Originally published at: Windows 11 now has pop ups straight-up telling users to get rid of Google | Boing Boing
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Yep, annoying at best. Same same with its constantly pushing Teams at me.
Grrrrrr…
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Windows 11 seems particularly full of things urging you to give Microsoft more of your money or your attention. They somehow manage to be even more intrusive than Apple about it.
I hate OS’s and apps that are little more than a thin layer over a set of advertising opportunities. I’m old-fashioned enough to still believe that your software and hardware should be tools that work for you, rather than being a back-door designed to let corporate marketing departments build a storefront in your workspace or your pocket.
And if you don’t want to hear what I think about the web, get off my lawn now …
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The analogy is pretty accurate. There are Windows versions that know how to keep their mouths shut and get to work(I think the most recent is Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021, with server versions usually also being pretty quiet); but, as with ‘smart’ TVs vs. signage displays don’t be surprised when wanting one pushes you from Best Buy impulse purchase to talk-to-your-rep at CDW.
Even ‘Professional’ windows SKUs are more or less fully enshittified(they just support domain join); it’s only the Enterprise(because there are some things humorless corporate IT just won’t put up with; plus why nag people when they’ve already signed massive MS EAs?) and Education(since there are some things you just can’t legally do to children in certain jurisdictions; plus educational IT doesn’t have a lot more humor, though typically less money) where the product hasn’t been openly slathered in contempt before being shoved out the door.
You’ll get real used to the below message on GPOs that you’ll want to use:
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I’ve been installing fresh Windows images onto computers this week and when you even go to install Chrome you get a ton of pop ups asking “are you sure about this, Edge is just as good”, and they don’t seem to let you just x out of them easily while they cover the download status bar in edge…
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I haven’t messed around with Windows in years. Just last weekend I tried installing Windows 11 on a 3 year old laptop, immediately found out it doesn’t support older i5 processors anymore and was forced to reinstall Windows 10 instead.
Even then it was a bunch of nagging and complaining when I went to install Chrome that I was thoroughly disgusted with what Microsoft has done to it. I’m quite happy sticking with my Mac, thank you.
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Windows itself is the malware.
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Can you be more specific about the decline of MacOS?
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How are you installing chrome? Does winget bypass the popups?
Just grabbing the installler from the homepage. Didn’t try winget at all.
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Well it’s not wrong about Chrome at least.
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The OP might have a different take - but Apple’s attempts to keep making macOS look and behave more like iOS is a bad trend.
The new System Settings panel is a usability nightmare that I have to tangle with far too often, and previously usable applications like Keynote now have most of their options hidden away to make them more usable by a touch interface - which the Mac doesn’t have.
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I’ll use this opportunity to remind you that Linux is free and open.
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Considering what happened last time they tried to force their browser on users I’m pretty sure they’re not using this practice in the EU
The European Commission has imposed a €561 million fine on Microsoft for failing to comply with its commitments to offer users a browser choice screen enabling them to easily choose their preferred web browser.
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there’s also now a “requirement” to sign into an apple account apparently. i have a permanent second desktop open with only the login popup on it. if i close it, it reopens, so there it sits. enterally
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My windows 10 keeps wanting to update to 11. I keep saying no. Should I keep saying no?
Something has eaten up a ton of my hard drive and I didn’t think I had that much stuff on here.
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Ab-sol-fracking-lutly.
Win10 Enterprise (in all it’s incarnations) is generally only available to people who have an EA or Premier contract with Microsoft, unless you take the Jolly Roger method. By way of comparison, to the best of my knowledge, the server flavors of windows 10 (Server 2016 and 2019; 2022 is a fork of the windows 11 codebase IIRC) have most of the malarky disabled by default… except for the telemetry, which can be turned to ‘security only’ (but can’t be turned entirely off without actively hacking away at the modules which do that), but have a steeper price tag attached to it, and require some additional messing about to make games and other desktop apps work properly on them.
Enterprise was and is fully intended to be deployed by a company that pays MS over a quarter-mil a year for their EA contract and with a dedicated IT team that has such things as SCCM at it’s disposal. (shoot, for a while even [RedactedCo] couldn’t use it, because we didn’t meet the threshold for it.)
@bluehenbear : Excellent tip, this corporate AD/Exchange/JOAT IT Admin approves, although there’s nothing to keep windows from putting the crap back in if it does an auto-update to a newer build, or decides to ‘upgrade’ you to windows 11. (which is a different and exceptionally profanity-laden rant altogether.)
And unless you are using Redhat or some other distribution with a corporate support offering, no support whatsoever with trying to make things work that aren’t pre-canned apps, and not even then sometimes. And while WINE has made gargantuan strides over the past few years, it’s incredibly brittle, exceptionally difficult to configure an app that isn’t listed within it’s community forums, and the slightest change can break it so badly that the only way to fix it is a full ‘nuke n pave over’ reinstall of the entire OS. (at least that was what I ran into trying to get both iTunes and Scrivener to both run on the same install…)
Yeah. Apple wants you to have an account for the app store, and all the other nonsense. I would not be surprised if they are collecting telemetry at some level as well.
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7 → 10 upgrade did keep downloading it, so you might have 11 stashed somewhere. You should be able to delete it, but I don’t know if you can stop it from downloading again.
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