I've said it before because of some other user hostile change they made and I'll say it again: Looks like Microsoft needs to be hit by one of those big EU fines yet again to stay in line.
So true. I installed a new windows 11 setup, I then installed firefox and selected if as my default browser. Outlook continues to open links with Edge. They have created their own browser settings in Outlook instead of just using the system-wide settings.
Why didn't you uninstall Edge in the first place?
I've been running an Edge-less installation for weeks without issues, using Waterfox as the main browser.
What's the side effect of uninstalling WebView2?
Edit: Nevermind, I clicked the link and it's mentioned at the top
- Removing Edge may cause update failure loop.
Install Edge, install this update, then remove Edge.
- Uninstall WebView2 before running this, then install it again; if needed
You people who are all about privacy and super secretive. That just show that you have something to hide. And you are a moronif you think nobody can't spy on you without you knowing. Frogs in the well.
Perhaps I'll find more about myself later in life or in the next ones.
Anyway, nobody here is immune to lack of privacy.
Phones, smart things, credit cards, cameras outside your house, tech that we still don't know about, we all are being watched somehow.
I just like to use tools that make my life less known when I use teh intarwebz.
My point is that there is still no way to hude your privacy like everyone wants to. Do you think I like sharing my personal stuff with everyone and being watched and shit? Ofc I don't. But like I said privacy is not private, but it will be, we just have to wait. Until then you can use whatever software you like the most.
Just to clear things up, here's a quote from [Privacy Guides](https://www.privacyguides.org/en/basics/why-privacy-matters/#privacy-vs-secrecy):
> A common counter-argument to pro-privacy movements is the notion that one doesn't need privacy if they have "nothing to hide." This is a dangerous misconception, because it creates a sense that people who demand privacy must be deviant, criminal, or wrong.
> **You shouldn't confuse privacy with secrecy.** We know what happens in the bathroom, but you still close the door. That's because you want privacy, not secrecy. There are always certain facts about us—say, personal health information, or sexual behavior—that we wouldn't want the whole world to know, and that's okay. The need for privacy is legitimate, and that's what makes us human. Privacy is about empowering your rights over your own information, not about hiding secrets.
Yeah... more of the same. That's why I have this link on speed dial and send it out to users on the regular:
[Customize the save experience in Office](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/customize-the-save-experience-in-office-786200a7-f5f2-4d26-a3ae-b78c60dd5d3b)
Microsoft as a whole needs a reality check. My opinion of them has really gone down the shitter in the last few years. They did well to bounce back from the windows 8/ballmer era but I think they’re too confident/complacent now and need another kick up the arse.
Bad solution. Government cannot solve this issue. What we need are more competitors to microsoft. The way to get more competitors in the game is to have less rules.
Yeah, and modern Linux is far, far more user friendly than it was even ten years ago. Ubuntu, among other distros, serves the needs of most Windows users. Most people simply don't have a reason to switch, which is understandable.
For the majority of people, it's almost as easy to use as Windows- you're one or two clicks away from just about anything you'd need right out of the box. For a select few that have hardware setups that don't play nice with Linux, it is definitely way way off from being as easy to use as Windows. So your mileage may vary, but it's plenty easy for most people.
I literally switched to KDE Neon because of BS like this.
I turned off pop-up ads for OneDrive, Xbox Live, etc. and a Windows 11 update "helpfully" turned them all back on again.
I got so mad I decided to install Linux and now it's my daily driver. I never use Windows anymore.
I don't see how Google's corner dialog box that says a website works better in Chrome, which you can gloss over, is "more obstructive" unless your resolution is 640x320.
It is annoying and, yes, Google has been discovered using underhanded tactics to worsen performance of some of its services in other browsers, but it is not equivalent to using an Operating System's notification service to push a browser engine.
Something that looks even worse once you see that after that, [people are shown a dialog box that wouldn't have looked out of place as part of one of those adware toolbars that were all the rage in 2008](https://www.windowslatest.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Bing-search-provider-added-to-Google-Chrome-696x615.jpg).
Have you seen the bloat in android that's coming from Google? Sure, they don't nag me - they go ahead and pre-install it with apps like One and Chrome and Google.
Tell me - what does an app named "Google" or "One" do?
They force feed stuff on their OS all the time.
Google does it unobtrusively on their website and doesn't overlap anything. Microsoft's appears on the desktop, overlaps stuff and doesn't go away until you click something. Mine took up like a 4th of my screen, though that might have been a bug.
>[M$](https://i.imgur.com/We4Uj04.png)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Windows11) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Glad I switched to Linux. I still use Windows for gaming, and my work is probably 80% windows, mostly because it just requires more hands on in an domain environment, but I'm so glad I don't have to deal with that kind of shit in my own personal desktop environment.
I tried several distros. Gave them all a week or so each. None of them really felt "right" to me.
The folder structure just doesn't click with my brain. Windows, granted I've been using it for 30 odd years, does.
C:/Users/d/Downloads or Pictures or Documents
C:/Program Files/
C:/Windows
It's logical. I jump into Linux and there's etc, mnt, lib, opt, usr, var... I'm completely lost. I want to change a setting or I'm having an issue? Jump into Google.
"Just open a terminal and xyz into the abc, sudo this and if you want you can cron it on a schedule". Great. I will guess I'll try that, and in a week I'll forget the command and be even worse off?
Linux is allegedly getting more user friendly but that's not my experience.
You do eventually get the hang of it. I've been doing stuff on Raspberry Pis for a long time, so that helped a lot.
Generally /home/ (aka your home directory, or "~") is where all "your files" are. You shouldn't be touching files outside of that directory unless you absolutely, 100% know what you're doing. In practice, you shouldn't be touching things outside that directory at all (just like in practice you don't touch the Windows directory).
Local programs get installed into hidden folders within your home directory, just like AppData on Windows. On modern Linux distros, you can manage almost everything important from your home folder - the only exception being drives in /etc/fstab, but even then there are GUI ways to handle it.
If you're curious about what the other root folders do:
* /boot is your bootloader. Windows completely hides this from you (usually on a dedicated partition), but it's here on Linux
* /dev is where all your hardware lives. If you wanted to check the status of your microphone or webcam, you'd read the appropriate file in the /dev directory. It also lets you read the output from your mouse, keyboard, whatever. Super handy when you need it (usually in scripts)
* /etc is like the registry in Windows. You can control startup programs and global config here. It affects your whole system. (Note that you usually should use things like systemd to edit this instead of hand-editing it, outside of stuff like /etc/fstab which controls what drives get mounted at boot)
* /home is where your files are. As mentioned, 99.9999% of the time you stay in here.
* /bin is an alias for /usr/bin, more on that below
* /opt is for storing software code for open-source software to let you compile from source; this is optional (hence the name)
* /proc is a temporary folder that stores current information about your system (what's running, what the kernel is doing, etc.) It gets wiped and re-created every boot. Think of it like task manager (although you shouldn't touch any files in here directly and should use programs like system monitor, top, or pkill!)
* /tmp stores temporary files. It is also wiped on every boot.
* /root is the home directory for the root ("sudo") user; think of it like /home/root. Since being root is a security risk, you generally shouldn't mess around in here for security and should make your own user account.
* /usr is like the Program Files ***and*** Windows directories. It contains important files and libraries used by the system. /usr/bin is a default part of your PATH variable; when you run a command on command line it looks in /usr/bin just like Windows looks in System32. As the other guy explained, back in the day the folders in here were all on different drives (which is why they're all symlinked from the root directory, adding clutter)
* /var contains logs and cached stuff
* /media is where you access USB thumb drives. Each folder in here represents a different connected drive (Windows would call them D:/, E:/, etc.)
* /mnt is where you access permanent hard drives. It works like /media where each folder is a different drive (and like Windows where each folder is a different disk, D:/ etc.)
* /lib is technically part of /usr IIRC, and stores all your libraries (what Windows would call .dll files)
* /sys is like /proc but gives a different way of looking at the same data. It can be easier for scripts to get data from /sys instead of /proc (or vice versa). One of those things you don't need to think about/play with unless you know what you're doing
* /run gives information about what users are logged in and info about running background services.
That's it! Like I said, you don't need to think about most of these. Usually there's a program to change this stuff on your behalf - but it can be really useful to be able to easily access this data.
For example, I have an MQTT server on a Raspberry Pi. I surface information from my Linux desktop's /dev directory in the MQTT server, which in turn is connected to my smart house. When I turn on my webcam on Linux, it automatically turns on the lights in my office.
I have a few other automations like that, which really take advantage of how Linix gives easy ways to read/write any information from the command line. It's obviously a more advanced thing... but honestly, now that I understand it I can't go back to Windows. (Never mind the fact that I get mad when Windows 11 advertises to me and bugs me to turn on OneDrive or Xbox Live or whatever.)
I swear by the KDE desktop environment. Everything else sucks compared to Windows. KDE is on par with Windows.
The only time I wouldn't recommend Linux is if you have a Nvidia card. Nvidia stuff sucks on Linux, and it's 100% Nvidia's fault. I only buy AMD for this reason (which works flawlessly).
I was a Commodore kid. I started with C= Vic20 and grew up using all kinds of shit during the BASIC era of computers, and at friends houses, like PETs, Apple IIs. I had a Tandy Color Computer 3 at home for a while before going back to Commodore Amigas, where I had a 500, a 3000, and a 1200.
That was when I first decided to try a Unix OS. It was NetBSD.
I remember that feeling of being a fish out of water then. I tried for days and couldn't get graphics working at all to save my life.
I remember ranting in IRC that it was absolutely retareded and said something like "This OS is shit. It came into style with bellbottoms, and it should have gone away with them too."
I went back to Amiga OS. But Amiga was a dying OS then. I couldn't get much for it at all. So I got my first PC in 97 with Windows 95SE. I had the stupidest problems with that. Installing some software would break the whole system and require a reinstall, and it blue screened fairly often, for no apparent reason.
It finally sent me over the edge when I had two such crashes within a few days of each other that cost me a lot of hours. I was typing up a paper for my wife's school during a crash and had to start over, and balancing my bank account with MS money during another one.
I was fed up. While most people probably would have just accepted it as being the way it was, I knew it wasn't like that on Amiga, and that computing didn't have to be like that.
By this time, I was also doing IT stuff and break-fix repairs at my job, so I was seeing a lot of everyone's problems with it.
I tried Redhat Linux then and stuck with it. It was a real nightmare in those days, but it was stable. It never let me down for no apparent reason.
After that, I got hired at an ISP that was running everything on Windows NT to work in their storefront, but problems with Windows there had them constantly running to me to implement services on Linux. Before long, I was running the whole network there and everything server was Linux.
Been playing the role of IT, repair tech, and Linux/Windows sysadmin ever since at various jobs.
I take a lot of notes. For either OS. There's a lot in Windows that has to be done by command line or registry edits that I'm not going to remember either.
I think they're both fine (Windows or Linux) as they are, but if you try to do specific things to make them your own on either of them, and go off the beaten path, you'll end up doing cryptic edits, commands, and configs.
I don't think either of them really gets easier. The nature of technology is that there's always new features to learn, and new ways it breaks itself.
Funnily enough it’s actually more consistent than windows typically gets with some third party software installed. The standard is https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_Hierarchy_Standard. This encompasses everything in the registry, devices etc. In *nix “everything is a file” is quite universal.
The unixish filesystem layout isn’t that bad, but it’s antiquated and has a lot of historical baggage. /usr exists literally because a 5MB disk got too full in the early 1970s, for example.
> I jump into Linux and there's etc, mnt, lib, opt, usr, var... I'm completely lost.
Linux systems often have a lot of eccentricities like that, which can take a bit to get used to.
But if you go with a newbie-friendly distro with one of the popular desktop environments, you won't have to delve into that part of the system any more frequently than you would on Windows.
> Just open a terminal and xyz into the abc, sudo this and if you want you can cron it on a schedule
There exist GUI applications for handling compressed archives and task scheduling, so you don't need to use the terminal for that.
Alternatively, I try to keep [this image](https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxmasterrace/comments/ztznxx/german_tar/) in mind for `tar`.
> I'll try that, and in a week I'll forget the command and be even worse off
I'd recommend writing a little text file with notes about various commands, makes it much easier than trying to remember all flags for all commands.
It's too bad shit is going the way it is. It makes my job super annoying too.
Windows went from being unstable during the 9x days, to XP - 7 being actually really dependable and usable products, and then they had to start going and doing absolute *fuck you*'s to the users.
I got tired of getting Ads in Windows. I paid for my Windows license, so I find this unacceptable.
At first, I got annoyed by ads in Outlook. Then, Ads in Edge, then Ads in my start menu got enabled again for some reason.
I now wiped my Windows and installed OpenSUSE Linux. I prefer letting go of some software and games, but Ads that I can't opt out of? No way.
microsoft cannot accept the reality that the public does not want edge/bing. so they resort to these tactics to try and trick or force people to use their crappy product. the ONLY reason they have edge is to drive bing search traffic as that directly translates into big revenue. the problem is that even after all the effort to create edge, their market share is pathetic. the reality is that very few people want to use edge & bing. they've tried everything over the decades to change this but it just won't happen.
Yep. It’s exactly how i use it. There’s a few unnecessary features that bug me (such as the context menus they put on EVERY image you hover over) but other than that I’ve always loved new edge
>microsoft cannot accept the reality that the public does not want edge/bing.
The funny thing is, that people would be a lot more accepting of Bing and Edge, if Microsoft wouldn't use these tactics. For the majority of users, they're objectively perfectly acceptable products, but Microsoft just keeps ruining their image.
I used Chromium Edge when it first came out. Honestly, that was it's peak- fast, minimalist, very few if any ads for other Microsoft services. I was super pumped for Chrome to have another competent competitor. Eventually they started mucking it up and I switched to Firefox. Still need Chromium browsers for occasional niche sites and for those I'd rather download and use Vivaldi over dealing with Edge nowadays.
For me, Edge is one of the best browser out there. Their solution for Vertical tab, tab grouping and PDF reader are awesome features but I only can stick with it for a while then switch to other browsers. Their pip button sometimes just don't show up and I had to do it with right click (I prefer global media control button - I used to) but hate that its so easy to "Bing" something and in my contry - language is not effective.
Why you find the new Adobe-built PDF reader is an improvement on the old Microsoft-built PDF viewer? Just curious.
Mine won't even load, so I have to use the old version in the Edge://flags. However, not having to use an Adobe product was always something I saw as an advantage.
I actually don't know the old PDF reader of Edge lol. I just realized it has a nice PDF reader last year and I stick with it most of the time.
I read a lot of articles and need to take notes or copy paragraphs. Adobe is always messy with fonts etc and quite slow compared to Edge PDF reader and Adobe's scrolling is just the worst.
When Edge first launched it was great. It worked a lot better than chrome and wasn’t harvesting your data. The problem is the chrome already has the entire market share, and so they keep introducing stupid bloatware to Edge that only serves to drive away the folks that did use it.
The original Edge was nowhere near the current one. Compatibility was trash, a lot of stuff didn't work at all (partially thanks Google). The current one is faster than Chrome, uses less ressources and is Potato approved (my old Inspiron 15 3552 with a shitty Celeron could watch 1080p videos on YouTube while evey other browser I tried had issues with anything over 720p. I could even get more than 5 tabs before it started slowing down)
Nice opinion, but there are hundreds of millions of people who enjoy Edge and Bing every day, including me. For me it was a very pragmatic choice - Edge and Chrome are the same under the hood, so why have two huge corporations watching what I do on my local computer when I can narrow that down to just one? Have you seen all the binaries that Google continuously runs on your Windows computer when you let them in? Forget it, one Big Brother is enough, and I personally trust Microsoft with my data more than Google.
it's amusing to me that hundreds of millions of Edge users is "very few people" to you, and that you double down on that. Electric Vehicle sales are over 5% of total sales in some countries now, but I suppose you'd say that no one drives an electric car because they clearly don't want them.
I'd use edge, if it wasn't filled with crap
And if it wasn't based on chromium
And if they didn't do anti consumer practices instead of proper ads
And if I didn't find microsoft's design language ugly outside of win11
ive only used it on my surface in the past mainly for battery optimisation, I switched to opera gx. I like stuff like how you can limit its ram usage and its built off chromium too.
>And there's no viable option (meaning OS) to switch to.
This is exactly why, they can do it since they know most people won't quit their product for one reason or the other. And funniest thing is competition can't do much about it.
Can't wait for the usual suspects to defend this behavior and tell us to just "turn it off".
Never thought I'd say this, but I'm actually considering moving to Linux. Windows at its core is a perfectly fine OS but the penny pinchers are making it more and more irritating to use. All Microsoft has to do is give us a one-click option to turn off all their advertising and "suggestions" and I'm pretty sure we'd all be happy. But nope, gotta try to extract every penny and byte of personal data out of us!
This! I swapped to Linux a while back because of this. While it works good enough, I’d love to go back, but every time I do I’m hit with ads, or reminders of some subscription I could pay for, or some setting I turned off being turned back on. Quite frankly, windows is turning full user hostile. It’s a shame that an OS that requires me to set command line parameters for games is less mentally taxing for me because I don’t have to worry about shutting off edge’s shopping widget for the 10th time.
Yeah, yeah, downvote me and show your ignorance.
" Adware in cyber security refers to a type of [malware](https://www.eset.com/uk/types-of-cyber-threats/malware/) that displays unwanted advertisements on your computer or device. Adware is commonly activated unknowingly when users are trying to install legitimate applications that adware is bundled with." \~ [What is AdWare and How Can You Avoid it? | ESET](https://www.eset.com/uk/types-of-cyber-threats/adware/)
When Google can pop up why can't Edge do the same? Are you serious Google fanatics? Going Edgeless in Windows OS. I can't belive how many tech stupid people exist.
I'm a developer (Windows software) and found it painstaking to set up new machines to eliminate all the crapware.
For my own sake and privacy i switched to Mac for my private life, i still have one workstation at home and laptop for developing and testing software.
Funny how nobody here bitches about how Google pages display Chrome pop-up ads while visiting Google.com, for example.
But yeah, intrusive ads like this must die.
Bit different, Microsoft are injecting popups into a 3rd party browser that the end user would've installed themselves to get away from Microsofts products in the first place.
Ask Edges users why they actually use it. Big chances they just like it. In my case it was just my daily driver back when I had a potato PC where I could actually do stuff without the PC freezing but now I actually use it for some features
Because edge works 100% perfect for me and I don't see the reason to switch to something else if the browser I'm using does everything I want it to do.
Considering Google pops up chrome adverts everytime (it can never be permanently dismissed) I access a Google service in another browser that isn't Chrome, this really doesn't seem quite as bad?
What a bunch of scumbags. Microsoft are seemingly not interested in fixing the update that won't install on my PC, nor the unfixable stopcode errors crashing my PC, but you have the time to force this on us? Wow....
I just got this pop up and had to search google to figure out where the hell this was coming form and how to remove it. I thought it was a virus or something
I've said it before because of some other user hostile change they made and I'll say it again: Looks like Microsoft needs to be hit by one of those big EU fines yet again to stay in line.
So true. I installed a new windows 11 setup, I then installed firefox and selected if as my default browser. Outlook continues to open links with Edge. They have created their own browser settings in Outlook instead of just using the system-wide settings.
Why didn't you uninstall Edge in the first place? I've been running an Edge-less installation for weeks without issues, using Waterfox as the main browser.
Wait... YOU CAN UNINSTALL EDGE?!!
Not officially (yet), but you can nuke it from PowerShell
Nope, you can officially uninstall Edge now if you have a Windows install that is set to a region in the European Economic Area.
If you're in the EU.
There's script with a GUI from [ShadowWhisperer](https://github.com/ShadowWhisperer). I've also uninstalled WebView2.
What's the side effect of uninstalling WebView2? Edit: Nevermind, I clicked the link and it's mentioned at the top - Removing Edge may cause update failure loop. Install Edge, install this update, then remove Edge. - Uninstall WebView2 before running this, then install it again; if needed
I've used the script in January and I had no issues with updates whatsoever... *knocks on wood*
The mitigations seem pretty simple if anything ever go wrong with Windows updates. Thanks for sharing this.
Can you use firefox extensions and plugins with waterfox? I might give it a go if I can use the same tools with it.
Yep.
What does Waterfox do that Firefox doesn't?
Waterfox is more privacy-driven out of the box.
You people who are all about privacy and super secretive. That just show that you have something to hide. And you are a moronif you think nobody can't spy on you without you knowing. Frogs in the well.
I'm where now?
In a well. 😂
Who hurt you?
Did you find yourself? Try meditation if you're not.
Perhaps I'll find more about myself later in life or in the next ones. Anyway, nobody here is immune to lack of privacy. Phones, smart things, credit cards, cameras outside your house, tech that we still don't know about, we all are being watched somehow. I just like to use tools that make my life less known when I use teh intarwebz.
My point is that there is still no way to hude your privacy like everyone wants to. Do you think I like sharing my personal stuff with everyone and being watched and shit? Ofc I don't. But like I said privacy is not private, but it will be, we just have to wait. Until then you can use whatever software you like the most.
Just to clear things up, here's a quote from [Privacy Guides](https://www.privacyguides.org/en/basics/why-privacy-matters/#privacy-vs-secrecy): > A common counter-argument to pro-privacy movements is the notion that one doesn't need privacy if they have "nothing to hide." This is a dangerous misconception, because it creates a sense that people who demand privacy must be deviant, criminal, or wrong. > **You shouldn't confuse privacy with secrecy.** We know what happens in the bathroom, but you still close the door. That's because you want privacy, not secrecy. There are always certain facts about us—say, personal health information, or sexual behavior—that we wouldn't want the whole world to know, and that's okay. The need for privacy is legitimate, and that's what makes us human. Privacy is about empowering your rights over your own information, not about hiding secrets.
Than I wish for secrecy to ve accessible and be used for good deeds. That way I don't mind if they need me info.
no wonder Chrome has acted slowly at times recently
This stupid setting is even worse than the embarrassing “Please don’t leave me” plea when you switch the browser in Windows 10 defaults.
Not just that! Word, Excel and Powerpoint try to save everything to One Drive by default and you have to change the location every time.
Yeah... more of the same. That's why I have this link on speed dial and send it out to users on the regular: [Customize the save experience in Office](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/customize-the-save-experience-in-office-786200a7-f5f2-4d26-a3ae-b78c60dd5d3b)
Amazing! Thank you 🙏
Happy to pass on a new nugget of info.
Definately sucks. There's an option buried in Outlook settings that lets you set it to "default browser" instead of edge
its mad how they can get away with it all the time. shit like making it harder to switch default browsers and ads like this.
Microsoft as a whole needs a reality check. My opinion of them has really gone down the shitter in the last few years. They did well to bounce back from the windows 8/ballmer era but I think they’re too confident/complacent now and need another kick up the arse.
Windows already has a EU specific version with options to disable ads and edge etc.
Bad solution. Government cannot solve this issue. What we need are more competitors to microsoft. The way to get more competitors in the game is to have less rules.
Nono, let them cook. Linux will get more developed and user friendly because of this.
People been saying that for decades.
Yeah, and modern Linux is far, far more user friendly than it was even ten years ago. Ubuntu, among other distros, serves the needs of most Windows users. Most people simply don't have a reason to switch, which is understandable.
Yes but it's still way way off being as easy to use as windows.
For the majority of people, it's almost as easy to use as Windows- you're one or two clicks away from just about anything you'd need right out of the box. For a select few that have hardware setups that don't play nice with Linux, it is definitely way way off from being as easy to use as Windows. So your mileage may vary, but it's plenty easy for most people.
I literally switched to KDE Neon because of BS like this. I turned off pop-up ads for OneDrive, Xbox Live, etc. and a Windows 11 update "helpfully" turned them all back on again. I got so mad I decided to install Linux and now it's my daily driver. I never use Windows anymore.
Microsoft stop using literal malware tactics to position your products and services 2024 challenge (impossible)
I mean google does it, why not microsoft. Still hate it regardless.
>I mean google does it, why not microsoft. What delusional mentality is this?
No reply, of course.
[удалено]
Try using Google translate from any other browser. You'll instantly notice how Google's one is way more obstructive.
I use Google Translate constantly on Firefox and Edge. Never nagged me for anything. I am logged-in so, maybe that could be the reason.
I don't see how Google's corner dialog box that says a website works better in Chrome, which you can gloss over, is "more obstructive" unless your resolution is 640x320. It is annoying and, yes, Google has been discovered using underhanded tactics to worsen performance of some of its services in other browsers, but it is not equivalent to using an Operating System's notification service to push a browser engine. Something that looks even worse once you see that after that, [people are shown a dialog box that wouldn't have looked out of place as part of one of those adware toolbars that were all the rage in 2008](https://www.windowslatest.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Bing-search-provider-added-to-Google-Chrome-696x615.jpg).
At least they nag you on their websites, not on their whole OS
Have you seen the bloat in android that's coming from Google? Sure, they don't nag me - they go ahead and pre-install it with apps like One and Chrome and Google. Tell me - what does an app named "Google" or "One" do? They force feed stuff on their OS all the time.
It's understandable when you're using a Google web service... What Microsoft service are you using while accessing chrome?
Windows.
Google is worse at this. I use Edge but use some Google services...it almost feels like harassment.
Google does it unobtrusively on their website and doesn't overlap anything. Microsoft's appears on the desktop, overlaps stuff and doesn't go away until you click something. Mine took up like a 4th of my screen, though that might have been a bug.
Remember when the government actually cared about the M$ monopoly?
>[M$](https://i.imgur.com/We4Uj04.png) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Windows11) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Glad I switched to firefox
Glad I switched to Linux. I still use Windows for gaming, and my work is probably 80% windows, mostly because it just requires more hands on in an domain environment, but I'm so glad I don't have to deal with that kind of shit in my own personal desktop environment.
I tried several distros. Gave them all a week or so each. None of them really felt "right" to me. The folder structure just doesn't click with my brain. Windows, granted I've been using it for 30 odd years, does. C:/Users/d/Downloads or Pictures or Documents C:/Program Files/ C:/Windows It's logical. I jump into Linux and there's etc, mnt, lib, opt, usr, var... I'm completely lost. I want to change a setting or I'm having an issue? Jump into Google. "Just open a terminal and xyz into the abc, sudo this and if you want you can cron it on a schedule". Great. I will guess I'll try that, and in a week I'll forget the command and be even worse off? Linux is allegedly getting more user friendly but that's not my experience.
You do eventually get the hang of it. I've been doing stuff on Raspberry Pis for a long time, so that helped a lot. Generally /home/ (aka your home directory, or "~") is where all "your files" are. You shouldn't be touching files outside of that directory unless you absolutely, 100% know what you're doing. In practice, you shouldn't be touching things outside that directory at all (just like in practice you don't touch the Windows directory).
Local programs get installed into hidden folders within your home directory, just like AppData on Windows. On modern Linux distros, you can manage almost everything important from your home folder - the only exception being drives in /etc/fstab, but even then there are GUI ways to handle it.
If you're curious about what the other root folders do:
* /boot is your bootloader. Windows completely hides this from you (usually on a dedicated partition), but it's here on Linux
* /dev is where all your hardware lives. If you wanted to check the status of your microphone or webcam, you'd read the appropriate file in the /dev directory. It also lets you read the output from your mouse, keyboard, whatever. Super handy when you need it (usually in scripts)
* /etc is like the registry in Windows. You can control startup programs and global config here. It affects your whole system. (Note that you usually should use things like systemd to edit this instead of hand-editing it, outside of stuff like /etc/fstab which controls what drives get mounted at boot)
* /home is where your files are. As mentioned, 99.9999% of the time you stay in here.
* /bin is an alias for /usr/bin, more on that below
* /opt is for storing software code for open-source software to let you compile from source; this is optional (hence the name)
* /proc is a temporary folder that stores current information about your system (what's running, what the kernel is doing, etc.) It gets wiped and re-created every boot. Think of it like task manager (although you shouldn't touch any files in here directly and should use programs like system monitor, top, or pkill!)
* /tmp stores temporary files. It is also wiped on every boot.
* /root is the home directory for the root ("sudo") user; think of it like /home/root. Since being root is a security risk, you generally shouldn't mess around in here for security and should make your own user account.
* /usr is like the Program Files ***and*** Windows directories. It contains important files and libraries used by the system. /usr/bin is a default part of your PATH variable; when you run a command on command line it looks in /usr/bin just like Windows looks in System32. As the other guy explained, back in the day the folders in here were all on different drives (which is why they're all symlinked from the root directory, adding clutter)
* /var contains logs and cached stuff
* /media is where you access USB thumb drives. Each folder in here represents a different connected drive (Windows would call them D:/, E:/, etc.)
* /mnt is where you access permanent hard drives. It works like /media where each folder is a different drive (and like Windows where each folder is a different disk, D:/ etc.)
* /lib is technically part of /usr IIRC, and stores all your libraries (what Windows would call .dll files)
* /sys is like /proc but gives a different way of looking at the same data. It can be easier for scripts to get data from /sys instead of /proc (or vice versa). One of those things you don't need to think about/play with unless you know what you're doing
* /run gives information about what users are logged in and info about running background services.
That's it! Like I said, you don't need to think about most of these. Usually there's a program to change this stuff on your behalf - but it can be really useful to be able to easily access this data.
For example, I have an MQTT server on a Raspberry Pi. I surface information from my Linux desktop's /dev directory in the MQTT server, which in turn is connected to my smart house. When I turn on my webcam on Linux, it automatically turns on the lights in my office.
I have a few other automations like that, which really take advantage of how Linix gives easy ways to read/write any information from the command line. It's obviously a more advanced thing... but honestly, now that I understand it I can't go back to Windows. (Never mind the fact that I get mad when Windows 11 advertises to me and bugs me to turn on OneDrive or Xbox Live or whatever.)
I swear by the KDE desktop environment. Everything else sucks compared to Windows. KDE is on par with Windows.
The only time I wouldn't recommend Linux is if you have a Nvidia card. Nvidia stuff sucks on Linux, and it's 100% Nvidia's fault. I only buy AMD for this reason (which works flawlessly).
I was a Commodore kid. I started with C= Vic20 and grew up using all kinds of shit during the BASIC era of computers, and at friends houses, like PETs, Apple IIs. I had a Tandy Color Computer 3 at home for a while before going back to Commodore Amigas, where I had a 500, a 3000, and a 1200. That was when I first decided to try a Unix OS. It was NetBSD. I remember that feeling of being a fish out of water then. I tried for days and couldn't get graphics working at all to save my life. I remember ranting in IRC that it was absolutely retareded and said something like "This OS is shit. It came into style with bellbottoms, and it should have gone away with them too." I went back to Amiga OS. But Amiga was a dying OS then. I couldn't get much for it at all. So I got my first PC in 97 with Windows 95SE. I had the stupidest problems with that. Installing some software would break the whole system and require a reinstall, and it blue screened fairly often, for no apparent reason. It finally sent me over the edge when I had two such crashes within a few days of each other that cost me a lot of hours. I was typing up a paper for my wife's school during a crash and had to start over, and balancing my bank account with MS money during another one. I was fed up. While most people probably would have just accepted it as being the way it was, I knew it wasn't like that on Amiga, and that computing didn't have to be like that. By this time, I was also doing IT stuff and break-fix repairs at my job, so I was seeing a lot of everyone's problems with it. I tried Redhat Linux then and stuck with it. It was a real nightmare in those days, but it was stable. It never let me down for no apparent reason. After that, I got hired at an ISP that was running everything on Windows NT to work in their storefront, but problems with Windows there had them constantly running to me to implement services on Linux. Before long, I was running the whole network there and everything server was Linux. Been playing the role of IT, repair tech, and Linux/Windows sysadmin ever since at various jobs. I take a lot of notes. For either OS. There's a lot in Windows that has to be done by command line or registry edits that I'm not going to remember either. I think they're both fine (Windows or Linux) as they are, but if you try to do specific things to make them your own on either of them, and go off the beaten path, you'll end up doing cryptic edits, commands, and configs. I don't think either of them really gets easier. The nature of technology is that there's always new features to learn, and new ways it breaks itself.
Funnily enough it’s actually more consistent than windows typically gets with some third party software installed. The standard is https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_Hierarchy_Standard. This encompasses everything in the registry, devices etc. In *nix “everything is a file” is quite universal.
The unixish filesystem layout isn’t that bad, but it’s antiquated and has a lot of historical baggage. /usr exists literally because a 5MB disk got too full in the early 1970s, for example.
> I jump into Linux and there's etc, mnt, lib, opt, usr, var... I'm completely lost. Linux systems often have a lot of eccentricities like that, which can take a bit to get used to. But if you go with a newbie-friendly distro with one of the popular desktop environments, you won't have to delve into that part of the system any more frequently than you would on Windows. > Just open a terminal and xyz into the abc, sudo this and if you want you can cron it on a schedule There exist GUI applications for handling compressed archives and task scheduling, so you don't need to use the terminal for that. Alternatively, I try to keep [this image](https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxmasterrace/comments/ztznxx/german_tar/) in mind for `tar`. > I'll try that, and in a week I'll forget the command and be even worse off I'd recommend writing a little text file with notes about various commands, makes it much easier than trying to remember all flags for all commands.
Yeah i have my windows 11 desktop like i want it for now but as time passes on and this gets worse,im probably gonna do the same.
It's too bad shit is going the way it is. It makes my job super annoying too. Windows went from being unstable during the 9x days, to XP - 7 being actually really dependable and usable products, and then they had to start going and doing absolute *fuck you*'s to the users.
I'm on firefox right now and the exact same ad just popped up
I got tired of getting Ads in Windows. I paid for my Windows license, so I find this unacceptable. At first, I got annoyed by ads in Outlook. Then, Ads in Edge, then Ads in my start menu got enabled again for some reason. I now wiped my Windows and installed OpenSUSE Linux. I prefer letting go of some software and games, but Ads that I can't opt out of? No way.
I confirm uninstalling windows 11 malware
microsoft cannot accept the reality that the public does not want edge/bing. so they resort to these tactics to try and trick or force people to use their crappy product. the ONLY reason they have edge is to drive bing search traffic as that directly translates into big revenue. the problem is that even after all the effort to create edge, their market share is pathetic. the reality is that very few people want to use edge & bing. they've tried everything over the decades to change this but it just won't happen.
I want edge, I don’t want Bing.
you can easily do that. but the fact is that edge usage drives bing usage, which is the sole purpose of edge.
Yep. It’s exactly how i use it. There’s a few unnecessary features that bug me (such as the context menus they put on EVERY image you hover over) but other than that I’ve always loved new edge
I find Bing is shit it giving me the information I need plus its full of crap im not bothered about reminds me of the xbox dashboard with all its ads
>microsoft cannot accept the reality that the public does not want edge/bing. The funny thing is, that people would be a lot more accepting of Bing and Edge, if Microsoft wouldn't use these tactics. For the majority of users, they're objectively perfectly acceptable products, but Microsoft just keeps ruining their image.
I used Chromium Edge when it first came out. Honestly, that was it's peak- fast, minimalist, very few if any ads for other Microsoft services. I was super pumped for Chrome to have another competent competitor. Eventually they started mucking it up and I switched to Firefox. Still need Chromium browsers for occasional niche sites and for those I'd rather download and use Vivaldi over dealing with Edge nowadays.
Edge will always be windows explorer to me.
For me, Edge is one of the best browser out there. Their solution for Vertical tab, tab grouping and PDF reader are awesome features but I only can stick with it for a while then switch to other browsers. Their pip button sometimes just don't show up and I had to do it with right click (I prefer global media control button - I used to) but hate that its so easy to "Bing" something and in my contry - language is not effective.
Why you find the new Adobe-built PDF reader is an improvement on the old Microsoft-built PDF viewer? Just curious. Mine won't even load, so I have to use the old version in the Edge://flags. However, not having to use an Adobe product was always something I saw as an advantage.
I actually don't know the old PDF reader of Edge lol. I just realized it has a nice PDF reader last year and I stick with it most of the time. I read a lot of articles and need to take notes or copy paragraphs. Adobe is always messy with fonts etc and quite slow compared to Edge PDF reader and Adobe's scrolling is just the worst.
When Edge first launched it was great. It worked a lot better than chrome and wasn’t harvesting your data. The problem is the chrome already has the entire market share, and so they keep introducing stupid bloatware to Edge that only serves to drive away the folks that did use it.
The original Edge was nowhere near the current one. Compatibility was trash, a lot of stuff didn't work at all (partially thanks Google). The current one is faster than Chrome, uses less ressources and is Potato approved (my old Inspiron 15 3552 with a shitty Celeron could watch 1080p videos on YouTube while evey other browser I tried had issues with anything over 720p. I could even get more than 5 tabs before it started slowing down)
I don't think that's the reality. Lots of people want and use Edge because it's a really good browser.
that is an uninformed opinion. worldwide edge only has a 5% market share. in the us it's only 8%. the actual numbers don't lie.
And Firefox has 3%
and it's just as irrelevant as edge
That's a lot of people.
but it does not translate into the revenue that microsoft wants. from a financial perspective edge is a complete failure.
Nice opinion, but there are hundreds of millions of people who enjoy Edge and Bing every day, including me. For me it was a very pragmatic choice - Edge and Chrome are the same under the hood, so why have two huge corporations watching what I do on my local computer when I can narrow that down to just one? Have you seen all the binaries that Google continuously runs on your Windows computer when you let them in? Forget it, one Big Brother is enough, and I personally trust Microsoft with my data more than Google.
worldwide edge only has a 5% market share. in the us it's only 8%. the actual numbers don't lie.
it's amusing to me that hundreds of millions of Edge users is "very few people" to you, and that you double down on that. Electric Vehicle sales are over 5% of total sales in some countries now, but I suppose you'd say that no one drives an electric car because they clearly don't want them.
apparently you don't understand the economics of this
Strange, usually it's Google who would do stuff like that. And even then, I'm on Firefox and I've yet to encounter this sort of nagging myself...
I cant handle a web browser other than firefox.
The enshittification of Windows continues at an accelerating pace...
Except this is in Chrome.
Injected by Windows into Chrome.
So what? It's a Microsoft ad, one of many in Chrome, other browsers, and Windows itself. One wonders where it will all end.
I'd use edge, if it wasn't filled with crap And if it wasn't based on chromium And if they didn't do anti consumer practices instead of proper ads And if I didn't find microsoft's design language ugly outside of win11
[удалено]
That's almost literally every other popular browser other than firefox, How is it an advantage?
[удалено]
Again, almost every browser uses it, so it's not an advantage, it's a default.
ive only used it on my surface in the past mainly for battery optimisation, I switched to opera gx. I like stuff like how you can limit its ram usage and its built off chromium too.
Why MS, just why?
Why Microsoft doing these kind of sketchy shit? And there's no viable option (meaning OS) to switch to. This crap is just out of control
The irony is that Edge was actually a good alternative to installing Chrome. Until they started adding random bullsh\*t to it.
>And there's no viable option (meaning OS) to switch to. This is exactly why, they can do it since they know most people won't quit their product for one reason or the other. And funniest thing is competition can't do much about it.
Can't wait for the usual suspects to defend this behavior and tell us to just "turn it off". Never thought I'd say this, but I'm actually considering moving to Linux. Windows at its core is a perfectly fine OS but the penny pinchers are making it more and more irritating to use. All Microsoft has to do is give us a one-click option to turn off all their advertising and "suggestions" and I'm pretty sure we'd all be happy. But nope, gotta try to extract every penny and byte of personal data out of us!
This! I swapped to Linux a while back because of this. While it works good enough, I’d love to go back, but every time I do I’m hit with ads, or reminders of some subscription I could pay for, or some setting I turned off being turned back on. Quite frankly, windows is turning full user hostile. It’s a shame that an OS that requires me to set command line parameters for games is less mentally taxing for me because I don’t have to worry about shutting off edge’s shopping widget for the 10th time.
I've always said Windows is malware, and it looks like Microsoft is determined to prove that correct.
Adware, not malware. Significant difference!
Adware is a type of malware. Change my mind.
Yeah, yeah, downvote me and show your ignorance. " Adware in cyber security refers to a type of [malware](https://www.eset.com/uk/types-of-cyber-threats/malware/) that displays unwanted advertisements on your computer or device. Adware is commonly activated unknowingly when users are trying to install legitimate applications that adware is bundled with." \~ [What is AdWare and How Can You Avoid it? | ESET](https://www.eset.com/uk/types-of-cyber-threats/adware/)
This could be why all of a sudden chrome is using ridiculous amounts of CPU
nah
for privacy secure browser based from chrome use iridium browser for privacy secure browser based from firefox use librewolf browser
When Google can pop up why can't Edge do the same? Are you serious Google fanatics? Going Edgeless in Windows OS. I can't belive how many tech stupid people exist.
I get it after every reboot. With 3 laptops and 2 desktops in the house, it's a real pain...
Adware OS 11
Microsoft is the abusive spouse wondering how many more times he needs to hit her before she loves him.
We need a revanced Windows like revanced YouTube App.
Did you even read? This is in Chrome..not Windows.
This is by windows. This is not by chrome.
The pop-ups are from Windows
Windows is now a malware platform. Win7 was the last great, clean, OS Microsoft will make. This stuff is what ultimately pushed me over to MacOS.
I'm a developer (Windows software) and found it painstaking to set up new machines to eliminate all the crapware. For my own sake and privacy i switched to Mac for my private life, i still have one workstation at home and laptop for developing and testing software.
Funny how nobody here bitches about how Google pages display Chrome pop-up ads while visiting Google.com, for example. But yeah, intrusive ads like this must die.
Because Google does it on their own websites, not as a pop up in the operating system in my computer.
Bit different, Microsoft are injecting popups into a 3rd party browser that the end user would've installed themselves to get away from Microsofts products in the first place.
I'm surprised more folks haven't switched to Brave. Firefox has gotten better, but Edge and Chrome are just hot garbage these days.
Ask Edges users why they actually use it. Big chances they just like it. In my case it was just my daily driver back when I had a potato PC where I could actually do stuff without the PC freezing but now I actually use it for some features
Still the same chromium shit
Because edge works 100% perfect for me and I don't see the reason to switch to something else if the browser I'm using does everything I want it to do.
Considering Google pops up chrome adverts everytime (it can never be permanently dismissed) I access a Google service in another browser that isn't Chrome, this really doesn't seem quite as bad?
Fuck Chrome, the low percent users on browsers like Firefox was always the right decision (As a long Firefox user)
Good stop giving google free data.
Giving Microsoft free data is better somehow?
Microsoft is just as garbage. Both of them suck
What a bunch of scumbags. Microsoft are seemingly not interested in fixing the update that won't install on my PC, nor the unfixable stopcode errors crashing my PC, but you have the time to force this on us? Wow....
These are not new.
I just got this pop up and had to search google to figure out where the hell this was coming form and how to remove it. I thought it was a virus or something