<story><title>Microsoft begins showing an anti-Firefox ad in the Windows 10 start menu</title><url>https://news.softpedia.com/news/microsoft-begins-showing-an-anti-firefox-ad-in-the-windows-10-start-menu-529137.shtml</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>grawprog</author><text>&amp;gt;I used to have a screen shot showing me running something like 5 different GUI apps on a Linux system, all of them trying to open a file, each with a completely different file chooser dialog. That&amp;#x27;s because one app used Motif, one use GTK, one used Qt, and I have no idea what the others used.&lt;p&gt;But they all perform the same function of choosing a file right? What does it matter if they all look the same? I don&amp;#x27;t understand why anyone would care so much whether the file choosing windows match eachother visually between different apps. As long as I can pick a file effectively, I wouldn&amp;#x27;t really care if the app had pink sparkles or something. As long as it does what it&amp;#x27;s supposed to.</text></item><item><author>tzs</author><text>Almost all my Linux work has been via command line for quite a while, so maybe this has changed, but my recollection was the GUI inconsistency had little to do with the window manager. It had much more to do with the X libraries that the developer of each app decided to use.&lt;p&gt;I used to have a screen shot showing me running something like 5 different GUI apps on a Linux system, all of them trying to open a file, each with a completely different file chooser dialog. That&amp;#x27;s because one app used Motif, one use GTK, one used Qt, and I have no idea what the others used.</text></item><item><author>smabie</author><text>Or you could just use a window manager that doesn’t change? I’ve had the same desktop env for over a decade and nothing has changed at all. In contrast with windows and osx where we literally cannot opt out.</text></item><item><author>alxlaz</author><text>&amp;gt; I just don&amp;#x27;t understand why people run windows.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve used Linux for about the same time and honestly, I understand it completely. &lt;i&gt;I&lt;/i&gt; would switch, were it not for muscle memory and  for the fact that at least 50% of my work involves systems-level development for Linux (mainly embedded stuff, so a lot of cross-compiling). In the last five or six years I&amp;#x27;ve come to dread the Linux desktop and its constant churn of rewrites and UX &amp;quot;improvements&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;I have a Windows machine that I use for work the other half of the time and honestly... it&amp;#x27;s great. Yeah, the occasional update breaks some fringe feature. But the chances of something like waking up to the announcement that Microsoft is removing desktop icons in the next update and you can just install this third-party application for it (which &lt;i&gt;will&lt;/i&gt; break with every update) are practically zero.&lt;p&gt;Microsoft puts out a lot of broken stuff (some of which slowly morphs into non-broken, useful stuff over time, e.g. Powershell), but you can mostly be assured that, if something works today, it&amp;#x27;ll work ten years from now, modulo some registry hacks. That&amp;#x27;s incredibly valuable.&lt;p&gt;I really don&amp;#x27;t care about things like UI consistency and whatnot -- what I do care about is stability and functionality.&lt;p&gt;Edit: tbh, the main reason why I&amp;#x27;m not switching &lt;i&gt;today&lt;/i&gt; is that I don&amp;#x27;t really trust this whole OS-as-a-service model. If it were Windows 2000 instead of Windows 10, I wouldn&amp;#x27;t think twice before switching, but these are different times.&lt;p&gt;(More edit: please realize that I&amp;#x27;m the same person who posted this reply: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=22288917&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=22288917&lt;/a&gt; , yeah?)</text></item><item><author>iso1631</author><text>Over the last couple of years I&amp;#x27;ve been coming round to the fact that microsoft aren&amp;#x27;t necessarily a major problem now, compared to google and amazon at least.&lt;p&gt;Doesn&amp;#x27;t take much to put the shields back upto full.&lt;p&gt;I just don&amp;#x27;t understand why people run windows. Maybe I just use computers wrong, having been on linux for the last 20 years, but my family (who I refuse to help with IT needs) are all far happier on chromebooks than on windows</text></item><item><author>alxlaz</author><text>This, and every other screw-up in the same vein, is why those of us old enough to remember the Halloween documents don&amp;#x27;t buy the whole &amp;quot;new Microsoft&amp;quot; thing.&lt;p&gt;Want to get me to try Edge? Great -- instead of a passive-aggressive ad, try telling me how it&amp;#x27;s better than Firefox and why I&amp;#x27;d like to use it instead. What will it get me? Better privacy? Better performance? Better development tools?&lt;p&gt;Cynically, it&amp;#x27;s amazing that Microsoft collects so much personal data about each user -- and yet its &amp;quot;target&amp;quot; ads are hopelessly generic and tasteless.&lt;p&gt;Also, leaving the matter of whether or not I should even be seeing ads after I paid for the damn thing aside, the company that brought us Internet Explorer is the last one that should crack jokes about other browsers, even if they&amp;#x27;re good (which this one isn&amp;#x27;t).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>michaelmrose</author><text>The aesthetics are not a completely invalid consideration. People recognize patterns and find choosing behaviors&amp;#x2F;reactions easier when recognizing a common pattern. It takes more effort to respond to unfamiliar stimulus. Aesthetics aren&amp;#x27;t the only consideration though.&lt;p&gt;File choosers typically allow one to bookmark commonly used directories unfortunately this is per chooser purely for reasons of lack of coordination.&lt;p&gt;Further despite people asking for it for the last 15 years the gtk version doesn&amp;#x27;t have a very good way to visually pick out an image in their picker. To date the only good way to pick out an image in a gtk app even GIMP is to open a file manager alongside the application and drag the file into the application or file chooser.&lt;p&gt;I find it unlikely that most people figure this out.</text></comment>
<story><title>Microsoft begins showing an anti-Firefox ad in the Windows 10 start menu</title><url>https://news.softpedia.com/news/microsoft-begins-showing-an-anti-firefox-ad-in-the-windows-10-start-menu-529137.shtml</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>grawprog</author><text>&amp;gt;I used to have a screen shot showing me running something like 5 different GUI apps on a Linux system, all of them trying to open a file, each with a completely different file chooser dialog. That&amp;#x27;s because one app used Motif, one use GTK, one used Qt, and I have no idea what the others used.&lt;p&gt;But they all perform the same function of choosing a file right? What does it matter if they all look the same? I don&amp;#x27;t understand why anyone would care so much whether the file choosing windows match eachother visually between different apps. As long as I can pick a file effectively, I wouldn&amp;#x27;t really care if the app had pink sparkles or something. As long as it does what it&amp;#x27;s supposed to.</text></item><item><author>tzs</author><text>Almost all my Linux work has been via command line for quite a while, so maybe this has changed, but my recollection was the GUI inconsistency had little to do with the window manager. It had much more to do with the X libraries that the developer of each app decided to use.&lt;p&gt;I used to have a screen shot showing me running something like 5 different GUI apps on a Linux system, all of them trying to open a file, each with a completely different file chooser dialog. That&amp;#x27;s because one app used Motif, one use GTK, one used Qt, and I have no idea what the others used.</text></item><item><author>smabie</author><text>Or you could just use a window manager that doesn’t change? I’ve had the same desktop env for over a decade and nothing has changed at all. In contrast with windows and osx where we literally cannot opt out.</text></item><item><author>alxlaz</author><text>&amp;gt; I just don&amp;#x27;t understand why people run windows.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve used Linux for about the same time and honestly, I understand it completely. &lt;i&gt;I&lt;/i&gt; would switch, were it not for muscle memory and  for the fact that at least 50% of my work involves systems-level development for Linux (mainly embedded stuff, so a lot of cross-compiling). In the last five or six years I&amp;#x27;ve come to dread the Linux desktop and its constant churn of rewrites and UX &amp;quot;improvements&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;I have a Windows machine that I use for work the other half of the time and honestly... it&amp;#x27;s great. Yeah, the occasional update breaks some fringe feature. But the chances of something like waking up to the announcement that Microsoft is removing desktop icons in the next update and you can just install this third-party application for it (which &lt;i&gt;will&lt;/i&gt; break with every update) are practically zero.&lt;p&gt;Microsoft puts out a lot of broken stuff (some of which slowly morphs into non-broken, useful stuff over time, e.g. Powershell), but you can mostly be assured that, if something works today, it&amp;#x27;ll work ten years from now, modulo some registry hacks. That&amp;#x27;s incredibly valuable.&lt;p&gt;I really don&amp;#x27;t care about things like UI consistency and whatnot -- what I do care about is stability and functionality.&lt;p&gt;Edit: tbh, the main reason why I&amp;#x27;m not switching &lt;i&gt;today&lt;/i&gt; is that I don&amp;#x27;t really trust this whole OS-as-a-service model. If it were Windows 2000 instead of Windows 10, I wouldn&amp;#x27;t think twice before switching, but these are different times.&lt;p&gt;(More edit: please realize that I&amp;#x27;m the same person who posted this reply: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=22288917&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=22288917&lt;/a&gt; , yeah?)</text></item><item><author>iso1631</author><text>Over the last couple of years I&amp;#x27;ve been coming round to the fact that microsoft aren&amp;#x27;t necessarily a major problem now, compared to google and amazon at least.&lt;p&gt;Doesn&amp;#x27;t take much to put the shields back upto full.&lt;p&gt;I just don&amp;#x27;t understand why people run windows. Maybe I just use computers wrong, having been on linux for the last 20 years, but my family (who I refuse to help with IT needs) are all far happier on chromebooks than on windows</text></item><item><author>alxlaz</author><text>This, and every other screw-up in the same vein, is why those of us old enough to remember the Halloween documents don&amp;#x27;t buy the whole &amp;quot;new Microsoft&amp;quot; thing.&lt;p&gt;Want to get me to try Edge? Great -- instead of a passive-aggressive ad, try telling me how it&amp;#x27;s better than Firefox and why I&amp;#x27;d like to use it instead. What will it get me? Better privacy? Better performance? Better development tools?&lt;p&gt;Cynically, it&amp;#x27;s amazing that Microsoft collects so much personal data about each user -- and yet its &amp;quot;target&amp;quot; ads are hopelessly generic and tasteless.&lt;p&gt;Also, leaving the matter of whether or not I should even be seeing ads after I paid for the damn thing aside, the company that brought us Internet Explorer is the last one that should crack jokes about other browsers, even if they&amp;#x27;re good (which this one isn&amp;#x27;t).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tzs</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s not that there are aesthetic difference like pink sparkles on some.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s that some have a file type filter and some don&amp;#x27;t. Some show all files while others hide dotfiles and provide a checkbox to show them. Some show files and directories in the same pane while others show directories in one pane and files in another. Some show &amp;quot;..&amp;quot; in their directory list and you go up by opening that, others do not show &amp;quot;..&amp;quot; and provide a button for going up.</text></comment>