Windows 10 Now Showing Full Screen Ads On Lock Screen (consumerist.com) 599
Striek writes: Several media outlets are reporting that Windows 10 has now started showing full screen ads on users' lock screens. They can be turned off, but how many people will actually bother with this? "Tips site How-To Geek discovered that Windows Spotlight, which normally rotates between a selection of photographs, was being used to display an ad for Square Enix's Rise of the Tomb Raider. Understandably, most people probably don't want to be hit in the face with a full-screen ad for a video game before they even unlock their computer. If you want to make sure you're not hit with these ads, follow these steps to disable Windows Spotlight:
Open the Start Menu and search for "Lock Screen Settings."; Under "Background," select either Picture or Slideshow, instead of Windows Spotlight.; Scroll down to "Get fun facts, tips, tricks, and more on your lock screen" and this toggle." Apparently the "and more" is where Microsoft hid the advertisements.
And so ... (Score:5, Insightful)
No it began with Amazon (Score:5, Informative)
Kindles have always had two prices. The lower price with ads is the advertised price. You can pay a higher price for the one without ads on the lock screen.
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Re:*nix was the first to use Ad sponsored OS (Score:4, Informative)
This is no longer true. It is possible to download open source iOS apps, and build and install them into your iOS device. That whole $$$ required to get a developer certificate quietly went away a while back.
To be sure, you do need an apple account to get the now free device cert, and so this doesn't quite qualify as 'opening up their devices', but at least it no longer costs cash. That said, there are few iOS open source apps, since the vast majority of people don't seem to mind paying a bit of money for an app. They also don't mind that they're being 'tracked', whatever that might mean in the context of installing applications. If I visit a website, I am constantly bombarded by ads from that site until I go and delete the tracking cookies. If I install an iOS app, this doesn't happen (of course). So while they know I've installed an app - a good thing, by the way, since the purchase can be restored if you lose the device, and even installed on what appears to be an unlimited number of additional iOS devices - they don't appear to do anything with that information.
For OSX of course, there has never been any restriction beyond having to turn off gatekeeper. The dialog that pops up and complains that you're trying to run unsigned software even directs you to the appropriate place in the system settings.
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* Ok, maybe always, but before now** it still worked the other way.
**now ==current version of Windows, my Win7 still behaving itself (though I have a very modified hostfile and adblocks).
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Re:Win7 performs even BETTER, safer & faster v (Score:4)
Even if APK's solution would be appropriate and on-topic, he has lost any goodwill from this community by his incessant spamming.
Re:And so ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'm still happily on 7 with auto-updates disabled and the win 10 upgrade notifier removed
Me too, though MS keeps trying to sneak it in every month. Hopefully when the free "upgrade" period is over they'll knock it off.
Re:And so ... (Score:5, Funny)
Not long ago those of us who warned against "upgrading" were being lambasted for being alarmists.
Well. I have something I'd like to say:
HA! HA! HA! HA!
ROFL!
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Well, the joke's only half funny. What are you going to do when Win7 reaches its EOL and MS didn't step back from the brink of insanity?
Re:And so ... (Score:5, Informative)
I totally agree.
For now the thing is to keep writing to companies like Adobe, Steinberg, Native Instruments, MakeMusic, Canon, etc. to ask them to support Linux. In the end, if they don't, then I guess running the necessary apps under a VM with hopefully good graphics performance, under Linux.
Linux is usable but its just a matter of how much is one willing to dispense with to use it? How much convenience, such as putting a laptop in suspend and expecting it to work? Wanting to be able to scan a document wireless from a multi-function printer?
People are still on Windows not because of one big thing, but all the small things which collectively they don't want to deal with.
If you ask people who switched from Linux back to Windows, they may say it was x or it was because of y, but actually its because of x, y, z, etc. Not sure if it will take some entirely different approach to ever make an Open Source OS the primary one used by people in the world, or whether some change of thinking around Linux can do it. However nothing major has happened with Linux after all these years and attempts so I really wonder.
Re:And so ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Awesome.
I wonder how long until someone manages to hack a keylogger in via this vector and start recording passwords?
Re:UFIA (Score:5, Funny)
Unsolicited Finger In the Anus. Popularized on the website Fark.com and is a cliche among TotalFarkers. Originated from a news story about a young man who poked his friends in the backdoor with his finger on a high school football bus trip. In the story, the judge is quoted as saying "an unsolicited finger in the anus, while crude, is not criminal".
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If the UI of Win10 is any proof then that MS is certainly not even doing research to make it more useful. The UI of Win10 is a HUGE step back from Win7, it's almost like they learned little to nothing from the Win8 fallout.
This is the price of "free" (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the price of "free" MS upgrades.
Re:This is the price of "free" (Score:5, Informative)
It's official, CEO #3 is just as jerky as #1 and #2. The MS tradition of corporate mayhem continues.
Re:This is the price of "free" (Score:5, Insightful)
I imagine people who actually paid for a legitimate full copy are getting the ads as well. I don't know for certain but do they even distinguish the 2 (once initial activation is complete?)
I continue to be satisfied with Windows 7, until they try to damage it somehow.
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MS providing an attack vector for malvertising on every Windows 10 machine doesn't seem like something to be outraged about?
This has to be trolling.
Re:This is the price of "free" (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah! It's not like they reset settings during forced updates!!!
oh wait... Never mind, they do occasionally "fix" your setting s for you.
Re:This is the price of "free" (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you read the summary? This is not complicated. Change the settings.
And how long before a "bug" resets your changes [slashdot.org] back to what Microsoft prefers?
Re:This is the price of "free" (Score:5, Insightful)
The outrage is not that you are somehow trapped with this ... "feature". The real fury is Microsoft's attitude towards its customers.
Why is that now companies see pushing unwanted adds on to our hardware as perfectly acceptable? In the past this was a category of malware! Why is that I now need to know and take conscious effort to make sure I disable such settings, lest bandwidth I pay for will be wasted. When administrators will be deploying on mass scale, this will become yet another thing they need to remember to script to be disabled.
Is it because it is a free upgrade? User paid for Windows 7/8 she upgraded from. Also what about professional version that one paid for: Is that setting off by default? Really, no one even asked for Microsoft to have their next major version to be free* in the first place!
This is just bad faith from the creator to the consumer.
*Free as in no money. You will pay in other ways...
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Have you looked at windows settings recently? Gone are the days when they were contained in a reasonably sensible arrangement in the control panel. Now they are all over the shop - some in the control panel, some accessible only through that irritating tile screen, some hidden behind a wizard. It's a complete mess, and a cynic might think deliberately so.
Also... want a wager that the setting will be removed in version 11 or 12? My bet would be that you'll have to buy a premium version for a while, then
Re:This is the price of "free" (Score:5, Insightful)
Outrage is that these are OUR machines. They do not belong to Microsoft. It may be true that Microsoft can not survive financially without serving up ads, but it's not our job to provide charity to companies with bad business models.
Re:This is the price of "free" (Score:5, Insightful)
... It may be true that Microsoft can not survive financially without serving up ads,...
I'd be more than happy to pay Microsoft for an upgrade for my copies of Windows 7, providing the upgrade is really an upgrade and not just a means for Microsoft to begin data harvesting of my family..
Re:This is the price of "free" (Score:5, Insightful)
Outrage is that these are OUR machines. They do not belong to Microsoft. It may be true that Microsoft can not survive financially without serving up ads, but it's not our job to provide charity to companies with bad business models.
You own the computer but Microsoft owns the software. You choose to run one of their OSs. They allow you to run the software but they own all rights to it. If you care about the ads then you should run an OS that you own, and can modify to fit your needs. I assume you choose not to, because anyone who posts on /. should be able to install and run what ever they want on their computer.
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I really don't think Joe Average is gonna give a shit. Joe Average really don't mind and Joe Average is the target market. Hell, I don't even give a shit. I'd just turn it off. Then again, I've either used no lock screen or a blank lock screen for a very long time. There's not much chance of me seeing ads - and I hate ads. Hell, I've been blocking ads since the mid 1990s. Not even *I* would bother getting out pitchforks and torches for this - assuming I used Windows. Just turn the damned thing off. It's not
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Change the damned settings. It's RIGHT THERE in the summary.
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And I "QUOTE" Get fun facts,tips,tricks and more on your lock screen END QUOTE"
that is decetful as it gets not one word stating turn off ads here
Sure the summery tells everyone how to turn the crap off not everyone read slashdot and tech news its worded so you cant find how to turn off ads that is decetful on microsofts part..
Re:This is the price of "free" (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like, where the fuck is your memory. Repeatedly M$ has been caught resetting end users settings on updates. So yeah, ha ha ha, set the settings only to have M$ change them back to want when ever it wants using compulsory upgrades, yeah, really fucking funny your comment. Oh how about sticking that privacy invasive shit in windows 7 not permission, no warning, just bend over the probe is going in. Any settings to fix that, nope, you have to look it all up and then individually remove the anal probe elements from your OS effectively hidden as security patches mind you, bug fixes and security patches, nope M$ delivering windows anal probe 10 features to windows 7 stripping away security and privacy.
Now adding in M$ is no longer delivering anonymous upgrades but individually target able upgrades. Each and every user individually accessed at upgrade time and some of us are lucky enough to get an extra special delivery and that is all versions of windows currently being updated. Privacy is cool being a perv is evil.
Re:This is the price of "free" (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, now I have that bit of information. An there is this setting that I have to adjust, there that option I have to turn off, here is this plugin I have to install, there is that third party addon that keeps me from being flooded with bullshit...
Why the FUCK is that even necessary?
According to your argument, it doesn't matter 'cause all I have to do is find a way to turn it off and then simply turn it off, right? Ok. You're paying for the time I spend doing this? No? Didn't think so.
Do you think people would put up with this shit if this wasn't computers but their car, dishwasher or lawn mower?
Re:This is the price of "free" (Score:5, Funny)
Personally I block the ads by using electricians tape over the screen.
Re:This is the price of "free" (Score:5, Insightful)
Alas, if you want to stay current/work in the IT industry, you better get familiar with Windows 10. This is the next major version, so it is the target platform to develop for.
I use Debian myself for my main usage, but keep a Windows laptop for testing/learning on what real-world uses. Windows 7 was excellent and the "upgrade" to 10 was a sad day indeed. But one has to stay current in the industry trends :-(
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This is the price of "free" MS upgrades.
MS Win10 upgrade has outgrown the "free upgrade" category a while ago.
It is now firmly in "shoved down your throat when you are not looking" category
I have warned all of my immediate non-tech family to ignore "free upgrade" offer, but what if (when!) MS sneaks it in anyway?
Also, it is getting harder to buy a new desktop/laptop without Windows 10 (yes, yes, I know, year of the Linux is upon us, blah blah).
Re:This is the price of "free" (Score:5, Informative)
This is the price of "free" MS upgrades.
I actually had to pay full price for this.
What do you say now, Microsoft shills? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What do you say now, Microsoft shills? (Score:4, Insightful)
Windows 10 is okay, all things told. The problem is when they sneak this shit in, but people who know what they are doing will consult the appropriate guide to turn it all off. Just like we did with all the other junk Windows tried to get in under the radar.
However, while I have to admit that it is a pretty ballsy move to have your OS serve you ads, it's not like no one saw this one coming. I was wondering when I'd have Windows 10, "sponsored by Square Enix and Coca-Cola". It seems that it has now arrived. Welcome to the future.
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Welcome to the past. They tried this shit with Active Desktop "channels" in a Windows 95 add-on and part of the core install of Windows 98
Re:What do you say now, Microsoft shills? (Score:4, Interesting)
Welcome to the past. They tried this shit with Active Desktop "channels" in a Windows 95 add-on and part of the core install of Windows 98
Wow, Active Desktop. Enabled by default in ...windows 98? 98SE? And the most common error in the OS, even more common than... well, all the other errors, was a long pause where the system wouldn't respond, followed by the Active Desktop Recovery screen. The first thing I did when working on any PC was turn that crap off. (The second was to disable browse master. Or maybe that was Win95...)
That takes me back. Or is it forward?
Re:What do you say now, Microsoft shills? (Score:5, Insightful)
And, as I recall ... it was a gaping security hole they deprecated.
Then they did the same thing in Vista with gadgets. Also, a gaping security hole they deprecated.
And, I seem to remember they had them in Windows 7. And, again, it was a gaping security hole they deprecated.
Trusting Microsoft hasn't fucked this up again is idiotic.
But, more importantly, putting fucking ads on people's computers pretty much means Microsoft have gone full asshole on this one, and have really decided to fuck over their user base.
Shit like this needs to stop. We don't have our computers to provide Microsoft with fucking ad revenue, we have them to do work and manage our stuff.
I'm really beginning to think I'd be better off running my Windows 8.1 behind my own firewall with all updates turned off -- Windows 10 sounds like a bigger pile of shit every week.
Re:What do you say now, Microsoft shills? (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows 10 is okay, all things told.
No, it's not!
Have standards sunk so low that an operating system which:
- Has the ugliest and most backwards user interface in history.
- Does not allow you to control the installation of updates.
- Incorporates advertising into the shell (and now) the lock screen.
- Steals your Internet bandwidth to help pay for the distribution costs of Windows Updates.
- Gleefully violates your privacy by sending microphone recordings, keystrokes, email, file contents, and who knows what else to external servers without explicit consent.
is "okay, all things told"? Even with the privacy concerns being associated with a company already found to be working with and providing data en masse to the NSA?
Windows 10 is, at best, a complete disaster. Any systems improvements under the hood are completely overshadowed. I just can't wait to see what other fresh bullshit Microsoft pulls in a year or two when more people are on 10 and the OS is fully on the OSX model of perpetual updates. At that point there will be so little recourse, your computer may as well be owned by Microsoft and simply be leased to you (as long as you behave yourself).
I don't know why they even call it a "personal computer" anymore.
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It's called a personal computer because it keeps trying to be intimate with you.
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Incorporates advertising into the shell .... This is a surprise how?
It's a surprise to me. When did we start accepting advertising into our lives like this? It's an outrage that software that costs money should display advertisements. The money goes to MS, right? That's just not acceptable.
You get ads on your phone the same way
I don't. [wikipedia.org] :)
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At best, it's tacky as fuck. Just when you start to think MSFT is getting their shit together, they go and do something absolutely absurd like this.
Re:What do you say now, Microsoft shills? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What do you say now, Microsoft shills? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's interesting to compare the development of Software as a Service with television programming. Most people are not outraged by commercials on television--it is understood that someone else 'owns' the show you're watching and that they have the right to put ads in it. It seems like what MS (and others) are trying to do is gradually shift to a software environment where normal people think of Windows as a thing that belongs to someone else (MS), and as a result, MS has the right to put ads in.
Of course, we hate this idea because we grew up owning software, but if they can persist this long enough, a whole generation will grow up not owning software, but consuming it instead, and at that point, using computers could become as bad as trying to watch the evening news. You'll try to start a word processor, and as the thing 'loads', you'll be subjected to ads for household disinfectants and medications with alarming arrays of side-effects.
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> we grew up owning software,
No, you never did, unless you wrote it yourself.
> a whole generation will grow up not owning software, but consuming it
Several generations already have, including you. You have just been deluded about what you 'bought' for years.
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Television is showing us content for free, so we put up with some unobstrusive ads that don't transmit diseases. Windows 10 is not free, we paid for it or for the OS that we upgraded from, and yet we still get the ads and a vector for malware. At the very least Microsoft could act like web sites and whine at us to please turn off adblock or else they'll go out of business.
Re:What do you say now, Microsoft shills? (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, how much more of this do you think people are going to put up with before they say 'enough is enough'?
I think people will just assume that that's what Windows 10 is supposed to do, and not change a thing.
Most people are not like you and me, they don't think too deeply about the laptop they've just bought. They bring it home, turn it on, accept some EULA, click a few 'next" buttons and an "OK" or two then start using it.
I'm sure if it came with Linux Mint preinstalled an awful lot of people wouldn't even notice, because Gmail would work fine.
I regularly need to ask people "What version of Windows does your computer run"? and about 2 in 10 know.
Re:What do you say now, Microsoft shills? (Score:5, Funny)
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I run into the same thing, except in my case it's 1 in 5.
Similar situation for me, except it was 1.5 out of 7.5.
In related news, I could use some money for bail.
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Not until they want wireless to work -- and are then told on all discussion forums that they have to recompile the kernel for that. I am sure they will notice the difference then
Bullshit for very large values of bullshit. I haven't had wireless not work: on any installs I've done in the last 8-10 years now.
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Not until they want wireless to work -- and are then told on all discussion forums that they have to recompile the kernel for that. I am sure they will notice the difference then
I call bullshit.
I've done 8 or 9 installs of Mint in the last month on a variety of hardware (laptops and desktops) and the wireless functions have worked without a hitch every single time. In fact everything has worked every single time, I've not had a problem with any hardware yet. Scanners, USB ports, wireless, bluetooth, printers, it all seems to work fine without any problem.
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This. I haven't had a single piece of hardware not work in at least 5 years. In fact, I can't remember the last time something didn't work. Last time I checked, Linux supported more hardware than Windows. I've been using Linux for well over 10 years now and I've never recompiled the kernel. And I've never researched what hardware I buy, either.
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I ran into those issues when I started with linux 15 years ago, but soon realized it stems from a different way of deciding what to install. In Windows, you search the internet and find a specific program and then figure out how to install that. If you do that in Linux you can end up with some very painful complicate
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ad for Square Enix's Rise of the Tomb Raider.
What do you say now, Microsoft shills?
Microsoft is not going to go tits up from displaying boobs by default.
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Considering it can be easily turned off (for now) I don't really see a problem here. I checked my Windows 10 settings and it was already turned off. *shrug*
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Just wait a bit, and they'll start resetting your "don't show me ads" setting by "accident" every update.
Re:What do you say now, Microsoft shills? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah, the time-honored refrain from every malware author, spammer, and other online lowlife in the history of computing: "Just delete it/turn it off. What's the problem?"
Re:What do you say now, Microsoft shills? (Score:4, Interesting)
The sad thing is that people don't need to be paid to shill.
When I discuss what Win10 is doing with ordinary non-geeks, the reactions usually vary from, "It's not a big deal", to "Oh, I doubt they're doing that". Almost everybody agrees that the control panel options to disable the spyware actually do work, so there's no reason to worry. There doesn't really need to be an excuse for what MS is doing, because even when people are informed about what's happening, they still don't see why there's anything wrong and see us nerdy weirdos as paranoid. Interestingly enough, every day I keep finding more and more people that support Windows10 and actually like it. Hey, it's free, so why not?
I don't like Linux and have always had trouble when experimenting with various distros over the last 12-or-so years. Nonetheless, I am very thankful that it exists and will be switching my workstation to it shortly. My game machine runs Win 7, though, and I honestly have no idea what to do when that OS no longer runs the newest games.
Re: What do you say now, Microsoft shills? (Score:2)
Y'know... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Get fun facts, tips, tricks, and more"!? Go piss up a rope, you insincere, weasel-mouthed, marketing stooges. You've already hidden the option to turn the ads off behind a labyrinth of menus, you could at least give us the courtesy of not bullshitting us any further than that.
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The annoying part isn't that Microsoft would try to advertise on your own lock screen. No, the moment we heard that Windows 10 was announced as a free upgrade, we all knew they'd eventually stoop to this level. The annoying part is how they refer to it in their settings.
Actually I expected them to pull the old bait and switch by coming out with something quite reasonable and innocent then boil the frog slowly. But I guess they figured they got the lid on the situation....
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" ...You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them had you? I mean like actually telling anyone or anything.' But the plans were on display...' o n display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.' `That's the display department.' `With a torch.' `Ah, well the lights had probably gone.' `So had the stairs.' `But look you found the notice didn't you?' `Yes,' said Arthur, `yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with
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Yeah, I hate it too when they always appoint the white guy just because he's white, but what are you going to do?
Still wondering? (Score:2)
Time to write a Linux ad (Score:5, Funny)
How much would it cost to get a Linux ad placed there?
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You're thinking too small. How about a BSOD ad. How many people will curse MS and restart their computer losing some work they didn't need to lose? Or a phishing ad: "Virus detected, visit virus.com". Imagine the helicopter parents' lawsuits when some kid hacks in a pornographic ad for his school system (these ads are stored locally right?).
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Right there on the BSOD the ad would say "Tired of this crap? While we're spooling to disk consider these alternatives to Windows..."
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Just use Microsoft for games (Score:3, Insightful)
After that turn Microsoft off and return to any other real OS. No need to go deep into settings on a real OS to get basic users rights back.
Its always your computer
Re:Just use Microsoft for games (Score:5, Insightful)
Must... find.. way... (Score:5, Funny)
to get into the MS ad network and display gape porn on their network...
Just picked up a surface pro 4 - rant (Score:2)
3 BSODs within 2 days of taking it out of the box. Tablet mode is unusable, They sell it on the strength of using existing Windows apps, like firefox but clicking on the text boxes inside firefox (or older windows apps that don't use the stock windows edit boxes) don't bring up the on-screen keyboard. Power saving modes like you find on android or iOS devices are an after thought. Microsoft still treats this thing as a PC so coming out of sleep mode is not fast.
Basically it's an overpriced but nice ultra
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Oh, and multiple blue screens in two days? Let me go ahead and call Bull. Shit. Either you have bad hardw
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And no it wasn't bullshit but thanks for your concern.
Then you have dodgy hardware, or you are doing something you aren't admitting. One or the other. The devices simply do not BSOD 3 times a week out of the box, not even running pale moon, unless it is defective.
Send it in for warranty.
Pizza apps are a staple of any app ecosystem
Staple or not they are irrelevant nonsense. The Windows app store does have lots of BIG gaping holes... many banks don't have a windows phone app. Many peripherals don't either... from Lego Mindstorms to Harmony Remotes, to communications stuff like RingCentral.
But Pizza? Give
Be direct (Score:4, Interesting)
Why doesn't MS offer a "normal" edition and a "spam and snoop" edition ("Windows 10 SSE" *). The normal version would cost more. At least you'd know what you are getting and can avoid junk by paying more.
* Or Godwin it: "SS"
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Why doesn't MS offer a "normal" edition and a "spam and snoop" edition ("Windows 10 SSE" *). The normal version would cost more. At least you'd know what you are getting and can avoid junk by paying more.
* Or Godwin it: "SS"
They do, but not for consumers. The enterprise version does not have this, even with Windows Spotlight - there is no link for fun tips etc.
Can't justify spying for product improvement now (Score:3)
I was under the assumption it was there for usage statistics to make a better product. I've work on a paid iPhone app where we recorded anonymous usage statistics so we can see how people are interacting with the product and it was super useful for making a better product - note that users were informed of this tracking and had to opt in.
With advertising, Microsoft poison that argument, now they spy on you for the same reason as every other company.
How much more of this will people take? (Score:5, Interesting)
About half of my family is running Linux instead of Windows. We're geekier than the average, but I can tell you that non-geeks in my family have no problem at all running a Linux desktop. (And I've installed Windows and Linux, and overall it's easier to do a Linux install.)
It has never been easier to junk Windows and switch to Linux. Many people just use email, a web browser, and Facebook; those all Just Work on Linux. Video, sound, it's all fine.
And desktop is getting less important all the time; people are using mobile devices more and more. And Microsoft missed the boat on mobile.
So even as the "network" that makes Windows important is crumbling ("network" as in "network effect"), even as Microsoft's actual power to push people is waning, they keep finding new ways to punish people who stick with them. Hey, nobody will mind if we monitor them a bunch, right? Make it almost impossible to figure out whether it's enabled or not. (If it's even possible to disable it... maybe it isn't [arstechnica.com]!) And start pushing ads, because nobody hates having full-screen ads in their faces.
Is Microsoft actually trying to achieve Windows 8 levels of hatred for Windows 10? Does Linus Torvalds have sleeper agents inside Microsoft trying to make Windows crumble from inside?
Keep this up, MIcrosoft, and we may yet see the Year of Linux on the Desktop.
P.S. I haven't bothered to keep up with all the settings one must change to disable all the bad behaviors in Windows 10. I just checked to see if there's a tool for it... there's a bunch and it's not obvious which one(s) to use. Is there a clear favorite tool to fix the Windows 10 settings?
http://www.ghacks.net/2015/08/14/comparison-of-windows-10-privacy-tools/ [ghacks.net]
Hmm... maybe this one: Spybot Anti-Beacon [zdnet.com]
FTFY... (Score:3)
If you want to make sure you're not hit with these ads, follow these steps to disable Windows Spotlight: buy a Mac (or install Linux!)
FTFY.
Yaz
Makes a certain amount of sense (Score:2)
Windows is the only consumer operating system which is not free as in beer. Upgrades to OSX, iOS and Android are always available for free. Android is also free to OEMs. This disadvantage can not be competitive long term. Since Microsoft doesn't sell much hardware, they have to make money on advertisement, cloud services or Windows store commissions.
Microsoft can't innovate. They only copy. (Score:5, Funny)
Ubuntu is way ahead of the curve.
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/... [slashdot.org]
When will Apple catch up?
Now we sit back and wait for infected ad servers.. (Score:5, Insightful)
How soon... (Score:5, Interesting)
Till the first bit of malvertising that uses this as it's infection vector? Is someone taking bets?
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How soon until Comcast et. al. MITM this and start pushing their own ads?
Great new feature (Score:5, Funny)
This is one of the really great things about Windows, how it introduces features to people that they really want and need. Having Windows constantly context aware insert product placements directly into peoples lives will really help them be aware of the things they need to spend money on.
Ads are great and anyone who doesn't like this won't know what they are missing. I want to thank Microsoft for introducing this feature to computers. Anyone who doesn't like these features in windows is probably just really stupid.
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So you approve of Microsoft as the great stalker boyfriend? :)
customer-focused (Score:5, Insightful)
No self-respecting product designer / owner at a company would allow such a fundamental, first impression of the product to be tainted by advertising as they designed the thing. What product manager would say, during the design process, "wouldn't it be great if we could show ads all over the home screen of people's phones!"
No. Only after the filter had been applied by the marketing / sales department and commercial officers to say, "well, we need to raise more revenue to make our shitty product line seem good" would the product team reluctantly agree to allow ads to make their way into this.
All respect lost.
Change in haiku (Score:3)
Several years ago, I wrote a haiku:
Thunderstorms outside
Microsoft software inside
It's safer out there
Now that I've started using Windows 10, please substitute "Hurricane" for "Thunderstorms".
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It doesn't. You're being monetized.
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They tried to get into the ad game by muscling in on Google with Bing... and lolfailed hard.
Molesting Windows users is all they have left in the game. Well, Windows and Xbox users.
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Same reason "God" needs a spaceship.
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Weirdly, I don't think I ever disabled Windows Spotlight, but it already was. It either kept it on "picture" from my W7 install, or Spotlight is actually a non-default option.
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I usually don't, but (especially) since my user at work has some network administration privileges, I'm in the habit of pressing Win+L any time I leave the computer. (It's a small business, so hey.)
I would be completely pissed if, upon returning, I found myself looking at Lara Croft's oversized tits. 1.) I don't care about video game characters meant to appeal to the adolescent heterosexual male market, and frankly they make sure I won't buy or play those games. 2.) What if one of the sexist assholes I w
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Precisely. And I actually worked there at the time. Made me physically ill.
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Another reason to move to either Linux or Mac O/S. Games are the only reason to stay with Microsoft unfortunately
And Photoshop + LightRoom, for those of us who (1) can't easily afford a Mac and (2) must use actual Photoshop + LightRoom and (3) have color-calibration hardware that doesn't necessarily do the right thing when Windows is running as a guest OS.