this post was submitted on 13 May 2024
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Microsoft's announcement: "We are introducing a new Game Pass recommendation card on the Settings homepage. The Game Pass recommendation card on Settings Homepage will be shown to you if you actively play games on your PC. As a reminder – the Settings homepage will be shown only on the Home and Pro editions of Windows 11 and if you’re signed into Windows with your Microsoft account."

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[–] [email protected] 105 points 6 months ago (8 children)

What kind of therapy do I go to if I'm in an abusive relationship with my Operating System?

[–] [email protected] 23 points 6 months ago (1 children)

There are Ubuntu versions that look very similar to the Microsoft

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

Linux user for a long time, actually. I like Q4OS for myself, it's also Debian based and it puts very little in front of the user to start so I can customize a little more

[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

It's a group therapy called [email protected], we always have free seats!

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I heard they have specialized clinics in Antarctica for that situation.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

Penguin therapy for the win

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (4 children)

If you don't want to think about your computer and just want a tool to use there is Aurora. It's a variant of fedora but it uses an immutable file system which makes it super stable and reliable. If there are any issues you can easily roll back the entire os to a previous version.

This is true of all fedora atomic desktops. Aurora is a variant that takes it to the next level by making all updates and everything require as little human interaction as possible so you don't have to worry about how the computer runs and just use the computer for your actual tasks.

https://getaurora.dev/

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[–] [email protected] 64 points 6 months ago (8 children)

Ethically, if not legally, this is terrible, as are all other steps Microsoft has taken to force ads onto your computer.

Seriously, think about it. You own the hardware, right? And the OS is present to run the hardware, right? To do that, it needs to be able to perform various tasks without your specific approval, and that's fine, but using your bandwidth to download advertisements in the background, then using your computing cycles to force them in front of your eyes regardless of what you're using the computer for, is awfully questionable. I would go so far as to say it's a form of theft.

And no, ads on websites aren't comparable. You, the user, are actively opting to view a web page that carries ads. You are choosing to grant them access to your eyeballs and the resources used by your browser. But nobody is actively seeking to view ads through their operating systems, and they don't get anything in return (such as the content you went to that website for).

[–] [email protected] 22 points 6 months ago (3 children)

You want to advertise to me in the OS? Don't charge me $200 for the OS then!!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago (2 children)

The funny thing is, there isn’t even really a free OS with ads. At least none that I know of. Linux is open source and thus usually non commercial. Worst case you get a "please donate" the first time you log in. macOS is technically free (although you kinda subsidize it through the hardware, I suppose) and it doesn’t have ads and even chrome OS is ad free afaik. It’s really only Windows and some Android flavours, usually those running on very cheap chinese devices. And Samsung of course.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (4 children)

Ubuntu has ads, or at least takes money to have shortcuts to Amazon and the like

Edit: I might be wrong here, please read the replies

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago (1 children)

To my knowledge, this hasn't been the case for nearly a decade, after the backlash they received specifically for it.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago
[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

Ah right. Count on canonical to make my point moot.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (2 children)

IIRC macOS will sometimes beg you to subscribe for more iCloud disk space. Far better than Windows, but still an ad.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

This is what finally got me to switch to Linux years ago. Back when Virtual machines were relatively new I was messing around with them and hated having to scrounge for windows licenses to use in the VM's. (Back then you had to enter the CD Key to begin installing the OS, they didn't have trial periods, or 'activate later' options) started using Linux in VM's to try it out, and boom 15 years later, I'm never going back.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

What's interesting is that they haven't been enforcing antipiracy all that heavily.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

You can install any Linux distro other than Ubuntu if you don't want ads in your operating system.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I wasn't gonna say it, but yeah... I've been using Linux exclusively on my personal systems for more than 10 years. Every time I have to use Windows, it's almost physically painful. How the hell do people put up with that crap?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

They don't want to learn how to use their computer all over again. Some people really do prefer the devil they know

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Makes a body want to just pirate the absolute shit out of MS operating systems, doesn’t it?

On an unrelated note, I’ll just leave this here.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

They wouldn't need to show ads if everyone just used Edge, bought Office365 and played Xbox games.

This is a problem caused by the users.

  • Microsoft, probably
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[–] [email protected] 23 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I'm still on Win10, but the second I see yet another ad on my pro license, I'm wiping the drive. As long as I have some kind of choice, I will not run hostile operating systems on my own hardware.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (6 children)

Mint and popos will do the trick for most of the normie gamer needs fyi

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago

popos

i just realized that PopOS means butts in german...

i needed it in lowercase to see it, and i'm german...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

Over the last few months I’ve tried half a dozen Linux distros. PopOS has been the best so far for me. Plays the games, didn’t have to force the audio to work, and regular apps open way faster than even other Linux options, it is astonishing. I have used Linux on servers for ~30 years, and this is the first time I’ve been really comfortable on the desktop side.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

You're going to. Why not face reality right now.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Could these please stop dropping more ads on the ui🙄. That and forced copilot make loath using windows.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Embrace, extend, extinguish, enshittify.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 6 months ago
[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago (1 children)

How about Microsoft goes out back and fucks themselves.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

They'll do that for $14.99/mo

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago

makes me more and more happy i switched to linux. FUCK. WINDOWS.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Look at the corner between the four "paragraphs"... WHY? Please Microsoft align them properly

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago

They are busy at ads rather than improving anything.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I don't mind having ads in my face every day and being tracked constantly if it means I can play games with my friends for an hour a week.

  • Everybody, everytime someone mentions switching to Linux
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[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Jokes on them, I already have Game Pass.

(They're gonna make me switch to Linux, aren't they?)

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (5 children)

I actually feel bad for people on windows 11. People, please just switch to Linux already. There just isn't any real reason to stay on it anymore, and if you do you've got some ridiculous bullshit niche setup that 0.1% of people use. And for people on Nvidia just grab that Nvidia pop_os ISO for that idiot proof setup, seriously, there are no more excuses and it's really not any more difficult to use than Windows. Don't listen to people saying you have to open a terminal to do anything either, that's a straight up fucking lie, and if you really have to, then copy/paste is all you need to know.

If you have to use rtx and dlss to justify your overpriced graphics card, then there's AMD fsr that can be forced on damn near any game you want, it's not as good but it gets the job done, as for Ray tracing, come on...be real with yourself for 5 minutes, what game other than control has use Ray tracing in any meaningful way other than to look pretty?

Windows is just not worth the hassle anymore, wake the fuck up people.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (2 children)

My only concern is league of legends. is it possible to run from neobara in vm? worst case I lose league. actually that sounds like the best case

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

Don't play league, it's filled with psychological bullshit tricks to get you to keep playing. If you have to play a moba play dota 2, it's just a better game.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

You can’t play from VM

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (5 children)

I hate what Windows has become as well, but I primarily play COD with my friends and I don't see them moving to another game for my hatred of Windows.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (4 children)

entire home tab is just ad space and can be disabled
or just upgrade to enterprise, comes with no ms 365 ads and the home tab is disabled out of the box.
you'll get literally zero ads or bs like onedrive in built-in apps, and even anti features like ms account login can be disabled (os will just skip right to local account creation)

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