Hey y’all, today I experienced another push for Linux from our friend Microsoft.
5 minutes ago, I wanted to use the timer app on Windows, so I could manage my work/break schedule, and this fucker showed up.
Yes, that’s a prompt to sign in with a Microsoft account to use the clock. If you close it, it pops up 30s later. Clicking “Don’t sign in” or closing the process responsible for displaying it is useless, and guess what… IT PAUSES THE TIMER WHEN IT SHOWS UP.
I guess this is another thing added to the super long list of things which will eventually make me switch my main workstation to Linux once win10 is discontinued.
/endrant
Hope y’all are having a great day :3
That’s weird. I don’t get the prompt at all, but I do have a button in the lower left corner that says “Sign In.” Maybe it’s because I’m on Windows 11?
Maybe because you already sold your soul?
If by that you mean connected my computer account to a Microsoft account, nope, I did no such thing.
Maybe already using Windows could be enough for Hades.
lol Hades is greek.
lol, that’s so stupid. why does it pause the timer? did they do that intentionally?
Of course they did. They’re going to make it as intrusive and annoying as possible so that people give up and sign in.
I’d imagine it’s to force me to sign in to use the timer. Shittify the version that can’t track as much, and force the users to use it logged in
Does the timer “jump” to the correct time after you dismiss the window ? It’s also possible that they didn’t bother testing the app when logged out, and that the popup blocks the UI thread while it’s displayed. In short it could be bad coding and QA instead of intentional enshittification.
No it pauses the timer. Once I dismiss the popup I can see that the pause button icon has been replaced with the continue/play icon. Clicking it unpauses the timer until the popup pops up again.
OK so this is most likely by design, impressive.
I can imagine the project lead in the meeting: “Okay guys, we need to make the worst timer app ever, so I can sell my better timer app in the app store. Any ideas?” “You can start the timer, but need to be online and sign in with 2FA to keep the timer running.” “Brad, you’re a genius.”
Epic!
I hate this pop up, I had to re-signin every day into outlook with my private Microsoft email address. EVERYDAY, THEY ARE BOTH MICROSOFT PRODUCTS. HOW CAN YOU FUCK THIS UP SO BADDD?
This is actually surreal ☠️
the clock app has a built in spotify integration and player.
the calculator sends diagnostic data.The diagnostic app does absolutely nothing.
That’s not true, the placebo effect is very real
I remember my windows ~7 days when j thought pressing a button in windows and watching the bar load and say done actually fixed things 😭
why wait the death of win10 when you can switch now, get that painful first days learning things out of the way now that you have a fallback if absolutely necessary
I cannot speak for the OP but most of the pepper claiming they are waiting will not switch. They may use an illegally patched or trimmed version of Windows 11. Many won’t even do that.
The biggest risk for Microsoft is that everybody stays on Windows 10 without updates. Or that massive customers will force them to push back the “enterprise” date over and over. To encourage migration, expect Microsoft to make Windows 10 just as bad as 11 before support expires.
most of the pepper
autocorrect moment?
You cannot use anything without signing up. You can’t use clip champ which should require 0 Internet connectivity.
They want to act as if linking your account is a prerequisite when it’s neither required or helpful
Because it’s a “free” piece of software so you are the product and therefore they want you to agree that they can harvest and sell your data
Except it’s not a free operating system. An operating system should fulfill the needs of its users without having to pay for basic functionality: see everyone OS ever that is not w11
It’s helpful to them, so they can spy on everything you do, and sell that information to anyone who will pay for it.
We are already on Linux man.
ᴵ’ᵐ ˢᵗᶦˡˡ ᵘˢᶦⁿᵍ ʷᶦⁿᵈᵒʷˢ ᶠᵒʳ ᵐʸ ˢᶜʰᵒᵒˡ
This is supposed to be the most used operating system, recommended for its ease of use. Meanwhile you have to sign in to use a clock app. Such a shame, especially because the focus timers are actually useful.
I think Microsoft is way overconfident
Microsoft had made a product that has for decades been used to run other people’s software. They’ve unintentionally made windows a “monopoly” in the sense that no other os can run windows only software perfectly. Most consumers will probably think Linux " is just a terminal and too advanced", and the others who can install a distro might still be locked into using windows because not all software can run under wine.
So to you they might seem overconfident in that you can switch, but for some they’re shit out of luck in the department of alternatives. Microsoft knows they can exploit their users, and they will do it
They’ve unintentionally made windows a “monopoly”
What? Becoming a monopoly is the most intentional thing they’ve ever done, and the only thing they’ve ever done well.
Not the OP but he may mean that application authors have unintentionally made Windows a monopoly.
Either way, I am not sure I agree about the intentionality. App devs didn’t slip and support only Windows by accident. They may not have explicitly intended all the consequences of Windows monopoly but one dominant platform is an advantage for the app vendors too. Too many targets to support is part of what keeps commercial software off Linux.
The only ones hurt by a Windows monopoly are the consumers. Well, and commercial Windows alternatives obviously. But all the app makers are fine with it.
Valve ( makers of Steam ) can be seen as an alternative platform for gaming. This is why you see Valve investing so heavily in Linux even though they make all their money on Windows.
Every business is affected by the Microsoft monopoly. They’re locked into a platform with god awful office solutions, and they must pay more for their software because there is no competition. Now Microsoft has locked them into subscription based plans instead of one-time purchases, and is effectively holding the entire world hostage.
The amount of times you hear “OMG why did Microsoft change XYZ” across IT departments everywhere…
Because “fuck you” that’s why!
Then explain Chrome OS. Seriously though a lot of software is web based these days. Windows is not special for most cases.
If you close it, it pops up 30s later.
This is by far the most annoying development in software and website design to ever occur. You can’t say no to stuff anymore. If you say no, they nag you again very very soon, and they will continue nagging you until you accidentally click yes. After you’ve clicked yes, they make it damned near impossible to change that selection. Dark patterns were outlawed years ago, yet somehow nagware is legal? Fuck the person who thought this up with a spiked baseball bat.
There is a carrier app on my phone that cannot be uninstalled without root. I guess all phones have that, even if you don’t have a contract, which I don’t. I disabled roaming, went to another country, and it started to randomly show pop-ups asking me to turn on roaming and activate the international plan. There is an ok and cancel button, and it can pop up right under my fingers while I am typing something. That is pure evil.
I haven’t experienced this with a Pixel nor an iPhone. I buy straight from Google and Apple though, because I don’t want the bloatware that carriers install. Did you buy from the carrier? Is it a Samsung? They do all kinds of crappy things with their TouchUI.
I did not buy from the carrier. It’s a OnePlus 9 Pro.
In all my phones so far, a carrier app like this is automatically installed after I boot the phone for the first time with a sim card. Going all the way back to my first android phone.
Maybe that’s a country or carrier specific thing? I don’t have that on my phone, not with T-Mobile nor Verizon.
Can you see a system app called “SIM Toolkit”?
Nope.
Apparently the app is actually called Sim toolkit and it is built into the Android OS. I didn’t even give it permission to send notifications.
I just got an iPhone yesterday, so I checked the iPhone and my Pixel Pro and I don’t have that app on either OS.
Really interesting. Probably country specific. Thanks for checking.
Nagware has been around since the 80s and it was just as annoying then even without this bloated corporate hellscape we call the internet 🙁
Minor correction: You can’t say no because they intentionally almost never give you “no” as an option. It generally is “Ask again later” instead, when you clearly never want them to ask again, just like you didn’t want to be asked the first time.
Yes, that’s what I’m talking about.
Oh boy are you going to love-to-hate this then. It’s best viewed on a proper computer, but you’ll get the gist on mobile too.
Ha! Thanks for sharing that. I got a real laugh out of it. It starts off pretty tame and just gets worse and worse until it’s completely unusable. As a former blogger, I’m very familiar with some of the shit that money driven bloggers pulled. I always avoided anything other than non-intrusive ads and still made a living off of it, which really goes to show that usually the webmaster is just an asshole.
Obligatory Windows is bloat.
My parents are in their 80s and this crap will push them to Linux.
Windows is a platform for Office. Linux is not a supported platform for Office. Most businesses will not migrate their desktops off Windows because they will not migrate their workforce off Office.
Beyond that, Windows is not as important to Microsoft as it used to be. The real money makers are Azure and Office. With Azure, they do not care if you run Linux. They even have their own distro ( Azure Linux — previously CBL Mariner ).
Azure is the future ( even for Office ).
Since Windows is less strategic, Microsoft is looking to milk it as a cash cow while they can. So, Product Management is tasked with finding new ways to monetize it. Data is worth a lot of money. The best way to farm data from users these days is to frame it as security ( or AI ).
Expect a lot more SIngle Sign On. Expect a lot more AI. Expect a lot more cloud integration. Expect all of these to focus on data harvesting.
A bit later, expect “services” for Linux that attempt the same. Like Google on Android. This is harder though as Windows does not have monopoly control over Linux as a platform. I am sure they are having many meetings about how to change that.
Most businesses will not migrate their desktops off Windows because they will not migrate their workforce off Office.
Which is so weird, because office is crapware. It’s terrible software. The only reason businesses use it is because other businesses use it. Nobody will switch, because everyone would have to switch. It’s a self-reinforcing tragedy.
Could you elaborate on why is it crapware? What should people and buisnesses use instead in your oppinion?
Have you ever used Outlook, or Word, or Teams, or anything by Microsoft that isn’t Excel?
Yes, I used Word and Teams a lot, Access is a piece of shite, that much is for sure
Which is so weird, because office is crapware. It’s terrible software.
If so then all the other offerings are even worse crapware.
In my experience Microsoft Office opens twice as fast reliably than LibreOffice (when I terminate the process responsible for keeping it ready it takes about the same amount of time but it’s no slower importantly).
Microsoft office is simply the best. It’s a fact. It can do tons of things that Libreoffice and OpenOffice cannot. It has tons of advanced features, it’s just a superior office suite.
Comparing LibreOffice to Microsoft Office is like comparing a Lexus SUV with the full package of options installed compared to a basic fleet Ford sedan. Yes both can do very basic things and if you just need to type some things or do very basic spreadsheets then they’re interchangeable.
But ask some slightly advanced things like sortable tables (Excel does easily) and suddenly only MS office can do that and the LibreOffice people tell you to pound sand and use a database which doesn’t make sense for a lot of tasks when you may just be preparing some data for example for a presentation or some quick financial work (I’m talking about stuff for myself, not a professional accountant), etc. Take a look at design options in MS Word compared to LibreOffice writer. Both have title and header styling options but the MS office ones simply look more professional, cleaner, and they have more options you can easily tweak. If I’m presenting a report I absolutely want to do it in MS office because I can make it look neater and nicer with less effort.
Businesses use it because 1) they’re used to using it, it’s a standard among businesses and the public, and it’s maximally compatible with files created by it so interoperability isn’t an issue as long as you too use it, 2) it’s the best. It has more options than others, it can do more things. It has more depth. It has extensive support and documentation and it has good integration between the different pieces of software.
It’s like comparing GIMP to Photoshop. Sorry. I think FOSS is a great philosophy and I hate Microsoft and Adobe as much as anyone but in practice Photoshop is miles and miles beyond GIMP in capabilities. And this is coming from someone who has GIMP installed and not Photoshop (because PS is expensive).
The extended suite of MS office has always been meh. But it doesn’t matter. Word, Excel, PowerPoint all work great and are exceptional tools at the top of their class. Could they be better? Yes. But they don’t have to be the best possible, they just have to be the best compared to other offerings by a country mile and they are if your needs are any more complex than the occasional letter to grandma.
Does that mean I think people should pay for MS Office? Not when there are ways to get it free with no cracking or risk.
I’m glad that you want to switch to Linux, but I think there’d be open source solutions for Windows too. I daily drive Linux, and I would begin with looking for open source timers if I ever need timers. Why not do the same in Windows too?
Here are a few: https://alternativeto.net/software/free-countdown-timer/?platform=windows&license=opensource
That is disgusting. 'nuff said.
