Microsoft quietly released a free offline version of Office, but you're not going to like it
Microsoft quietly released a free offline version of Office, but you're not going to like it
It has ads and doesn't support saving documents locally
41 comments
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Microsoft
you're not going to like it
Tell me something new.
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That's not offline...
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I wouldn't call that offline.
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I installed OnlyOffice for a family member and they have no complaints. They were happy to learn they don't need to worry about subscriptions anymore either
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Why OnlyOffice and not LibreOffice?
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The UI mostly, and because the layout is familiar to them
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Just gonna add my “I use it for the ui” to the pile. Libreoffice is great in capability but it feels so unpolished visually. At least on Linux.
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I used LibreOffice and before that OpenOffice and recently switched to OnlyOffice. I find OnlyOffice more pleasant mostly because I like the UI.
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This isn't the first time they've had an ad supported Office for free. Anyone remember Office 2010 Starter, that shipped with only Word and Excel and also had a permanent ad banner.
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Yep, that's what moved me to OpenOffice and now libreoffice
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Being able to launch it locally if you can't save open or locally seems extremely pointless.
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Their desktop version of office has more features than the cloud web versions so this doesn't sound that bad. Also might mean the O365 small business license might be able to use a desktop client now instead of being web only.
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Can't dislike it if I never try it
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Mark my words: Office Online will "adopt" these advertising and cloud-save only features within 2 years.
(If this happens and I remember this comment I will try to link it).
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Why… would anyone use this? There are plenty of other perfectly capable free word processors…
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Lots of people like Microsoft and/or don't know any better.
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Just waitin' to be cracked and have those features re-enabled
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I swear "quietly" is the new "slams".
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Isn't this what a Pi-Hole is for? Unless it needs to autheticate each time you use ot from the same servers the ads are served from you should be able to safely block the ads.
I'm sure you'll have to log into a Microsoft account to use it so your data will still be theirs.
41 comments
An offline version with ads and no ability to store data locally sounds like an online version to me.
I think here, offline refers to the non-cloud based approach...
What is OneDrive if not cloud-based?
Isn't that worse though? They use your computing power but they still get the data :). At least with cloud apps you get the benefit of not having to run the app locally (this was the idea behind low powered chromebooks).