This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
I just got this popup while playing New vegas. I don't even use chrome, i've switched to firefox. How can this be allowed? Also, this is Win10
If governments actually gave a fuck about antitrust anymore, it would be. 20-ish years ago, they dragged Microsoft to court over simply bundling IE with Windows. It didn't even constantly nag you to set as default; just the fact that it was bundled at all was enough to make it into the sights of regulators.
They lost a trial in this allnd paid a flick on the wrist.
They just so this because they know it will get them more than it will cost.
Install Linux, make the switch. Yes you can.
I've been looking into that recently. The last time I ran Linux was in the early 90s, I don't think there was even much of a GUI then, most or all command line, so I have no idea what it's like now. I've been hearing about Mint and Zorin as good distros for Mac/Windows users, but I have been reluctant to ask anywhere because the many conversations I've seen in various forums about which distro is best for a specific scenario have seemed . . . to put it extremely diplomatically, less than constructive.
I've seen it so often that now I am starting to think Linux is the cocaine of all operating systems: great stuff, but with personal side effects. Risk of personal transformation might be worth more than warranted by situation calling for its use. Mention with caution, if at all. And yes, I fully expect to get flamed for this, lol.
I've used Mint for a couple of years now. Gaming has never been better on Linux. It's not perfect and there are still a lot of issues with games that use intrusive anti cheat. It depends on what you like to play. COD type games you may have issues with but almost every single player game works these days. Some times it will require a little fiddling to be fair but generally it only takes 10 min to check what's required. Protondb is your friend if you want a good idea of whether it will work before buying
I'm not much of a gamer so simply using Linux to put old hardware back into use is already more than I'd hoped. I have an old Macbook and per your suggestion just made a Mint Cinnamon boot USB, so I'll have a test machine up and running very soon.
While I'm at it . . . any suggestions as to the best forums in which to ask stupid noob questions?
I will try other distros if I don't like Mint, because if Linux works out, I'm ready to jump ship off Windows and start changing over my more crucial boxes. I just don't see going to Windows 11, not least because I am certain that even operating systems are eventually going to try to trap users into a subscription model, and I am simply not having that shit. It won't happen immediately, but it seems inevitable, so why wait. Thank you again for your recommendations.
Maybe I'm missing something, but why would this be illegal?
Anti consumer and anti competitive. Using their position as the OS to bug the living shit out of you to use their services
Anti consumer and anti competitive.
I'm not so sure how it's either of those things. I mean yeah, it's annoying (especially if it's popping up while you're playing a game), but I don't feel like it's crossing either of these lines. If you click "Don't switch", it goes away, and it's not changing anything without your permission. I've never seen it pop up again on my devices. I forget where in the settings it would be, but I seem to recall there being an option to disable suggestions like this, as well (although an argument could be made that this should be opt-in instead of opt-out).
I know this community has a (largely justified) hate-boner for big tech companies, but not every annoyance is a crime. If anything, I'm just glad to see that they're at least respecting the user's consent these days; in the before times, Microsoft would just revert all your shit to what they wanted, whether you liked it or not, permission be damned. I lost track of how many WinXP updates would reinstall that Bing Bar (or MSN or whatever they called it back then) without asking me.
Unless there's another angle that I'm not seeing, I don't see how this is that much of a problem. If anything, it's a good advertisement for Linux, though.
One of the many reasons why I will never return to Windows.
I still have to use 10 for work, but on the plus side it's a 5 day per week reminder of just how terrible it is.
I still have to use 10 for work, but on the plus side it’s a 5 day per week reminder of just how terrible it is.
What do you use the rest of the time that you prefer? Serious question, because I've been looking at Windows alternatives for a while and I like to hear what's working better for others.
Everything is legal in the US if you can lobby enough
Perfectly legal... it's just advertising. If they switch you without your consent then yes it's illegal.
