"Allow Microsoft to save your browsing activity including history, usage, favorites, web content, and other browsing data to personalize Microsoft Edge and Microsoft services like ads, search, shopping and news."
Except they do ask you money for it. At this point, they should at least make it a free download. Being forced to have all that crap on something you paid for is just insulting.
Absolutely, it is the reason I am not too positive about the future of computing. Back in the early 2000's it was considered a major privacy issue when Windows XP used to identify what kind of machine you were using for a Security update. It took less than 20 years for that to turn into the dumpster fire we have today.
It is a case of our economic system is pitched in such a way as to drive these large companies to this path. In optimizing for shareholder profit, eventually they will go the path of least ethical solution provided they can get away with it. Those that do not do that will be left behind . An absolute shame really.
The games situation is pretty good nowadays, it is amazing just how well Proton can work. But if that one title you want is completely broken, I couldn't sell you Linux at all.
I have found it isn't usually the games that are the issue but the utilities. They are almost always alternatives but a lot of the time, you don't want the alternative - you want that specific program. Wine compatibility can be good but it can also be very strange. Notepad++ for instance, it works... but hits my systems CPU harder than GTA V. Go figure!
"You are authorized to use this software only if you are properly licensed and the software has been properly activated with a genuine product key or by other authorized method."
In practice it has been free for home users for many years. I assume the only reason they still keep up the facade that Windows costs money is so they can sell it to OEMs and volume licenses to businesses, which still makes them big bucks.
It only seems free for home use because the activation key for the home version is embedded in NVRAM of the machine by the OEM. You pay the OEM when you buy the machine, and they pay Microsoft.
You pay the OEM once, for a Windows 7 key, and then you run on that -- because it keeps working, with Microsoft's implicit authorization -- for the next 15+ years. They 100% would not let you do that if they cared to charge for Windows like they did in the pre-Windows 8 days when Windows was the product and not the user's data.
Geez can hacker news users no longer detect sarcasm? This comment is clearly pointing out the absurdity (or more specifically, incompleteness) of the grandparent argument, not bashing on Linux.
Firefox has had minor missteps in the past but Linux and Firefox are not unsecure options despite being free and Microsoft isn't a safe option despite charging money.
Even with Linux you have to be careful. Some distros have pulled shit like sending local searches to remote servers so that they can push amazon ads at you (https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/ubuntu-spyware-what-to-do). We have to watch everyone like a hawk these days.
I doesn't matter how much you pay for something, they'll still collect all the data on you that they can because you can never pay more than they'd make taking your money and also collecting your data.
This is a bad take, because many products are not free, and you still get shafted with surveillance, ads and more. Windows is one example, but there's also cable TV subscriptions, smart TVs, many modern games on phones and PC.
so, a bunch of third party apps made for Reddit are getting killed this month because Reddit decides to jack up the prices. What's going to happen to Kagi if/when it becomes somewhat of a competitor to Google/Bing and they want it dead?
You're putting a lot of faith in uBlock Origin though. You have to grant it full permissions when you install it. Not at all saying that uBlock Origin is doing anything nefarious, but it certainly could.
But, somehow I trust a random dev that refuses to accept donations, even though my cheap ass would definitely donate to him, more than Microsoft, apple and (insert BigTech here)
Orion browser by Kagi is a browser you can pay for. Another one I know of is SigmaOS. Both are Mac only, not sure about the state of things on other platforms.
An opt-in shitcoin ... that attempts to approach the advertising market in a new way, which I find genuinely interesting. And I'm an anti-advertising zealot.
That is a disingenuous response. I have a program that uses open source libraries, but the program is closed.
Such a weird thing to post in reply.
It has a 'nuh uh' feeling, but doesn't actually refute the parent. However it seeds doubt in the parent argument without ever touching the parent argument.
But Opera has been sold to Chinese companies, so those who are concerned about surveillance may not be comfortable with it. Opera's founder later created Vivaldi, which I have used ever since
"Allow Microsoft to save your browsing activity including history, usage, favorites, web content, and other browsing data to personalize Microsoft Edge and Microsoft services like ads, search, shopping and news."