Every time I see stuff like this it makes me slightly glad they got laughed out of the smart phone game. Can you imagine if a Microsoft mobile OS became a serious third between Android and iOS? I mean, those two aren't great by any stretch of the imagination (and are probably doing or planning similar shit), but Microsoft is just going gloves off at this point.
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If there was more competition they (probably) wouldn't be doing this stuff as people would leave.
I was actually a fan of Outlook for Android. Followed system dark mode before it was cool, had real multi account inbox, good wearos app, and other useful features. Then they started inserting Bing search into my long press menu system wide. And also recommending Edge when I clicked links. This kind of horizontal integration is just too baked into the company DNA. They can't help themselves, even when it actually harms them
Yeah. On my work desktop, our IT people have told us to not use the Outlook program but rather to just go to the website. On my phone, I run it in Vivaldi instead of the app (which is a little jankie, but not as bad as it was running in Chrome or Firefox).
What's the difference between horizontal and vertical integration? (I know a few business words but usually not enough to be intelligent, this is a genuine question of confusion)
Vertical would be if MS owned the carrier, the manufacturer, the operating system etc. Horizontal applies here where they own many interconnecting parts of the same layer of the market. Search, browser, email, etc, all being used to promote each other at the expense of competitors
Why do people need an app for wallpapers? Just find some nice photos on Flickr, DeviantArt, whatever, save them all to a folder, and configure the OS to change it once per week.
Reminds me of the "free smileys" and "free mouse cursors" apps from the 2000s. I thought we had evolved past that.
How do you save a picture? Where is Downloads? How do you apply a saved picture as a wallpaper?
These are confusing questions to boomers and Gen Z.
Why not have a simple app which "automatically" does all the hard work (just in exchange of a little of your data)?
I’m up to buy a new computer and I’ve never wanted a Macbook but with all the negative changes Microsoft is making I feel it is the time to make the switch.
Microsoft seems to think that we are the product and harvesting data is the default business model moving forward.
May I interest you in Linux?
I’ve considered Linux. I work in IT and I know I could figure it out and adapt to it. The problem is my kids and my wife would also need to use it.
To give you some perspective on my decision making process. My wife (who is of the age where she really should be able to figure tech out.) can’t seem to figure out how to print from her phone and complained about how difficult IOS is compared to Android when we switched a few years ago. My kids run to me for all things tech and I usually have to figure out their problems. I’m always genuinely surprised my teenage son hasn’t made an effort to hack the application which restricts his time and access to his gaming computer (I would be secretly proud of him if he did).
So for my own piece of mind I’ll pay the 2x multiple for Apple hardware just so I don’t have to deal with learning a new OS while my family comes to me for basically every tech issue.
I get your perspective, but wouldn't everyone involved also have to learn how to deal with macOS? Learning how to deal with Linux isn't necessarily more complicated
Absolutely, but I’d rather deal with something that has widespread manufacturer and user support.
While I think there is lots of support for Linux, and I could figure it out. I don’t perceive that it is as wide spread as Mac OS.
Long story short I’m paying for the convenience.
Apple is no better, they just have a better PR team.
Apple is historically better in terms of privacy than Microsoft. From resistance to government data requests to just their posture on data collection, it is an improvement. They rely less than Microsoft on advertisement and service based revenue and more on hardware sales which do not require the same level of invasive collection.
I don’t mean to sing their praises too loudly, but between the two I think Apple is a clear favorite. And couple that with a better, BSD-based, OS and I think you’ve got a winner. Unless of course you include alternate, clearly superior alternatives, like GNU/Linux.
But hardware alone? MacBooks can’t be beat.
They are trying so hard to push everybody to linux. The only thing that has kept me using windows is game development tool chains, but even that isn't gonna be enough to keep me on windows much longer.
The Godot Engine is getting better every day.
If you're already using a third party engine it shouldn't be as big of a deal jumping to Linux. But if you're doing engine development, the tools on Windows are still superior. There's a big reason why Direct3D is still so popular despite being constrained to only Xbox and Windows. Tooling and documentation for Vulkan and OpenGL are light years behind and it's frustrating to see how vast the differences are as someone who primarily works with Vulkan/OpenGL and haa dabbled with Direct3D as a hobby.
Microsoft ~~sofficial "Bing Wallpaper app"~~ does some nasty, malware-like things ~~to Windows~~
I'm always surprised at how devious this windows spyware is. 99% of people would probably just accept to share all their data but that's not good enough; MS has to try and squeeze out every last drop.
This doesn’t sound “malware-like”. It sounds like just plain malware.
Time to break up Microsoft
Best time was a decade ago. Second best time is now. Same with Google, and Apple, auto companies and grocery companies. And...and...and. it's almost as the free market DOESN'T solve issues it creates them.
Haven't we already categorized windows as malware and Microsoft as a malware company? We really shouldn't be surprised that they put out another piece of malware. It's their MO.
Microsoft produces malware, that's nothing new.
Why would you download bing wallpaper app anyways? First rule of computers: only install from trusted sources
Most average users consider Microsoft a trusted source, that's the root cause of a whole lot of crap.
While scummy indeed, if you need a desktop application to get yourself new wallpapers, my sympathy only goes so far.
Also not at all surprised the top comment speaks of Linux.
Linux, hating Musk, and Star Trek: the Lemmy trifecta.
You only have sympathy for people who are already technically competent to some standard you've chosen? It's those who don't have technical competence that this shit works on. I'd bet that's the reason a wallpaper app was chosen for these shenanigans, because it filters out the people who will be wise to it.
Like it or not, building a secure internet means making systems that are safe for regular internet users, and if you're getting snooty about the kinds of programs a person installs, I'd wager that's not you. Even if it's just the least competent 5 or 10% of the internet falling prey to this, it's the predators that make the environment more dangerous for everyone. Put the blame where it belongs.
Also, those people aren't using Linux partly because Linux is an elitist community that shits on anyone who's not comfortable in the command line. If you want Linux to be a viable threat to the Windows monopoly, you need to accept that these people will need to be accommodated, unless you're happy selfishly keeping it to cloistered group of nerds who are toxic towards every newcomer, and you think that's the way it should be. I've certainly met Linux people who think that way.
"Megacorp learned nothing from Active Desktop being an utter fucking security disaster." Yeah, no shit. Everything old is new again.