> Its truly amazing to me that installing windows software is still like this
It doesn't have to be that way, since there is a Windows/Microsoft Store since plenty of years now.
But then you have gamers and game devs spreading FUD about UWP and the the MS Store, while they praise 3rd party platforms like Steam and GoG that actively refuse UWP apps in their store, while allowing Spyware like this.
> The long term solution is to get off the platform.
No, the long term solution is to embrace the MS Store, or at the very least modern platforms like WinRT/UWP that would prevent most types of malware attacks.
Why do we still accept the violation of the principle of least privilege in this day and age?
This account has been using HN exclusively to promote a pro-Microsoft agenda for a long time. That's a serious abuse of this site and I've banned it.
All: Agenda-driven and single-purpose accounts aren't allowed on Hacker News because they're incompatible with the intellectual curiosity this site exists for. Double that when the agenda or single purpose is advancing corporate interests. It doesn't matter what corp it is, btw; the last time we banned an account for doing this it was a different one.
This is a serious false accusation. Am I not allowed to prefer Windows? All I did was correct the rampant misinformation and bias against Windows that rarely gets challenged.
I didn't say you work for Microsoft. I have no way of knowing that, and it doesn't seem likely. But you can't use HN exclusively to promote one company over others. The reasons ought to be obvious.
I'm the most vocal about this pen issue, that could potentially cost MS billions of dollars if they need to recall those devices. I once posted a pen issue thread that got banned from /r/Microsoft once. https://www.reddit.com/r/microsoft/comments/82ilso/the_worka...
I don't disbelieve you but from our point of view it is beside the point. The point is that you've used HN primarily to argue for one company, and that's a serious abuse of this site. And we don't allow agenda-driven accounts or single-purpose accounts in general.
Also, double standards, since plenty of people post only about Linux, Android, ChromeOS, OSX or iOS and they never get flagged. And yes, genuine non-paid Windows enthusiasts like me do exist, and I shouldn't feel ashamed of it.
There is a perpetual hostility towards Windows users on this site, maybe you should address that first.
Microsoft itself is collecting a lot of telemetry even in Basic configuration [1], for example, if you use UAC (privileges elevation popup) they collect "the full command line arguments being used to elevate.". Also they collect a lot of hardware identifiers (including IMEI - unique phone identifier that allows to track it) so later they can reliably prove that some user was using this computer at this time. What a nice feature.
They also collect information on files that are " part of an app and either have a block in the compatibility database or are part of an anti-virus program.".
The long term solution CAN'T be the MS store. It requires asking Microsoft for permission to compete with them. It gives MS permission to bar entire categories of software globally or in your particular market.
Giving the party running the store 30% of all revenue is a hard sale to start with.
More importantly it gives MS the position to impose whatever dictates it or even more likely every government in existence the right to impose whatever restrictions they like on any app maker in existence with the threat of instant non existence.
Want a social media platform to ban anyone who disagrees with the king no problem do it or you can't do business. Want your browser to censor whatever your locality wants? No problem if it doesn't it doesn't get distributed. Want your OS to refuse to install apps that don't follow the store rules? No problem its in the governments interests and the companies.
Linux package management works like an app store with an official source and the ability to add whichever sources you choose. A search of available packages shows results giving sources the priority set by the user. Updating the system updates packages from 3rd party sources same as others. The major limitation is the labour required to create packages for all the different platforms users prefer not artificial limits or money paid to the platform "owner".
On windows nothing much is on the store mostly because people don't want to give Microsoft 30% on Linux charging 30% is downright impossible because people would trivially publish an alternative source instead.
Basically your cure is worse than the disease and since Microsoft wont fix the situation in a reasonable fashion so the only solution is to move off their platform.
What is your ideal solution? Which platform should we move to? On Linux I can download Filezilla and it run it untrusted too. So obviously there is no Linux distro that satisfies your requirements because this exact same issue can happen there. Same on Mac. Heck, even Windows is willing to warn you. iOS and the like give Apple similar permissions that you are against, so "the long term solution CAN'T be" the Apple app store.
> On windows nothing much is on the store mostly because people don't want to give Microsoft 30% on Linux charging 30% is downright impossible because people would trivially publish an alternative source instead.
Most package managers on Linux do not provide any sort of revenue stream. The comparison only holds when the software is free, at which point '30%' is $0.
The main exception I'm aware of, the elementaryOS app center, provides a worse deal. Same 70/30 split for $2 charges, but it's 50/50 on a $1 charge.
> Linux package management works like an app store with an official source and the ability to add whichever sources you choose. A search of available packages shows results giving sources the priority set by the user. Updating the system updates packages from 3rd party sources same as others.
There exist 3rd party package repositories on Windows too.
> On windows nothing much is on the store mostly because people don't want to give Microsoft 30%
All my software, except for some dev tools and some games are from the MS Store.
> on Linux charging 30% is downright impossible because people would trivially publish an alternative source instead.
Steam is on Linux and charges 30%.
> Basically your cure is worse than the disease and since Microsoft wont fix the situation in a reasonable fashion so the only solution is to move off their platform.
There is no need for MS to abandon Edge, especially when OS integration is going to be more important in the near future. Chrome and Firefox are also not as resource efficient on Windows, which his especially important on battery powered Windows devices. Same as on Mac OS, where you use Safari, if you value your battery life.
I imagine maintaining it is a big effort and keeping up an even bigger one. Sure they make billions, but still. What are they really getting out of this at this point.
Edge is the most resource efficient and respects modern Windows conventions, therefore it has the best, pen, touchscreen, tablet (including share button and stuff) and precision trackpad support. And since it's WinRT/UWP, it can suspends its tab processes, and also itself when minimized or automatically during tablet mode in the background, and during fullscreen it also automatically unhides the taskbar when you hover over it, for better multi-tasking.
It also has nice features such as the set tabs aside session manager that even retains history and session cookies, and it a nice PDF and ePub reader with support for notes and highlighting with the pen, and Cortana integration. Before Edge, I primarily used Firefox and dabbled with Chrome and Vivaldi.
Edge is on both iOS and Android, and no I don't work for MS, I just value proper modern OS integration and battery efficiency, so that I can use my device as intended.
Something called Edge from Microsoft is available for iOS (where it is a rebranded WebKit) and on Android (where it is a rebranded Blink, IIRC). If you primarily work with Windows 10, Edge makes some sense, otherwise it makes no sense.
On iPhone, by Apple decree, ALL web browsers (including Firefox and Chrome) are rebranded WebKit; However, on Android, Chrome is (mostly) the real chrome and Firefox is (mostly) the real firefox.
> I just value proper modern OS integration and battery efficiency, so that I can use my device as intended.
The only downside to it I see is that you are using Windows 10... I value privacy and control of my devices a little more than 10% of battery efficiency.
> Something called Edge from Microsoft is available for iOS (where it is a rebranded WebKit) and on Android (where it is a rebranded Blink, IIRC).
Why is it a problem that it uses webkit on iOS and Android? Why reinvent the wheel, when those rendering engines are already optimized for those platforms? The thing I care about is that it supports syncing of settings.
> If you primarily work with Windows 10, Edge makes some sense, otherwise it makes no sense.
If you primarily work with Mac OS, Safari makes some sense, otherwise it makes no sense. Why do I never hear that complaint?
Also, Edge on iOS and Android will soon have a built-in adblocker.
> The only downside to it I see is that you are using Windows 10... I value privacy and control of my devices a little more than 10% of battery efficiency.
Have you ever looked at the privacy controls of Windows? Also the battery efficiency is significantly more than 10%, and try find me an as versatile and user friendly alternative OS for pen capable 2-in-1s, that has better privacy controls.
> If you primarily work with Mac OS, Safari makes some sense, otherwise it makes no sense. Why do I never hear that complaint?
Yes, but I work on all three desktop OSes, and two mobile OSs; I picked Firefox, which I use everywhere except on iOS (where it does exist, but is not really Firefox, even if it does sync with the rest of the Firefoxen).
> Also, Edge on iOS and Android will soon have a built-in adblocker.
Cool. Firefox already does, and I can also use it on Linux and Mac.
> Have you ever looked at the privacy controls of Windows?
Yes, I have, and they are horrible; Have you?. I cannot stop telemetry or updates (unless LTSB which I can't even get, or enterprise which is too expensive to get for home), I can't get security updates without eveything else that Microsoft decides to bundle even if I did use LTSB or Enterprise. I have no way to verify exactly what Microsoft sends to their servers (and their description is incomplete and out of date, if you care to trust it).
The upgrade-to-windows-10 dark patterns are what you should consider when you think "windows control & privacy".
> Also the battery efficiency is significantly more than 10%,
Not in my experience of Edge vs Firefox, unless things have changed very dramatically in the last few months.
> and try find me a more versatile and user friendly alternative OS for pen capable 2-in-1s, that has better privacy controls.
"versatile" and "user friendly" are very subjective terms; I curse every minute I have to work with Windows after having used a consistently set up linux machine (and even MacOS is a little clunky in comparison). "pen capable 2-in-1" is a very specific requirement that means nothing to me and (I would guess) 95% of the users.
In my biased sample of the world, PCs have gone back to being work devices, and everything else is being done on the phone, with cloud sync bridging the gaps. I know a few people who bought a 2-in-1 but no one uses them except as a laptop except on very very rare occasions.
On android they are called "Google Play Services". I'm an incidental Android user, but last I tried removing them, that did stop the telemetry (and killed a lot of functionality, but my phone is still usable for my usage).
No idea about ChromeOS - my chromebook runs Arch ....
> Cool. Firefox already does, and I can also use it on Linux and Mac.
But Chrome doesn't and I don't use Linux or Mac, but if I were primarily using a Mac, I would be using Safari. And If I were primarily using ChromeOS, I would be using Chrome.
> I have no way to verify exactly what Microsoft sends to their servers (and their description is incomplete and out of date, if you care to trust it).
> The upgrade-to-windows-10 dark patterns are what you should consider when you think "windows control & privacy".
How is this a dark pattern? Windows 7 and 8 also have telemetry, but they don't let you view it as conveniently as in Windows 10. Also the OS itself supports more privacy control against 3rd party apps, which should be the biggest concern.
> Not in my experience of Edge vs Firefox, unless things have changed very dramatically in the last few months.
Firefox is among the most resource heavy, on both Windows and Mac OS.
> In my biased sample of the world, PCs have gone back to being work devices, and everything else is being done on the phone, with cloud sync bridging the gaps. I know a few people who bought a 2-in-1 but no one uses them except as a laptop except on very very rare occasions.
I do all my work on a Surface Pro 2-in-1, more than 50% of the time in tablet mode. I also keep a close eye on ChromeOS and iPads, but unless they support most of my software and use-cases, I see no reason to switch from Windows anytime soon.
> How is this a dark pattern? Windows 7 and 8 also have telemetry, but they don't let you view it as conveniently as in Windows 10.
Seriously? Were you not a windows user three years ago when it started? E.g. from [0] "The most famous example of digital bait and switch was Microsoft’s misguided approach to getting people to upgrade their computers to Windows 10."
Windows 7 and 8 are now just as bad, I do not in any way recommend using them if you value your privacy -- but at the very least, it's possible to turn off all telemetry, or at least it used to be possible when I last allowed updates on my Win7 (now it's firewalled off the world), by avoiding/removing specific updates. And according to the link you provided, "Although you can't completely prevent Microsoft from collecting diagnostic data, ...". Thanks, microsoft! but no thanks, even if you let me view what you are sending 3 years after you started snooping on me.
How exactly does the OS support "privacy controls" against 3rd party apps? Do you remember that its default setup was sharing your WiFi passwords with all of your facebook acquaintances?
> I do all my work on a Surface Pro 2-in-1, more than 50% of the time in tablet mode. I also keep a close eye on ChromeOS and iPads, but unless they support most of my software and use-cases, I see no reason to switch from Windows anytime soon.
As I said, according to my obviously biased sample, you are a niche market. YMMV.
> The most famous example of digital bait and switch was Microsoft’s misguided approach to getting people to upgrade their computers to Windows 10."
They got a major upgrade for free with major improvements accross the board, they should be happy.
> And according to the link you provided, "Although you can't completely prevent Microsoft from collecting diagnostic data, ...". Thanks, microsoft! but no thanks, even if you let me view what you are sending 3 years after you started snooping on me.
The basic telemetry is just harmless diagnostic data that's on every modern mainstream OS. MS isn't snooping on you.
> How exactly does the OS support "privacy controls" against 3rd party apps?
I don't think this discussion is worth continuing as our basic definitions of decency, privacy, control and discourse are so far apart that it makes no sense.
You ask "how is this a dark pattern", I give citation and reference, and your response is "they should be happy?" Seriously?
> The basic telemetry is just harmless diagnostic data that's on every modern mainstream OS. MS isn't snooping on you.
The only modern mainstream OS in which there is no way to turn it off is Windows 10; you can on Android, you can on MacOS, it doesn't even exist on Linux.
Let me decide what's harmless and what isn't, and which updates I want and which I do not. MS is snooping on me, and its worth it a lot to them or they wouldn't be so adamant about doing it.
Did you actually read what you link to? This does not apply to desktop apps. Which are, I guess, 99% of the apps people use out there? Maybe only 95% by now.
Based on your previous replies, I anticipate an answer of "but they're your contacts, you probably wanted to do that, you should be happy". So, pre-emptively - no. I do not want my passwords shared by default with anyone.
GDPR encodes in law the fact that everything like that must be opt-in, including telemetry and stuff. Unfortunately, it only applies to websites and not to the operating system. But it should.
> GDPR encodes in law the fact that everything like that must be opt-in, including telemetry and stuff. Unfortunately, it only applies to websites and not to the operating system. But it should.
Yep, Android and ChromeOS would be the first to go.
I'm not sure where you get the idea that GDPR doesn't apply to operating systems.
You can control every facet of your diagnostics in Windows settings, see every bit of data collected about you (both locally and on the cloud), and delete it all.
According to every article linked in this sub thread, (a) telemetry is opt out (not in) and (b) you cannot opt out completely, only partially; since telemetry is not actually required to provide service, that would be a GDPR violation, and if it is - I expect someone will take Microsoft to the cleaners over it. (As well as google for android’s data collection)
> Ok, to clear a little bit of this so it’s not a complete freak out. This WiFi Sense has been known about for a while now and has been in various tech preview builds. Plus Windows Phone. Second thing is that WiFi networks are not shared by default. I just checked this on my Surface Pro 3. The WiFi Sense service is indeed enabled by default, but you must specifically pick which of your saved networks get shared.
Non of your saved WiFi networks are shared automatically without your knowledge. When you connect to a new network, there will be a check box you can select to share the network after connecting. It is not checked by default. The Outlook, Skype, and Facebook friends are checked by default, but that only means that they are enabled for sharing. You still have to pick which networks are shared first.
Also WiFi Sense needs you to grant it permission your Facebook first before any sharing takes place.
I hope this clears some of this up a bit. The article made it seem like this is a huge deal to freak out about when it’s really not.
Not sure what you are quoting from (you seem to quote but it's not from the article listed).
It was changed in later updates, but as rolled out originally, it most definitely shared wifi networks unexpectedly in some configuration (perhpas only on upgrades, not on new installs, I don't remember the exact details -- but there was a wifi breach where I worked at the time in which wifisense turned out to be the culprit without anyone explicitly enabling it). See [0]. Microsoft is playing loose with your data, and has been for the past 5 years at the very least. You may not care, but I do, and your refusal to accept that is simple baffling.
The privacy controls of Windows 10 are insufficient. In order to make Windows 10 usable, at least by Windows 7 standards, for people who actually care (you sound content with MS's worldview, that's fine for you), this is the latest version of all the crap you have to do: https://github.com/adolfintel/Windows10-Privacy
Why does that guide have you delete all the preinstalled UWP apps and Windows Defender?
I naturally did the first steps in the setup process they suggested, and also did some work to get regular system search instead of Cortana, but deleting sticky notes seems excessive.
Maybe you missed CVE-2018-0986 (https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-US/security-guidance/ad...) and other related notices for Defender and other products, but it's not a great idea these days to let poor quality (remember, MS fired its QA) highly privileged software like Windows Defender or other antiviruses run and automatically scan every file (or worse as some newer systems are doing attach themselves to every process and scan their memory) since that software is itself vulnerable to exploits.
Admittedly the link I posted goes a bit beyond what's strictly needed, but it captures the spirit of the classic Windows setup. It used to be, you buy a new machine, first thing you do is wipe the pre-installed Windows (and all the crap the machine's seller put on there), hope there's not a rootkit (Lenovo, Sony), then install vanilla Windows, then install your graphics drivers... Now it's wipe the pre-installed Windows Home, go buy Windows Professional and then install that, go through the above link to vanilla-ize it and get rid of the pre-installed crap plus take back control of your privacy and machine behavior, then you're ready to download graphics drivers and so on...
As a gamer with a potato computer I usually close my main browser (>100 tabs) when I game, but I need a browser for statistics. I've tried using Edge with a couple tabs open but it lowers my FPS, while having a secondary profile of Firefox or Chrome with tens of tabs is still fine.
And that changes the game a great deal. The innards of the browser matter.
For instance, on Windows, I usually use Firefox, but I use Edge to view Netflix, as (for whatever reason) Netflix supports Edge's EME pipeline better than the other Windows browsers. That's specific to the browser's innards, not to its skin.
...and that's like slapping a custom badge on a Ford Fiesta and calling it a Ferrari.
You're other points are much more interesting though. One of my biggest gripes with the other leading browsers is they often feel "foreign" on your host OS (which isn't Windows in my case, but that is just personal preference).
No, it's like slapping a custom badge over a Ford Fiesta platform's B3, re-do completely the interior, add some smart features around it. Hell, even do some kind of smart auto-assist while you are on it.
You keep the engine and the architecture around it but add your own luxuries and niceties.
The only thing that matters is that it integrates well and is efficient on the host OS, and that it can sync settings, bookmarks, reading list and stuff between your devices.
Edge on iOS and Android will have a built-in adblocker soon.
> The only thing that matters is that it integrates well and is efficient on the host OS, and that it can sync settings, bookmarks, reading list and stuff between your devices.
In fairness, bar the "integrates well" point, any modern browser will do what you've described (where "efficient" can be used to described a number of different performance related matrix).
I agree Edge is the most resource efficient Browser on Windows. ( Single or Few tabs only though.. It isn't tuned for Multiple Tabs ) But its Interface.... I have yet seen a person that actually likes it.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but that's nonsense.
Historically, PowerShell was supposed to be a replacement for cmd.exe and roughly equivalent to bash, yet suitable for the Windows environment. They tried early on to port some of the UNIX & Linux tools to Windows and it didn't fly, so this is what we're left with.
Although parts of Powershell are open source now, I suspect the mere existence of WSL means that Microsoft understands it has more to gain from compatibility with the rest of the world (Bash is nigh-everywhere) than imposing their particular philosophy on people.
(See also, Apple's decision to adopt UNIX underpinnings)
I'm prepared to be wrong if PowerShell actually gets used outside of Windows, but I wouldn't bet on it.
> Historically, PowerShell was supposed to be a replacement for cmd.exe and roughly equivalent to bash
What? PowerShell has radically different ideology. Plus it is super consistent (helps discover commands), extensible and works with objects rather plain strings, use .NET functions or call custom .dll functions...
> They tried early on to port some of the UNIX & Linux tools to Windows and it didn't fly
Actually they just use aliases to map well-known unix commands to powershell counterparts. It is not expected to have command switches work like that etc. Just a convenience for folks used to rm, ls, tee, wget, whatever. Maybe bad decision because of confusion, maybe a good one because helps people get started with PowerShell.
For me as a Windows admin, PowerShell is one of the best things within Windows Ecosystem.
There is an episode of the "To Be Continuous" podcast with Jeff Snover (PS's inventor) that gets into this a bit more. Because of the difference in philosophy, a straight port to Windows didn't work well.
Basically, text files (UNIX) v structured data from API's (Windows), thus PowerShell was born.
Powershell's philosophy is the same as the one behind core-utils: Simple tools you can chain together to do complex tasks. Only it was made with 30 years of hindsight, so it actually does it much better.
> Not to put too fine a point on it, but that's nonsense.
In PowerShell you pass structured data around instead of globs of text, which is much more maintainable. Using Bash on Windows is like going backwards, and it's sad that most developers don't even realize it.
> Historically, PowerShell was supposed to be a replacement for cmd.exe and roughly equivalent to bash, yet suitable for the Windows environment. They tried early on to port some of the UNIX & Linux tools to Windows and it didn't fly, so this is what we're left with.
Nonsense, Powershell is a fundamental improvement. It's not a "this is what's we're left with" situation.
> Although parts of Powershell are open source now, I suspect the mere existence of WSL means that Microsoft understands it has more to gain from compatibility with the rest of the world (Bash is nigh-everywhere) than imposing their particular philosophy on people.
Yeah, let's just drag everything down to the lowest common denominator.
> (See also, Apple's decision to adopt UNIX underpinnings)
Which is sad, since it could have been so much more. The Unix way of doing things, isn't the be all and all.
I used Powershell extensively before I ever had experience with a linux or unix shell. I still have more experience with Powershell than bash or zsh, but I can't imaging going back. I'm already much more capable in a *nix shell.
There are advantages to having a pipe based on structured data, but that also means you have to know what structure to expect at ever step of the way and whether or not other tools can work with that structure. There are also tons of little quirks about Powershell; enough so that I eventually just started writing most stuff in C# and then just using the Powershell scripts as glue.
Passing text means that every single one of the thousands and thousands of unix cli tools that accept stdio will work in your pipeline.
I think this industry needs to get away from the terrible/horrible, absolute thinking. Most tools have positive and negative
Passing text means that every single one of the thousands and thousands of unix cli tools that accept stdio will work in your pipeline.
It also means every one of those thousands and thousands of Unix clip tools needs to have a parser to turn that text into some sort of structure to operate on.
Which allows them to determine exactly the best way to do that for their purposes. I just run the command and it magically works.
Up until someone changes the text output of the program and it all goes bad. Never mind the maintenance headaches that basically get solved by people moving their command lines into databases where typing happens.
It'll be a long time before the Powershell ecosystem has a fraction of tools that are compatible with it's .NET object pipeline.
That's more a function of age and developers than the typing itself.
As a 20 year bash veteran: powershell is the first OS default shell that outputs structured data, and looking at objects and selecting the properties you want is a massive improvement than combining bash with sed/grep/awk to scrape text.
Someone bizarrely responds that cmd still exists on Windows for compatibility purposes (though even Win+X starts powershell now) doesn't change this at all.
I'm always amused by these PowerShell threads on HN.
How is it that objects are an accepted thing for basically every programming environment in modern use, yet somehow controversial when it comes to the shell?
The prayer-based text parsing toolchain sucks. It has always sucked, regardless of platform. We put up with it because it was all that we had.
Jeffrey Snover came up with something better and thanks to PS Core we'll be able to use it everywhere!
Yeah - most people would agree that GraphQL is a better way to access data than, say headless Chrome via Puppeteer. Many folk here prefer TeX over Word because the former encourages seperating content from presentation. But when it comes to the shell, suddenly everyone hates the idea.
> How is it that objects are an accepted thing for basically every programming environment in modern use,
They aren't accepted for basically every programming environmental nment in modern use; peak OOP-all-the-things is well in the past, and it's no longer the one paradigm to rule them all, irrespective of use case.
Whether you have methods or functions, you still have hashmaps - bash you scrape values, pwsh you select keys. Pipelines can be considered quite functional too.
> Nonsense, Powershell is a fundamental improvement. It's not a "this is what's we're left with" situation.
It would be, if cmd.exe was long dead, PowerShell had stolen the good parts and continued on its way, but we're not there yet. Cmd.exe still exists on Win 10 and let's not even get into the fact that 64 bit only versions of Windows are not yet everywhere. Sure, Microsoft's ecosystem is larger and more complex, but at some point Win32 becomes a liability and unnecessary baggage.
> Which is sad, since it could have been so much more. The Unix way of doing things, isn't the be all and all.
Cultural compatibility matters - See C & C++. How else do you expect to get users and developers on board if you can't show them how your system is better in a few key ways, but isn't a giant leap from what they're currently using?
The particular example this user complains about is piping binary data to file. It makes use of the Out-File cmdlet which is making (by default) Windows based assumptions as to how to encode this content. They would have been better served by using cURL's native -O parameter. To say that the pipe corrupts it is another thing entirely.
I'm a huge PS fan and like to stay as far away as possible from Bash but still, I wouldn't call it better than Bash. At least not always and everywhere. More like different. Both come with a list of advantages and disadvantages. And once you learnt one, the list of disadvantages of the other probably seems too big to even start with it, at least that's what it is now for me.
https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2018/05/07/a-new-micr...