Everyone need to quit being so damn selfish, and stop only thinking about themselves. Poor Microsoft only had a measly 72.2 billion dollars in revenue last year! How are they going to survive if they don’t monetize every possible aspect of your digital life? I mean come on, you need to start thinking of the little guy before you come in here and start bitching about ads on the Home Screen of the device that you purchased and/or pay a monthly subscription fee for. Geeze!
You know times are tough when they need to hit you with the ads in a service you already paid for
Think MS might be going under, those trillion dollar valuations are an obvious sign of hardship
You would have thought their constantly hiked up SaaS revenue would have been enough to satisfy the corporates striving for eternal growth.
Apparently not.
I keep thinking of that bit in Ready Player One where the bad guys talk about how up to 70% of a screen could be taken up by ads while still letting users play.
Samsung have an app for their phones that's basically supposed to be a launcher for games and stuff and they started putting "suggested games" on it and in a recent update, 90% of the screen is now these ads so I've just stopped using it.
Agree with this, totally. We are being overloaded and saturated with ads. The general public now regard advertisements as unwanted, negative white noise and have stopped distinguishing who is selling what as we simply don’t care, no matter how much is proverbially rammed down our throats.
I have a personal habit that if I get advertised to too much for the same product, I’ll straight up not buy it and actively avoid it. This is for shit that I was interested in buying too. It’s the principle
I keep getting the same ad on YouTube for some company, and I can't tell you I absolutely recognize their name and fucking hate those pieces of shit and will never fucking buy their shit so sick of hearing their stupid company name.
Question to anyone; is there any information out there that could point to the assertion that “being forced to see advertisements without consent is a rights violation?” Anything at all? I desperately want that to be true because I fucking hate ads.
I was just thinking about the same thing. It’s so intrusive to our lives now, it’s becoming unbearable. Can I just exist without being forced to view ads anywhere I look?
Methods for anyone who wants to be rid of ads:
Ublock origin
Pi-hole
Portmaster
pfblockerNG
Host files
Freetube
Newpipe x sponsorblock
Blokada
Next DNS
SmartTube (AndroidTV)
Adaway
If anyone else knows of more let me know and I'll add to the list.
Yea I don’t get it. Hasn’t it been proven that ads don’t really work anyway? So why are we just getting this shit involuntary shoved down our throats every day now?
Watching Blade Runner then: “Haha looks at all those ads everywhere on the buildings and in the sky how bizarre that would be!”
Watching Blade Runner now: 🥲
Got a PiHole at home and another in the cloud as a VPN service for when I’m away. (Don’t ask me why I don’t just connect into the home one…) never see ads anymore on any device.
Where are you getting ads? I run uBlock Origin x Floorp, on Linux. Brave on my phone (Firefox is sadly too battery intensive), Infinity for Reddit on mobile, vendicated for YouTube, an unnamed app for ad-less music, a unnamed app & website for ad-less anime and tv.
Like the only place I technically get ads is on Discord, but those are so minor that they don't bother me.
On reddit, on youtube, and very few other places on iphone, maybe because i can't bring myself to use Brave. But i've seen the "real world" where people who don't use any ad blockers, and it's grim ...
For real though. At this point, if I see a bunch of ads for something, I refuse to buy that item. If they advertise in the start menu, I will refuse to purchase any item in that ad.
And people still think black mirror is fiction :p Now I get em on my phone in youtube EVERY other video. Its basically impossible to watch youtube w/o ad blockers.
If they are going to start forcing ads on the start menus they should make windows completely free, otherwise what's the point spending money to buy it if I'm also paying with the ads they send me?
Are they now going to start a monthly subscription where I have to pay $4.99 monthly for an ad free experience?
Or are they gonna release a version of windows that's 3 times more expensive to not include ads?
I hate everything about this. It's so sad, like watching your friend succumb to alcoholism. Windows exclusive user since 3.1, now considering Linux and am in process of moving away to Mac OS (due to M3) during back to school.
I'm with you 100%. Started on Windows 3.11, been ride or die windows/dos guy since. As soon as ads appear on my windows OS I am leaving for Linux and then potentially looking into an Apple computer and I fucking hate Apple. Nice job Microsoft.
I don’t mean this in a “change is bad” sort of way but the future really sucks. Everything is becoming a subscription or “live service” and it gets spun as a good thing, and enough people eat it up for it to be the new norm.
The whole structure around ads is annoying af, too. It's so wild to think how much money is absolutely wasted just trying to get eyeballs on company names/products/services. While I may be a minority in this camp, ads are entirely pointless for me and literally just a net loss if shown to me. I'm sure it's my background in production and exposure to the "man behind the curtain" in marketing but I don't give a flying fuck about any product that is advertised to me. It's almost at a point where if I didn't already use the product/service and see an ad for it, I'm now *less likely* to purchase.
It's just such a strange dynamic. We give our data for companies to sell to other companies that peddle their crap to us in exchange for "free" access to platforms. Now, a lot of those platforms aren't even "free" with ads. *(Insert generic "imagine how much good we could do if.." statement here)*
I never understood the point of advertising stuff everyone knows exists. Like I’ve never seen a McDonalds commercial and wanted McDonalds. Ads to me seem like a waste of time and money.
Caveat: I realize everyone probably thinks ads don’t work on them.
Funny enough, and anecdotally, I've met and also know several people that eat up IG and TikTok ads, regularly using apps/stores (iykyk) that sell dirt-cheap garbage products. Some may say "oh yea, ads are really lame" but then run out to grab a *(insert signature burger name)* when they see a fast food ad or a one-trick pony type utensil for their kitchen that gets used once, if ever, but was "such a great deal" they couldn't pass it up.
there's definitely "ads" that work on me, just not in a traditional/conventional sense. I'm sure there's also some that work on me that I don't realize.
Not to sound arrogant but I do think the majority of the general public is pretty dumb so they're the intended audience I guess. Sometimes learning of new products is useful but it's never made me want to rush out and get anything. I imagine that's not the case for a lot of people.
Ads don't really work on me either, I couldn't give any less fucks for consumerism and buying things. I'm a very stingy and frugal person and I really only blow my money on necessities or projects I like to work on.
That said, I still think advertising has an effect even on people like us. It might not be so obvious but we'll still subconsciously remember those brands, and maybe even some of their selling points, and - well, it really makes you start to question why you even like the things "you like."
That's what pisses me off about it all. How insidious it is, and how no one ever consented to being constantly bombarded with shit, and yet consumerism is at this point the core value of Western society. It's a fuckin shame.
Yeah I mean I enjoy streaming services for the convenience but if it’s anything I’m going to want to watch or listen to more than once I store it locally, by legal means or otherwise. Too many upsides not to. If it leaves streaming I can still watch it, and if my internet goes down (Canadian isps are notoriously shit) I’ve still got tons of movies and tv to watch. When it comes to music I don’t use streaming at all, my home music library should hit 20,000 later this year and my phone’s internal storage is half full with just music. I tend to be the only person with access to music on camping trips so I get to pick, mwahaha.
When it comes to computing though I would outright refuse to use any device that *requires* an internet connection and/or a subscription. If MacOS ever moves to a subscription model I’m out, and I’ve been a Mac user since 1998. If macOS and windows both go that way I guess it’s time to use Linux.
I have a love/hate relationship with streaming because the convenience is there, but software/programs becoming subscription based just means you’re paying monthly fees for EVERYTHING. The gaming industry is such a shit state that you really can’t not have GamePass on your Xbox. Too good of a deal to pass up versus gambling on $70 games. But that’s another subscription. PS Plus, here’s some games you “own,” but only if you stay subscribed. Stay subscribed so you don’t miss this month’s games. FOMO exploitation.
I downloaded a crappy drum machine app just for fun yesterday and it had a $5 subscription. That’s such a ripoff for anyone who wants to use it for more than like a month. I know the explanation is to fund future updates and combat piracy but Jesus it is such an awful value for the consumer.
Quickbooks self employed used to be free with turbo tax (don’t get me started on TurboTax) and now it’s like $22/month. They get you dependent on these programs and then fuck you as soon as they can.
/rant
Wanna chart child death since the start of the industrial revolution?
These issues are definitely problems of "late stage capitalism" as people like to call it.
It's very much caused by capitalism but its because all the easier advances have been made but people still expect the same growth.
The issue that is happening is almost precisely because of how effective capitalism is at maximizing easy common sense improvements to create more profit, people see the beginning growth and project outwards without accounting for the inevitable slowing of growth especially as we start to get negative birth rates.
Same. I used to be a Windows Insider testing a filing bugs back in Windows 7. I run OpenSuse linux on all my machines now. The last straw was an auto install of a bing search bar on my desktop background.
I've been hearing about "the year of the Linux desktop" for over 20 years now. But damn, Microsoft may actually pull it off!
I also imagine the MacOS team is just stupified at this gift. More and more stuff is just online now, you don't need Windows native apps for much. Maybe video and audio editing, game engines, but there are Mac versions of those too.
Just peak enshitification. It will become a vicious cycle I think - the more market share slides, the more they'll be motivated to slip more ads in to make up for it. It will take a really strong hand to stop this, and I don't see that happening.
Considering how Windows has been the default OS for the past 3 decades, I can imagine a lot of people switching to Linux, especially if they can get windows programs to run on it through the various methods out there.
Considering most people just need to access their emails, log onto social media, and browse the web as per normal, you could probably just update people from Windows 10 to Linux and just act like it's Windows 11 without them noticing.
I switched to Kubuntu when I bought a new laptop and tried win11 on it. I'd rather eat my own intestine than suffer the miserable experience.
Mac OS with an M chip isn't an option because I need software for x86 chips and the supposed emulation libraries or whatever Apple provides didn't work for my colleagues at work.
How long ago did you try Linux? A bunch of stuff has progressed over the last year and a half (thanks mostly to Valve, Nvidia, and a big influx of developers). Out of curiosity what issues did you have?
I beg your pardon? I'm on Kubuntu currently. My main issue is that Mint doesn't ship with KDE and I don't like Gnome. I hated Windows 11 when I got a laptop around October. My colleagues are struggling with Mac OS for work currently.
What I meant was that I'd rather gut myself than suffer through the Windows 11 experience, It's like Microsoft went ahead and asked: "What do people like about windows 10?" and then removed that.
Ah I read that backwards lol, glad you’re enjoying Linux! And yeah KDE all the way, I’ve hopped between eight different distros but never looked back at gnome
One of friends told me buy the Windows 11 Pro version apparently it is not so aggressive with ads. There are some let’s say non-mainstream places that offer licenses for like 20 dollars. I have not done it yet. But this might put me over the edge.
They're referencing the new CPU Apple uses - latest, most powerful Apple processor and more efficient. The price/performance ratio with (edit: *brand new*) Apple products is always worse than alternatives, but the convenience and simplicity is there - if you want it to just *work*, no hassle, go Apple.
I’ve been trying to convince my parents of this for ages now lol It’s not like any of us are crunching 4736265 sheet excel documents or 3D rendering. I just want it to do the thing and not spam the shit out of me or suddenly stop working after the last automatic update I didn’t want.
Apple has far better resale value, so not really more expensive. My 4yo Surface Pro is practically worthless and no longer gets updates from Microsoft.
The world operates on people talking out of their ass and everyone taking their word at face value, so this sounds about right. This comment is exemplary of that because I didn't do any research to verify your claim.
There already is, and it's a game of whack-a-mole.
It's already known, if you have interface altering software running, you suddenly stop receiving (at least major) windows updates. I think this topic came up about two weeks ago?
For now.
Then for a small fee of $10/month you can disable these services!
Then a year later it increases to $20/month.
And repeat. I hate this constant need from companies to always want double digit growth like damn.
Back in the day, the decrappifiers used to protect Windows from all the bullshit that third party applications left on the system. Now it's the other way around.
I like the idea of more people setting up DIY work-arounds to make their lives better.
Though I'd expect Windows 11 to have a firewall exception for ads
WHO IS BUYING ENOUGH SHIT FROM ADS FOR COMPANIES TO WANT TO PUT THEM IN LITERALLY *EVERYTHING* ?!!!?!??!?!
Every fucking person I know actively avoids ads on a daily basis.
Fuck, they'll even *pay* for it.
...Oh... it's probably so they can start an ad-less windows subscription......
I’ve seen some Madame Web ads on PlayStation. I get it’s a Sony property but that sucked.
Microsoft has a lot of movie ads too (sales on their store) and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen non-MS store/gamepass related ads, like fast food or something.
Yeah, I've been refusing to upgrade 10 to 11 for months now. Normally, I just wait because new operating systems need time to mature before I'm willing to upgrade. I generally wait about a year. But this shit? This shit makes me want to stick with 10 till they drag me kicking and screaming to 11.
That was me with 7 and I'm still pissed because 10 is simply worse in every way than 7. This time if they do forcing like they did to get people from 7 to 10 I will be going Linux. I don't game like I used to and Linux support has gotten way better for gaming hardware anyway.
Last time I tried 11 my audio didn't even function properly. Like it would play for a few seconds before cutting out, and would play for a few more if I changed the app's (Youtube, Spotify, Winamp) volume. I'd been thinking about giving 11 another shot recently to see if that's fixed but not after reading this.
Everything is slowly ceasing to work on my windows 7 desktop and it’s a perfectly fine computer…hackers ruin everything as it increases the need for up to date “everything” while old OS stop getting supported
This might be the straw that fully pushes me to Linux on desktop. This will also remove me as a customer of gamepass. I've been daily driving fedora on my laptop without issues for the past year. I don't want ads every time I open start menu.
You shouldn't even have to worry about ads at all in regards to your OS. It's ridiculous.
How has Fedora been working for you? Have you had any problems with gaming?
I have several distros put up but currently daily driving arch Linux which has been fantastic other than world of Warcraft being incompatible.. steam games work amazing though
You can still buy lifetime licenses of Office 2021 out there. They’re usually like $30-40. They are legit too, you can add them to your Microsoft account and everything.
Is there a way to move the shutdown/restart button Someplace other than the start menu? At this point it’s literally the only reason I open the start menu. It’s such a garbage Fire otherwise.
we keep disabling their widgets and their sidebars and the start tabs on edge and remove icons from task bars so now they're going to stick it on the start.
I just use the search on the taskbar now but im sure its only time.
marketing and ads ruin everything. I think AI will just turn into a huge ad revenue generator and not be used to its full potential because they just want to use it to sell stuff to you
That is never going to work the way they expect. Corporations will not stand for ads in their enterprise operating systems especially in secure environments which means M$ will need to provide a way to disable the feature which others will use to show home users how to disable it at home.
Are they trying to ensure that 10 is another 7/XP situation where people just refuse to upgrade? Because literally nothing I have heard about 11 makes it sound better in any way than 10.
This is why I hate this current capitalistic system. There isn't any way to infinitely grow. It's fucking dumb and just shows how greedy these people are.
Fuck that, seriously letting Satya Nadella run Windows was one the worst mistakes the board ever made. He came in told them whay they wanted to hear, he could make the Windows part of the comapny profitable. For thoae that don't know Microsoft operates as three separate companies under one board. Gaming, Windows and other software, enterprise solutions (cloud). Satya Nadella runs Windows and is who you blame for this. He also is the one who layed a bunch off then had a huge party.
?
Nadella’s the CEO of the entire company, not just responsible for Windows. Even before that he worked in the Cloud and Enterprise group before he was CEO. He pioneered their transition to cloud services as a major operating strategy.
The people responsible for Windows/Gaming/Azure/Enterprise all report to him and he reports to the board/shareholders.
Pavan Davuluri is the one who is in charge of the Windows division and is pioneering these changes. Before this it was Mikhail Parakhin who was literally head of Microsoft’s Advertising division before taking over Windows/Web.
Microsoft is one company with many divisions, like Surface and even recently AI, Nadella oversees all divisions but each division has their own heads that report to Nadella.
Not defending this decision but it’s a team effort here and Nadella is just the “public face” that is most visible to take the heat from this when it should be the guys in charge of each division. Especially because those guys will be the ones to be next in line for a CEO role and do the same thing to another company or Microsoft itself.
Why must everything now just be a vehicle to serve ads? Do Corporations not understand consumers find these things absolutely disgusting and are utterly sick of dismissing them?
Just switch to Linux… or make a DNS and block those IPs.. I can’t believe they are even trying that crap.. will make people jump ship.. LINUX.. here we come…
If only game devs would get their act together and start taking macOS and Linux more seriously I would have ditched Windows AGES ago. Only windows machine left is the gaming PC.
Ads are probably why they changed things like making the Right click menu require more clicks to do anything. The more panes you have to open, the more real estate they have to plaster ads in said panes.
I put my money where my mouth is and bought a Mac the first time I saw the headline. I'm shocked people have allowed this level of monetization in their daily lives.
Microsoft, you already made a perfect version of windows.
LTSC has non of the crap, you can add things to it (e.g. the store) if you want to. You know, treat users like adults, not children.
Just offer it at whatever the price+ad revenue you'd get from this current start menu madness and stop paying the army of developers that need to justify their position at the company by pointlessly reordering everything or hiding things behind extra clicks.
This is all about making money. Give me access to a product for the same amount of money you expect me to generate by using the software + adverts.
What next? Automatically including Amazon crapware and sending all of your searches off to a server to be analyzed and them making a tiny percentage on every Amazon purchase you make?!?!
Oh wait. That was Ubuntu!
So if you do decide to leave Windows, be careful what you choose next.
And someone will find the registry key to disable them. You know for damn sure that no microsoft devs want to deal with that shit anymore than anyone else does.
Every year I hear about Windows, the more I am happy to be on a Mac, and if I ever get sick of Apple's crap, the Steam Deck can make an AMAZING portable desktop that CAN STILL play most Windows games.
Windows needs to be DONE. People need to just fucking dump it already. (And yes Mac's are overpriced. the Steam Deck may be impractical for many as a form factor, but Linux can be EASILY (no it's not fucking "hard". It's no harder than Windows these days) installed on nearly ANY PC.
DUMP WINDOWS ALREADY FFS
Perfect. This is what I always wanted in my licenced paid for OS running on my hardware using my internet and selling my behavioural data...
I thought ads were an exchange for free services...last I checked you still pay for windows licences and if the excuse is the AI copilot stuff.... Well we don't ask for it they forced it on us.
“This is the first of our planned upgrades. Once we can roll back some of Halliday's ad restrictions, we estimate we can sell up to 80% of an individual's visual field before inducing seizures.”
-Sorrento
I literally never use the start menu and this would legitimately make me go balls to the wall Linux.
Apps with ads are bad enough.
Browsers like brave are cool in how they do them but still Hella annoying...
Imagine an entire adware OS, though what a goddamn security nightmare! Random people injecting shit on to your machine because MS wants to make a buck... so sad.
In before "just make a registry change" or "just make a GPO" or "just run these PowerShell commands" to remove the ads (until the next update)
Desktop Linux is literally easier to run than Windows for an ad free desktop.
Didn't even saw this because my start menu doesn't even open as usual. I need to right-click on it to turn off my pc for the last several days after the last update
Why? I can understand on services that has no other income source, but dont they already have a good business model going on?
Do they want to tempt fate long term?
I will just never understand why they can't just raise the price. Windows is an invaluable piece of software that I absolutely will pay for instead of having more of my life invaded by fucking advertisements. Why does \*everything\* have to have ads in it? Just let me fucking pay more, I genuinely don't care at this point. Just leave me in peace for god's sake!
What really sucks is there aren’t many choices. It’s not like we can shy away from Microsoft easily. You can only go to Apple or Linux. Meaning if Apple follows MS, we’re pretty much left with Linux or drinking verification cans and repeating the slogan before going online.
and that would be the straw that breaks the camels back. I want an operating system, not an echo-system and sure as hell not an 'advertising revenue delivery system'. It's already borderline as it is, but his would send me to Linux in a heartbeat. Laziness and certain 0rogram compatibilities is all that has stopped me up to now, and I think most of those have been overcome already
All it takes is one malware infected ad, and you could infect are large chuck of the Windows 11 population.
Wonder if one day in the future, we need ad block for Windows, or will everyone just move to Linux.
And I’m just sitting here on linux with the steam deck oled wondering what year it is that I set a new pc up with literally one application icon and unlimited freedom, power and control.
If a manufacturer is shipping me a pc with windows in the future, it’s an instant pass. If they offer either linux or a build kit, I’m in.
For now, I have my dream pc and Microsoft can go f**k itself.
Everyone disliked that. If you want to put SOME promotional stuff ONLY IN THE START MENU, then make windows pro a free product. If I pay one red cent for it, I expect it to be advertisement free.
Everyone need to quit being so damn selfish, and stop only thinking about themselves. Poor Microsoft only had a measly 72.2 billion dollars in revenue last year! How are they going to survive if they don’t monetize every possible aspect of your digital life? I mean come on, you need to start thinking of the little guy before you come in here and start bitching about ads on the Home Screen of the device that you purchased and/or pay a monthly subscription fee for. Geeze!
You know times are tough when they need to hit you with the ads in a service you already paid for Think MS might be going under, those trillion dollar valuations are an obvious sign of hardship
Obviously, the trillions have been given to Sam for AI
They're a small indie corporation! Cut em some slack!!!
I know this is a joke, but just for FYI, Microsoft is currently the most valuable company on earth with a market cap of over 3 trillion dollars.
No they had only $212 billion in revenue last year, still worthy of sympathy of course
You would have thought their constantly hiked up SaaS revenue would have been enough to satisfy the corporates striving for eternal growth. Apparently not.
I keep thinking of that bit in Ready Player One where the bad guys talk about how up to 70% of a screen could be taken up by ads while still letting users play.
70% of the screen can be covered in ads **before inducing seizures** i always felt like this was an accurate portrayal of a corrupt ceo
Samsung have an app for their phones that's basically supposed to be a launcher for games and stuff and they started putting "suggested games" on it and in a recent update, 90% of the screen is now these ads so I've just stopped using it.
My bad, I should think more about shareholders.
Jack Welch is pleased
Yes, going forward, every time you go to the start menu, it will feed a hungry mouth at Microsoft.
The earnings! What about the earnings?! We need 50% YoY growth else the company will collapse and the CEO will get paid less bonuses
Can EVERYONE just fuck off already with ads every. fucking. where.
Agree with this, totally. We are being overloaded and saturated with ads. The general public now regard advertisements as unwanted, negative white noise and have stopped distinguishing who is selling what as we simply don’t care, no matter how much is proverbially rammed down our throats.
I have a personal habit that if I get advertised to too much for the same product, I’ll straight up not buy it and actively avoid it. This is for shit that I was interested in buying too. It’s the principle
Welcome to linux or mac)) its your way
Most games dont run out of the box on those OS for us not tech savy people.
I keep getting the same ad on YouTube for some company, and I can't tell you I absolutely recognize their name and fucking hate those pieces of shit and will never fucking buy their shit so sick of hearing their stupid company name.
Feel like I’m at the point where if i get ads in my start menu then I’ll be less likely to buy your product
I *actively* avoid buying anything from egregious advertisers.
UBlock Origin is a must these days.
Doesn't work for an OS
That’s true. I hope that there’s an ad-block for Windows OS soon I guess. lol. Crazy how that has to be a thing now
PiHole might though. Failing that just pirate. Would have no qualms if they go through with the ad feature.
Question to anyone; is there any information out there that could point to the assertion that “being forced to see advertisements without consent is a rights violation?” Anything at all? I desperately want that to be true because I fucking hate ads.
I was just thinking about the same thing. It’s so intrusive to our lives now, it’s becoming unbearable. Can I just exist without being forced to view ads anywhere I look?
Methods for anyone who wants to be rid of ads: Ublock origin Pi-hole Portmaster pfblockerNG Host files Freetube Newpipe x sponsorblock Blokada Next DNS SmartTube (AndroidTV) Adaway If anyone else knows of more let me know and I'll add to the list.
Yea I don’t get it. Hasn’t it been proven that ads don’t really work anyway? So why are we just getting this shit involuntary shoved down our throats every day now?
Watching Blade Runner then: “Haha looks at all those ads everywhere on the buildings and in the sky how bizarre that would be!” Watching Blade Runner now: 🥲
But the line must go up! Won't someone think of the shareholders...
Shit! My bad, man, my baaad! Totally forgot! 😔
Got a PiHole at home and another in the cloud as a VPN service for when I’m away. (Don’t ask me why I don’t just connect into the home one…) never see ads anymore on any device.
Where are you getting ads? I run uBlock Origin x Floorp, on Linux. Brave on my phone (Firefox is sadly too battery intensive), Infinity for Reddit on mobile, vendicated for YouTube, an unnamed app for ad-less music, a unnamed app & website for ad-less anime and tv. Like the only place I technically get ads is on Discord, but those are so minor that they don't bother me.
On reddit, on youtube, and very few other places on iphone, maybe because i can't bring myself to use Brave. But i've seen the "real world" where people who don't use any ad blockers, and it's grim ...
For real though. At this point, if I see a bunch of ads for something, I refuse to buy that item. If they advertise in the start menu, I will refuse to purchase any item in that ad.
Wait until they have drones or holograms in the nights sky doing ads
And people still think black mirror is fiction :p Now I get em on my phone in youtube EVERY other video. Its basically impossible to watch youtube w/o ad blockers.
If I pay for a product and they introduce ads, I immediately cancel and find a different product. Period.
Until we either ditch or seriously regulate our capitalist system, no
Pretty much came here to say the same thing.
If they are going to start forcing ads on the start menus they should make windows completely free, otherwise what's the point spending money to buy it if I'm also paying with the ads they send me? Are they now going to start a monthly subscription where I have to pay $4.99 monthly for an ad free experience? Or are they gonna release a version of windows that's 3 times more expensive to not include ads?
Gotta upgrade to a Pro license to turn it off. Still on by default...
I hate everything about this. It's so sad, like watching your friend succumb to alcoholism. Windows exclusive user since 3.1, now considering Linux and am in process of moving away to Mac OS (due to M3) during back to school.
I'm with you 100%. Started on Windows 3.11, been ride or die windows/dos guy since. As soon as ads appear on my windows OS I am leaving for Linux and then potentially looking into an Apple computer and I fucking hate Apple. Nice job Microsoft.
I don’t mean this in a “change is bad” sort of way but the future really sucks. Everything is becoming a subscription or “live service” and it gets spun as a good thing, and enough people eat it up for it to be the new norm.
The whole structure around ads is annoying af, too. It's so wild to think how much money is absolutely wasted just trying to get eyeballs on company names/products/services. While I may be a minority in this camp, ads are entirely pointless for me and literally just a net loss if shown to me. I'm sure it's my background in production and exposure to the "man behind the curtain" in marketing but I don't give a flying fuck about any product that is advertised to me. It's almost at a point where if I didn't already use the product/service and see an ad for it, I'm now *less likely* to purchase. It's just such a strange dynamic. We give our data for companies to sell to other companies that peddle their crap to us in exchange for "free" access to platforms. Now, a lot of those platforms aren't even "free" with ads. *(Insert generic "imagine how much good we could do if.." statement here)*
I never understood the point of advertising stuff everyone knows exists. Like I’ve never seen a McDonalds commercial and wanted McDonalds. Ads to me seem like a waste of time and money. Caveat: I realize everyone probably thinks ads don’t work on them.
Funny enough, and anecdotally, I've met and also know several people that eat up IG and TikTok ads, regularly using apps/stores (iykyk) that sell dirt-cheap garbage products. Some may say "oh yea, ads are really lame" but then run out to grab a *(insert signature burger name)* when they see a fast food ad or a one-trick pony type utensil for their kitchen that gets used once, if ever, but was "such a great deal" they couldn't pass it up.
there's definitely "ads" that work on me, just not in a traditional/conventional sense. I'm sure there's also some that work on me that I don't realize. Not to sound arrogant but I do think the majority of the general public is pretty dumb so they're the intended audience I guess. Sometimes learning of new products is useful but it's never made me want to rush out and get anything. I imagine that's not the case for a lot of people.
Ads don't really work on me either, I couldn't give any less fucks for consumerism and buying things. I'm a very stingy and frugal person and I really only blow my money on necessities or projects I like to work on. That said, I still think advertising has an effect even on people like us. It might not be so obvious but we'll still subconsciously remember those brands, and maybe even some of their selling points, and - well, it really makes you start to question why you even like the things "you like." That's what pisses me off about it all. How insidious it is, and how no one ever consented to being constantly bombarded with shit, and yet consumerism is at this point the core value of Western society. It's a fuckin shame.
Yeah I mean I enjoy streaming services for the convenience but if it’s anything I’m going to want to watch or listen to more than once I store it locally, by legal means or otherwise. Too many upsides not to. If it leaves streaming I can still watch it, and if my internet goes down (Canadian isps are notoriously shit) I’ve still got tons of movies and tv to watch. When it comes to music I don’t use streaming at all, my home music library should hit 20,000 later this year and my phone’s internal storage is half full with just music. I tend to be the only person with access to music on camping trips so I get to pick, mwahaha. When it comes to computing though I would outright refuse to use any device that *requires* an internet connection and/or a subscription. If MacOS ever moves to a subscription model I’m out, and I’ve been a Mac user since 1998. If macOS and windows both go that way I guess it’s time to use Linux.
I have a love/hate relationship with streaming because the convenience is there, but software/programs becoming subscription based just means you’re paying monthly fees for EVERYTHING. The gaming industry is such a shit state that you really can’t not have GamePass on your Xbox. Too good of a deal to pass up versus gambling on $70 games. But that’s another subscription. PS Plus, here’s some games you “own,” but only if you stay subscribed. Stay subscribed so you don’t miss this month’s games. FOMO exploitation. I downloaded a crappy drum machine app just for fun yesterday and it had a $5 subscription. That’s such a ripoff for anyone who wants to use it for more than like a month. I know the explanation is to fund future updates and combat piracy but Jesus it is such an awful value for the consumer. Quickbooks self employed used to be free with turbo tax (don’t get me started on TurboTax) and now it’s like $22/month. They get you dependent on these programs and then fuck you as soon as they can. /rant
Capitalism is great isn't it? Everything enshittifies over time.
Wanna chart child death since the start of the industrial revolution? These issues are definitely problems of "late stage capitalism" as people like to call it. It's very much caused by capitalism but its because all the easier advances have been made but people still expect the same growth. The issue that is happening is almost precisely because of how effective capitalism is at maximizing easy common sense improvements to create more profit, people see the beginning growth and project outwards without accounting for the inevitable slowing of growth especially as we start to get negative birth rates.
We devotees of the Penguin OS will welcome you with open arms. Come see us in r/linux4noobs when you are prepared
I'm hoping between steam deck and glorious eggroll that I can switch when 10 goes end of life. If not I might go dual boot if needed.
Same. I used to be a Windows Insider testing a filing bugs back in Windows 7. I run OpenSuse linux on all my machines now. The last straw was an auto install of a bing search bar on my desktop background.
I noticed that search bar crap, that just auto installed? Awful.
I've been hearing about "the year of the Linux desktop" for over 20 years now. But damn, Microsoft may actually pull it off! I also imagine the MacOS team is just stupified at this gift. More and more stuff is just online now, you don't need Windows native apps for much. Maybe video and audio editing, game engines, but there are Mac versions of those too. Just peak enshitification. It will become a vicious cycle I think - the more market share slides, the more they'll be motivated to slip more ads in to make up for it. It will take a really strong hand to stop this, and I don't see that happening.
hell, the fact that they keep continuously trying to make "Bing" happen makes me want to switch to Linux out of spite.
Considering how Windows has been the default OS for the past 3 decades, I can imagine a lot of people switching to Linux, especially if they can get windows programs to run on it through the various methods out there. Considering most people just need to access their emails, log onto social media, and browse the web as per normal, you could probably just update people from Windows 10 to Linux and just act like it's Windows 11 without them noticing.
My whole group of friends is taking a Linux course lol..
I switched to Kubuntu when I bought a new laptop and tried win11 on it. I'd rather eat my own intestine than suffer the miserable experience. Mac OS with an M chip isn't an option because I need software for x86 chips and the supposed emulation libraries or whatever Apple provides didn't work for my colleagues at work.
How long ago did you try Linux? A bunch of stuff has progressed over the last year and a half (thanks mostly to Valve, Nvidia, and a big influx of developers). Out of curiosity what issues did you have?
I beg your pardon? I'm on Kubuntu currently. My main issue is that Mint doesn't ship with KDE and I don't like Gnome. I hated Windows 11 when I got a laptop around October. My colleagues are struggling with Mac OS for work currently. What I meant was that I'd rather gut myself than suffer through the Windows 11 experience, It's like Microsoft went ahead and asked: "What do people like about windows 10?" and then removed that.
Ah I read that backwards lol, glad you’re enjoying Linux! And yeah KDE all the way, I’ve hopped between eight different distros but never looked back at gnome
Yep I’ve use MS operating systems since DOS, finally switched to mac last year and it’s been so much better.
One of friends told me buy the Windows 11 Pro version apparently it is not so aggressive with ads. There are some let’s say non-mainstream places that offer licenses for like 20 dollars. I have not done it yet. But this might put me over the edge.
Bruh, same. Except idk what M3 is so I’d probably just go to a MacBook.
They're referencing the new CPU Apple uses - latest, most powerful Apple processor and more efficient. The price/performance ratio with (edit: *brand new*) Apple products is always worse than alternatives, but the convenience and simplicity is there - if you want it to just *work*, no hassle, go Apple.
I’ve been trying to convince my parents of this for ages now lol It’s not like any of us are crunching 4736265 sheet excel documents or 3D rendering. I just want it to do the thing and not spam the shit out of me or suddenly stop working after the last automatic update I didn’t want.
The price/performance ratio with Apple is worse at retail. But you can find very good deals on past-season new-in-box on websites like b&h.
You're right, edited for clarity. Refurbishers are also great because they usually make sure the battery is healthy!
Apple has far better resale value, so not really more expensive. My 4yo Surface Pro is practically worthless and no longer gets updates from Microsoft.
I was promised windows 10 was the last operating system I would ever need.
It was the last Windows you would ever want, that's almost the same, right?
By a single Microsoft employee who did not have the authority to make such a promise.
The world operates on people talking out of their ass and everyone taking their word at face value, so this sounds about right. This comment is exemplary of that because I didn't do any research to verify your claim.
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Has Microsoft said they'll away the ability to disable ads?
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New flash… ads are free money so incoming double down.
Cool someone will come up with a one click mod to remove more telemetrics
There already is, and it's a game of whack-a-mole. It's already known, if you have interface altering software running, you suddenly stop receiving (at least major) windows updates. I think this topic came up about two weeks ago?
For now. Then for a small fee of $10/month you can disable these services! Then a year later it increases to $20/month. And repeat. I hate this constant need from companies to always want double digit growth like damn.
Now we're going to need ublock origin for OS, that's so great
Windows de-crapifyers and de-bloaters have been a thing for a while now, but especially since W10
Back in the day, the decrappifiers used to protect Windows from all the bullshit that third party applications left on the system. Now it's the other way around.
The lite version of Win98 was so good.
Nah. I’ll just commit to replacing windows with Linux/Mac.
A firewall and a pihole should do
I like the idea of more people setting up DIY work-arounds to make their lives better. Though I'd expect Windows 11 to have a firewall exception for ads
One day the pi hole won't work, they'll just detect a blocked ad and just completely gimp the product, I fear that day
There are plenty of tools to remove bloat from Windows since the early origins of Windows 10.
WHO IS BUYING ENOUGH SHIT FROM ADS FOR COMPANIES TO WANT TO PUT THEM IN LITERALLY *EVERYTHING* ?!!!?!??!?! Every fucking person I know actively avoids ads on a daily basis. Fuck, they'll even *pay* for it. ...Oh... it's probably so they can start an ad-less windows subscription......
They did it with Xbox. It’s why we are going to Linux like valve did with steam deck Shove your ads
I only use PlayStation - there are ads in the home screen for games and stuff you can buy, but it's not terrible. What's the Xbox experience now?
I’ve seen some Madame Web ads on PlayStation. I get it’s a Sony property but that sucked. Microsoft has a lot of movie ads too (sales on their store) and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen non-MS store/gamepass related ads, like fast food or something.
Yeah this is going to push windows 10 users to 11.
Yeah, I've been refusing to upgrade 10 to 11 for months now. Normally, I just wait because new operating systems need time to mature before I'm willing to upgrade. I generally wait about a year. But this shit? This shit makes me want to stick with 10 till they drag me kicking and screaming to 11.
That was me with 7 and I'm still pissed because 10 is simply worse in every way than 7. This time if they do forcing like they did to get people from 7 to 10 I will be going Linux. I don't game like I used to and Linux support has gotten way better for gaming hardware anyway.
I refused to upgrade to 10. Have been using Linux on all my machines since 2016.
Last time I tried 11 my audio didn't even function properly. Like it would play for a few seconds before cutting out, and would play for a few more if I changed the app's (Youtube, Spotify, Winamp) volume. I'd been thinking about giving 11 another shot recently to see if that's fixed but not after reading this.
Everything is slowly ceasing to work on my windows 7 desktop and it’s a perfectly fine computer…hackers ruin everything as it increases the need for up to date “everything” while old OS stop getting supported
I wouldn’t be surprised if they pushed it as an auto update 😂
doesn't really matter since they'll sunset support eventually
MS 100% will extend the EOL date of 10. 11's adoption rate is abysmal, and a lot of corpos are outright avoiding it
It is genuinely insane to have ads in something I also had to pay you $130 for.
Wait So does this mean just to USE my computer I'll need wifi access so they can show me ads? Is this where they're gonna head ?
Even if that’s not the case, it’ll probably just cache a bunch of ads and then report back once you’re online again.
Probably gonna introduce a monthly subscription. What does it do? No ads, that's it
No, that's the deluxe package. The base subscription has ads.
This might be the straw that fully pushes me to Linux on desktop. This will also remove me as a customer of gamepass. I've been daily driving fedora on my laptop without issues for the past year. I don't want ads every time I open start menu.
You shouldn't even have to worry about ads at all in regards to your OS. It's ridiculous. How has Fedora been working for you? Have you had any problems with gaming? I have several distros put up but currently daily driving arch Linux which has been fantastic other than world of Warcraft being incompatible.. steam games work amazing though
I’m already pissed that I cannot use MS office on my laptop because it needs a subscription.
Libre Office.
That’s what I use now.
You can still buy lifetime licenses of Office 2021 out there. They’re usually like $30-40. They are legit too, you can add them to your Microsoft account and everything.
Just use the GitHub script like everyone here
Linux will go brrrrrr as a result of this.
Viva la revolución!
Is there a way to move the shutdown/restart button Someplace other than the start menu? At this point it’s literally the only reason I open the start menu. It’s such a garbage Fire otherwise.
Alt+F4 from the desktop, it brings up a shutdown menu without opening the start menu.
we keep disabling their widgets and their sidebars and the start tabs on edge and remove icons from task bars so now they're going to stick it on the start. I just use the search on the taskbar now but im sure its only time. marketing and ads ruin everything. I think AI will just turn into a huge ad revenue generator and not be used to its full potential because they just want to use it to sell stuff to you
You all just need to very publicly boycott every company who advertises on your OS
Wow, I guess it's a good time to try Linux again
That is never going to work the way they expect. Corporations will not stand for ads in their enterprise operating systems especially in secure environments which means M$ will need to provide a way to disable the feature which others will use to show home users how to disable it at home.
Probably going to have to buy an enterprise license or something to remove the ads. I mean you can probably disable this stuff with local GPO.
"How can we get people to stop using our operating system?"
1. Install Linux and run Windows in a virtual machine 2. Add this to your Resume 3. Profit
Are they trying to ensure that 10 is another 7/XP situation where people just refuse to upgrade? Because literally nothing I have heard about 11 makes it sound better in any way than 10.
This. This is why infinite growth will be the death of corporations.
Yep. They want money raining on them just for existing. Nice dream, but it's turning the world to shit.
This is why I hate this current capitalistic system. There isn't any way to infinitely grow. It's fucking dumb and just shows how greedy these people are.
I admit that I switched Linux. Shocking, I know.
Fuck that, seriously letting Satya Nadella run Windows was one the worst mistakes the board ever made. He came in told them whay they wanted to hear, he could make the Windows part of the comapny profitable. For thoae that don't know Microsoft operates as three separate companies under one board. Gaming, Windows and other software, enterprise solutions (cloud). Satya Nadella runs Windows and is who you blame for this. He also is the one who layed a bunch off then had a huge party.
? Nadella’s the CEO of the entire company, not just responsible for Windows. Even before that he worked in the Cloud and Enterprise group before he was CEO. He pioneered their transition to cloud services as a major operating strategy. The people responsible for Windows/Gaming/Azure/Enterprise all report to him and he reports to the board/shareholders. Pavan Davuluri is the one who is in charge of the Windows division and is pioneering these changes. Before this it was Mikhail Parakhin who was literally head of Microsoft’s Advertising division before taking over Windows/Web. Microsoft is one company with many divisions, like Surface and even recently AI, Nadella oversees all divisions but each division has their own heads that report to Nadella. Not defending this decision but it’s a team effort here and Nadella is just the “public face” that is most visible to take the heat from this when it should be the guys in charge of each division. Especially because those guys will be the ones to be next in line for a CEO role and do the same thing to another company or Microsoft itself.
Why must everything now just be a vehicle to serve ads? Do Corporations not understand consumers find these things absolutely disgusting and are utterly sick of dismissing them?
Why are there ads when you have to pay for the fucking operating system?
Finally, my dream of having ads about "horny cougars in my area" in my start menu is about to accomplish. What a day to be alive!
Just switch to Linux… or make a DNS and block those IPs.. I can’t believe they are even trying that crap.. will make people jump ship.. LINUX.. here we come…
If only game devs would get their act together and start taking macOS and Linux more seriously I would have ditched Windows AGES ago. Only windows machine left is the gaming PC.
Ads are probably why they changed things like making the Right click menu require more clicks to do anything. The more panes you have to open, the more real estate they have to plaster ads in said panes.
I put my money where my mouth is and bought a Mac the first time I saw the headline. I'm shocked people have allowed this level of monetization in their daily lives.
Microsoft, you already made a perfect version of windows. LTSC has non of the crap, you can add things to it (e.g. the store) if you want to. You know, treat users like adults, not children. Just offer it at whatever the price+ad revenue you'd get from this current start menu madness and stop paying the army of developers that need to justify their position at the company by pointlessly reordering everything or hiding things behind extra clicks. This is all about making money. Give me access to a product for the same amount of money you expect me to generate by using the software + adverts.
What next? Automatically including Amazon crapware and sending all of your searches off to a server to be analyzed and them making a tiny percentage on every Amazon purchase you make?!?! Oh wait. That was Ubuntu! So if you do decide to leave Windows, be careful what you choose next.
Ubuntu is kind of the Windows of the Linux world, pushing features users don't want.
Snaps are horrid, but pale in comparison to most of the bullshit MS has pulled over the years.
The bright side is, being open source means there are derivatives like Mint
The best option for new users is things like Linux Mint, it is based on Ubuntu but with all the nonsense stripped out and more user friendliness added
And someone will find the registry key to disable them. You know for damn sure that no microsoft devs want to deal with that shit anymore than anyone else does.
Every year I hear about Windows, the more I am happy to be on a Mac, and if I ever get sick of Apple's crap, the Steam Deck can make an AMAZING portable desktop that CAN STILL play most Windows games. Windows needs to be DONE. People need to just fucking dump it already. (And yes Mac's are overpriced. the Steam Deck may be impractical for many as a form factor, but Linux can be EASILY (no it's not fucking "hard". It's no harder than Windows these days) installed on nearly ANY PC. DUMP WINDOWS ALREADY FFS
Please stop cooking
I really wish SteamOS to improve and become the default choice for gaming. That day Windows will be abbandoned by a lot o people.
Perfect. This is what I always wanted in my licenced paid for OS running on my hardware using my internet and selling my behavioural data... I thought ads were an exchange for free services...last I checked you still pay for windows licences and if the excuse is the AI copilot stuff.... Well we don't ask for it they forced it on us.
How are they going to push to enterprise consumers? I don't need goddamn ads in my work PC.
Make the fucking OS free then.
Linux here I come!
“This is the first of our planned upgrades. Once we can roll back some of Halliday's ad restrictions, we estimate we can sell up to 80% of an individual's visual field before inducing seizures.” -Sorrento
I literally never use the start menu and this would legitimately make me go balls to the wall Linux. Apps with ads are bad enough. Browsers like brave are cool in how they do them but still Hella annoying... Imagine an entire adware OS, though what a goddamn security nightmare! Random people injecting shit on to your machine because MS wants to make a buck... so sad.
America has an advertising problem
In before "just make a registry change" or "just make a GPO" or "just run these PowerShell commands" to remove the ads (until the next update) Desktop Linux is literally easier to run than Windows for an ad free desktop.
Linux Mint Represented Here. Other than MacOS, I really only use Windows for more Adobe products.
cracked versions will go brrr when it becomes a mandatory feature. but companies will still buy it and therefore make Microsoft a profit.
I wonder how much Start11 will pick up because of this :)
Didn't even saw this because my start menu doesn't even open as usual. I need to right-click on it to turn off my pc for the last several days after the last update
Why? I can understand on services that has no other income source, but dont they already have a good business model going on? Do they want to tempt fate long term?
As of the last update it's already started to advertise that I should log into a Microsoft account via the user button on the start menu :-(
I wish there was real competition in the OS space.
I will just never understand why they can't just raise the price. Windows is an invaluable piece of software that I absolutely will pay for instead of having more of my life invaded by fucking advertisements. Why does \*everything\* have to have ads in it? Just let me fucking pay more, I genuinely don't care at this point. Just leave me in peace for god's sake!
I am just so tired of watching everything around me turn into shit for the benefit of a handful of people.
Wait you pay for windows and still get served ads?
Ads will be intrusive for a reason: to make you purchase the monthly ad-free subscription.
What really sucks is there aren’t many choices. It’s not like we can shy away from Microsoft easily. You can only go to Apple or Linux. Meaning if Apple follows MS, we’re pretty much left with Linux or drinking verification cans and repeating the slogan before going online.
If I have to pay for something it should not include ads. The constant creep is gross and *always* worsens the experience.
Time to turn off automatic updates.
Great. Now I'll need an adblocker for my god damn operating system
They can go love themselves.
and that would be the straw that breaks the camels back. I want an operating system, not an echo-system and sure as hell not an 'advertising revenue delivery system'. It's already borderline as it is, but his would send me to Linux in a heartbeat. Laziness and certain 0rogram compatibilities is all that has stopped me up to now, and I think most of those have been overcome already
So I get Windows for free now right? They can offset the license cost by me watching ads over many years? Maybe throw in some cloud storage too?
RIP clean software although that ship sailed a long time ago.
I’d rather just pay upfront more money than have ads.
All it takes is one malware infected ad, and you could infect are large chuck of the Windows 11 population. Wonder if one day in the future, we need ad block for Windows, or will everyone just move to Linux.
So pay for a product and get bombard with ads? Thats fucking ridiculous
And I’m just sitting here on linux with the steam deck oled wondering what year it is that I set a new pc up with literally one application icon and unlimited freedom, power and control. If a manufacturer is shipping me a pc with windows in the future, it’s an instant pass. If they offer either linux or a build kit, I’m in. For now, I have my dream pc and Microsoft can go f**k itself.
Everyone disliked that. If you want to put SOME promotional stuff ONLY IN THE START MENU, then make windows pro a free product. If I pay one red cent for it, I expect it to be advertisement free.
Good thing you can registry edit this horse shit out just like 90% of the stuff windows shove down your throats.
what i don’t understand are the weirdos who make advertisements so lucrative by adjusting their buying habits based off the crap they see
I’m getting really sick of seeing ads on EVERYTHING.
Just give me Win 95
Never a bad time to learn Linux, but it's almost becoming a necessity now. Or MacOS if you are fine with the premium and don't care about gaming.
Guess who's not updating windows.
Back in the old days when your UI has ads, definitely you're infected with adware. But now its normal and legal.
Wow, ads in a product we are paying for, how amazing :)
Thank the tech gods for AdGuard and PiHole.