Microsoft really needs an antitrust smackdown with their repeated behavior.
So does Google though if we’re being honest.
Microsoft saying “stop using Google” is actually totally fine with me.
But only if they’re saying “go get Firefox.”
If you need more ammunition they recently also changed it so all links in Outlook opens in Edge even if it’s not the default browser. You have to go to settings and find an entirely separate default browser setting to stop it.
I didn’t think that sort of thing happened anymore
It’s because of shit like this that I’m glad I switched to Linux.
I want to dual boot because I prefer Linux for everything but some niche games. Just never got around to it. This is pretty motivating.
Check https://www.protondb.com to check the status of compatibility of the game on Linux
My reason was that I had heard windows 11 was considering ads in their file explorer. Win10 already has enough prompts pushing edge and OneDrive. That, and many of my professors use Linux, and the ease with which they would install Python or C compilers was too much.
Do it. It’s not as hard as it used to be thanks to systemd-boot existing. I literally reinstalled Windows the other day and nothing happened to systemd-boot. GRUB, is a bit of a mess though.
The only issues I had with dual booting is an out of sync clock (due to Windows using local time), and Windows wiped one of my Linux drives (I installed Windows second, so unplug any unused drives before installing Windows). The last issue I am still unsure what caused it, however I remember installing Windows and the next time I use Linux the drive is empty.
This is a good way if someone really Like some games not working on Linux. Also it can keep work and fun separated.
I can recommend setting up encryption when installing Linux system to make Windows programs unable to access your files.
My man! (y)
Lookin’ good!
There needs to be a legally mandated option to turn off all recommendations and tracking, and to require consent to enable it in the first place.
So pretty much just an extension of GDPR. Sounds good.
Or the courts should force MS to split off into an os company, an online services company, an office productivity software company, and a gaming company.
If we had an actual anti-monopoly/umbrella corporation law that would be badass.
Hell Amazon would tank instantly, since they just operate on pumping AWS profits into their loss leader (Amazon delivery) constantly.
So would Google to some extent. This actually sounds like a good plan. We should go back to the 90’s antitrust law. Before we made it toothless and basically unenforceable.
Fuck yeah! Lets do some trust bustin!
Nothing Microsoft does is good. Nothing google does is good.
Choose an alternative that values you.
I don’t even value me, no corporation gives a crap. They want you and your recurrent income.
meirl
So don’t go with a mainstream option.
This “solution” completely ignores the volumes of software that is still only compatible with Windows. This is exactly the belief that Microsoft wants you to have: the illusion that you have a choice between Windows and other, equal alternatives. And before someone starts spouting off about WINE: it truly is a wonderful piece of software, and I don’t mean to disparage any of its talented contributors, but it will likely never even approach feature parity with Windows. I mean, it still can’t run the industry standard 3D modeling program.
This is always brought up but it isn’t actually that relevant. The 3D modeling profession is very small, hundreds of millions of general purpose computer users have no need for Microsoft.
I think that compared to video games, productive softwares, especially “industry standard” ones, rely more on Windows APIs at much more accuracy (and since Wine and its forks such as Proton have to rely on black-box reverse engineering to avoid copyright infringement), the API calls may not have the exact values 100% of the time which is more tolerable to videos games but much less on productive softwares.
Another reason is that most of these softwares unlike most video games are likely using many Windows’ quirks or bugs and are likely less using standard (such as WinUI, DirectX,…) or cross platform toolkit (Qt, GTK,…), making reimplementing the environments and libraries to run the softwares much harder.
Oh, and not even counting that many of those softwares may also use kernel-level DRMs which Wine/Proton/Crossover/… are only userspace level to prevent pirates. This was actually a problem in video games too when many video games, mostly multiplayer ones implement kernel level anticheats or DRMs, until Valve contacted the anticheat/DRM developer as well as the release and popular of the Steam Deck make developers care more about Wine/Proton compatibility, but even then there are some developers still don’t implement Wine/Proton compatibility or even worse ban Linux users for circumvent the artificial incompatibility.
I’m aware of the pitfalls.
Linux and Firefox with uBlock Origin.
I’ll settle for one that has a vague indifference to me.
Slackware
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Meh gamepass is cool for now. It will probably go up in price and become shitty when they get enough market share but until then it is super cool. And honestly I think bing/edge is now the better choice as a search engine/browser compared to Google/chrome. But no way I will give up my Firefox.
Edge (and that joke Brave) is chromium and that supports google’s control of the web. Firefox, or Safari on a Mac, don’t use google’s tech.
Firefox is the best for me. I thought chromium was open source though and not necessarily owned by Google.
Google controls it and allows people to use it so their own browser technology has the market share and can shape the web.
Denying google, a for-profit and evil company to shape a valuable public resource is dangerous.
Sometimes Microsoft is such a turd… I’ve seen this thing posted several times, however I didn’t see the fix in this thread, so I’ll post it here. Sorry, I couldn’t find the Lemmy post that had the information on how to remove it, but I found one on Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/computerviruses/comments/149x25h/bgaupsell_what_is_this_bing_popup/jp896s0
It’s basically a combination registry changes, and also directory modifications to prevent writing to the directory where
BGAUpsell.exeresides.It’s pretty shitty we have to do this. Please, hold all your “switch to Linux” comments, because they are stupid, and superfluous; I see that dumb shit all the time since I came to Lemmy.
Finally, a person with an actual voice. I feel like the, “Switch to Linux,” don’t realize they sound like, “Just get an iPhone people.” To me it all sounds like, “well if you don’t like being in this country then just leave.”
Linux is not the answer for all people the same as switching to an iPhone should never just be the answer.
I don’t get it. If a product sucks, why wouldn’t you switch away from it?
“Don’t suggest I leave my abusive husband, instead I’ll complain about him to my friends until he magically gets better.”
Christ, you guys sound like you have Stockholm syndrome.
AutoCAD, Revit, Photoshop, InDesign, SteamVR.
Pretty much sums it up.
If the alternatives are not there or lacking then people can’t switch. If people don’t use it and contribute (e.g. reports, donations) then it is difficult to justify creating alternatives.
This is not a stalemate however. It is a slow transition of pioneers frustrated with the status quo.
I’ll add Visual Studio.
And, no, VS Code is not a comparable replacement no matter how many extensions you add. I say that as someone who uses VS Code for almost everything…except C#.
Yep, definitely have to pick the right tool for the job. If you use these things, you’re stuck with Windows. Would be nice if you could install needed software on whichever OS you choose.
I’ve been running Linux on all the machines I own for years, but I still have to run Windows for work. Not everyone can just switch and I doubt there are many reading this who are unaware they could switch to Linux (or Mac, BSD, etc.).
Oh I also have one MacBook running MacOS because Apple decided to only allow iOS development and parental controls, of all things, on Apple devices running Apple software.
Yes MS and Apple suck but it’s not as simple as “just switch.”
Agreed. You’re making compromises no matter what you choose as an OS.
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Penguin sighing noises.
I did this with the registry edits on my personal computer. However. This does nothing at all to help with those of us still seeing this stuff on work computers or places where we are not the administrator.
As usual, it’s only Big Tech that’s able to compete with Big Tech. They all love to throw their weight around when they can, and join forces when it’s convenient.
Neither corporation should be defended or trusted with your data.
The only thing that’s kinda funny here is the irony of Microsoft tryna poach Chrome users into their own… wait for it… Chromium-based browser.
I got that popup the other day. I’m this close to switching to Linux
Microsoft IS the malware
The malware’s coming from inside the operating system 👀
Ah mate, 2 months in going full endeavour OS, not looked back. Not perfect, but very close to now and all my devices run it, its amazing.
I switched to EndeavourOS a few months ago after using Kubuntu exclusively for almost a decade. I’m never going back to Ubuntu.
Out of interest do you feel that Kubuntu and whatnot feels very much corporation run now - like its coming close to Microsoft version of Linux?
Kde neon user here, so kubuntu with latest kde apps.
No not even close. I can turn off any reporting and tracking. Yes cononical is moving more and more towards snaps but i can always just download and use the deb or flatpack
Remind me, snap uses that partition for the application right?
Sorry I’m sort of catching up on a few years out.
But then you lose the benefit of the package manager, which is like 99% of the convenience.
Lots of linux communities on lemmy.
Or there’s ReactOS: https://reactos.org/gallery/
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Is it actually something usable? I don’t know of many active users of it.
Depends on what you want to use it for. Run age-old hardware requiring age-old NT-only drivers? Sure. Run modern games? Forget it. And for the age-old hardware stuff (think control board for an electron microscope or something) people usually use FreeDOS, the number of devices that specifically need 32-bit NT is comparatively small. And that’s if they even upgrade at all often it’s just easier to slap an RPi in front of ancient hardware to isolate it from and adapt it to modern surroundings (but yes mainboards with ISA slots are still getting produced, electron microscopes are expensive).
I remember feeling like this, then I made the switch and I haven’t thought about it again
I installed Pop OS on my laptop since it’s pretty gaming friendly. Between that and the Steam Deck, Windows 10 might be my last version of Windows for personal use.
Well Windows 11 got me to use arch, for which I use btw
I tried installing arch but it would tell me there’s no such thing as vda or something I looked it up but found no answer so I switched to pop!_OS
Love pop!_OS, Manjaro is a really cool and good fork of Arch that’s easy to install if rolling distributions are something you’re interested in
seems like a good idea to try it out, thanks. :D
Pretty impressed at just how many notifications, popups and systems MS creates to continually try and funnel you into bing. At some point it moves past being annoying and now I’m just surprised at their tenacity / endurance
That and fucking OneDrive. Autosave isn’t able to function on O365 without OneDrive screw you microsoft
What’s so bad about OneDrive?
Last weekend I talked my wife into trying Linux on her desktop on an extra SSD I had, she loves it. Loves that she can customize everything, says it’s faster (especially boot time), we put it on her laptop last night
Coworkers have been complaining on Teams all day about how the Bing bar is suddenly showing up on their desktops. When did Microsoft stop giving a fuck about businesses? I wish to fucking god we could run Linux on our work machines.
I am so glad it wasn’t just me! Like the article said, I legit thought I had some sort of malware on my machine. Which I guess is true, they just call it windows. I really only use my machine for gaming and every time I’ve tried to switch to linux I had all sorts of compability issues.
Open question to all. Is the SteamOS all that it’s cracked up to be?
The only machine you wanna be using SteamOS on is the Steam Deck. Use a standard Linux distribution like Ubuntu if you’re gonna do it on any other machine. The reason being that the version of SteamOS for generic PCs is horribly outdated, and the one on the Deck is very much built exclusively for the Deck’s hardware.
Gaming mostly works out of the box with almost all games on Steam on Linux (SteamOS is not special in this regard) but there is an important caveat; be careful of games that use anticheat software - some work but others do not or may trigger bans. Check ProtonDB for your specific games to see if there are issues.
I use KDE Neon as my daily driver (LTS Ubuntu + latest KDE, which is the desktop environment the Steam Deck uses).
I haven’t had many issues. For context:
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I have to remote in to my work computer from home. I do that with Parsec, which I have via a Flatpak. Parsec has no issues and works identically to Windows.
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I also have to use a specific VPN. This VPN requires a separate program on Windows, but in KDE it’s baked into the OS.
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Zoom is also a Flatpak. It has a few bugs that don’t exist on Windows - namely Zoom likes to steal window focus whenever the host joins or someone shares their screen.
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I also installed Flatpak Steam. I had to use Flatseal to give it more access than it had by default, but that was easy enough. You can go through your OS package manager but since KDE Neon is built on Ubuntu LTS those packages don’t get updated frequently.
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Most games run fine. Performance is usually a little worse than Windows, but I can still generally hit 60 - just with more dips than Windows has. Satisfactory and Jedi Survivor are the only games where I have seen noticeable issues compared to Windows. Baldur’s Gate runs fine.
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Some games are borked. These are usually games that rely on anti-cheat or intrusive DRM.
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Running Windows programs can be tricky. Wine isn’t intuitive to use. I usually use Bottles, but sometimes Bottles doesn’t get the job done and I have to fall back to Lutris. Lutris is hard to use but generally pulls through. These are all Flatpaks.
I maintain a Windows installation on an old 2 TB NTFS hard drive. Linux gets my 4 TB SSD, but I’ve symlinked my documents folders to the NTFS drive so I can share things on Windows and Linux.
Sometimes I need to boot into Windows. Generally this is if I’m having issues connecting to my work computer on Parsec (these issues happened on Windows as well), in which case I need to fall back to RDP to go check on my work computer. My employer blocks me doing that from Linux, so I do it from Windows instead.
Otherwise, I usually boot into Windows to play Satisfactory, because it doesn’t run well on Proton. Satisfactory’s Vulkan renderer seems to implode on Proton as well for some reason; it causes flickering on X and crashes Wayland entirely. The DX12 renderer works but it just isn’t as fast as it is on native Windows.
That said, I rarely boot into Windows. Maybe once every 2-3 months? But not beyond that.
Very close to my arrangement but I noted VPN + Firefox + non-trackers are treated suspiciously by most remote work systems so one way or another you have to keep a chrome browser close by to authenticate through those gates.
PS: These kind of detailed comments are he reason I believe in the fediverse. It is refreshing to see the community grow.
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I use a steam deck for about 2/3 of my gaming and I rarely have issues with games. That said, I mostly play indie games, but there is so much of my library that is supported that I’m never going to run out of things to play. Proton has really done wonders for gaming on Linux. Are you wanting to play multiplayer games or brand new releases? Or are you more of the patient gamer type?
I wouldn’t run steamos on a full desktop, but you can still get a lot of the benefits just by using steam on Linux. Definitely recommend trying it out.
Oh I am definitely a very patient gamer, my GF talked me in to baulders gate with her. But it’s been years since I bought something new. The majority of my steam library is indie stuff. I poked around on ProtonDB and it looks like 70% of my library is rated highly. So I am thinking this is a serious option for me. Gonna give days or two to think on it before committing to the hassle of a dual boot, but all these tools and comments are giving me a lot of peace of mind to try.
That’s why they try to sell Windows 10 Enterprise instead of professional. You can block most of that in Enterprise.
You’re not going to make me feel bad for Google
Nobody is feeling bad for Google … if I was using duckduckgo, or anything else, I still wouldn’t want to see those popups. Then again, that’s one of the many reason why I stubbornly stick to linux ;)
Microsoft is using malware-like pop-ups in Windows 11 to get people to ditch Google for malicious google copycat Bing+Edge
Microsoft loves popups. It feels like it is at least a few times that MS office puts a pop up in front of some button that I’m going to click to tell me about a new feature that I won’t use. Admittedly, I don’t know how to tell users about new features in a better way, but annoying users can’t be right.
I remember an old anecdote from sometime around 2005, that Microsoft did a survey to see what features people wanted added to the Office suite, of the top 10 requested features, 8 were already in the products and the users didn’t know about them.
The whole suite was bloated with stuff most people didn’t need, or at least very rarely needed, but no one wanted to take time to take a class on Excel, or read patch notes, or whatever.
