something serious, but it describes Microsoft - the "it"/corporation - perfectly: rapist mentality. It shows how eager Microsoft is to disregard consent, users saying "no, I don't want it", and to force itself over the users as long as it gets some benefit out of it.
Including new obnoxious advertisement slots into an already released product - one that you paid for - is only a result of that mentality.
If windows becomes an advertising platform, isn't MS forced to open it to competitors lest they are misusing their power?
I use edge and subscribe to gamepass, so the ads is gone, right?
I got the "It's time to upgrade to Windows 11" message on my Windows 10 laptop. It's getting aggravating.
- gotta love the aggressive tone. "Its Time. Switch to Windows 11." Some mafia shit lol
I know ExplorePatcher and Startallback can stop ads on Start menu. is there any viable solution for this Settings app ad?
- Windows 10 LTSC
I've managed to de-google completely and mostly de-microsoft, but I use cloud streaming (shadow) for gaming and anything else that's more than my shitty laptop can't handle and there's no way to use Linux on the cloud part. Only thing I can't do anything about yet, and doubt that'll change anytime soon or at all.
- Yeah, the only solution there is to buy better hardware.
So, does PiHole work against this threat? I don’t believe I’ve seen an ad on Windows 11 yet on my desktop, but it’s firmly behind a PiHole and never leaves the house (because desktop)… so either I’m lucky, missing something, or it’s working.
I mean, I basically just boot it up to game and backup CDs to FLAC and such, so maybe I’m just missing things.
And Yes, as someone who has used linux since 1995, I know I can probably do those things in Linux at this point, but I couldn’t when I set it up and since it’s working I’ve got other things higher on my list to do.
- No, Pihole doesn't help.
  I think the reason you say you haven't seen an ad on Windows is because the ads aren't the traditional ads like you see on a webpage.
  When someone talks about an ad on Windows, they are referring to the Spotify app presinstalled in the Start Menu, the OneDrive prompt for backing up during setup, and the weather bug on the taskbar that brings up news if you click it.
  You might think that a weather widget isn't an ad, but the idea is you click it, see a relevant news article, click the news article and you are taken to a traditional webpage with ads.
this is definitely the worst thing ever /s
- More like the straw that broke the camel's back. And a sign that Microsoft's behaviour is still the same as it was in IE times.
I never get any of these things in my install. Is this a home edition thing only maybe? Genuine question, not trying to be a smartass.
Joke's on you, Microsoft.
First of all, I already have Game Pass, so you don't get any new sales.
Second, if I open the settings app in Windows 11, it just straight up crashes. (Can access the other tabs, e.g. through desktop customisation. But if I go to the front page, it crashes.)
It was broken by the update that supposedly added some other ads. But I've not seen them! I had to disable the "recommendations" in start menu because it made the start menu not work at all (due to the aforementioned crash, same deal).
This actually really sucks, though. Windows Store apps do not update themselves, Xbox services stopped working (due to being unable to update WS games), and I don't know if Windows Update works or not. I guess I need to reinstall when I get arsed to.

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