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Microsoft accused of malware-like tactics, again, in attempt to push users onto Bing
(www.techspot.com)
Really love being free of Windows and this bullshit.
this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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Outlook the other day insisted it was better opening links in Edge instead of my default browser... Yeah, I shut THAT down...
I encountered this at work today. I just assumed I couldn't turn it off. Will def be looking for that setting tomorrow.
Outlook devs also doesn't know how the internet works. After all they use word as there email renderimg engine
Tbf, they did recently (I think) implement a feature where Edge would open with the email in a sidebar when opening links from outlook. So at least there’s some point to it.. if that’s a feature anyone actually wants..
Windows is malware.
There was a thread on hackernews a few days ago (maybe even yesterday, time is a construct) where someone shared a screenshot of a pop up ad served to them by the OS itself.
Wtf. Why would anyone willingly use that crap?
It's not even free. It's the only OS you can walk into a store and buy.
Ubuntu needs to change that. Hey Walmart, here's a $1 thumbdrive you can sell for $5. 500% markup! It's a can't miss deal!
Seeing a very popular and powerful $5 OS next to $100 Windows cards at the store would be pretty compelling. I guess their advantage would still be that all you need is a code to install Windows on many machines while you need to boot into an external drive to install Ubuntu (and any other OS).
I'll say it a million times if I have to
Install Linux, take back your computer, get rid of the microshit problem
Are they begging for another antitrust?
Anyone else notice the search (in windows 10 at least) suddenly being fucking useless? Used to be able to just type "disk man" and it defaulted to the disk management control panel, now it's defaulting to a Bing search (in edge of course even though Firefox is default browser) for the phrase... Tried it on like 4 computers and only one was even offering the control panel as an option and it wasn't the first one. Same thing with "default apps"...
Really glad I made the jump to Linux when I did, everytime I have to do something out of the usual user use case in windows at work I find myself more and more frustrated and jaded with windows.
Confirming this on (my sister's installation of) Windows 11. Not even restore point would give me a result (switching to en-US at least found Reset my PC but still creating a restore point is nowhere to be found unless you know where to go from previous versions of Windows).
Install Linux, problem solved
I actually installed Mint before going through the Windows OOBE. However, the laptop is so new that the touchpad, touchscreen and fingerprint sensor don’t work in kernels <6.5, and the Wi-Fi card in kernels below 6.0. Most distros ship with kernel 5.x and none have LTS versions with 6.5 (which only became stable this week). I am not nearly skilled enough to go with a non-mainstream or unstable distro. My sister will need Windows so I configured GRUB to boot that by default with 0.2 s hidden timeout and now I can't boot to Linux at all. I’ll be reinstalling it anyway in a few months.
That being said, Windows is also terrible. You can't configure the fingers to only scroll and the active stylus to only draw in a note-taking program, the touchpad's horizontal scrolling is reversed while the vertical is not, the handwriting recognition has not improved since my grandpa's 2004 Windows Mobile PDA, there is a shitton of telemetry, and uninstalling Edge caused the fingerprint reader to stop working somehow. Without asking, it encrypted my storage with BitLocker (which I cannot configure because it's not the Pro edition) and I had to enter two 48-digit codes to unlock the D: and E: partitions on each boot (thankfully I removed that). I would welcome encryption if it unlocked on Windows login and didn't completely lock non-Microsoft account users on the same device from the storage partition. NumLock stays lit in Sleep mode or when the display is closed. Also the manufacturer CaReS aBoUt pRiVaCy and therefore included a camera cover but has a fucking persistent app that “monitors the system” and shows extended warranty popup ads, but is required to limit the battery charging voltage.
And the internal PSU makes a maddening coil whine all the time but the company just said “manufacturing is difficult and we screwed up, just use headphones lol”. It could be fixed by some soft glue, foam or rubber around the inductors but I think I would lose the warranty over this.
Sounds like the biggest (only) issue is drivers, then? Most distros (mint too) have repositories for newer kernels,nyou can turn those. Should be fairly easy to setup
I have been warned against using Mainline due to instability. I will wait until a stable release, it’s my sister's laptop anyway and I have another.
Mmm, as long as the kernels themselves are stable you should be fine. Worst case your computer won't boot up and you simply boot back into the previous kernel
simply boot back into the previous kernel
That’s asking too much from somebody who cannot fix a screwed-up GRUB config from a Live USB (it took me several tries to successfully update-grub from the Mint installation, and the one time I succeeded, the config is wrong and I cannot boot into it: GRUB menu never shows up no matter what I press, and I set Windows as default for my noob sister). As I said, I’m not the primary user and I will now be mostly debloating and customizing Windows for her, after which she takes it to college. So working Linux is not on the agenda until Christmas at least, and I’ll put up with WSL (or my own laptop) until then.
That part is actually really easy, at least if you have a boot menu (most installs should have this)
Did you read what I wrote? I did have a GRUB boot menu before accidentally disabling it. Now booting “ubuntu” or “EFI” from BIOS just boots the default GRUB entry (Windows).
And pen support is a disaster in Windows. It can differentiate the pen from fingers but giving each a different action? Nope. Krita works but the Erase button shows context menu while the Menu button scrolls. GIMP senses pressure but only allows clicking, not dragging (I can draw points, or straight lines if I hold Shift). In Pinta, there is no pressure dynamics and the Erase button does erase but only when the pen is hovering above the screen. This is what I’ll be resolving in the next days so that I can give my sister a decent guide to notetaking, writing & drawing with the pen.
I've had issues in the past where the local full text search index was broken and no apps or settings ever came up, so it only offered Bing searches for shit like "control panel".
There's a way to clear it and force it to rebuild, but I'm not so sure this is the same problem that you're describing since you're seeing it on multiple computers at the same time.
It's not sudden, it's been garbage for a while.
Edge* is fucking shitty, to boot. It keeps serving my grandma fucking scam ads, how in the ever-loving motherfuck is that a thing in an official Microsoft browser?
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If the screenshot in the article is to be believed, it literally has a typo, missing a quote for Don't, which is usually one of the most common ways to spot suspicious activity and malware, and now, as someone working for an MSP, I have to now tell those users who see this that confusingly, yes this was legitimate and it was a Microsoft ad. The font isn't exactly standard either, the buttons look like Arial which also just looks suspicious.
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Looks like Microsoft needs to be reminded about their anti trust case again. some things never change.
Pushed me to endeavour os
What is C:\windows\temp? Wasn't LOCALAPPDATA supposed for that?
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Yeah, on /r/assholedesign I have seen posts about these popups
Malware characteristics Windows
- Backdoor/Automatic file download/execution ✓
- Logs keys ✓
- Injects into other processes ✗
- Solely designed to only make money ✓
- Prevents removal of itself/parts ✓
- Does not annoy the user ✗
- From an untrusted source ✓
- Closed source ✓
- Sells your data ✓
- Tries to gain control over the 'user' ✓
- Relies on unawareness to exist ✓
- Minimal ✗
- Compatible with many systems ✗
- Basic features do not cost like a new GPU ✗
What else are people expecting from Micro$oft ?
This is getting tiring, not microsoft or Google or apple or any other, its too hard to be private these days, using nextdns, vpn and mull but I still dont feel safe browsing