In theory, it shouldn't matter whether you choose to accept the cookies, since they'll be flushed anyways. In practice, you most likely are being tracked across multiple sessions based on IP.
I have the same experience as the author. Not having physical buttons at the bottom is a dealbreaker for me. I use the trackpad with the thumb on the buttons and move around with the index finger, and never felt the need for a trackpad larger than the 8cmx4.5cm that I have. I feel bigger trackpads just get in the way more
FWIW with the Apple trackpad, you can still do that? You leave your thumb on the bottom and use your index finger to move and it knows what you are doing. It even simulates the device clicking with haptic feedback so good it is like evil magic... when the device is off I find myself accidentally nearly destroying it trying to click it as my brain is just so thoroughly convinced that it is a physical button but in fact it simply doesn't move.
You are not required to pay the windows license fee. You can simply download an ISO off of Microsoft's website and use it, you only get a watermark in the corner.
Fun fact: that watermark is created by explorer.exe, and if you're not running explorer.exe it doesn't show up. I had a box that went through one too many hardware changes and Windows decided that it wasn't on the same machine. I didn't bother contacting support for months because I had set the Windows "shell" to be steam.exe in Big Picture mode, and so I rarely got bothered by it.
Last time I tried that, it would not install any updates for Windows. Not sure if I was doing something wrong, but without updates this is not a good long-term solution...
Would you mind linking to this ISO and the T&Cs? I've only ever used their ISOs for VMs -- which are how I use Windows, occasionally and rarely -- and they have pretty harsh conditions like timeoutes, etc.
It works as described. One caveat: the website won't let you download an ISO if your browser's user-agent is set to Windows, instead it'll prompt you to use the Win10 media creation tool. But you can download the ISO if accessing from Linux/macOS/Android/etc., or by using a user-agent changer browser extension on Windows.
I did this before in the past with a key off of eBay (no indication made by the seller that the key was not legit other than the suspiciously low price) and everything was fine until it came time to reformat and start fresh roughly a year later - at that point the key no longer worked and the seller vanished from eBay!
Microsoft and Google show you ads regardless of if you pay or not.
Seriously even my alarm clock app that I pay a monthly fee for tried to ask nicely if it was ok that they tracked me across web sites after Apple started enforcing their new rules.
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And: If anyone has a good alarm clock app for iPhone that makes sure I'm out of bed before it turns off, and that is a one time payment or a reasonable fee or even open source I'm all ears.
You're doing that either way, just like you're going to see ads regardless of whether you paid $$$ for a Windows license, pirated a key or just life with the water-mark and other limits of an unlicensed Windows.
You don't have to download windows from torrents. Just dowload it from Microsoft. You can get rid of the watermark by "registering" it with a fake registration server. No need to download and run anything. Just copy few simple lines found with google into admin console.
You are getting fully functional version with this. With updates and everything.
I try to avoid Windows (it makes git and compiles slow, just doesn't cut it in the ux department after being spoiled with KDE and Elementary and they double dip by shoving ads in my face even after I've bought the Professional license) but so far I pay.
Just as I'd like others to pay me if/when I release paid software.
That said, especially after Microsoft started double dipping Professional licenses they cannot complain if ordinary users don't see the point any longer.
My primary and only justification for using windows is games (the 30% from the article).
I do real work with Linux.
But again, I've purchased windows hundreds of times, many of those being forced "purchases" due to smoky-back-of-room deals with OEMs. Frankly, MS exhausted all of my goodwill ages ago, and I've yet to see a real change in those underlying tactics.
MS has "sold" a fair bunch of licenses that have gone unused.
I'll keep buying licenses if I use it - and keep telling people that Linux has been usable for ordinary people the last decade, is faster, more exciting and collect less data about you and your family.
PS: MS employees here, your company really had the chance to be the serious choice but after getting ads on Professional licensed machines I just don't believe the marketing anymore.
Is there any WM that supports mouse use just as much as the keyboard? I love keyboard navigation, don't get me wrong, but sometimes I just want to lean back and navigate using just the mouse
