299

Microsoft wipes out evidence of real ads in Windows 11 Start menu (www.xda-developers.com)

submitted 6 months ago by dvdnet62@feddit.nl to c/technology@lemmy.ml

88 comments fedilink hide all child comments

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[-] CalcProgrammer1@lemmy.ml 136 points 6 months ago

Recommendations and App Promotions sound an awful lot like ads to me. Showing me things I didn't ask for that you wish to sell me....that's called advertising and I don't care what dumb name you call it, they're still ads. Show me only what I actually want to see - the stuff I explicitly choose to pin to my personalized Start menu.

[-] amanneedsamaid@sopuli.xyz 100 points 6 months ago

And this feature was implemented into an OS you have to pay for. 💀💀💀

[-] thorbot@lemmy.world 23 points 6 months ago

lol, I have never once paid for any of the copies of windows I’ve used over the years

[-] KISSmyOSFeddit@lemmy.world 18 points 6 months ago

Yes, you have. It's just part of the price for the PC you buy.

[-] ObsidianZed@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 6 months ago

While you're not wrong, it's also possible that they simply used cracked versions.

load more comments (1 replies)

load more comments (11 replies)

[-] twei@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 6 months ago

irm https://massgrave.dev/get | iex

[-] FaceDeer@fedia.io 96 points 6 months ago

So, Microsoft recognized and responded to all the complaints by removing the feature that people were objecting to.

Resulting headline: "Microsoft is trying to hide the evidence that they were thinking of doing that thing we hated! Hate them harder!"

Do people want companies to just ignore complaints completely because there's no way to satisfy anyone anyway?

[-] emptiestplace@lemmy.ml 53 points 6 months ago

ehh... I think you're missing the part where Microsoft is actively exploiting its customer base throughout its entire product catalogue - the likelihood that this is an actual win is no.

[-] spaphy@lemmy.ml 23 points 6 months ago

They’re tasked with infinitely growing their stock price. That is a suicide job. Working big tech in the USA sucks right now because there’s no concept of just maintaining and maintaining something well, unless you’re Valve and steam

[-] haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com 18 points 6 months ago

You could always start suing the US government for allowing shareholder primacy in the first place. Stakeholder primacy is the way to go and everyone knows that. Everyone besides corporate knuckleheads.

[-] spaphy@lemmy.ml 10 points 6 months ago

This is my first time hearing stakeholder primacy as a term. Can you elaborate on what the grounds you’d sue the stakeholders on? Ie what is the legal premise that you’re proposing you can hold them accountable for?

[-] haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com 17 points 6 months ago

I never said you sue the stakeholders. They could sue the government for allowing this shit in the first place.

Stakeholder primacy is just the opposition of shareholder primacy essentially. Stakeholders are the employees, the community/society around the company like the town or city it is in. As in they have obligation to care for that.

load more comments (3 replies)

[-] Salvo@aussie.zone 34 points 6 months ago

People want companies to stop trying to exploit them in every little way.

We can be satisfied by respecting us and treating us as customers, even when advertisers are throwing money at them.

[-] FaceDeer@fedia.io 6 points 6 months ago

And that's what Microsoft has apparently done in this case, yet it's being spun negatively anyway.

[-] ByteJunk@lemmy.world 19 points 6 months ago

Because they didn't come out saying they won't enable ads. They just quietly renamed the toggle to say something else, and that is shady AF. Why are you trying to spin it positively?

[-] InputZero@lemmy.ml 14 points 6 months ago

Give it a few more months and ads will be back. They dropped us in boiling water and expected us to just accept it. Microsoft will just slowly boil us next time.

load more comments (1 replies)

[-] Cethin@lemmy.zip 8 points 6 months ago

They don't deserve praise for not doing something bad. They deserve praise when they do something good that they weren't forced to do.

They didn't do this from goodwill, but because it was predicted to hurt the bottom line. They'll do it again as soon as it's forgotten about. This isn't the last you've heard from this.

[-] sylver_dragon@lemmy.world 73 points 6 months ago

Microsoft: "We're sorry, this is all just a misunderstanding. We thought you were too stupid to notice."

[-] QuarterSwede@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago

Hahaha. This one got me.

[-] hakase@lemm.ee 71 points 6 months ago

Too late. I've already switched all four of my home PCs to Linux Mint.

[-] bradbeattie@lemmy.ca 25 points 6 months ago

Likewise. Debian, installed Steam, updated my graphics driver, and everything runs smoothly. I'm surprised how well Linux gaming has come along!

[-] Woozythebear@lemmy.world 23 points 6 months ago

To be honest I don't think that Linux is of any concern to them. Windows 11 is losing market share to windows 10. They are competing among themselves.

They need everyone to move on from windows 10 before they start slamming ads in windows 11.

[-] JokeDeity@lemm.ee 8 points 6 months ago

If I needed to install right now, it would be 10, not 11.

[-] bbuez@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago

Gramps needed his excel icon - on the monitor I might add - or else. Debloat and activation scripts got him his windows 7 and office 2007 experience back, he was very appreciative of my "hack", merely for the same experience he paid for back some 15 years.

He doesn't know what a "Linux" is, but I am greatful that people are still invested enough to make utilities to return back to a more user centric experience in windows - even if I certainly don't care to go back

[-] andrewth09@lemmy.world 43 points 6 months ago

wipes out evidence

I am certain it can be re-enabled with regedit

[-] Ransack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 6 months ago

Oh man, I was a bit worried. I paid for top dollar equipment for my rig and I would hate for my system to not sweat with a malnourished start menu.

[-] hperrin@lemmy.world 35 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

It’s the first move to making it normalized. It’s the “toes in the water” stage of advertising in your OS.

[-] floofloof@lemmy.ca 34 points 6 months ago

Why does this article use the term "real ads" every time instead of just "ads"? Is this just weird or does it have a technical meaning?

[-] RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de 52 points 6 months ago

Well, if those were "legitimate" ads the OS would have ways of shutting those down.

That aside, anyone thinking that's the last time they'll try that shit is oblivous. It will come back, because why not. Only solution is to finally stop using Windows if you can, or at least dual boot.

[-] PopOfAfrica@lemmy.world 18 points 6 months ago

As long as you aren't beholden to specific software, it is becoming increasingly pleasant to use the Linux ecosystem.

Frankly, I never understood why businesses were invested in the office suite anyway. Considering there are so many good open source alternatives.

The only pain point in it's getting a little better is graphic design.

[-] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 11 points 6 months ago

Frankly, I never understood why businesses were invested in the office suite anyway.

Then you've never worked in an environment of many people, where nothing compares to office, and you can be confident the file you send will look the same on the other end. This is crucial.

Considering there are so many good open source alternatives.

Oh really? Let me see some tables in Open Office Calc. Oh, yea, the devs flat out said they will not support tables in Calc because it's "bad practice", and you should use a database app instead.

Sorry, it takes me seconds to setup a table in Excel, and I can do all kinds of sorting, filtering, etc with trivial effort. I'm not setting up a DB everytime I need to ad-hoc sort/filter 20 rows. There are constant annoyances like this with these open source office apps. Counterintuitive ways of doing things (or not being able to do things at all).

Nothing out there compares to Office. Considering the licensing costs for enterprise (where you can have 50,000+ users), if they could eliminate that cost without incurring massive productivity losses, don't you think they would?

Plus you have millions (if not billions) of docs, templates, processes (where automation exports their data into Office apps e.g. Word or Excel), for users or business management to use, perhaps in other apps or systems. Whose going to pay to reproduce all that work in another system?

Plus historically, Office 4 (in about 1997) had tight integration - nothing else came anywhere close. And that's been the case ever since. I know when I copy data from any office app that it will properly support OLE - OneNote will embed an excel sheet (or publisher/word doc) just fine. Try that with Calc, and you get some weird behaviour.

I'm glad to see the competition, but it's got a long way to go to make inroads against office.

load more comments (2 replies)

[-] Vendetta9076@sh.itjust.works 6 points 6 months ago

Ii get that reference and hate you for reminding me of it.

load more comments (1 replies)

[-] Lath@kbin.earth 12 points 6 months ago

Dunno, but within the context, Microsoft claimed only ads for Microsoft products. Now, whether those products are predatory mobile games for example, well that's technically within the said terms. It's basically a matter of scope and wordplay.

[-] DaddleDew@lemmy.world 18 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Microsoft is dead to me.

Maybe if after a disastrous enough reception of Windows 11 they might make a Windows 12 that actually cares about being more palatable to the users, like they did with Windows 7 following the disaster that was Vista.

But I think they'll most probably only move to meet us halfway like they did with Windows 10 following the other disaster that was 8. Where they replaced a major irritant with another and then slowly stacked more and more irritants with updates thereafter. They are too addicted to the revenue from data harvesting to give it up.

load more comments (2 replies)

[-] NegativeLookBehind@lemmy.world 14 points 6 months ago

Better to just wipe out Windows entirely and be done with it.

load more comments (31 replies)

[-] RedWeasel@lemmy.world 13 points 6 months ago

They aren't ads. They are "App Promotions".

[-] TheFeatureCreature@lemmy.world 11 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

W11 is such a great example of how out-of-touch Microsoft's management and shareholders are. Its market share is tiny compared to W10 and is actively decreasing and they think pulling stunts like this is going to be beneficial in some way. Like even if you follow the usual routine of enshittification, they've missed the entire part where they expand their userbase first before making things worse.

MS needs a leadership shakeup so badly.

load more comments (1 replies)

load more comments

this post was submitted on 09 May 2024

299 points (100.0% liked)

Technology

34893 readers

681 users here now

This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.

Ask in DM before posting product reviews or ads. All such posts otherwise are subject to removal.

Rules:

1: All Lemmy rules apply

2: Do not post low effort posts

3: NEVER post naziped*gore stuff

4: Always post article URLs or their archived version URLs as sources, NOT screenshots. Help the blind users.

5: personal rants of Big Tech CEOs like Elon Musk are unwelcome (does not include posts about their companies affecting wide range of people)

6: no advertisement posts unless verified as legitimate and non-exploitative/non-consumerist

7: crypto related posts, unless essential, are disallowed

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

MinutePhrase@lemmy.ml