You estimate how many people use computers and how many people use computers you make. When you subtract the two, you get how many people use computers that your competitors make.
Not every “internal metric” is something you can measure directly.
Not a fan of the analogy, I like to think that would be her own decision, not her partner's.
Anyway, companies are capitalist entities, so all that ultimately matters for them is to make more money. The majority of decisions happen along the axis of short term revenue vs long term revenue (e.g. not ruining your brand, not getting fined etc).
In an environment of insecurity and fear, I've seen companies focus more on the short term, since it's less speculative. But it sure doesn't look very good from the outside.
The difference is that Google has come under enough historical privacy flak that they now aggressively privacy red-team new functionality like this and do things like make it opt-in.
There are various unexpected limitations a given Windows experience can have.
Recently someone’s laptop broke while visiting the Mexican beach I was living so they bought a laptop from the local shop. The Windows install was in Spanish and the language options offered no other language to choose from. All of the tutorials online showed menu options that weren’t there. I tried helping them change it to English.
Apparently, for some reason, Microsoft really does offer single language Windows—I found after some digging.
You still can change language in single language Windows, but it requires a lot of registry changes and restarts. Also technically it breaks the licence.
> Base UX is excellent, lots of settings and they’re easy to find. Vertical tab bar, profiles, and it all Just Works. I flat out love its “turn this website into a desktop app” feature.
IMO this is one of the great tragedies with MS Edge. The UX is so much better than standard chromium but because of all the other crap that MS puts into it, I just can't use it. If MS open sourced Edge and someone created an "UnMicrosofted Edge", I would use that in a heartbeat.
Currently the only place I use it is on my work laptop where I don't have any personal info and just generally don't give a crap about privacy since I'm inside my company intranet, bitbucket or jira all day. It's honestly really great for that sort of thing because the vertical tabs let you have 50+ tabs open and still read what they are, but there's just no way I would use it for anything personal or outside of work.
I think a lot of the glitchiness had to do with the tab bar changing size if you didn't have the bookmarks bar always on or always off. That's fixed now, and the tabs look pretty, too.
Is there an actual example of what these "enhanced" spell-checkers provide over basic ones that run locally? To me it seems like spell checking is a problem that Word from over a decade ago solved well enough (and ran fine on that era's hardware).
A normal local spellcheck requires you to be much closer to the word than an "enhanced" one. As an example, if I search Google for "nucrusift" ("microsoft", but typed with my right hand one space to the left, a fairly common category of typo IME), it suggests a search for "Microsoft". The built-in spellcheck in Chrome (which I'm using to type this comment) does not offer any suggestions to correct "nucrusift".
I just tried for myself, and that was the keyboard's auto-complete, not the OS's spell-check, a subtle but IMO important difference. I think it's reasonable to expect the keyboard to catch that kind of typo, given it inherently has to do that kind of fuzzy logic to determine words anyway.
When I entered that same string into iOS Safari in a text box replying to your comment, deliberately bypassing the keyboard's auto-complete, it had no suggestions.
Marking unrecognized words, suggesting spellings, and auto correct are 3 different features if you want to split hairs. The distinction is not relevant to the claim a layout aware suggestion could not be produced locally.
I didn't say it could not be produced locally. I was just providing "an actual example of what these "enhanced" spell-checkers provide over basic ones that run locally." I'm merely speaking to what is, not what could be.
They use ngrams[0] and provide much more current dictionaries that won't flag non-dictionary words that are popular phases (think Urban Dictionary-like words/phases). The closest thing to something like Grammarly, Microsoft Editor, or Google's Enhanced spell check that you can run locally is Language Tool's local HTTP (java) server[1] combined with the Language Tool extension, and installing an ngram database[2]. But that won't give you the up-to-date phase information and you'll get red-squiggles under common phases that aren't dictionary words yet (e.g. Fluffernutter, Copypasta, Deplatform, et al).
Is it worth using these services given the privacy implications? Only you can answer that. I personally wish we had better local offerings, but I just don't think anyone wants to fund it when there's almost no revenue to be made.
OS X is slowly backsliding, too. It's not as bad as showing literal advertisements in the OS, but they're also trying to unify their mobile and laptop/desktop experiences, and it results in a worse experience on my laptop.
I think I'm about two OSX upgrades away from switching to a *nix OS as my daily driver, though I don't know what I'll do for some niche software like Clip Studio Paint.
That’s because it is. There’s Consumer Microsoft and Enterprise Microsoft. Enterprise Microsoft products are mostly really great. Anything that’s tied to the consumer side can’t make its returns on fat B2B contracts, so they are forced to extract value otherwise.
TurkishPoptart's post is pretty much 100% contrary to my own experience. Teams is a huge resource hog, but switching between desktop and mobile participation is smooth and convenient and the app's never crashed for me.
> I don’t understand why MS doesn’t get some sort of internal revolt.
From whom? They've got two customer bases:
- corporate clients, who get this stuff removed, either as part of the purchase or by their various sysadmins who get paid to secure the purchased laptops
- personal clients, who purchase desktops and laptops pre-loaded with Windows, and could no more opt out of using it than I could opt out of using electricity in my house.
re: "corporate clients, who get this stuff removed"...
I am currently at a Fortune 100 company and only wish my IT department would keep up with / disable all the ways automated MS(N) news feeds keep cropping up via Edge and Windows default behaviors, sometimes seemingly as part of automated updates.
Every time I think I have turned one off, there is yet another way Microsoft enables some kind of news feed in its system by default.
I have been through three rounds of exploring how to disable these sort of features in the last 6 months with windows 10+edge, and resent the time I have to spend trawling and searching how to turn each particular money grab off.
I really don't want the distraction at work, thank you!
P.S. Edge has been slightly more stable (and memory-efficient with many tabs?) under low-memory conditions than Chrome so I ended up starting to use it to avoid reboots at times. Wake up Google!
Same, every time I run windows update on my lab with 22+ computers somehow (to no one's real surprise) OneDrive reappears, Edge keeps getting reset as my default PDF viewer on the regular (acrobat reader DC is installed), and lately the search bar added a bing icon to access AI search.
As usual, figuring out how to disable it took an exercise in asking "what would I call this feature if I didn't want anyone to find it and disable it".
I hate that I have so much OS specific software, definitely heading towards setting up a test computer with Linux to see how much I can get to work. It will be harder than it sounds but some of this stuff is legacy executables from Windows XP so getting them to run on Windows 11 might be just as much of a stretch.
> … "definitely heading towards setting up a test computer with Linux to see how much I can get to work."
I've personally been on Linux since my Windows XP / Windows 7 days (used to dual-boot before gaming on Linux got hella easier). I learned that the secret to successfully sticking with Linux as a "daily driver" is to stay fully aware that it's not Windows, and trying to forcefully shoe-horn it into Windows-like habits is a recipe for reinstall.
First and most important Windows habit to break is downloading your software from random websites. Install everything from your Linux distro's "package manager" (basically similar to an "app store" on other operating systems, except it has nearly all of the software available for Linux in it). Only install software from outside the package manager when you've no other option available.
Secondly, you should not generally be trying to find ways to run your Windows software under Linux for the most part (unless there happens to be a Linux-native version available), but rather seek out alternatives to the software you'd normally use. Instead of seeking out programs by name or brand, seek out software by the task it performs. Look for the Linux program that does the task you need done (example; Instead of wasting time trying to figure out how to install PhotoShop on Linux to alter or create an image, try out GIMP or Krita).
The "easy-mode" way to find these software alternatives is this nifty website https://alternativeto.net/ - where you can search the name of a program you know does the task you need, and you'll get a list of similar software that does that task. You can then further filter the search results by software license, operating system, and other details. Also handy for finding neat software for your phone or tablet as well.
Anyhow, you absolutely should not be afraid to follow through on your thought to give Linux a try. It ain't nearly the same beast it was way back when I first started using it. It's generally for the most part easier to work with than Windows (and sometimes even easier than Mac), and it's lighter on system resources and runs on a wider range of hardware. You may find you enjoy it enough to install it on your entire network, as I have. Hell, I don't even keep a Windows virtual machine around anymore, thanks to WINE (and Valve/Steam's Proton fork of it) making even that need mostly obsolete for me.
Thanks for the advice, I've used Linux on my own computer for twenty years.
What I don't know is if I can get legacy LabVIEW code, hundred thousand dollar equipment with drivers designed for windows XP, and obnoxious stuff like microscope camera drivers and software to work.
No games thankfully (or not, I suppose, games on Linux work fine for me).
Almost all of it was already disabled on my work computer (...months since I booted Windows...), and most of settings were completely disabled due to group policy.
No. In many places getting consent by deceptive/malicious means is illegal, and EULAs cannot override laws. That's why Google's cookie popups now have a "reject all" button after a $170 million fine.
Interestingly, when I booted up a Win10 VM (with internet access) a few weeks ago some Edge window appeared, took over the screen, and wanted to force me to go through their preferences/setup wizard.
By "force" I mean "giving no other options". No "skip", "do it later" (or similar), and no way to quit.
Had to outright kill the task in the windows process manager, as there's zero chance I want anything to do with Edge.
So "don't use the software" is workable for people who know how to kill tasks.
But MS will be pulling that shit on average consumers too.
Well I have an EULA in my living room closet that allows everyone who wants to complain. If you don’t agree you can find my closet and write your name on the exception list. You must use Cyrillic letters.
Yes, have us let tech giants see how much dystopian shit they can get away with without any kind of pushback because their ToS has a vague remark at page 30 that might grant them the ability to do so. That is the kind of future we want.
Your analogy is good but I disagree with your principle.
Companies need to make money (if you don't accept this premise, fair rough but we probably have no further meaningful discussion).
I'm OK if they offer me options. Here's a free / cheap option that's ad supported, here's a premium option that has no ads.
This is a good choice! It's a good choice for all! It's when we don't have that choice that things suck! And if we want free things with no ads, that option exists too! :-)
Microsoft is using dark patterns and is gaslighting its customers about it.
The honest thing to do here is for Microsoft to leave the option visible but show a big ugly error window when lesser users try to change the setting. That way, people won't waste their time trying to fix something they're not allowed to fix.
Look, I don’t even know for sure if this is a Home vs Pro thing. I’m just deducting that from the comments here. I’m not arguing against the virtues of an ad-supported software product, I’m arguing against the obscenely braindead way Microsoft is executing it.
If there were a free ad-supported Windows and a paid ad-free (and news-free!) Windows I’d be a happy paying customer.
Even if the main purpose of people powering on their desktop PCs is not reading the news, I'm sure many (if not most) will still go through the news before, during and/or after they do the main activity they set out to do.
Edit: I'm extremely skeptical of this claim. The capitalization of "Web3" isn't consistent, most of the text reads like it hasn't been reviewed/edited. Seems fake to me.
Edit again: there are several more screenshots, many of which contain glaring typos. This is almost certainly fake.
I am using edge as I like the vertical tabs… the only browser that has this feature, kind of, is Safari; but safari extensions suck (if you tried to ever build one, you would understand why).
It’s otherwise very user hostile but just I love the vertical tabs so much
I've been using vertical tabs in Firefox for longer than Edge existed. Currently I'm using the treestyle tabs extension, but there are others.
I find it interesting how we have a perfectly viable alternative in Firefox, but even many privacy informed users still promote Edge or Chrome. The author is a perfect example of this, he says he wants to box his "privacy exposure" to as few companies as possible. That would somehow make sense if all "companies" (in the broadest sense) were equal, but Firefox is made by a non for profit with the explicit goal of keeping the Internet free and private. And for the argument regarding Apple, Apple is perfectly happy to milk you for all your private data as well, they just keep it all to themselves. Why else the locking to their ecosystem.
Right there with you. Somewhere in my comment history here six years ago was my suggestion for Microsoft to give up on Internet Explorer and create their own fork of Chromium.
They could’ve gotten massive adoption if they did it right. Instead I had to turn off their useless auto-coupon feature, be ever vigilant to keep them from switching my search provider to Bing, frequently turn off the distracting new tab content, etc.
Switched to Firefox and planning to dual-boot Windows 11 and Ubuntu soon.
> Switched to Firefox and planning to dual-boot Windows 11 and Ubuntu soon.
It doesn't help Microsoft apparently also managed to make dual boot more difficulty. Some years ago it was quite seamless, you could rely on automatic partition and it just worked. Today windows messes with the Linux bootloader after install, and to make it work I have to resort to advanced partition mode.
Windows doesn't support multiple EFI System Partitions on one system¹, and it will nuke the default EFI boot image (bootx64.efi) on the ESP it uses whenever it updates or does startup repair. So if you do this make sure you have configured the Linux system to write EFI variables and know that if you ever clear them, you may lose the ability to boot Linux until you perform a repair.
Dual booting sucks. Don't do it, especially if you're new to Linux.
Sounds like you'll have to trouble managing your bootloaders should they break, and you might even enjoy learning some quirks about how both Windows and your distro of choice treat the ESP.
It's always seemed to me that dual-booting sucks because Microsoft ensure it sucks. Basically every one who wants to have a Linux distro and Windows on the same box has to work around MS being a dick. Their hope is that you give up and stick with Windows, presumably. It just makes me more keen not to use Windows.
> It's always seemed to me that dual-booting sucks because Microsoft ensure it sucks.
Up to W7 it was quite well behaved. Afterwards, it was like Microsoft ensured there was debris clogging the emergency exits before setting the whole building on fire, to make hard for people to escape. Now W11 is full of dark patterns and tracking, and dual-boot is broken. Beginners lost a easy way to get their feet wet on Linux without upfront commitment to a full switch.
Buy a second SSD, install linux and duel boot by switching UEFI boot option. You can even reboot into UEFI from windows and Linux. It's about as easy as it gets with minimal effort. Or you can setup an efi bootloader on Linux disk that allows you to launch windows instead. These days duel booting is easier than ever, duel booting via a single hard drive has always been a clumsy way to do it.
This was my reply to the recently flagged article showing a graph of the decline in percentage for Windows' desktop share of the market. I think it was flagged due to questionable consideration of mobile OS's.
But it did visually show a marked decline over the most recent year and a half or so, which may be a realistic indicator even if not pefectly accurate numerically.
Looks like the downturn accelerated to its current more-rapid decline right after the release of the latest Windows 11 22H2 version in late 2022.
This would have been the time the true enthusiasts, who were hoping for some respite from user hostility and compromised privacy, could finally be giving up for good.
And it doesn't look like Windows 11 relented at all, when it comes to expanding its support for more older PC hardware than it did with its original release which was so misguided in this respect. Plus more dark patterns in things like online account approach.
So now that it's even more plain to see how much faster it's getting worse, even the users who embraced Windows 10 have finally had enough.
Now my opinion is based on professional use of W11 since its initial preview.
As always, the product of some absolutely outstanding engineers at Microsoft, some of whom add wonderfully to the discussions on HN.
But somehow or another, even the most excellent code is still getting Ballmerized by a vestige of the corp that seems to still be in position to compromise "what could have been" before it gets a chance to be considered or deployed by users.
Also anecdotally I was the only one using Windows 11 when I presented at a conference a week after W11 was released back in 2021. Didn't notice a single other one this year either.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 290 ms ] threadNot every “internal metric” is something you can measure directly.
Anyway, companies are capitalist entities, so all that ultimately matters for them is to make more money. The majority of decisions happen along the axis of short term revenue vs long term revenue (e.g. not ruining your brand, not getting fined etc).
In an environment of insecurity and fear, I've seen companies focus more on the short term, since it's less speculative. But it sure doesn't look very good from the outside.
Recently someone’s laptop broke while visiting the Mexican beach I was living so they bought a laptop from the local shop. The Windows install was in Spanish and the language options offered no other language to choose from. All of the tutorials online showed menu options that weren’t there. I tried helping them change it to English.
Apparently, for some reason, Microsoft really does offer single language Windows—I found after some digging.
IMO this is one of the great tragedies with MS Edge. The UX is so much better than standard chromium but because of all the other crap that MS puts into it, I just can't use it. If MS open sourced Edge and someone created an "UnMicrosofted Edge", I would use that in a heartbeat.
Currently the only place I use it is on my work laptop where I don't have any personal info and just generally don't give a crap about privacy since I'm inside my company intranet, bitbucket or jira all day. It's honestly really great for that sort of thing because the vertical tabs let you have 50+ tabs open and still read what they are, but there's just no way I would use it for anything personal or outside of work.
I haven’t had too many problems with Edge myself. I use Kagi for search without issue. Don’t see any native ads. It’s fine.
I believe Ooshutup like tools can help up to a certain extent.
When I entered that same string into iOS Safari in a text box replying to your comment, deliberately bypassing the keyboard's auto-complete, it had no suggestions.
Is it worth using these services given the privacy implications? Only you can answer that. I personally wish we had better local offerings, but I just don't think anyone wants to fund it when there's almost no revenue to be made.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-gram
[1] https://dev.languagetool.org/http-server.html
[2] https://dev.languagetool.org/finding-errors-using-n-gram-dat...
your browser probably updates itself every week or so.
there is absolutely nothing about these kinds of services that require running them on someone else's computer, save for conspiratorial reasons.
see also: machine translation (apple offline translate, firefox translations et al work just fine on your machine).
They force you into their workflows or design conventions, but they were generally good or at least bearable.
Whatever good taste Microsoft had, it evaporated shortly after the release of Windows 7.
I think I'm about two OSX upgrades away from switching to a *nix OS as my daily driver, though I don't know what I'll do for some niche software like Clip Studio Paint.
https://krita.org/en/ is probably the closest one, it's open source and doesn't cost you a penny
I see you haven’t actually used Azure Devops. (Their “enterprise github”, sort of.)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32932137
You know it will happen.
Yes, except Windows 10, Office 365, Teams, Edge, Calculator, Settings.
Copying UI from Google tells a lot about the spirit at Microsoft.
From whom? They've got two customer bases:
- corporate clients, who get this stuff removed, either as part of the purchase or by their various sysadmins who get paid to secure the purchased laptops
- personal clients, who purchase desktops and laptops pre-loaded with Windows, and could no more opt out of using it than I could opt out of using electricity in my house.
edit: I don't read good, nevermind.
I am currently at a Fortune 100 company and only wish my IT department would keep up with / disable all the ways automated MS(N) news feeds keep cropping up via Edge and Windows default behaviors, sometimes seemingly as part of automated updates.
Every time I think I have turned one off, there is yet another way Microsoft enables some kind of news feed in its system by default.
I have been through three rounds of exploring how to disable these sort of features in the last 6 months with windows 10+edge, and resent the time I have to spend trawling and searching how to turn each particular money grab off.
I really don't want the distraction at work, thank you!
P.S. Edge has been slightly more stable (and memory-efficient with many tabs?) under low-memory conditions than Chrome so I ended up starting to use it to avoid reboots at times. Wake up Google!
As usual, figuring out how to disable it took an exercise in asking "what would I call this feature if I didn't want anyone to find it and disable it".
I hate that I have so much OS specific software, definitely heading towards setting up a test computer with Linux to see how much I can get to work. It will be harder than it sounds but some of this stuff is legacy executables from Windows XP so getting them to run on Windows 11 might be just as much of a stretch.
I've personally been on Linux since my Windows XP / Windows 7 days (used to dual-boot before gaming on Linux got hella easier). I learned that the secret to successfully sticking with Linux as a "daily driver" is to stay fully aware that it's not Windows, and trying to forcefully shoe-horn it into Windows-like habits is a recipe for reinstall.
First and most important Windows habit to break is downloading your software from random websites. Install everything from your Linux distro's "package manager" (basically similar to an "app store" on other operating systems, except it has nearly all of the software available for Linux in it). Only install software from outside the package manager when you've no other option available.
Secondly, you should not generally be trying to find ways to run your Windows software under Linux for the most part (unless there happens to be a Linux-native version available), but rather seek out alternatives to the software you'd normally use. Instead of seeking out programs by name or brand, seek out software by the task it performs. Look for the Linux program that does the task you need done (example; Instead of wasting time trying to figure out how to install PhotoShop on Linux to alter or create an image, try out GIMP or Krita).
The "easy-mode" way to find these software alternatives is this nifty website https://alternativeto.net/ - where you can search the name of a program you know does the task you need, and you'll get a list of similar software that does that task. You can then further filter the search results by software license, operating system, and other details. Also handy for finding neat software for your phone or tablet as well.
Anyhow, you absolutely should not be afraid to follow through on your thought to give Linux a try. It ain't nearly the same beast it was way back when I first started using it. It's generally for the most part easier to work with than Windows (and sometimes even easier than Mac), and it's lighter on system resources and runs on a wider range of hardware. You may find you enjoy it enough to install it on your entire network, as I have. Hell, I don't even keep a Windows virtual machine around anymore, thanks to WINE (and Valve/Steam's Proton fork of it) making even that need mostly obsolete for me.
What I don't know is if I can get legacy LabVIEW code, hundred thousand dollar equipment with drivers designed for windows XP, and obnoxious stuff like microscope camera drivers and software to work.
No games thankfully (or not, I suppose, games on Linux work fine for me).
Certainly worth testing, but the general advice above isn't going to help with the special software for the instruments.
It's amazing that this stuff gets added without thought of consequence.
https://www.techdirt.com/2012/04/23/to-read-all-privacy-poli...
By "force" I mean "giving no other options". No "skip", "do it later" (or similar), and no way to quit.
Had to outright kill the task in the windows process manager, as there's zero chance I want anything to do with Edge.
So "don't use the software" is workable for people who know how to kill tasks.
But MS will be pulling that shit on average consumers too.
https://tosdr.org/
The about page says it started in June 2012, shortly after that techdirt article.
Companies need to make money (if you don't accept this premise, fair rough but we probably have no further meaningful discussion).
I'm OK if they offer me options. Here's a free / cheap option that's ad supported, here's a premium option that has no ads.
This is a good choice! It's a good choice for all! It's when we don't have that choice that things suck! And if we want free things with no ads, that option exists too! :-)
The honest thing to do here is for Microsoft to leave the option visible but show a big ugly error window when lesser users try to change the setting. That way, people won't waste their time trying to fix something they're not allowed to fix.
Source: This happened to me, a now Linux user.
If there were a free ad-supported Windows and a paid ad-free (and news-free!) Windows I’d be a happy paying customer.
https://twitter.com/thebookisclosed/status/16367594878299176...
Edit: I'm extremely skeptical of this claim. The capitalization of "Web3" isn't consistent, most of the text reads like it hasn't been reviewed/edited. Seems fake to me.
Edit again: there are several more screenshots, many of which contain glaring typos. This is almost certainly fake.
> Our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.
It’s disappointing to see them working against their own mission like this…
It’s otherwise very user hostile but just I love the vertical tabs so much
I find it interesting how we have a perfectly viable alternative in Firefox, but even many privacy informed users still promote Edge or Chrome. The author is a perfect example of this, he says he wants to box his "privacy exposure" to as few companies as possible. That would somehow make sense if all "companies" (in the broadest sense) were equal, but Firefox is made by a non for profit with the explicit goal of keeping the Internet free and private. And for the argument regarding Apple, Apple is perfectly happy to milk you for all your private data as well, they just keep it all to themselves. Why else the locking to their ecosystem.
I disliked how Brave includes all the crypto nonsense when I tried it last. Yes you can turn it off, but you can say that about Edge too.
https://twitter.com/thebookisclosed/status/16367594878299176...
(Also, use the Brave Beta. It seems that some key fixes haven't gotten to Stable yet)
Apparently Brave has it now though.
Right there with you. Somewhere in my comment history here six years ago was my suggestion for Microsoft to give up on Internet Explorer and create their own fork of Chromium.
They could’ve gotten massive adoption if they did it right. Instead I had to turn off their useless auto-coupon feature, be ever vigilant to keep them from switching my search provider to Bing, frequently turn off the distracting new tab content, etc.
Switched to Firefox and planning to dual-boot Windows 11 and Ubuntu soon.
It doesn't help Microsoft apparently also managed to make dual boot more difficulty. Some years ago it was quite seamless, you could rely on automatic partition and it just worked. Today windows messes with the Linux bootloader after install, and to make it work I have to resort to advanced partition mode.
https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/drivers/iwlwifi
Dual booting sucks. Don't do it, especially if you're new to Linux.
--
1: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-clien...
I’m gonna give it a go. I first installed Linux from a shareware CD I purchased from my local Micro Center in 1996.
Still remember Slackware fondly! And qmail - great email program.
Have fun! May the source be with you ;)
Up to W7 it was quite well behaved. Afterwards, it was like Microsoft ensured there was debris clogging the emergency exits before setting the whole building on fire, to make hard for people to escape. Now W11 is full of dark patterns and tracking, and dual-boot is broken. Beginners lost a easy way to get their feet wet on Linux without upfront commitment to a full switch.
[1] https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys
But it did visually show a marked decline over the most recent year and a half or so, which may be a realistic indicator even if not pefectly accurate numerically.
Looks like the downturn accelerated to its current more-rapid decline right after the release of the latest Windows 11 22H2 version in late 2022.
This would have been the time the true enthusiasts, who were hoping for some respite from user hostility and compromised privacy, could finally be giving up for good.
And it doesn't look like Windows 11 relented at all, when it comes to expanding its support for more older PC hardware than it did with its original release which was so misguided in this respect. Plus more dark patterns in things like online account approach.
So now that it's even more plain to see how much faster it's getting worse, even the users who embraced Windows 10 have finally had enough.
Now my opinion is based on professional use of W11 since its initial preview.
As always, the product of some absolutely outstanding engineers at Microsoft, some of whom add wonderfully to the discussions on HN.
But somehow or another, even the most excellent code is still getting Ballmerized by a vestige of the corp that seems to still be in position to compromise "what could have been" before it gets a chance to be considered or deployed by users.
Also anecdotally I was the only one using Windows 11 when I presented at a conference a week after W11 was released back in 2021. Didn't notice a single other one this year either.
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