Too late, idiots. Just as Windows 10 was being retired, you ran the craziest anti-marketing campaign I've ever seen and successfully coaxed me into switching my daily driver to Linux. Until this year, I've been using windows my ENTIRE life.

I recently started a new role and have to use Windows for work.

I am seriously thinking of looking for another role because it is such a HOG.

I'm in the same boat, have to use Windows at work. In addition to whatver MS is doing, every workstation is encumbered with various EDR and antivirus software.

Throw in some docker workloads and it's a party.

Literally installing Arch right now as I read this. Same deal, been using windows as my daily driver all my life but have been running Linux servers since late 90s (and did daily drive RedHat back in the day).

My work env was just VS Code + WSL and I realized the most pain points came from using Explorer and trying to admin the machine with the fractured landscape of sys admin tools. For me it became very obvious that windows is only going to get more bloated and less “my” machine going forward, why stay on this platform if I’m already spending most of my day in a Linux environment (that I’m already familiar with).

I have a feeling it's too little, too late, even if it's completely true and sincere, which I doubt at this point.

I can't help but wonder if they're in the process of losing an entire generation of tech enthusiasts to Linux and maybe MacOS. And the rest of the world tends to slowly follow the tech enthusiasts.

Windows 10 is my last Microsoft Windows operating system. Between the fact that I had to turn of TPM in the bios so that I wouldn't wake up one day turn on my computer and see Windows 11. The massive bugs that prevent things like power off. The insane push for AI in everything (notepad? really?).

I know a scam when I see one, and Windows 11 is a scam.

Reminds me of the Xbox One release disaster, and the push for Kinect and TV streaming support.

this isn't new, microsoft has been doing this to its customers for years

For sure, but 11 is on a whole new level in my experience.

Many problems in the world would be solved if people actually read Economics 101.

Agreed, and the intention here isn't to block any particular policy outcome, it's to ask that you narrowly scope your tools to what can work, instead of being the 20th failed attempt at price controls or tariffs. (And Econ 101 will teach you when tariffs can make sense, too)

Surprisingly few Americans can read, and surprisingly fewer at a college level.

I was an econ major, and a lot of the lower level courses were required for business majors.

It was genuinely shocking how many people from the latter group just could not understand the absolute basics of supply curves and demand curves.

The upside is that I was able to help them understand it by offering tutoring, where I was in limited supply, and there was endless demand for my services!

I get your point, but literacy rate is high in the US, so most Americans can, in fact, read.

However, they rarely read books and indeed most don’t read at a university level.

Rarely reading books is also not tied strictly to the US.

Studies consistently find about 20% of Americans are functionally illiterate, depending on what is meant by functionally illiterate. Typically this means that they can read, but frequently cannot grasp the meaning of what they read.

The US is actually pretty illiterate compared to peer countries.

Higher than I expected although I’m not totally surprised given the US educational system.

Does reading Econ 101 make one okay with losing their industrial base to a competitor that hasn't bought into the free market dogma?

It gives a few reasons why you're still not getting that industrial base back, even after tariffs.

Oh it teaches you to resign yourself to slow decline? A very useful class then, I can see why it is so lauded.

Or you could just lighten up and get a sense of humor...

What's trollish about his blog ?

Author seems to enjoy writing posts that get lots of votes on site that I would describe as eye-rending, especially the "normal" yellow color scheme. It's aggressively unpleasant to read.

How is it trolling, though? Annoying, sure. But the content here is valid and worth reading, even if the medium is suboptimal.

I use Firefox because I don't want to use a browser provided by an advertising company e.g. Chrome.

Yet ... with firefox that is exactly what you are using. Except there's a proxy in the middle (Mozilla).

It isn't even indirect anymore since Mozilla bought an advertising company.

I'm raising my hands, you got me.

Just one that is entirely funded by an advertising company?

There are three browsers: FF, Chrome, Safari. I'm not on Apple so FF is the least worst option.

>Windows itself is about to change in a really big way such that it already requires AI-specific hardware

The AI models that everyone wants to use are cloud based. What is the purpose of AI hardware on users' machine?

Local processing of privacy-sensitive data, that is: personal files and what is shown on screen. Just think about Recall.

The purpose of AI hardware on users' machine is that then MS can hand-wave away any privacy concerns, claiming that anything sensitive is handled on-device.

Nothing. MS decision makers are fulfilling their duty to maximize profit by utilizing Windows to funnel users towards their most profitable, revenue generating, services of Azure and Office Copilot 365.

How do these changes help to funnel users towards Azure and Office Copilot 365?

Folks could have used those services even if Windows itself wasn't getting clanked, right?

It's simple advertising. People have a higher chance to use a product if it is advertised to them. I don't think there is a microsoft app these days that doesn't have a copilot logo visible in it at all times (even Paint).

That's like asking how installing a default browser helps boost that browsers market share.

Does that answer your question

No, because of course I want to use a browser, so I will download one if there isn't a default.

Not the case for Azure or Office

Despite what non lawyers may have told you, corporations are not legally obliged to chase short term profit at the expense of everything else!

This is often the case with Google products because the A/B testing is rampant.

Residential internets are now proxies for AI scrapers.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45741357

Which VPNs are like that?

Hola is the big one, but in practice, if we hypothesis that no one's running a VPN as a charity, free VPN products need to make money someway, and if you're not paying to use it, how else are they gonna make money?

So basically be suspicious of every single "free" or suspiciously cheap VPN. Go with known brands that come recommended by mulitple people, especially from people "in the know".

Though PirateSoftware (a person) has a good bit on why he doesn't advertise for VPNs on his channel.

Hola's worst division got spun out into a separate company, Bright Data. Bright Data's worst innovations since "Free VPN" are using those "Watch this ad for 30 seconds for bonus in-game currency" things in many, many awful mobile games and using those as a "opt-in" signal to use the user's device for those 30 seconds (or however long) as an exit node for whatever scanning/botting processes they resell.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bright_Data

All the ones you don't construct for yourself out of an inexpensive VPS.

your preferences don't sound like facts. Are you claiming that paid VPNs "all" do this as well?

How do you think they make money?

...through the subscription fee.

And from selling your data to whoever shows up with enough cash.

What, you think they're leaving that money sitting on the table?

It's one thing to operate with an assumption that any VPN other than your own should not be fully trusted.

It's another thing to claim all of them are obviously corrupt.

If you had a company whose core business proposition was Quite Obviously Shady, would you expect them to be scrupulously legit in other areas?

Quick question for you - rhino poaching is a huge problem in Africa, with poachers getting a surprisingly small amount of money per rhino they shoot, because the buyers only want the horns. Do you think paying the poachers more to not shoot the rhinos would solve that problem?

Suspicions, inferences and reasonable concerns are perfectly fine. Answering questions with questions is less fine.

Statements of categorical fact about a whole class of things (in this case VPNs) demand more than that.

Well, it's not my bank account and it's not my IP address.

You do you.

Windows struck the iceberg back in 8. It took until 11 for people to finally start to abandon ship in numbers.

I wonder if it was losing Jim Allchin that did it. He retired after Vista and I'd say he was in charge of Windows during its golden age. 7 was basically Vista SP3, and then things took a different direction.

But, to every coin there are two sides:

"I consider this cross-platform idea a disease within Microsoft. We are determined to put a gun to our head and pull the trigger."

De-googled Chromium? This does not compute.

De-googled in the "we make some patches to remove things we think are hostile from Google" sense but yes: they're still completely reliant on them for engine development.