Yeah this. Fed up with sensationalist headlines that are far from reality. Us Lemmy users have a better understanding of what's going on but we shouldn't be falling for this journalism as it's nonsense.
I see no broken backs here. People have been composing songs about Bill Gates being a faggot (I'm not homophobic, that was just the climate back then) since he entered the general conscience. Microsoft being both clumsy and criminal has been the butt of too many jokes since Windows 95 at least.
I'm too young to remember anything older than 98SE, but I remember that when XP came out, people were complaining that it's slow ugly shit as compared to 2K, and it felt that if MS doesn't change the general direction, people will remain on older stuff or move to alternatives, Vista was hated so badly that everybody suddenly forgot the hate for XP, 7 was first advertised as something sky cool and impossible, then turned out to be kinda mundane, but usable. Actually with every Windows OS new brand there's an outrage. With every MS big news there's an outrage. They always deliver the opportunity.
TL;DR - Hoping that MS will kill itself is stupid.
The thing is, during the 95/98/ME/XP/Vista days Microsoft had less competition in the consumer computing space, smart phones weren't really a thing, and a PC was "the" way to get online. Nowadays everyone and their dog has an iPhone or Android device instead, and ever dwindling numbers of people even bother to have a PC anymore. So in modern times, there is a nonzero possibility that on a consumer level at least, Microsoft might finally slide into irrelevance. That's not to say they'll go out of business anytime soon, but they might not be able to remain the Microsoft we've known so far for too many more years.
Nerds use Linux. A lot of people who want to buy an off the shelf computer that "just works" buys a Mac. And everyone else just uses their phone for everything.
Microsoft doesn't actually do anything (except make the XBox, I guess) that non-corporate users give a shit about except "make computer machine go" and "stupid subscription ribbon bar program I need to use to open files work sends me."
This is why M$ has been so gung-ho about their path to enshittification in recent years, I'm sure. This is a profitability thing. They see the writing on the wall that just selling operating system and office suite licenses to rubes is not going to remain a profitable business model much longer. Instead, they have to scrape and datamine and sell adds and push subscriptions and all the rest of it for alternative recurring revenue, because no member of the public will willingly pay for a Windows license anymore. I sure as hell won't... If I need Windows, I'll pirate it. And there's no way they are shifting as many OEM licenses as they were in the early 2000's. People aren't buying computers like that anymore.
They make their money in azure now. AzureAD, cloud services, intune (managing win/mac/android even Linux). Windows and office are just hobby projects compared to the revenue those generate.
A couple years ago it wasn't thoroughly and transparently sucking off every bit of personal data it could get, and gearing up to put adds on the desktop on top of that.
Straw that broke the camel's back? Every vertebra in that camel's back has been smashed with a sledge hammer over the past 30 years.
Windows 95 was the last version I was excited about; Windows 98 SE was the last version of Windows I willingly purchased, and XP was the last one I willingly used. When they announced Win7, I downloaded Ubuntu 6.06, "Dapper Drake". Since then, Windows has only existed on my computers as pirated, virtual machines.
I think Windows 7 was good, and their last decent desktop OS before they started backporting Windows 10 garbage into it late in the lifecycle.
I'm in the same boat as you now. Earlier this year I'd had enough and there was no way I was going from my de-shittified Win10 Enterprise install to Win11. I'm on Tumbleweed for my main PC now.
My job is in the early stages of planning for updating everything to windows 11. I just got my testing VM with it the other day which is my first experience with it and I had an almost physical reaction to how bad the gui looks when I first logged in. I haven't even done anything with it and I already hate it.
On the other hand the Linux VM I set up at home to test my personal stuff out on has been going swimmingly.
I maintain one baremetal Windows install that gets fairly regular use. It's on a major OEM business class workstation with a legit Windows 10 pro license.
Recently, I had to wipe and reset and goddamn do they try and trick you into choosing all the worst spyware settings AND even if you successfully duck and weave past them, they'll just cheat and enable them, or reinstall shit like co-pilot during an update.
They just made me sign into that shitty M365 app to install a legit subscription of Office, and on the next reboot, it converted the local user account into an online user account.
Make no mistake, Recall is going to be enabled by hook, or by crook, for the vast majority of Windows 11 users in due time. No matter how many times they disable it, or opt out.
Yup. We’re back to the old days where Microsoft didn’t give a damn and enabled things by default.
It’ll take less than a decade before they get sued, yet again. By then, the penalty will be <5% of what they’ve made, but the merry go round will circle back and start all over.
I don't even care if it's opt-in. I don't want dormant malware on my PC either.
To be clear. I actually like Windows 11. I don't care about the general telemetry, though I disabled the typing data crap. Most of the things in the last few months about ads in Windows, about blocking apps, etc have been overblown and aren't actually big problems in isolation. Even this is a little overblown right now as it requires an NPU which the vast majority of systems don't have. But, this is just so tone-deaf and an obviously terrible idea that it needs to be put down hard.
Most of the things in the last few months about ads in Windows, about blocking apps, etc have been overblown and aren't actually big problems in isolation.
Any telemetry sent without a very clearly informed opt in is malicious. Any ad in an OS is malicious. There is no valid justification for either.
It's also important to remember that Microsoft has no monetary incentive to force people to use Windows Recall.
With that in mind, there would be no reason for Microsoft to automatically enable Windows Recall in an update down the line. If it does happen, the user will be able to instantly tell thanks to that that visual indicator and turn it off again.
This article is nothing but propaganda. There is huge monetary incentive to force people to use Windows Recall and collect their data, and Microsoft routinely uses Windows Update to enable data collection. They began that practice years ago on Windows 7. It's a ridiculously simple matter for MS to disable the visual indicator and force This Week's Plan on their users to monetize their data.
Windows Central pretends to be critical of plans to enable a feature that can be made into malware by Microsoft in a couple of minutes, but then back peddles and says it can't be done (utter BS) and if it could be, it wouldn't be that bad.
There is no way I'm going to use a machine where they can turn on something remotely through a update or some other fashion. I probably won't even have a 11 vm at home now. I'll keep the 10 vm for its minor uses until it can no longer do the few things I use it for but that is it for me. Remove that garbage or lose more of us macroshaft.
It boggles the mind this isn't an external download you have to specifically navigate to their website to download and install. The fact it is soon to be on Win 11 systems, just a toggle away, is terrifying. Particularly since lots of people handle your personal data, while data collectors like this are on their machines (and many of those machines will have the collector turned on).
I wish, now have a i9-14900KF, so guessing no more Windows 10 anymore. Planning to make a Linux partition, but frustrating the way that Windows tries so adamantly to take boot priority.
As expected, there is no evidence that this is "the straw that broke the camel's back". Don't waste your time reading this article.
MS has been doing this kind of shit for decades and their market share has never changed significantly.
Was it stupid? Yeah. Are people upset? Sure. Is anyone going to do anything about it? No, because the vast majority don't care or they would have stopped using it a long time ago.
I had dabbled in gaming on Linux but never made the jump. After reading about recall I spent a week making my choice on OS of choice ( and then I switched a week after :') ).
I'm fully on Linux now. Even if they fully back down from windows recall I dont need an OS that's trying to sell me something based on whatever I do in it.
It was my final straw as well.
Edit: and it hasn't really been bad either. The shader compilation after every gfx driver update is a bit annoying. That's about it.
I'll probably run into something at one point. Like some anti cheat that doesn't work and is preventing me from playing the game.
I ended up with nobara ( KDE ). Though if i had to reinstall I might give bazzite a go.
No hate for nobara though. It's working fine gaming wise. Had a gfx issue once after an update, which was resolved by just running the nobara system updater.
I have some issues getting devpods to work. But that is completely unrelated to gaming :D
A couple people recommended Fedora spins but I'd recommend just sticking with the big distros (that have up-to-date graphics drivers readily available - so not Debian.) A lot of the gaming-focused distros are only saving you a few terminal commands and increase your risk of running into issues; they're good, but they may not be as 100% stable as you'll find in major long-running distros like Fedora or Mint.
I have settled on Fedora with KDE Plasma. Here's basically everything I copy pasted for gaming:
I get that. And, playing the devil's advocate here....what happens in a couple of years when the time comes to purchase a new Laptop/desktop that comes pre-installed with Windows? Will your current ire and consternation hold up until then, meaning you'll take the effort...long after this current "trust crisis" is over...to install Linux once again. Or, with this current scandal a faint memory from a few years back, will you just kind of shrug and say "Hey...it's there, I might as well just go with it."
I mean no offense, and I by know means want to presume your answer here. But I'd be willing to bet 90% of the people who, in a pique of ire, replace their current windows with a linux distro, won't bother to do the same when they purchase a new laptop down the road.
Installing Linux is a pretty trivial process at this point. Not much additional work beyond what already comes with setting up a new laptop. Especially of you've already done it before.
But I'd be willing to bet 90% of the people who, in a pique of ire, replace their current windows with a linux distro, won't bother to do the same when they purchase a new laptop down the road.
Linux is superior to Windows. Not only do I get more done and faster, I enjoy the process much more. For example, you know AHK? That useful application on Windows where you can make macros?
Well, on base Fedora you have an AHK built right into the system without any modification and you can use shell scripts- aka a real language instead of the wonky AHK language.
That's one example. I can list them off rapid fire but I'd just write a wall of text unnecessarily.
My point is just that Linux is better. I don't use Linux because it's cool or interesting or I'm a hobbyist or anything like that. I use it because it's the better option for the things I do on my computer.
That may be different for you. If you are a graphic designer or a music producer that may be different. But I'm usually in a terminal and Unix is the superior terminal. Windows terminal is such a joke they literally had to port in the Linux terminal through WSL
the vast majority don’t care or they would have stopped using it a long time ago
It's a little disingenuous to claim people should've stopped using something that hasn't come to market yet. I was looking for other options when they started trying to force me to upgrade to Windows 11, but this absolutely is the last straw that I won't use Windows on my next computer.
the vast majority don’t care or they would have stopped using it a long time ago
Try reading the sentence with this implied bit explicitly added. I'm pretty sure this is what was intended, and is why you are getting the response you are.
the vast majority don’t care (about Microsoft's continuous bullshit) or they would have stopped using it a long time ago
The bit I added is communicated by the context from the preceeding sentence in the original comment:
MS has been doing this kind of shit for decades and their market share has never changed significantly.
I haven't found a suitable replacement yet. I know this is somewhat niche but nothing on Linux can do batch management of Keywords as well as Bridge or Lightroom. I wish I knew anything about C to contribute.
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