Oh look, with the threat of a big enough fine, you can uninstall those things.
Or at least hide the front ends for them.
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Oh look, with the threat of a big enough fine, you can uninstall those things.
Or at least hide the front ends for them.
Linux gives all global users more control: Uninstall Windows, say goodbye to Microsoft
Europeans have the Freedom to Uninstall SPYWARE? LoL COMMIES here in America we have TRUE FREEDOM of being FORCE FED SPYWARE with NO Other options!
the other option is a faster, more privacy focused, free, open source operating system.
I made the switch a little over a year ago, I know not everybody can/wants to - but major distros are honestly polished enough these days that I haven't looked back, I should have switched to Linux years ago.
Not everyone will agree, but I think Ubuntu + installing apps through Flatpak is a winning option.
Imagine living somewhere where those in charge have even there smallest bit of spine.
mmm, that was nice. can i have another?
The best control: uninstall Windows.
Huh, well ill continue living without all that shit on Linux Mint.
Mint... more than just a delicious herb!
Microsoft is grudgingly forced to give...*
For those curious, if you can get a European Windows product key, you can install the "N" version of Windows. Be warned, it only works with certain product keys....
The standard Windows installer should give the option of "Windows 10" or "Windows 10 N" (or similar). The N version is basically bloatware free out of the box....
The regular version has a bunch of promos pre-installed, like candy crush, and other things that most people couldn't give a shit about....
Recently I've been playing a "fun" game with my work laptop where I'll remove copilot, and a few days later it will appear again. Weeee. In that case, it wouldn't surprise me if there's a policy in place to enable copilot on my works systems.... I'm sure someone who works here, probably higher up the food chain than me, wants it enabled, and the ham fisted policy maker can't create a policy just for those who want it, so everyone gets it because the bosses son Shane decided that he wants to see how much of his work can get done by AI so he can do even less while on the clock.
Companies absolutely HATE copilot. I remember they didn’t even like Siri enabled on the Mac’s where I used to work. No way in hell copilot is getting a pass.
I work for a fairly large company, and we're hearing about "AI" constantly. CoPilot is available and its use encouraged. Also, in the cybersecurity space, AI is fucking everywhere. Vendors won't shut up about their "AI Enabled" products. And the new hotness is "Agentic AI", which is basically automation, but we're going to let AI hallucinations fire off the automated process which could bring production systems down.
Good times are surely coming. /s
Don't underestimate management desire to be absolutely indistinguishable from their competition.
They read the Harvard Business Review, learn new terms they don't understanding, make a PowerPoint out of it and voila, they are "innovative" like everyone else.
If HBR put "AI" on its cover you can be damn sure all those innovators are going to put AI wherever they can.
Heh, it's a small business and bossman isn't exactly anti-AI.
Perhaps sometime in the future, more people will try Linux and see how good it is. My recommendation based on my own experience:
Want stable, just working. Robust workhorse: Try Debian
Want newest, nicest, good for gaming (need a tiny bit of tinkering if you run Nvidia): Try Fedora
Want easy to install, but a bit older and slower, but requires no tinkering: Try PopOS
Don't like settings, tweaks and fuzz: choose Gnome desktop 😊
I'm sad to say I had to drop Linux for a while because I run Nvidia. I heard that AMD is fine, and that Nvidia is baaaadically fine with a few issues still so I gave it a shot. But games just genuinely run noticeably worse with an Nvidia card. Games would lose 20-30 frames. Maybe not a big deal with my setup if I was using a 60hz monitor since most were still above 60, but I'm using 144hz.
It sucks too because it's not fedora or Linux as a whole's fault. It's Nvidia's.
Thought about keeping it but already had a few things I needed to dual boot windows for. If I still need windows for gaming, basically that leaves idly browsing the web as fedora's main use. And I think that's a bit overkill.
Looking forward to eventually getting an AMD card (Legit if you're reading this and thinking about upgrading or building a new PC and think there even a small chance you'd go with Linux in the future, go AMD) or even just a whole new build. That way I can just delegate my current machine for those few tasks I need windows for, and have a main machine for general use.
The relatively bad linux experience, plus all the news about nvidia being the scum of the earth, is what made me go with a solid AMD card instead.
I know its not everybody's cup of tea, but plain standard Ubuntu these days has a lot of polish and interoperability. The addition of gnome tweaks, extensions, and flatpak have left me not wanting much extra customisation.
This is after being on a dozen other distros and finding ironically they can be less customisable unless I want to spend an entire in terminal.
Uninstalling the store would be the biggest feature. A lot of telemetry is tied to it. I tried some of the "debloaters" out there, but the windows Installation breaks after a couple of months (I assume when ms pushes a new major update).
Make it world wide!
how do i europe
Am i missing something? If i had edge, store and bing forced down my throat my win11 install wouldve been long gone, but imo thst stuff was already removable before?
From what I've gathered here and elsewhere they never really went full throttle on all that stuff for most of us here in the EU.
Now don't get me wrong, W11 is utter shite, and I had to essentially build a new computer from scratch to even get it running properly, but I still haven't seen any ads or any other bullshit like that.
This is exactly why my old computer is merrily running Mint, and it likes it.
Edit: If it wasn't for the fact that I happen to primarily use Cinema 4D for work I wouldn't even have bothered, probably. Relearning 20+ years of software flow for the other options seemed silly at the time, but I would've reconsidered had I known what a mess W11 would become for me and in general.
I think GDPR and related laws, really tempered what Microsoft did to the whole of the European region. They didn't want to deal with it, so they made as much as they could, opt-in. As opposed to the north american policies of either opt-out, or forced-on.
IDK. I don't work at Microsoft, I'm just guessing. 🙃
So I could have a usable machine at work? Good. I am forced to upgrade from win7 to win11 in the lab, and current win11 crap did not appeal to me at all. And it has WSL, so at least it can actually be used for work.