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    Windows needs to stop showing tabloid news

    (www.tomshardware.com)
    1725 points taubek | 11 comments | 27 Mar 23 05:20 UTC | HN request time: 1.003s | source | bottom
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    PrimeMcFly ◴[27 Mar 23 06:33 UTC] No.35323525[source]▶
    I don't want anything, any type of news being pushed by my OS. It simply isn't it's job. Maybe, as an option or optional add-on, but not the way MS does it.

    I use 10 now, as locked down and 'fixed' as I was able to make it (custom ISO via NTLite with a bunch of crap removed and some fixes steamrolled in), but really I look forward to ditching it altogether - which is a shame. For all the MS hate in the OSS community, I always thought Windows did a lot of stuff well (when it was good at least).

    The telemetry, changing things for the sake of changing things and forced crap constantly being added is enough. I'm so in love with awesomewm at this point, and the fact that I can customize and program every part of my UI, allowing me to have something absolutely perfect and tailor made.

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    jgaa ◴[27 Mar 23 10:10 UTC] No.35324818[source]▶
    > I don't want anything, any type of news being pushed by my OS.

    Then, how is Microsoft supposed to properly track your interests and sell that information to their "partners"?

    It's been a long time since Microsoft made an operating system. What they make today is basically a spyware-platform where you can run applications if you are really disciplined and persistent. I don't understand how people keep up with it.

    I've used Linux on my desktops and laptops for decades now.

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    ftl64 ◴[27 Mar 23 11:19 UTC] No.35325246[source]▶
    It's just more stable, at least this has been my experience. I've tried hard to become a full-time workstation Linux user for years, daily driving Ubuntu, Mint, and Fedora for months at a time, but I always had to come back to Windows. Nvidia and Intel driver issues, package manager bugs, reduced laptop battery life, general UI clunkiness, and times when GRUB suddenly decided not to boot have taken so many hours of troubleshooting that could've been spent doing something actually productive.

    Windows has many issues, but it never decided to break on me in the middle of the day. For me, an OS is not a religious affiliation but a tool, and Windows performs much better as one.

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    1. ajdude ◴[27 Mar 23 11:45 UTC] No.35325432[source]▶
    MacOS doesn't have the issues that you've described while giving you many of the same tools Linux has, in addition to support for most mainstream windows software.

    And while macOS isn't as free as Linux, it's certainly less "spyware" than windows.

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    2. ftl64 ◴[27 Mar 23 12:02 UTC] No.35325559[source]▶
    Growing up in a developing country, until recently Apple devices (laptops/desktops especially) have been a bit out of price range for me. Although I can afford one now, my current laptop is nowhere near its end of life, and something in my soviet-scarcity-mentality-influenced mind doesn't feel right about upgrading just for the sake of upgrading. That said, Apple laptops look very convincing at the moment, and when the time comes they will probably be my first choice.
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    3. ClumsyPilot ◴[27 Mar 23 12:57 UTC] No.35326102[source]▶
    One thing that helped me is realising that I should be selling ild electronics, so it goes to people that need it most. Instead of having it collect dust in the drawerr untill it becomes c dead and obsolete
    4. seltzered_ ◴[27 Mar 23 13:32 UTC] No.35326483[source]▶
    Have you noticed Apple news notifications on a loved ones Mac in recent years? Happens even without a paid subscription if I recall correctly.
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    5. cyberge99 ◴[27 Mar 23 13:42 UTC] No.35326581[source]▶
    I’ve never seen this and if I did, I would just turn it off.
    6. dmix ◴[27 Mar 23 13:49 UTC] No.35326639[source]▶
    I've not seen this and I set up new Macs every year. Can you expand? You'd have to open the news app to see this AFAIK. Unless it was part of some iCloud on-boarding process which I haven't done in years.
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    7. ◴[27 Mar 23 14:04 UTC] No.35326797{3}[source]▶
    8. gjsman-1000 ◴[27 Mar 23 15:04 UTC] No.35327621[source]▶
    That only happens if the loved one opens the Apple News app, and grants permission for notifications. If they never open Apple News, or if they open it and deny permission, no notification.
    9. seltzered_ ◴[27 Mar 23 16:36 UTC] No.35328823{3}[source]▶
    I don't recall the details. Possibly may appear as an onboarding process.

    I think in the same way we now see advertising on school buses and display-covered vending machines (even inside a state office), were going to end up with forms of outreach / ads in our tools unless there's more robust forms of support (could be paying, could be a more multicapital flow of support).

    10. r00fus ◴[27 Mar 23 16:39 UTC] No.35328862[source]▶
    Yes on iOS - but you can turn that off easily but installing News.app or removing it's notifications.

    Microsoft makes it much more difficult, then wipes out your preferences a few patches later.

    11. EricE ◴[27 Mar 23 19:43 UTC] No.35331374[source]▶
    One thing that more than balances it out for me - my Mac's have a lot longer of a lifespan than my Windows machines. I have a larger up front cost, but get far more out of them over time. I average at least 7 years without having to do anything with my Mac's (and used my last two for just under 10 years) - Windows has improved dramatically since the 2000's, but I seem to either need to reload Windows from scratch on the same hardware to maintain decent performance, or upgrade hardware a lot more frequently than I have with my Mac's. Also when setting up a new machine I have found Apple's migration assistant to be flawless in moving everything from my old machine to my new one. I only deviated with my current M1 MacBook Pro because of the CPU architecture change - and friends overwhelmingly positive experiences with using migration assistant to move from Intel to AS Mac's indicate I probably wasted a bunch of time needlessly in setting everything up fresh.