First RCS now this, today has been wild
I’m a Linux guy and I don’t really care about Windows, but I’m glad to see this happening and every day I thank Europe for being the main entity fighting for regulation of big tech monopolies, because America is really failing.
Its nuts that during the Obama admin, all anyone cared about was the threat of zero privacy. Now everyone in the US has surrendered to it, because our politicians have sold our digital privacy rights to the tech companies.
If we had actual IT giants in Europe, this would look very different.
I’ve seen how the car industry in Germany only got a slap on the wrist because of Dieselgate and even got the chance to send out advertisement payed by the government.
I feel like the only reason stuff like this gets pushed so hard is because we try to slow down the current IT giants until we get our shit together.
I’m glad that we do it, but i wouldn’t say we are better than anyone else.
Thanks for the honest take, a lot of people get caught up in the idea that if an organization does something that aligns with them, they are good or doing it for the same reasons.
There is a lot of protectionism at the heart of the EU. They are quite happy to heavily regulate Big Tech when it’s not based in their own market. Unfortunately they don’t have quite the same passion for nurturing the European tech industry as much as stifling the foreign ones.
They are it purely fighting these fights for the greater good, or they wouldn’t also be pushing things like the recent browser certificate debacle.
I mean we have SAP but they are probably not affected by this law.
Yeah because dieselgate was a travesty and all companies have a moral obligation to find ways around the idiocy of the US EPA as they actively make our cars more harmful to the environment by writing poorly thought out rules that encourage larger vehicles as well as completely failing to understand how to calculate diesel emissions for vehicles in a sensible manner.
EU is very much a mixed bag. On the one hand, they do this, on the other hand, they tried to ban P2P encryption and microtargetted religious and elderly in resisting countries, feeding them the classic “it’s for the children’s safety” lies.
Though we have to remind ourselves that it’s mainly the EU Commission who does this.
The Supreme Court spoke out against it from the very beginning, the Parliament voted against it, it’s really only the Commission who doesn’t want to understand that EU law applies to them, too.
Quite a few positions in there that need to be held by new people who understand the damn law.
California is doing okay, all things considered
I wonder if Windows in Non-EU areas does not have this kind of choice.
Well, does not matter, I use Linux, too.
America empowers these bozos
This apparently only applies to Europe, say least for now.
Wait for it. Slow roll outs
How do you know someone uses Linux?
Don’t worry they’ll tell you
As a Linux user (and ex arch user btw), I’m deeply offended.
ABOUT FUCKING TIME. Take edge and shove it so far up your data tracking sphincter of a face hole.
Can we please get these laws on a global level.
I’m not disagreeing, but what entity would enforce those global laws?
I vote for angry mob with convenient access to an active volcano.
Who needs a volcano when woodchippers can park right in your driveway.
Remember to load them feet first kids!
*jots down ‘load kids feet first into chipper’
Wait, is Microsoft violating child labor laws, too!?
Well, your heart’s in the right place.
And apparently the kids feet are in the right place too!
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Same way laws are enforced now? Each country passing it and the companies needing to comply to continue operations.
Why are they force to comply right now if the laws don’t work?
You’re missing the point.
The ICC only has power in countries that let them have power. If a given country doesn’t feel like doing that, the ICC has precisely zero recourse or ability to enforce.
What should citizens in countries like that (which may or may not be dictatorships, single-party states, theocracies, or some other restrictive, un-democratic, and/or xenophobic form of government) do?
Yes and I’m saying each country should implement it themselves so that we can reach global saturation. That is what I meant in my original response to op.
You are taking what I said out of proportion. Obviously we need Superman to enforce a global ruling hand over mankind.
I was about to say that I’d prefer alien overlords but based on Superman’s origin, he’s got my vote
Space force?
If I have to keep a chromium browser around, in addition to Firefox, I’d rather edge than mainline Chrome.
I appreciate your sense of relief, but don’t share it. This isn’t the first time Microsoft has been ordered to stop pushing its stuff (remember Internet Explorer?) and I’m sure it won’t be the last.
Nope. But hey look, the Democrats are coming to take your guns!
Why yes Microsoft, I am totally a European in Europe right now…
VPN to Sweden, update Windows to the EEA version, profit?
I’m not holding my breath, but we can hope.
It 's wild to think that some people might VPN to the EU for basic rights.
Freedom!
You wouldn’t pirate basic human rights, would you?
People do that China 🤷♂️
Coming to a Western country soon near you!
Välkommen!
Hey, 'Muricans, how come we need to pressure every company into compliance for you?
Do you really think any average citizen has any say in this whatsoever?
Yes. You’re a democracy, right? Right?
On paper yes. In reality…
Isn’t that the point of your guns? Why are all these less free states more free?
Nah, those are just so we can shoot nonwhite people and say we thought they had a gun
well, on paper also no, democracy don’t exist with only two parties, and that is writed in paper
An electoral democracy, we choose those that make the laws. Due to the 2 party system we don’t have many options for when they fail to do what they claim they will.
No, we’re a republic.
A true democracy would empower each of us to do as you say, but that’s not what’s here.
Our republic is quite corrupt due to greed and power, as well… Not as corrupt as many countries out there, mind you, but it’s alot worse than it should be.
We’re starting to resemble a corporatocracy in many ways these days as a result of all this.
‘Republic’ is about whether or not you have kings. Democracy is as opposed to autocracy, with a few other *cracys between those poles.
America is a democratic republic; the United Kingdom is a democratic monarchy. The US has a broken democratic system that does a really bad job of electing the most preferred candidate. It’s almost cheeky to call America democratic.
Great America, land of the free
Free to be shot at and advertised to
Land of the fee and home of the slave
Obviously since it’s happening for us Europeans
See: Regulatory Capture
Sorry, our country is currently on fire 😕
For $100,000 the US Congress will tell you!
Thank you Europe. Once again you prove yourself to be what we all aspire to be.
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It’s a shame that this is only for users in the EEA though, I understand why they didn’t make it a blanket change, but we can dream
As an American, all I can say is thank you Europe for continuing to have sensible legislation that forces these companies to have decent policies worldwide if only to comply with EU laws. I only use Windows on my company provided laptop but just because I don’t need to worry about it personally doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t care about how it affects others.
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So apparently having consumer-friendly laws does in fact lead to better products. Cool.
Perhaps the USA and other countries should follow the EU’s good example on this.
USA politicians are paid for and if anything they will never do this in fact they will do the exact opposite and make it easier for corporations to exploit people.
Thank god for Europe!
Now there will be two versions of Windows. One that adheres to EU regulation, and another that’s filled with ads for everyone else.
Windows 12 Euro Trash Edition and Windows 12 Red Blooded God Anointed American Edition. If either crosses the EU boarder the computer will explode killing everyone in a 10 meter radius.
I feel like that might also violate some regulations
Yes, American munitions export controls
regulations that stifle innovation baby 😎
Alright. What about Windows 12: European cringe edition?
There sort of already is https://www.howtogeek.com/322112/what-is-an-n-or-kn-edition-of-windows/
It’ll be one version, they’ll just force certain “features” on you based on the region you’re in as determined by your system time, GPS location, or IP address
system time, GPS location, or IP address
They can all easily be spoofed or changed.
Yeah turns out businesses behave when you legislate their misdeeds instead of just calling them job creators
They say if you don’t pay, you’re the product, but that’s obviously bullshit, paying solves nothing. The saying should be never trust corporations.
If you don’t pay, you are the product. If you pay, you are the product + you are paying.
I just switched to Linux. Get fucked!
and that’s the only long-term winning move, because MS shenanigans will never end
Exactly. All the latest chaos that Microsoft does, you know you’ll be immune and your desktop will be the same for as long as you get bored of it lol.
My laptop gets the fun experiments, my desktop plays the games
Same except in reverse lol. My laptop is out of date fedora because I’m lazy to update since it’s a youtube/twitch machine pretty much. My desktop gets the bleeding edge + games.
I’m testing stuff on my old ThinkPad!
I may have lost my sound card drivers, but at least I’ve not got to put up with windows (don’t worry I’ve got an external soundcard)!
I, really really want to switch to Linux. I duel boot and use Linux for study. but there are some apps I just can’t get around, and have to switch back to Windows for. I ran some cool scripts that stripped Windows of bloat and uninstalled edge and ads, and I have to say. it’s almost as nice as Linux now. runs faster too.
Its a bit of drama but if you have a look at setting up qemu with virtual machine manager its worthwhile.
It makes virtual machines that directly utilize the hardware, meaning you can run your stripped out windows inside a window on your Linux desktop.
Its pretty hard to get your GPU to pass through but if its non-gpu oriented apps you need its perfect. My fixed windows VM boots in about 10 seconds, has next to zero network usage, uses 2 cpus and 4gb of ram, and just runs its couple of little apps no trouble every day
I’ll check this out ty
Honestly what finally pushed me was when windows suddenly decided that going to sleep and keeping on sleeping was too much to ask for. Haven’t found anything that doesn’t work on Linux yet, but I mostly play games.
I’m team Linux as well
Same, but I switched back today. DaVinci Resolve doesn’t support AAC audio on Linux, even on the paid version (literally everything uses AAC audio). The closest thing to any kind of usable photo editor is photopea, and that’s web only.
Linux is just unusable for media creation, unfortunately.
Unless your media is made in Blender, then it’s pretty good. Inkscape has been getting nicer, too.
But that’s about it, yeah.
I really wish the affinity suite would make a linux version.
Same. That would help a lot.
Man I miss Linux, I swear one day I’ll install it on my old Mac, at least as a funny project.
At last. This is actually good news for Windows itself because people will be more inclined to use it again if they don’t see ads, aren’t tracked, can set any default browser etc.
So it’s good for both users and Microsoft.
Sometimes these corporations just can’t help themselves by adding trash and they need a mommy figure to force them to stop doing that which ultimately benefits themselves.
Thing is for me windows opened a pandora’s box that goes further than just ad-free, once I started getting into open software thanks to switching to linux, I realized it’s not just the them saying there’s no tracking, it’s the being able to see it for yourself, it’s the there being a 1000 eyes on a project that don’t have a motivation to lie to you, checking making sure that there are no trackers.
It’s no longer just sbout them saying “it’s all good we ain’t spying” it’s about a project with a thousand eyes on them making sure this is actually the case, plus the nature of most open licenses where every fork also needs to follow such license.
It’s starting to become a sort of change in how I see society working with each other and I whish there were other aspects of life where such a philosophy vould be applied.
Agree 100%. Free Software user here. Linux Mint Debian Edition is what I’m running.
I wish all software and hardware abided by the FOSS principles
Once steam covers 90% of games windows becomes irrelevant.
For gamers-only maybe lmao
E: and people willing to spend several hours a month wondering why their OS broke again
If you don’t tinker like the usual Linux user your os won’t break more often than windows
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As I said, not more often than windows
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Yeah people often forget the sheer amount of quality checks and testing that windows updates go through. Sure it might do annoying things like changing your default browser but it never truly breaks.
There’s also the fact that Windows native antivirus is so good that installing antivirus software is actually a downgrade. On Linux meanwhile you gotta run third party antivirus.
Windows updates break my clock… Idk about this claim that it doesn’t break stuff.
In my experience windows just breaks as often. Depending on hardware and software used.
Yes it might be better for windows 11 I haven’t run that yet. And windows 10 almost never broke either so it is maybe better now
If you stick to Ubuntu you usually don’t have that problem IMHO.
Hmm. My partner’s Linux machine is perfectly stable and has been for a decade. I administer it for them, but that’s just running updates and distribution upgrades every now and then
My server takes more effort, as distribution upgrades sometimes break stuff, for example the mailing list manager I have used for a long time became deprecated and was disabled on the recent LTS upgrade
My laptop running Ubuntu from the factory is perfectly fine, I’ll probably make it less stable by moving it to Debian
Only in EU/EEA countries. So us here in
GileadAmerica are SOL at the momentIt’s because of this that I stopped using windows. Now that steam allows Linux gaming I have no need to revert to that os.
Are multiplayer titles with anti cheat (Call of Duty, Valorant, etc) able to be played yet? It’s the only thing holding me back.
I think its largely dependent on the game and what anti cheat they use.
Are multiplayer titles with anti cheat
EAC is on Linux now, don’t know about any other ones.
