• LinkOpensChest.wav
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    7710 months ago

    There’s an alternate timeline in which I actually give Bing and Edge a chance because Microsoft’s not flinging their feces at their users constantly the way they are now

    • @[email protected]
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      3810 months ago

      It’s wild because Bing is generally quite good now, but I switched away from it recently because it kept trying to advertise edge…

      Meanwhile edge tries to advertise “pay later” schemes and really gets in your face about bing…

      • LinkOpensChest.wav
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        1210 months ago

        So to be honest, I did use Bing for a good while, mostly for the rewards, and it wasn’t bad, but at some point I was using a Canadian IP with a VPN, and Microsoft stubbornly switched everything to Canadian currency and would no longer let me redeem my rewards with US dollars or within the US lol. Honestly, it’s one thing that nudged me to start thinking more about using a search engine that’s not as problematic as Google or Bing.

        • @[email protected]
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          110 months ago

          Yeah I’ve had similar experiences with Microsoft switching my currency out of nowhere and it was weird…

          Recently been using Brave Search but in general I feel like there just aren’t any good search engines anymore?

      • @[email protected]
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        110 months ago

        It was a really good time when the new chromium edge just came out and was a lean, quick and bs-free browser with a few power user features.

    • @[email protected]
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      2310 months ago

      Until about maybe six months ago, Edge was great (please ignore the massive amount of data it sends to MS) as a browser. The user experience was top notch.

      Some product owner with shit for brains was hired and started cramming Bing and AI nonsense into every corner.

      MS needs to ease up, fast.

    • @[email protected]
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      1910 months ago

      The sad thing is that Edge is actually decent, and Bing is also not terrible… E.g. as an user there is absolutely no reason to use Chrome instead, but Microsoft managed to make it seem so annoying with shit like this.

      • Dee
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        610 months ago

        I’ve actually found Bing to be way better than Google for a while now. It’s not even close, idk what Google did to their search engine but it’s pretty frustrating. It’s all ads and irrelevant links.

        • LinkOpensChest.wav
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          410 months ago

          I’ve switched entirely to Startpage and SearXNG instances, and I’m having a much better time

    • @[email protected]
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      210 months ago

      I did that once. I’m Firefox and DuckDuckGo now. Love it. The difference in being served the internet and surfing the internet. Ha. Haven’t heard that term in a long time.

    • @sugar_in_your_tea
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      1110 months ago

      Yup, the only Microsoft product I use at home is GitHub, my home computer is Linux, and my work computer is macOS, so I just don’t see this BS.

        • @sugar_in_your_tea
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          1010 months ago

          Yeah it is, and that’s where I put my personal projects. But I like contributing to other FOSS projects, and most of those are in GitHub.

        • @[email protected]
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          210 months ago

          Codeberg too. Though I’m still using VSCode because for some reason no one in MS management has remembered that they need to make it awful yet.

    • @[email protected]
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      -210 months ago

      Yeah, it’s been a breeze since I moved into Apple ecosystem. Nothing really being shoved down your throat feels nice.

      • Call Me Mañana
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        20 days ago

        So you change from the payed system that advertises but at least still have the option to use other things to the free os/over priced device that doesn’t need to advertise since the only option is to use their shit? Really an improvement…

        CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

  • Jordan Lund
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    3610 months ago

    Outlook the other day insisted it was better opening links in Edge instead of my default browser… Yeah, I shut THAT down…

    • @[email protected]
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      710 months ago

      Tbf, they did recently (I think) implement a feature where Edge would open with the email in a sidebar when opening links from outlook. So at least there’s some point to it… if that’s a feature anyone actually wants…

    • @[email protected]
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      410 months ago

      Outlook devs also doesn’t know how the internet works. After all they use word as there email renderimg engine

    • @sugar_in_your_tea
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      210 months ago

      I don’t think I have ever seen that, but that could be because I only use Outlook on my work computer, which runs macOS. It looks like Edge works on macOS, but they don’t seem to be pushing it.

  • @[email protected]
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    2510 months ago

    Anyone else notice the search (in windows 10 at least) suddenly being fucking useless? Used to be able to just type “disk man” and it defaulted to the disk management control panel, now it’s defaulting to a Bing search (in edge of course even though Firefox is default browser) for the phrase… Tried it on like 4 computers and only one was even offering the control panel as an option and it wasn’t the first one. Same thing with “default apps”…

    Really glad I made the jump to Linux when I did, everytime I have to do something out of the usual user use case in windows at work I find myself more and more frustrated and jaded with windows.

    • ChaoticNeutralCzech
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      510 months ago

      Confirming this on (my sister’s installation of) Windows 11. Not even restore point would give me a result (switching to en-US at least found Reset my PC but still creating a restore point is nowhere to be found unless you know where to go from previous versions of Windows).

        • ChaoticNeutralCzech
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          10 months ago

          I actually installed Mint before going through the Windows OOBE. However, the laptop is so new that the touchpad, touchscreen and fingerprint sensor don’t work in kernels <6.5, and the Wi-Fi card in kernels below 6.0. Most distros ship with kernel 5.x and none have LTS versions with 6.5 (which only became stable this week). I am not nearly skilled enough to go with a non-mainstream or unstable distro. My sister will need Windows so I configured GRUB to boot that by default with 0.2 s hidden timeout and now I can’t boot to Linux at all. I’ll be reinstalling it anyway in a few months.

          That being said, Windows is also terrible. You can’t configure the fingers to only scroll and the active stylus to only draw in a note-taking program, the touchpad’s horizontal scrolling is reversed while the vertical is not, the handwriting recognition has not improved since my grandpa’s 2004 Windows Mobile PDA, there is a shitton of telemetry, and uninstalling Edge caused the fingerprint reader to stop working somehow. Without asking, it encrypted my storage with BitLocker (which I cannot configure because it’s not the Pro edition) and I had to enter two 48-digit codes to unlock the D: and E: partitions on each boot (thankfully I removed that). I would welcome encryption if it unlocked on Windows login and didn’t completely lock non-Microsoft account users on the same device from the storage partition. NumLock stays lit in Sleep mode or when the display is closed. Also the manufacturer CaReS aBoUt pRiVaCy and therefore included a camera cover but has a fucking persistent app that “monitors the system” and shows extended warranty popup ads, but is required to limit the battery charging voltage.

          And the internal PSU makes a maddening coil whine all the time but the company just said “manufacturing is difficult and we screwed up, just use headphones lol”. It could be fixed by some soft glue, foam or rubber around the inductors but I think I would lose the warranty over this.

          • @[email protected]
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            110 months ago

            Sounds like the biggest (only) issue is drivers, then? Most distros (mint too) have repositories for newer kernels,nyou can turn those. Should be fairly easy to setup

            • ChaoticNeutralCzech
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              110 months ago

              I have been warned against using Mainline due to instability. I will wait until a stable release, it’s my sister’s laptop anyway and I have another.

              • @[email protected]
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                110 months ago

                Mmm, as long as the kernels themselves are stable you should be fine. Worst case your computer won’t boot up and you simply boot back into the previous kernel

                • ChaoticNeutralCzech
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                  10 months ago

                  simply boot back into the previous kernel

                  That’s asking too much from somebody who cannot fix a screwed-up GRUB config from a Live USB (it took me several tries to successfully update-grub from the Mint installation, and the one time I succeeded, the config is wrong and I cannot boot into it: GRUB menu never shows up no matter what I press, and I set Windows as default for my noob sister). As I said, I’m not the primary user and I will now be mostly debloating and customizing Windows for her, after which she takes it to college. So working Linux is not on the agenda until Christmas at least, and I’ll put up with WSL (or my own laptop) until then.

    • @[email protected]
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      310 months ago

      I’ve had issues in the past where the local full text search index was broken and no apps or settings ever came up, so it only offered Bing searches for shit like “control panel”.

      There’s a way to clear it and force it to rebuild, but I’m not so sure this is the same problem that you’re describing since you’re seeing it on multiple computers at the same time.

  • @[email protected]
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    2210 months ago

    I’ll say it a million times if I have to

    Install Linux, take back your computer, get rid of the microshit problem

      • @[email protected]
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        210 months ago

        Which one? Because in today’s world nearly all games are supported unsupported games are exceedingly rare

      • Estebiu
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        -1510 months ago

        Send a letter to the game developers, and if they don’t plan on supporting linux, don’t play it. Simple as that.

          • @[email protected]
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            710 months ago

            Yeah proton still has a lot of limitations and workarounds to get many games working, so if you just want true plug-n-play you’re not going to be satisfied with that solution.

            • Dr. Bluefall
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              210 months ago

              Yeah, but I’d still argue that it’s a lot better than nothing, and we have Valve to thank for making a lot of Windows games actually playable on Linux.

              • @[email protected]
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                110 months ago

                Of course it’s better than nothing, at its definitely working OK, but gaming on Linux is still not quite good enough in terms of user experience. Average users don’t want to, and honestly they shouldn’t, debug just to play their game…

          • @[email protected]
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            210 months ago

            I am actually not sure this is correct. Voicing your opinion about wantong native support is a much better direction than trying to run a more and more accurate windows emulator.

          • Estebiu
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            010 months ago

            It’ll paobably take off, just not in our lifetimes.

  • @[email protected]
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    1810 months ago

    Windows 11 is malware . I’m older than yoda, I used windows all my life. Switched to fucking Mac last year which is shit, but iits not tracking my every move, is arguably not loaded with bloat, and nagging me about my choice of browser.

      • @[email protected]
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        710 months ago

        Yeah, one of things that stood out was how much Apple tries to push signing into account too. And compared to Linux doesn’t seem like you can use their App store without logging in on MacOS compared to Linux App Store.

      • @[email protected]
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        010 months ago

        At least I know it’s only Apple tracking me and selling that data to a only handful, premium ad agencies. With Microsoft and Google, I don’t have a faintest idea if any 13 yo bengali kid with fakest company name can bulk purchase my browser history or not.

    • @[email protected]
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      10 months ago

      Richard Stallman, who art the in freedom of software, hallowed be thy name; the kingdom of GNU come; thy will be done; on every machine as it is free.

      Give us this day our daily free softwares. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who touches macos. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from the scorched land of Microsoft.

      For free softwares are the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever.

      Richard Stallman wearing a halo, holding a book, looking like a christian saint

  • @RvTV95XBeo
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    1310 months ago

    Darn, beat me to it today, can I post this tomorrow?

    On a more relevant note:

    We are aware of these reports and have paused this notification while we investigate and take appropriate action to address this unintended behavior

    What is utter bullshit, Alex?

    • @[email protected]
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      410 months ago

      unintended behavior

      Who do they expect to believe this shit?

      Like “oops we accidentally injected ads into your browser”?

    • @[email protected]
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      310 months ago

      Is the explanation that this is unintended actually better than owning up to it? So some rogue employee can code this up, pass it through localization teams and then on to customers’ computers without any oversight? I’m somehow not calmed by that.

  • Tygr
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    1310 months ago

    Bing sucks. Their customer support is absolutely terrible. They blocked one of my sites and I can never get a response, so I just don’t bother with it (and don’t advertise there)

  • amio
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    10 months ago

    Edge* is fucking shitty, to boot. It keeps serving my grandma fucking scam ads, how in the ever-loving motherfuck is that a thing in an official Microsoft browser?

    • @sugar_in_your_tea
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      510 months ago

      Are you expecting a browser to filter search results for you? The blame should go to the search engine, and you should be using an ad blocker to boot.

      • amio
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        10 months ago

        [sass-reduced because having written the wrong damn thing, it’s my fault]

        • @sugar_in_your_tea
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          10 months ago

          Huh, I’ve never actually used Edge, so I assumed you were talking about Bing search results, since you said Bing served your grandmother ads.

          • amio
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            10 months ago

            Shit, I just noticed, that is what I said. And here I’m being all sassy. My bad - I did mean Edge of course.

            (Edge really is fucking awful though, so you’re lucky, I guess)

  • @[email protected]
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    1210 months ago

    Looks like Microsoft needs to be reminded about their anti trust case again. some things never change.

  • @[email protected]
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    1210 months ago

    If the screenshot in the article is to be believed, it literally has a typo, missing a quote for Don’t, which is usually one of the most common ways to spot suspicious activity and malware, and now, as someone working for an MSP, I have to now tell those users who see this that confusingly, yes this was legitimate and it was a Microsoft ad. The font isn’t exactly standard either, the buttons look like Arial which also just looks suspicious.

    • LinkOpensChest.wav
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      710 months ago

      Reminds me of that Facebook class action settlement that was legit, but it looked about as convincing as a ransomware screen

  • @[email protected]
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    810 months ago

    Can they also get google telling me to switch to chrome every time I open an email to become classed as malware

    • @[email protected]
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      210 months ago

      I don’t usually defend big corpos but compared to what Microsoft is doing, that small Chrome pop up is super minor