Of course they have. MS are putting ads everywhere in Windows. The revenue potential is huge and they have more than enough private information on everyone to do targeted ads.
Microsoft would be insane not to go down this route. It’s inevitable.
We need more devices for sale that don’t use Windows, because this won’t stop. Microsoft is a publicly traded company and their stakeholders demand infinite growth.
The only way to get away from this is to use some kind of FOSS operating system
The problem is the alternative is Google who is already worse. Linux is needed but until mass consumers reject ads it will never go mainstream.
but until mass consumers reject ads it will never go mainstream
Cory Doctorow said that half of all Internet users use adblockers (dunno where he got that statistic but I tend to trust that man)
The only way to get away from this is to use some kind of FOSS operating system
Been doing this for like 10 years now. It was easy to see the future of windows when windows 8 and 10 started sending user data to their cloud. Next step is always serving ads.
And people pay for Windows too. :)
It’s not too late to switch to Linux but you are very late if you haven’t done it.
You can turn off Microsoft’s ads, browser nagging, and data faucet, but as long as you are dependent on them for Windows Updates, that gives them an opportunity to undo your fixes and turn them back on.
FOSS has a similar problem in which the program author can sell out to a less-friendly entity, and when you update the software it starts misbehaving (see Audacity, Simple Mobile Tools, etc.)
This is why I use Debian stable branch. Disadvantages: outdated software (but still get security updates) Advantages: outdated software (but still get security updates) 😅
The thing is, people have been saying “you can turn off feature x” since at least 10 years now, and while that is true for a while, the operating system keeps getting shittier. There is no reason to keep using something like that unless you have to. :)
i feel like i’m not actually against ads. i’m against the abuse of ads, that take away from the user experience…
i won’t mind seeing an ad if it doesnt get in the way of what i need to do on the pc. i don’t need an ad popping up when im trying to work on something, launch an application, download a file, etc. an ad in the corner, big enough for me to be aware of it, but obscure enough to not interrupt me will serve its purpose.
problem is, ad exposure is non-regulated and i can’t believe how the constant ad spamming doesn’t seem to phase a lot of people.
The Grand Nagus advocating for free and open source software… there must be a novel rule of acquisition I have not heard about yet!
Someone there wants to go back to 20+ years ago when your friends mom’s Internet Explorer windows included 75 different toolbars and there was only a little bit of browser space left. The hayday of “Buddy Bar” is returning for your Edge, Outlook, and Taskbar. Next will be explorer and Excel. The future is looking bright.
Man, I had a girlfriend once like 20 years ago who’s dad knew I was into computers and he was so proud to show me this neat Banzai Buddy software he found, he thought he was so cool.
That was the moment that I realized that, actually, something was wrong with all the adults on this planet.
The bane of the public company. Once you get big enough that you’re no longer able to sustain 20% yoy growth your investors will force you to leave no stone unturned.
They’ve already put in telemetry
Next they’ll put in ads
Then they’ll sell subscriptions to get rid of the ads
Then the subscription will become the minimum viable product
Then they’ll put ads back in
The moment I saw them trying to do this, I switched to Thunderbird.
You were using it before? Why?
Edit: yeah, fuck me for asking a simple question
Nice, now you have to pay for giving your data to Microsoft, lol. Who would do that?!
No one is paying for it. It’s a free app.
This isn’t Outlook from the paid Office suit. This is the shitty free “Mail” app that has been renamed to also be called Outlook because Microsoft sucks at naming things.
Outlook itself is aka Hotmail, Windows Live Mail, MSN mail, and so on and so forth.
One must consider all who use outlook for business, there is no ads and I believe the say even no tracking. 🤷🏻♀️ so yea, I use outlook as well, but not because I want and not with ducking ads.
Just to clarify: there’s Outlook (M365) which is just the old Outlook, both as an app and webapp. Then there’s New Outlook, which looks like old Outlook but is a different, incomplete and hot garbage replacement for Windows Mail, Calender etc. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook_com/forum/all/new-outlook-vs-outlook-in-microsoft-365/e367b524-b637-49ac-8405-3d801af343c1
Thunderbird is a great alternative to Outlook.
Really? I’ve heard it kinda sucks these days. I used to use it years back though and am a big Firefox supporter.
I’ve used Thunderbird for years, and still do. I love it.
IMAP, 30GB account, contacts and calendar synced with our Nextcloud server. Can search for a term and receive a list of emails going back years instantly.
I can open Thunderbird, search for an email from 2016, and be replying to it faster than my wife’s identical PC can even finish loading the Outlook splash screen (may contain traces of hyperbole).
Holy shit. I just googled Thunderbird and it is looking sleek AF.
I couldn’t use it in the past at work since they only supported “modern” auth methods and no IMAP/pop3.
Firefox didn’t support it back then and I was stuck with evolution. Which isn’t bad functionally. It just still looks like it was designed in the 90s.
I’m not using any email client privately atm. But it’s nice to see the UI also got some love.
I’ve recently set up Mutt with Fetchmail and Procmail. Getting mail over IMAP (with keeping those on server), putting it into one mailbox, archiving read, segmented by year and zstd-compressed, with macros for switching between outgoing SMTP accounts.
Takes little space, works fast and is very convenient once set up.
It’s a very different taste from what you are describing, though.
No. A year or two ago they did a big redesign and added a lot of functionality. Of course, whenever you have changes to a software there will be some stuffy old dudes crying about it. So everywhere you look there are people who are upset because the interface is different from what they were used to even though it is way more modern and much more useful, and better for users - especially new users.
And when they figure out how to serve ads on IMAP, you can take thunderbird to another provider.
I don’t think it’ll actually come to that, due to popularity, but I can see them blocking IMAP access on new accounts due to ‘security’.
Exchange was always the EEE to standard mail/calendar protocols. They have a path towards that.
They’ve already moved Active Directory to the cloud, they’re normalizing “Microsoft owns your accounts, even business ones”. All the content on Teams lives on Azure, and I believe SharePoint is doing the same.
Microsoft is EEEing the Fortune 500.
This was always the case in the web version of Outlook, and the mobile client. If you subscribe to 365, ads are removed.
I noticed this last year when I moved away from 365 and started getting ads on the Outlook mobile client. I ended up binning it off and just used the default Mail app on iOS, which is a shame because the Outlook app on phones is actually superb. Not good enough to put up with ads though.
