
Microsoft Advertisement Inc. - neilpanchal
https://neil.computer/notes/microsoft-advertisement/
======
zercurity
We've been using this tool to strip out unwanted Microsoft 'features' such as
Cortana. Its a powershell script you simply give it your Windows ISO and it
lets you remove applications and services you don't wanted installed. It
creates a really awesome Windows OS. I highly recommend it.

[https://github.com/DrEmpiricism/Optimize-
Offline](https://github.com/DrEmpiricism/Optimize-Offline)

~~~
ksangeelee
While I'm glad these efforts exist, it's wrong to have to fight my operating
system in this way. In my experience, it's a losing battle. Microsoft seem
intent on having full control of your system, and they are in a position to
take that control as and when they like.

The occasional nods towards the technical crowd, for example WSL & VSCode are
distracting us from the very large elephant in the room.

~~~
dgzl
> it's wrong to have to fight my operating system in this way.

 _Your_ operating system? This isn't Linux, this isn't a free and open system.

> Microsoft seem intent on having full control of your system, and they are in
> a position to take that control as and when they like.

This isn't your system any more than buying a CD makes the music yours. You're
renting _their_ system.

~~~
grawprog
>This isn't your system any more than buying a CD makes the music yours.
You're renting their system.

I really can't understand how people are ok with this. Now just with windows,
but in general these days. Why are people ok with having things they don't
really own after spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars on them. If I
buy a computer, it's my computer, I don't give a fuck what operating system is
on it, what fine print amd or Intel throw in saying their management systems
are their property, I don't care. I'll do whatever I want with my computer and
if Microsoft or any other company has a problem with it they can come sue me
for all I care.

~~~
pasabagi
Do you live in a house you own?

I'm sympathetic to your viewpoint, but I think rent is a society-wide problem,
not just a problem with computers, and computers are far from the most acute
example.

~~~
grawprog
No, I'm not saying rentals, or using things you don't own is bad, I'm saying
the line's being pushed too far towards non ownership of things that shouldn't
be that way. Owning a house as a much much larger barrier of entry than a
computer or other things.

~~~
pasabagi
Your distinction seems a bit arbitrary to me. Building an operating system is
a massive barrier to entry - far greater than building a house. Likewise,
designing a computer.

------
DavideNL
I recently had to install Windows 10 and ended up installing "Windows 10
LTSC". Right after install i used "O&O shutup" and "Win10-Initial-Setup-
Script" to get some sane defaults/strip all the crap.

It's sad that Windows itself has become bloatware...

[https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10](https://www.oo-
software.com/en/shutup10)

[https://github.com/Disassembler0/Win10-Initial-Setup-
Script](https://github.com/Disassembler0/Win10-Initial-Setup-Script)

------
ohthehugemanate
What a load of shit.

I love the guy trying to infer Microsoft's ad profit centers by trying to read
between the lines of marketing copy. Entertaining stuff. But let's not confuse
this for grown up analysis.

Microsoft releases their financials, like every publicly traded corporation.
Bing search ads are a small part of revenu, about 5% of what Azure earns, and
stable. Desktop ads are a vanishingly small line item. Microsoft's strategy is
based on platform sales — you know, the part of their business whose revenue
is doubling every quarter. Google's strategy is based on "collect it all" data
hoarding and ad sales.

But the punchline is really the best part. "Apple has lit the torch." Siri and
Cortana are analogous products, and they are the motivation for both their
companies' data collection.

Actually a voice assistant gives a company a ton of power, but it can be used
for different purposes. Alexa doesn't exist for ad revenue, it exists to push
more sales through Amazon. Cortana exists to push Azure platform integrated
features in Windows, effectively doubling down the value of the platform
investment. Siri exists to push Apple integrated features and to guard the
gates of their walled garden.

The only valid part if the article is that it's hard to believe that anyone
really wants a voice assistant.

~~~
neilpanchal
You’re right that I’ve not backed some of the claims with objective financial
analysis. I searched for annual reports, then went off to finishing the post,
in the interest of time. I thought that it would take a long time to read the
reports to find out the revenue broken down into various business segments
instead of “Microsoft Search Network” bucket.

Furthermore, whether ad business is a 1/20th of Microsoft’s revenue, is by
itself not an indicator. It’s still a 7 billion dollar business. That’s larger
than a lot of successful companies. Apple’s services business has grown
rapidly from 0% to the second largest source of revenue.

Microsoft, Adobe, etc are all aggressively trying to penetrate the ad market.
Microsoft has failed to capitalize on IE/Edge or Bing, as much as it tried.
Now, they’re hostile to privacy and have permeated their ad strategy to
operating system level.

I don’t agree with you about Siri and Cortana. I was trying to say that Apple
is leading the path, “lit the torch”, to become a privacy centric business.
And they’re openly advertising their products with Privacy motifs. That’s what
I see. It wasn’t about Cortana or Siri.

I’m glad I was able to entertain!

Edit: If you’d like a thorough analysis, I strongly suggest subscribing to
Stratechery blog.

~~~
Hawxy
This article is incredibly misleading and I can't believe almost everyone on
HN is taking it at face value. You've clearly made assumptions to fit your
conclusion without verifying the validity of the assumptions themselves.

The items you list at the top are just part of the normal telemetry subsystem
and have nothing to do with advertising. Windows has an separate system for
advertising and it's completely isolated from telemetry data unless users opt-
in to "Tailored experiences" within the privacy settings. (See:
[https://support.microsoft.com/en-
us/help/4468236/diagnostics...](https://support.microsoft.com/en-
us/help/4468236/diagnostics-feedback-and-privacy-in-windows-10-microsoft-
privacy))

Ad tracking within windows is limited to the windows store apps you open and
what you search for in the start menu if web-searches with Bing are enabled,
which is entire gist of the "Microsoft Search Network".

Opting-out from "Advertising ID" during install/in privacy settings, or
disabling personalised ads globally @ choice.microsoft.com stops this
behaviour entirely.

Instead of making assumptions about Cortana, you could've just checked the
privacy guide: [https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4468233/cortana-
and...](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4468233/cortana-and-privacy-
microsoft-privacy)

I quote: "Cortana does not use the data you share to target ads to you. Ads
may accompany search results that Cortana delivers, just as they do when you
search on Bing.com. Even if Cortana does the searching for you, your web
search queries will be treated as described in the Bing section of the
Microsoft Privacy Statement."

Using Cortana doesn't give Microsoft any more ad money over someone just doing
a plain Bing search.

~~~
neilpanchal
Do you mind if I paraphrase your comment and add it to the article? Thanks for
checking the privacy guide, it establishes what Microsoft officially has to
say about their data collection methods. And, I should have checked it before
writing the article.

I am cynical of any company that is trying to impede user's ability to turn
privacy related settings off. They go out of their way to make it difficult.
There are no more than 2 dozen privacy related switches in Control Panel.
Everything is checked on by default. This whole thing reeks of insiduous
tracking, spying and surveillance, despite of what the privacy guide says. I
am very, very cynical.

Also, there is no assurance that government agencies have access to a wealth
of information that's collected as part of "user experience improvement".
Furthermore, all this data collection, even if it is not used for
advertisement currently has potential to be used in the future for ad
tracking. Microsoft has full control over changing their privacy policy next
day. I lost the count of emails that I get every other day that eBay, or
YouTube or Twitter has changed their privacy policy.

Assuming benevolent actions from the company collecting data, whether it is
for "telemetry" purposes or for ad tracking, has the risk of being hacked. I
presume Microsoft has taken enough steps to anonymize personally identifiable
information or as they call it PII in the circles.

The plug needs to be pulled from the point of origin of the data, if it is not
collected, it is not going to be misused.

Questions that I would like to ask Microsoft:

\- Why make it difficult for user to opt-out of privacy related settings?

\- Why employ dark patterns to trick users into submitting their data?

\- Why push Cortana across the board from "Home" to "Enterprise" editions,
where no one has asked for it, no one uses it and it is impossible to get rid
of?

\- Why not make it an opt-in process as opposed to opting out?

~~~
Hawxy
> Do you mind if I paraphrase your comment and add it to the article?

Sure.

> Everything is checked on by default. They go out of their way to make it
> difficult.

During install of recent versions of W10, there's a privacy settings dialog
that comes up and allows you disable the majority of the privacy settings
before installation.
([https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2018/03/06/windo...](https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2018/03/06/windows-
insiders-get-first-look-new-privacy-screen-settings-layout-coming-
windows-10/))

> There are no more than 2 dozen privacy related switches in Control Panel.

There's a lot of different settings because that's what people asked for. When
W10 released, a lot of privacy options were bundled under a handful of toggles
and it wasn't very clear what each of them did. Now it's explicit and far
easier to understand for people that actually go looking for them.

> This whole thing reeks of insiduous tracking, spying and surveillance,
> despite of what the privacy guide says.

I'd honestly suggest spending some time on the Microsoft Privacy portal and
related pages. They go into quite a lot of detail of what each individual
setting does and what the data is used for, as well as Microsoft's internal
policies for data management.

These two pages are targeted towards IT peeps and I think provide the best
summary if you have some time: [https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/privacy/configure-w...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/privacy/configure-windows-diagnostic-data-in-your-organization)
[https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/privacy/windows-10-...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/privacy/windows-10-and-privacy-compliance)

Your theory also doesn't make sense considering Microsoft's current market
strategy as a cloud services company. Its advertisement business is barely a
blip on the radar.

> ...has the risk of being hacked. I presume Microsoft has taken enough steps
> to anonymize personally identifiable information or as they call it PII in
> the circles.

Per the above link: "The principle of least privileged access guides access to
diagnostic data. [...] We strive to gather only the info we need and to store
it only for as long as it’s needed to provide a service or for analysis. Much
of the info about how Windows and apps are functioning is deleted within 30
days"

PII might be contained within full crash dumps, however access to potentially
PII-containing telemetry requires internal approval:

"If a device experiences problems that are difficult to identify or repeat
using Microsoft’s internal testing, additional data becomes necessary. This
data can include any user content that might have triggered the problem and is
gathered from a small sample of devices that have both opted into the Full
diagnostic data level and have exhibited the problem.

However, before more data is gathered, Microsoft’s privacy governance team,
including privacy and other subject matter experts, must approve the
diagnostics request made by a Microsoft engineer."

> Why make it difficult for user to opt-out of privacy related settings?

Given the privacy dialog shown on install, and the ability to opt-out of
personalised targeting globally via a single page, what part is difficult?

> Why push Cortana across the board from "Home" to "Enterprise" editions,
> where no one has asked for it, no one uses it and it is impossible to get
> rid of?

Search was actually separated from Cortana in a recent update. It was
completely integrated at some point in an effort to compete with Apple/Google
but is slowly being pulled apart and hidden away in the OS as, like you said,
barely anyone uses it. Fun fact, if you never pick a language for Cortana it
never enables. I just have a plain search box.

> Why employ dark patterns to trick users into submitting their data? Why not
> make it an opt-in process as opposed to opting out?

Both of these questions are effectively asking the same thing. Because nobody
would go out of their way to enable it. The data Microsoft would receive would
just be a mix of "Technically competent people that would like to send
Microsoft diagnostic & usage data" and "People who enabled it accidentally".
Your average joe isn't going to read the descriptions of 10 toggle boxes and
go to enable them. Not a great dataset when you're looking for a niche driver
problems affecting 0.005% of users.

------
frou_dh
When a clean install of Windows 10 ""Professional"" had prominent ads for
Candy Crush in the Start Menu, is when I realized MS had lost their dignity.

~~~
apk-d
To solve this, they have an upgrade you can get called "Windows 10 Pro for
Workstations". Costs a little over $300. Quoting the blog post on windows.com:

"You will see for Windows 10 Pro for Workstations productivity and enterprise
focused applications in place of consumer applications and games. This was one
of the top feedback shared with us by our partners and users and we're
delivering this in our next update"

Last time I tried it, it still tried to install candy crush and such, but
somehow failed, resulting in a glitchy start menu. That was a while ago,
though.

~~~
Krssst
Since Windows 7 is going to lose security updates, I have been looking at what
to replace it with. My main use case being games (actual work and internet
being on Debian).

What I found was that Windows Server seems to cut most of the features I do
not want in Windows (Cortana, Windows Store and Microsoft accounts,
OneDrive...) while still being purchasable on Amazon (although at 3-6 times
the price). There are several issues (drivers and application compatibility,
various settings have to be changed to match the "regular" Windows behavior),
but so far I prefer it a lot to regular Windows 10.

~~~
swiley
Oh my god just use wine.

This is getting ridiculous!

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
Sadly still not compatible with all applications.

~~~
swiley
Maybe it’s time to find alternates? I have a really hard time imagining
there’s anything other than specialized control software that won’t run on
Linux and is worth _that_.

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
I do not precisely disagree; I _personally_ have exactly zero Windows machines
left. But I know people for whom that transition would mean replacing the
majority of the software that they use every day, and for less-technical folks
that's going to _hurt_.

Story time. I know a small business owner who uses WordPerfect, FileMaker
(database), and who needs a Java web applet that interfaces with a hardware
device and backends into a government database in order to do their job. Now,
I would 100% be thrilled to move them from WordPerfect to LibreOffice, but
they have 20-year-old macros that we'd have to port. Then FileMaker: I guess
something could be done with sqlite? But now we're talking custom software
solutions to replace something that a non-developer could drive before. And
the Java applet... well, that's gonna hurt regardless, but it talks to
hardware which means that it'll need drivers, and the government isn't going
to support anything but the bare minimum, so that may never move.

In my experience, 90% of software is totally possible to port or replace.
Unfortunately, that last 10% (games, drivers, business-critical app written
for MS-DOS 6.22) tends to be what makes or breaks the migration.

------
pcr910303
A little bit irrelevant to the article:

Unpopular opinion but, is opt-outtable telemetry that bad?

Of course using tracked behaviors for add targeting is bad (which is why my
opinion is irrelevant to the article) but using telemetry to do AB-tests, UX-
tests, finding bugs, etc... what’s really bad about it?

Every comment about telemetry in HN reads something like ‘Telemetry with opt-
out is bad, so GitLab is bad, VSCode is bad, brew is bad, etc...’ but
personally I really can’t see the problem.

For people who can’t believe the company enough for processing one’s data can
turn off telemetry right? The fact that one is using the application from one
company (for example, VSCode) implies that they trust the company (in this
case, MS). If one doesn’t, one can manually turn it off.

~~~
leppr
I would be okay with it if it was properly anonymized. I'm talking for
instance some peer-to-peer mixing scheme, not just a privacy clause by which
they swear they won't use the data to identify the particular users. There are
technical solutions to privacy-conscious telemetry, but of course the non-
trivial cost of implementation, and perhaps more importantly the loss of
valuable data for the company means it's almost never implemented.

~~~
type0
> I would be okay with it if it was properly anonymized.

MS might properly anonymize it, CandyCrash as well, then antivirus company
also does it properly, but when it's all combined nothing says it won't be
properly de-anonymized, specially if the data is sensitive and valuable.

~~~
leppr
If the telemetry information is only internal to the application (generic UI
interactions, no specific IDs or tags), I don't see how combining sources
could de-anonymize it.

~~~
JetSpiegel
How many people use Candy Crush and that specific industrial driver software?
The pinga come from the same IP at similar times.

------
nroets
Microsoft had the dominant consumer operating system since the 1980s. Using
that advantage (and not innovation and quality !) they were able to grab
substantial chunks of other markets:

Word processing, commercial compilers, cloud computing etc. Next up is digital
assistants and advertising.

What is the alternative for average consumers ? Chrome books ?

~~~
jk3faster
> What is the alternative for average consumers ? Chrome books ?

GNU/Linux! Any mainstream beginner friendly GNU/Linux distribution like Linux
Mint or Ubuntu will be descent enough for average consumers. Unless you are
heavily dependent on Adobe softwares(even then, you can consider dual boot),
they are now much more elegant than windows. Getting quality support from
forums is actually much easier with GNU/Linux. Last time when I had a problem
with Windows 10, where everything saved to C:/ would disappear after restart,
I was unable to get any useful support from their forums. On the other had,
most problems I encounter while using a linux distribution is just a search
away! I'm currently using Arch linux(before that I used Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora
etc...), and my less technically inclined family uses Elementary OS. Try a
linux distribution like Linux Mint or Kubuntu. It's worth the time!

~~~
csydas
As much as I love all that Linux offers and working with it, the culture isn't
there for Linux to be mainstream, and it's not even about feature parity or
user-friendliness anymore. It's that the minimum standard offered by
Microsoft, Google, and Apple is quite good and many of the annoyances that
folks who do have a preference on OSes and such are not bothersome in the
least bit to your average user.

The problem with positioning Linux as an alternative to Windows/MacOS is that
there is a very real alternative (and has been for some time) of just not
having a Desktop OS at all; do everything mobile. It might be strange for some
people here, but Mobile-only is a very common and real choice made nowadays,
and Android/iOS make this a pretty darn comfortable option. While the
advertising and telemetry and crapware is even worse on Mobile, this leads to
the other part of the issue where, based on my experience, the average user is
completely attuned to and just accepts the advertising without question. 10
second ads randomly played as part of an App is just seen as normal; the
barrage of randomly placed animated banners, auto-play videos that scroll with
you, over-zealous sign-up requirements are absolutely the norm now as the big
players have made this a reality, and many people just do not think twice
about such practices. Youtube, popular news sites, and other such things have
normalized these practices and now it's not even a concern for many people.

I've had this conversation with many people even directly in IT/Development
related fields and I'm sure I come off as a Stallmanite-esque nutcase when I
voice my frustrations about Google, for example. I purposefully avoid Chrome
because of its awful auto-updater tactics on MacOS which basically took pages
from malware authors on how to ensure the service is always alive and present
on your OS. When I explained this decision to colleagues, the response was
confusion more than anything, and wondering why I even wanted to stop this.
(Neverminding their frustration with Google when it changed the login handling
for its services)

Linux as an alternative __does__ exist, but this is only if you care enough to
want to seek an alternative in the first place. Putting aside the monstrous
mountain of issues with the non-Linux OSes, it's never been a better time to
be a Windows/MacOS/iOS/Android user. The OSes are stable as heck, cross-
compatibility is very good for virtually whatever program/application you
want, the OSes run great on virtually all hardware with no configuration. The
only consideration most of the time is tiny personal preferences. And best of
all, for 3 of 4 of the OSes above, you don't pay a single cent (directly) for
any of them. Windows holds out, but I cannot imagine this lasting much longer
either.

With all of the above considered, the question just becomes "why would any of
the mythical 'average consumer' even want to consider Linux in the first
place?" As depressing as this may sound (and defeatist), as long as it gets
them to Facebook and Youtube (and Instagram/whatever other social media they
want), why would they care what does it and/or what that OS is doing?

~~~
acqq
> I purposefully avoid Chrome because of its awful auto-updater tactics on
> MacOS which basically took pages from malware authors on how to ensure the
> service is always alive and present on your OS. When I explained this
> decision to colleagues, the response was confusion more than anything, and
> wondering why I even wanted to stop this.

I've noticed that on Windows as soon as Chrome appeared: they implemented a
lot of malware-like concepts for the installation and updates even then. It
never seemed right to me. And I still avoid Chrome as much as I can.

> the question just becomes "why would any of the mythical 'average consumer'
> even want to consider Linux in the first place?" As depressing as this may
> sound (and defeatist), as long as it gets them to Facebook and Youtube (and
> Instagram/whatever other social media they want), why would they care what
> does it and/or what that OS is doing?

My own issues: as much as I like Linux for programming, whenever I try to use
Linux "just" to play videos on some non-gaming machine (and I've never bought
gaming-only computers, and I'm sure an "average" user doesn't too), I still
see significant problems compared with using Windows for the same task on the
same machine. For various reasons it seems this joke still holds, even when
removing "flash":

[https://xkcd.com/619/](https://xkcd.com/619/)

And my experience was even that those windowing environments promoted as "less
demanding" aren't showing the videos better: they re maybe less demanding in
some other aspects... but the videos which play smoothly on cheaper hardware
is still a goal that is somehow hard to reach. My experience is similar to
those I've had with music playing on Linuxes some decades ago, where every
peace of the setup then worked against me simply being able to play (yes I've
even tried modifying and rebuilding the drivers at these times...)

------
dareobasanjo
Microsoft isn't selling your PC usage data to advertisers. If you doubt me, go
ahead and show me how you can buy this data. I'll gladly give you my next
month's salary if you can.

~~~
antpls
This question : "how can I buy data from X" should be asked more often on HN,
for factual purposes. I would like the same question asked about Google.

~~~
pixl97
Or should this question be asked as "what type of warrant needs served for law
enforcement to get this data from Microsoft about you"

------
sbr464
I find that any major service pack install inadvertently resets preferences
around defender/other settings. I’m not a daily windows user currently, but i
definetly don’t appreciate opening a laptop after a month in 2019 and it being
unusable for an hour while it auto updates.

------
ekianjo
> And, Apple has lit this torch.

Too bad this ends on this line. So you recommend trusting another corporation
over Microsoft to be virtuous over the long term? The only OS you can truly
control is well known, and it's Linux.

~~~
neilpanchal
“Apple has lit the torch”, I mean that Apple is leading the way forward for
privacy centric products and services. Whether one chooses to trust Apple and
buy their products, that’s debatable. But, it is evident, and clear that
Apple’s press, their marketing, keynotes, technology and their products in
last 3 years have a central theme - Privacy.

~~~
bsaul
I completely agree. The best reason i think to trust apple is because of their
revenue model which almost entirely come from selling hardware. Now with their
recent increase in revenue from services, i’m a bit worried that it could
change in the future.

------
acqq
The link from the PDF booklet targeted to those who would buy Microsoft's ad
services:

[https://about.ads.microsoft.com/en-us?s_int=en-us-gct-web-
sr...](https://about.ads.microsoft.com/en-us?s_int=en-us-gct-web-src_pdf-
sub_0-cam_ic_scj_flx_chptr2)

"Sign up for a Microsoft Advertising account to take advantage of these tools
or get in touch with an account representative. If you already have a
Microsoft Advertising account, log in or talk to your account representative
about how to be a High Performer"

which leads one to, as the author writes, the page with the first picture of

"a couple of dudes snooping on animals, taking pictures and analyzing them
while on Safari."

I don't think the choice of the photo is irrelevant.

~~~
tomglynch
> "a couple of dudes snooping on animals, taking pictures and analyzing them
> while on Safari."

> I don't think the choice of the photo is irrelevant.

Irrelevant. Safari isn't available on windows. Edge, Chrome or Firefox would
be relevant.

~~~
acqq
Did capitalization mislead you, is it an attempt to be funny or even something
else?

"This article is about the type of overland journey. For the web browser, see
Safari (web browser). For other uses, see Safari (disambiguation)."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safari](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safari)

"A safari /səˈfɑːri/ (Swahili: safari) is an overland journey, usually a trip
by tourists in Africa. In the past, the trip was often a big-game hunt, but
today, safaris are often to observe and photograph wildlife—or hiking and
sightseeing, as well."

In this context the "dudes" with the binoculars are the clients of Microsoft
who pay Microsoft organizing them the "safari" privilege to snoop the "normal
users" ("animals") living their lives.

~~~
tomglynch
Yeah I was just making a joke

------
sizzle
It's a nuclear arms race for capturing and monetizing user behavior and
attention across all tech giants.

I'm generally against pervasive government regulation and oversight as a
fellow tech enthusiast, but I fear where humanity is headed if these companies
are left unchecked to their own devices, in an era where echo-chamber outrage
amplifying newsfeed algorithms are subverting democracy as we know it.

------
WalterBright
> at least have the mic on for Cortana to listen and collect data.

My computer doesn't have a mike. Or a camera. Or speakers.

~~~
JBiserkov
Lucky you.

~~~
WalterBright
How is that lucky?

~~~
JBiserkov
Can't be spied upon?

------
fortran77
My business partner's kid runs a cracked Windows 10 LTSC when he plays games
because "he doesn't like Microsoft spying on him" as if he's some valuable
target.

Because it's hacked, it's crashy (and also his "rig" is overclocked and badly
integrated.) And of course, he blames "Windows" for being so crashy.

~~~
saagarjha
> "he doesn't like Microsoft spying on him" as if he's some valuable target

Everyone has a right to privacy, not just the people you think are being
watched.

~~~
fortran77
But he doesn't have a right to steal from Microsoft and then criticize the
product for being "crashy" (as many people here who "run Windows for gaming"
are doing).

------
vezycash
>There is no Windows equivalent of Little Snitch

BW Meter is closer to Little Snitch than Glasswire. And it's very light on
resources.

------
jkonline
I agree that more data crunch-n-munching would make a nice feature-set for
GlassWire. It still always makes my list of must-have installations though.

... "GlassWire 2.0 comes with a free 7 day trial so you can try out all its
paid Basic, Pro, Elite features. After 7 days GlassWire will revert to its
free version."

#shamelessplug

------
Gabrielfair
The author did not even mention how Windows 10 pushes the "Your Phone" app.
Which gives Microsoft full access to your android phone and your behavior and
data on your mobile device. Unlike apple which provides this feature with end
to end encryption.

------
zerop
I have been seeing this MS vs other debates since decades. Why Linux has not
been able to come up with a consumer OS. Why Windows or MAC only rule in
consumer OS space?

~~~
jk3faster
If you are not heavily dependent on softwares that run exclusively on Windows,
I would say user experience on any mainstream GNU/Linux distribution is far
better than that of Windows(which still insists automatic update before a
reboot/shutdown). Also, community support for linux is much better. Places
like AskUbuntu and community forums of distributions are much better than
microsoft's support forum. Try a distribution like Kubuntu or Linux Mint for a
few weeks :)

~~~
oefrha
Linux people keep peddling this, I'd say it'll never be the year of Linux on
Desktop if you keep denying you have problems. Last I tried to dual boot my
Windows gaming rig to Ubuntu Desktop earlier this year, it can't even do
fractional scaling on my 4K monitor, making it completely worthless. You'd
think HiDPI support is pretty basic stuff in 2019. Granted Windows HiDPI is
still craptastic compared to macOS, as least it has been usable since 2015.

~~~
jk3faster
Of course, that's what I refer to as a windows dependent workflow, like gaming
and graphics designing. And I do agree linux support for those stuff is still
limited, but constantly improving(especially with Steam).

~~~
gbl08ma
The way I see it, "desktop-dependent workflows" overlap more and more with
those "Windows-dependent workflows". Nowadays, most people don't need more
than a web browser, and in that sense they do just fine with a tablet or phone
(where iOS and Android dominate, and GNU/Linux is not really a viable option,
at least not yet), or a Chromebook (yes, it's Linux, but it's mainly just
Chrome).

Most people I know with a legitimate use for a desktop also have legitimate
reasons to use Windows or macOS: gaming on Windows, content creation on
Windows or macOS (graphics designing, video editing, ...), and MS Office lock-
in. The only exception I can think of are developers, but even then, depending
on the kind of development one is doing, using Windows or macOS may be the
only choice.

~~~
jk3faster
I'm a software developer. I mainly work web and android. That,ofcourse, I
can't do it on a smartphone and my Linux distro probably does it better than
Windows. Installing and configuring CLIs and other development tools are much
easier on Linux. I usually just install a linux distro as dual boot to my
peers rather than figuring out how to get those stuff configured right on
windows. There are ofcourse things like ASP.NET that are difficult to develop
on linux because Visual Studio isn't available but fortunately, I'm able to
choose my stack and avoid such cases most of the time. The windows-dependent
workflows doesn't mean that doing those things with Linux is impossible. An
inspiring story was published here recently:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21504721](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21504721)
Where they switched from Windows/Pagemaker/Photoshop to Linux/Scribus/GIMP for
the complete process of designing and publishing a commercial newspaper. For
video editing, there is kdenlive, openshot and blender. GNU/Linux is
definitely more than just a "web browser" OS and capable of doing most of the
things that an average user does on windows.

~~~
gbl08ma
I, too, develop for Android and, like you say, we have the "luxury" of being
able to do it on both Windows and Linux (and macOS as well, if I wanted). Even
.NET development is more cross-platform than ever, with .NET Core. One of my
points was precisely that developers were an exception in this regard, as our
tooling is generally cross-platform. You can't say the same about people who
do their work primarily using Adobe tools, for example. And even developers
sometimes don't have this luxury: for example, if you do iOS development, to
publish on the app store, at some point you must use a Mac to sign the app. Of
course you can use stuff like Xamarin and use the Mac exclusively to sign, but
this is often inconvenient compared to just using the officially endorsed
stack. Overall, requiring a "traditional desktop operating system" to work is
less and less the case for the general population.

------
pojntfx
Just use Linux. It's really that simple.

~~~
jeena
I kind of agree, with distros like Ubuntu you get the Windows convenience and
most of the people just use a browser for everything nowadays anyway.

~~~
sz4kerto
We still don't have fully hardware accelerated video playback in browsers
under Linux. To check this, watch a 4K video in the browser and look at the
CPU usage.

Edit: I can block ads in various ways (pi.hole, etc.) but I can't fix laggy
UI. I'm always using Linux on one of my PCs so that I can follow how it's
progressing, but Win10+WSL2+VcXsrv gives me the best of all worlds.

------
anonguid18249
hmm... why is this linking to a 404 now? Did this get taken down or
intimidated out somehow?

~~~
asdasdasdasdwd
Here's google's cache:
[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https%...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https%3A%2F%2Fneil.computer%2Fnotes%2Fmicrosoft%2Dadvertisement%2F)

------
cryptozeus
We have win machine at the office with latest OS. I don’t see these ads at
all. Clearly there is a way to prevent this otherwise companies would not go
for it.

~~~
cpach
That’ not really the point of the article though.

------
sm4rk0
Advertisement is not a cause of the problem. It's just an effect of a deeper
one. The cause and effect chain goes like this: money-based world -> profit-
oriented economy -> advertising.

~~~
minusf
Windows is a sold product with no free tier. isn't that the profit? it was
part of the price I paid for the notebook. and they still make me see ads?
that's a business model publishing would die for.

~~~
sm4rk0
Publishing arrived there first. You're paying to buy newspapers and magazines
but they still make you see ads.

------
chris_wot
So this is why I love Gnome, it doesn’t do this sort of shit.

~~~
jk3faster
Neither does KDE, LXDE, XFCE or any other FLOSS destop environments!

~~~
chris_wot
And I am very grateful to them also :-) I just prefer GNOME.

------
yread
> what does that even mean

to me it reads like a description of "marketing accessibility" in more words.
So, making your ads work well with screen readers. Truly a devilish conspiracy
by M$ /s

------
kmlx
"Advertisement needs to end."

"Privacy is the biggest, one of the most important challenges in technology
today. Democracy depends on it."

in my opinion this article is a rant.

