Sharing here because of the post from 14 hours ago.
In my case, I thought I could survive a few weeks on a Surface with a fresh Windows install because I’d been planning to sell it. Now that it’s turning into my daily driver with no real end in sight (and with all my thumb drives packed away), I have Yet Another Flash Drive™ arriving this evening so I can go back to KDE precisely because of this sort of bullshit.
I see this as a good thing!
The more Microsoft adds adware, surveys, and shitty requirements like tpm, the more people get finally fed up with Microsoft’s bullshit and finally switch to linux!
People aren’t going to do that. They’ll switch to Apple. Linux doesn’t have the presence in public consciousness nor does it have the benefits for average users to matter to them. Tech users don’t need to be converted, they already know.
Maybe in the West where people can afford Macs.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/934972/india-linux-share-in-desktop-os-market/
Your point is only valid for paid statistica subscribers, apparently. The rest of us have no idea what point you’re trying to make.
Right below the unlabeled graph is this very relevant text :
The share of Linux in the desktop operating system market across India was about 8.51 percent in the month of December 2022. This figure represents a significant increase in the market share of Linux since August 2020.
Thank you for that. I always navigate away as soon as I see a paywall because that usually indicates that the entire page will be a complete waste of my time.
That’s first time that I’ve seen useful information below a paywall button.
Though to be fair, even this might be progress, of a sort; years ago, I had a girlfriend who had a bunch of apple products, partly because she worked in sound design. At the time, I had never used Linux and I found using her Mac distinctly unfamiliar. When I eventually tried Linux, some years later, I remember a few instances of going “oh, it’s like on a Mac”.
Those similarities made the whole thing feel a tad less intimidating and probably contributed to (or at least accelerated) me becoming the tech nerd I am today.
Depends on what the public wants. Apple kills backwards compatibility every couple of decades and they have an even more minute gaming presence than Linux does. Like,
, their most popular title, even as a company deathly afraid of the Windows monopoly.
You could make arguments for consoles and such, but that doesn’t solve the problem of Macs being particularly costly.
I switched in May on my main rig precisely because of OneDrive nags after shopping distros for a couple months on my HTPC. The Surface had been dual-boot from the get go, as I bought it for a bootcamp, but I’d not used it for over a year because of other available computers. Without a functioning AC outlet at home (inverter install is awaiting solar install), the Surface is the only viable option, and I thought I’d be back on my desktop within a month … two months ago.
Windows is more of a telemetry platform than an OS at this point, and Proton’s evolution means my Steam library functions just as well on KDE Neon. I have a few legacy Win-only apps, but my expectations about use frequency from years ago no longer matched actual usage by the time I was willing to revisit my assumptions in spring.
And I’m glad I did, as Plasma is fucking amazing in terms of customizability compared to “you will have your taskbar at the bottom of the screen, and you will like it.”
Microsoft is like a super clingy ex.
If you absolutely must use windows for whatever reason you can actually get it pretty good with WSL, Windows Terminal, FancyWM, autohotkey and scoop
That said windows updates still suck, stuff still takes several working days to open and you’re still being spied on
Bulk Crap Uninstaller
No OS .iso should be 5GB in size
RockyLinux and Garuda are 9Gb and 5Gb respectively…
Okay, they are probably offline install ISOs with all the software included right?
On Linux its also a little different, as uninstalling “bloat” is just one command or GUI button. On Windows you need shady external software for that and it doesnt feel like its meant to be at all, with all those cmd windows popping up etc (BCU)
they are probably offline install ISOs with all the software included right?
yes they are, but when you install them you’ll see they’re removing lots of stuff that’s not needed for your hardware to function
What I hate the most about Windows isos is not the size, although it’s most likely just bloat and spying programs, I hate that they don’t let you download them if you … As they say
leveraging anonymous or location hiding technologies when connecting to this service is not generally allowed
Yeah, right… Is it unlikely they’re getting your real IP to associate it with that Iso, so they have one more data point that get added to that profile they built about u ? maybe I’m just overthinking
On Windows you need shady external software
No, not necessarily you can use Foss debloaters but they won’t magically make windows ethical
Yup had this issue before.
Can we get back the ability to not combine tasks?
I don’t see why you would, but you can with ExplorerPatcher.
Obviously not an analyst.
I’m not sure why it’s ever a good idea to remove features with “upgrades”.
Because it might be too much legacy cruft to maintain?
There’s been lots of complaints on the Microsoft forums and it was replied that they’d add it back in a future update. Meanwhile I’m trying to get IT to downgrade my laptop to windows 10.
Ask if they’ll let you install ExplorerPatcher in the meantime.
My recollection is that a recent update to Win11 brought back that option.
Cool, cool, cool. My IT department never updates Windows.
🤖 I’m a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:
Click here to see the summary
Modern versions of Windows have become more annoying as time has gone on, pushing additional Microsoft products and services on users who are just trying to turn on their computers and get something done.
Often, as we’ve covered, these notifications and reminders ignore or actively push back against user intent—prompting you to sign up for Microsoft 365 if you already said no, or trying to make you use Edge or Bing after you’ve already installed Chrome.
Initially spotted by NeoWin, the survey took the form of a drop-down menu, not unlike the ones you sometimes see when you try to unsubscribe from marketing or fundraising mailing lists.
For its part, Microsoft told The Verge that the new prompt was a test that was only rolled out to a subset of OneDrive users and that the change has been reverted as of a couple of days ago.
“This type of user feedback helps inform our ongoing efforts to enhance the quality of our products.”
You can always choose to avoid this kind of thing by declining to sign in to OneDrive or by uninstalling the app entirely.
Saved 52% of original text.
deleted by creator
