this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2024
528 points (99.8% liked)

Technology

37757 readers
644 users here now

A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:


This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 150 points 8 months ago (6 children)

Blogspam that links to a 'news' website that just regurgitates this reddit thread. Somebody explain to me why is this upvoted so heavily.

[–] [email protected] 69 points 8 months ago

Windows bad, updoots to the left

[–] [email protected] 43 points 8 months ago

I mean the minute you see "Copilot bad, from windowscopilot[dot]news" should surely raise some flags

[–] [email protected] 35 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Coz noone reads that stuff besides the title.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago

The vibe is right tho lol

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago (2 children)

This is the high quality journalism we want

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 104 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I put Copilot on MY taskbar —Microsoft

[–] [email protected] 66 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Exactly. It's Microsoft ffs. They don't care what consumers want. The only time they do anything truly beneficial is when the EU makes them.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 25 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Really trying not to be that “use Linux” person, but it’s easy to underestimate the impact this has on user perception. It was communicated to me by these actions that this isn’t my computer. It kept pissing me off, so I went with something that respects me.

I think Microsoft is okay with that because their operating system isn’t a main profit center anymore. It’s cloud stuff.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago (4 children)

The Win10 machine I got in 2020 will be my last Windows computer now that gaming on Linux is basically solved.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 71 points 8 months ago (4 children)

How many times are we going to have to teach you this lesson, old man. Don't fuck with the task bar.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (9 children)

Even the small things. When work upgraded to Win11 overnight and I logged into the Start being in the middle, I almost lost it. Yes, I could fix it, and a few other things, but I had a moment.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 8 months ago (12 children)

I understand it's not for everyone but I jumped ship to Linux 10 years ago or so. The defining moment was me disabling Cortana only to have her reappear after an update.

At least with Linux when I'm fighting the OS it doesn't feel like the OS developers are fighting back.

load more comments (12 replies)
load more comments (8 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 55 points 8 months ago (3 children)

I actually thought Microsoft was doing pretty well 2015-2020, then these past few years some of their decisions have felt really anti user

[–] [email protected] 38 points 8 months ago (3 children)

It's perfect timing too. Right as Linux becomes an extremely strong competitor (feature wise, not market share yet) they decide to enshitify more than they already were and decide to fuck the user. It made me leave about a year ago, and it's been amazing since.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 26 points 8 months ago (7 children)

They were doing ok. But the github thing and the 11 thing and the edging and now this - I can't wait to buy a machine that can run windows virtualised. I need it for my work apps, but this virt thing has been a dream of mine for a long time. Compartmentalization

[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago (2 children)
load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (6 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 53 points 8 months ago (5 children)

Hey, wake up! The new Clippy skin just dropped!

[–] [email protected] 27 points 8 months ago

I see you're trying to embarrass yourself with a reply to a really important email. Want help with that?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Wake up, developer. We have an OS to burn.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 50 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I asked it how to uninstall itself. It responded with the command line. I copy and pasted (this was probably dangerous, given that LLMs lie, but whatever). Now I no longer have it on my task bar. This is sort of like the open edge to get Firefox deal I’ve always had when using a fresh install.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago (2 children)

There's a button for it in taskbar settings.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 49 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (8 children)

i know you hate to hear this, but you wont get rid of these shenanigans unless you move to linux.

proprietary software devs will always be looking for more ways to monetize you.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago (2 children)

For the average user this is like a minor annoyance like once a month. Not worth switching OS's over.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago (6 children)

Yeah, it's a minor annoyance... another minor annoyance on top of all the others. And another personal data leak (or siphon) to go with all the others.

This on its own is not worth switching OSs for - but as a piece of a larger picture it's yet another reason to consider it. And for some people this may be what tips the scales in their evaluation.

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago

There's been tens of dozens of annoyances over the last decade.

Literally not even boiling the frog at this point, the frog is fried.

load more comments (7 replies)
[–] [email protected] 48 points 8 months ago (22 children)

This is like staying in an abusive relationship and then complaining about how abusive their partner is. Get the fuck out of there. Linux works like a charm. OK, now come at me with your bullshit excuses of "Linux bad" "mah games", "my Adobe" blah blah blah. Staying in this abusive relationship is what makes microshit what it is.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (16 children)

I want to switch to Linux, but I honestly don't know how/where to even start or the proper way to even ask.

I asked once on a Linux forum when the whole Cortana debacle happened, and I was called a moron or sent a link to "Linux from scratch"...which was definitely above my technical knowledge at the time. I've been scared to post on Linux communities ever since lol

load more comments (16 replies)
load more comments (21 replies)
[–] [email protected] 33 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Unfortunately windows users don't have choice.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 31 points 8 months ago (3 children)

I asked it how to get rid of it.

It decided my aggressive language was not okay and kept ending the "conversation" which only managed to piss me off even more.

If I want to curse at my f$king computer, I'm going to curse at my f$king computer. I paid for the damned thing, and it is a thing, not a person, I can yell at it all I want and not hurt it in any way so this policing of what we can say to it is all the more bizarre to me.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 30 points 8 months ago

Given the reality that Linux simply isn't viable for some people (including myself), I highly recommend using this tool.

https://christitus.com/windows-tool/

Between this, and manually uninstalling a lot of bloat (or using a specific type of windows install) and a few other tweaks, windows becomes significantly more usable.

Disabling garbage in the task bar, removing Cortana and indexing services, etc etc, it can also add a fairly decent uplift in performance.

I'm sure there is still telemetry being collected but significantly less and less impact on my user experience and day to day performance.

Oh and make sure you turn off auto/feature updates!

[–] [email protected] 27 points 8 months ago (3 children)

It's literally just the Edge feature transplanted onto windows. I wouldn't be surprised if they integrated Edge/WebView2 into Explorer just to do this.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 8 months ago

3rd times the charm, right?

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 20 points 8 months ago (1 children)

You get AI tools shoved down your throat everywhere nowadays. Whether you want it and it's useful or not.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Please don’t call them AI. They are “Language Learning Models” (or “Spicy Autocorrect” if you want to be cheeky).

Copilot is no more “intelligent” than Clippy from Microsoft Bob in 1995. It just appears to be to people who also have low intelligence.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago (1 children)

People who don't understand how LLMs work aren't necessarily of low intelligence.

Don't get ignorance and intelligence mixed up. People of low intelligence do that

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 20 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Have Windows users ever wanted a single thing they added since XP? It seems like every time I upgrade they add some cluttery nonsense I can't get rid of. I moved to Windows 10 for software compatibility, and I still hate it.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 8 months ago (4 children)

They added a lot of things since XP that I enjoy, like window management, multiple desktops. I don't know if they were specifically requested by windows users, but contrary to your opinion they are welcome changes. Users don't always know what they want.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I swear Microsoft has had this weird obsession with digital assistants for decades now and users just don't want it every time.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago

One of the most minimalistic blog posts I have seen in a while (content wise). It has only 2 sentences, a link and a quote. Some YouTube comments have more content...

[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago

There's a new proof of concept malware that when an AI processes it causes arbitrary code execution and spreads itself to everyone on the victims email list.

This requires no input from the user

Yes please put more of this crap into every crevice of the OS.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Yeah let me just go to the super informative and trust worthy windows copilot .news website

Definitely a good source for my news consumption lmao

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago (7 children)

This is beautifully familiar.

Am I seeing too many similarities between how Twitter/X was taken over and singlehandedly being irreversibly ruined?

While Windows is stubbornly becoming increasingly user-adversarial (advertising, constant intrusive updates, forced transition from your favorite browser to Microsoft Edge, etc.) and unintuitive (sometimes even counter intuitive) interface design, placement and inaccessible settings.

Well, delighting in schadenfreude, I won't complain. Microsoft is inadvertently helping me help transition many friends, family and colleagues to various flavors of Linux systems, namely Linux Mint (whichever desktop they prefer) and/or Pop!OS most of the time, but also occasionally Fedora or a particular flavor of Ubuntu.

I never recommend Arch or rolling release systems or immutable systems to first time Linux user so as to preemptively avoid additional layers of complexity, learning curve, downtime and troubleshooting.

load more comments (7 replies)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago

I'm surprised Windows users even want windows 🤷

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Maybe I am just out of touch with the what the majority thinks, but this is honestly surprising. I am very glad to hear it, but yeah, I didn't expect this reaction. Maybe from us Linux folks who just like reiterate the FOSS sentiments in protest, but not this. It's refreshing.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 8 months ago (1 children)

They pulled all their info from a reddit thread, though. Even though it was a Windows 11 sub, reddit tends to have more polarized opinions than most.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

I logged on to my father's computer today to fix a few things for him and was immediately overwhelmed with all the Windows bloat. This includes copilot and... so... much... more... 😖

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›