Microsoft is testing Game Pass ads on the Windows 11 Settings homepage

ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 330 points – Microsoft is testing Game Pass ads on the Settings homepage - gHacks Tech News
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Microsoft's announcement: "We are introducing a new Game Pass recommendation card on the Settings homepage. The Game Pass recommendation card on Settings Homepage will be shown to you if you actively play games on your PC. As a reminder – the Settings homepage will be shown only on the Home and Pro editions of Windows 11 and if you’re signed into Windows with your Microsoft account."

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What kind of therapy do I go to if I'm in an abusive relationship with my Operating System?

There are Ubuntu versions that look very similar to the Microsoft

Linux user for a long time, actually. I like Q4OS for myself, it's also Debian based and it puts very little in front of the user to start so I can customize a little more

It's a group therapy called !linux@lemmy.ml, we always have free seats!

My last Linux dual-boot install was trying to apply Conversion Therapy to me and corrupted my windows boot records. Finally got it resolved, but what a nuisance.

If you don't want to think about your computer and just want a tool to use there is Aurora. It's a variant of fedora but it uses an immutable file system which makes it super stable and reliable. If there are any issues you can easily roll back the entire os to a previous version.

This is true of all fedora atomic desktops. Aurora is a variant that takes it to the next level by making all updates and everything require as little human interaction as possible so you don't have to worry about how the computer runs and just use the computer for your actual tasks.

https://getaurora.dev/

Why would anyone use this over Silverblue?

They advertise as being zero maintenance which is a huge deal with many windows and Mac users than don't want to think about the tool itself, they just want to use it. From the site:

What's the difference between Vanilla Kinoite and Aurora? Vanilla Kinoite is a very stock experience. Aurora includes many enhancements and tweaks, like included drivers for various printers, network adapters and more as well as included codecs. Aurora also features tweaks to enhance your battery life on a laptop.

Hmmm alright I guess I’ll take your word for it. My experience with Silverblue/Kinoite is that it’s already pretty close to zero maintenance if you choose.

By zero maintenance they mean you don't even have to hit the update button. It all just happens automatically. Many Linux users won't like that but many windows and Mac users will.

Ethically, if not legally, this is terrible, as are all other steps Microsoft has taken to force ads onto your computer.

Seriously, think about it. You own the hardware, right? And the OS is present to run the hardware, right? To do that, it needs to be able to perform various tasks without your specific approval, and that's fine, but using your bandwidth to download advertisements in the background, then using your computing cycles to force them in front of your eyes regardless of what you're using the computer for, is awfully questionable. I would go so far as to say it's a form of theft.

And no, ads on websites aren't comparable. You, the user, are actively opting to view a web page that carries ads. You are choosing to grant them access to your eyeballs and the resources used by your browser. But nobody is actively seeking to view ads through their operating systems, and they don't get anything in return (such as the content you went to that website for).

You want to advertise to me in the OS? Don't charge me $200 for the OS then!!

The funny thing is, there isn’t even really a free OS with ads. At least none that I know of. Linux is open source and thus usually non commercial. Worst case you get a "please donate" the first time you log in. macOS is technically free (although you kinda subsidize it through the hardware, I suppose) and it doesn’t have ads and even chrome OS is ad free afaik. It’s really only Windows and some Android flavours, usually those running on very cheap chinese devices. And Samsung of course.

Ubuntu has ads, or at least takes money to have shortcuts to Amazon and the like

Edit: I might be wrong here, please read the replies

To my knowledge, this hasn't been the case for nearly a decade, after the backlash they received specifically for it.

Thank you, I haven't used Ubuntu for nearly a decade 😅 I've updated my comment suggesting people look at the replies

IIRC macOS will sometimes beg you to subscribe for more iCloud disk space. Far better than Windows, but still an ad.

Yeah and Apple TV, Apple Music, and care plan advertising. It's not as in your face though.

It’s less begging than a "Your iCloud storage is full. Want some more?" which is fair in my books.

This is what finally got me to switch to Linux years ago. Back when Virtual machines were relatively new I was messing around with them and hated having to scrounge for windows licenses to use in the VM's. (Back then you had to enter the CD Key to begin installing the OS, they didn't have trial periods, or 'activate later' options) started using Linux in VM's to try it out, and boom 15 years later, I'm never going back.

What's interesting is that they haven't been enforcing antipiracy all that heavily.

Maybe they're making more money now from ads shown in pirated copies of Windows than they do from actually selling Windows.

You can install any Linux distro other than Ubuntu if you don't want ads in your operating system.

I wasn't gonna say it, but yeah... I've been using Linux exclusively on my personal systems for more than 10 years. Every time I have to use Windows, it's almost physically painful. How the hell do people put up with that crap?

They don't want to learn how to use their computer all over again. Some people really do prefer the devil they know

I couldn't look the same at Windows after about two weeks on Linux. Seriously, Windows is THIS bad.

They wouldn't need to show ads if everyone just used Edge, bought Office365 and played Xbox games.

This is a problem caused by the users.

  • Microsoft, probably

People is actively opting to use a shitty OS like Windows. The easiest solution is using another OS.

I hate saying this but at this point MacOS is even better in that regard, but my preferred choice is GNU/Linux.

Obviously, in your personal computer you have the freedom to choose an OS that fits your needs, in a enterprise/work enviroment this is harder because the company using Windows is the one who should consider changing the OS to avoid this shit, if possible.

Most people are actually passively opting for Windows.

Computers just come with it, or if somebody install it for them, Windows is the default expectation.

MacOS comes with very expensive Apple computers, and most people just choose Windows. The idea of Linux either never crosses their mind, they may not be aware of its existence, or think it's some geeky server thing.

Most people opting for Windows, thereby, don't make a rational decision between Windows, Linux, MacOS, FreeBSD or whatever. For them, Windows is just how computer works.

It's like back in the day when everyone used Internet Explorer for their web browser. There's little to nothing in the marketplace indicating to them that an alternative exists in the first place, let alone that they could switch to it.

I'm still on Win10, but the second I see yet another ad on my pro license, I'm wiping the drive. As long as I have some kind of choice, I will not run hostile operating systems on my own hardware.

Mint and popos will do the trick for most of the normie gamer needs fyi

popos

i just realized that PopOS means butts in german...

i needed it in lowercase to see it, and i'm german...

Over the last few months I’ve tried half a dozen Linux distros. PopOS has been the best so far for me. Plays the games, didn’t have to force the audio to work, and regular apps open way faster than even other Linux options, it is astonishing. I have used Linux on servers for ~30 years, and this is the first time I’ve been really comfortable on the desktop side.

Asking for the sake of my son, does Fortnite work?

No, despite easy anticheat having Linux support, epic flat out refuses to enable support for Linux.

It’s stupid and actively hostile to the Linux community

Could these please stop dropping more ads on the ui🙄. That and forced copilot make loath using windows.

makes me more and more happy i switched to linux. FUCK. WINDOWS.

Look at the corner between the four "paragraphs"... WHY? Please Microsoft align them properly

They are busy at ads rather than improving anything.

I don't mind having ads in my face every day and being tracked constantly if it means I can play games with my friends for an hour a week.

  • Everybody, everytime someone mentions switching to Linux

if it means I can play a specific game with my friends for an hour a week

Jokes on them, I already have Game Pass.

(They're gonna make me switch to Linux, aren't they?)

Yeah they'll just show you ads for individual games if you have gamepass.

Also I can answer any questions you have about Linux, if you do want to switch

I actually feel bad for people on windows 11. People, please just switch to Linux already. There just isn't any real reason to stay on it anymore, and if you do you've got some ridiculous bullshit niche setup that 0.1% of people use. And for people on Nvidia just grab that Nvidia pop_os ISO for that idiot proof setup, seriously, there are no more excuses and it's really not any more difficult to use than Windows. Don't listen to people saying you have to open a terminal to do anything either, that's a straight up fucking lie, and if you really have to, then copy/paste is all you need to know.

If you have to use rtx and dlss to justify your overpriced graphics card, then there's AMD fsr that can be forced on damn near any game you want, it's not as good but it gets the job done, as for Ray tracing, come on...be real with yourself for 5 minutes, what game other than control has use Ray tracing in any meaningful way other than to look pretty?

Windows is just not worth the hassle anymore, wake the fuck up people.

My only concern is league of legends. is it possible to run from neobara in vm? worst case I lose league. actually that sounds like the best case

Don't play league, it's filled with psychological bullshit tricks to get you to keep playing. If you have to play a moba play dota 2, it's just a better game.

I hate what Windows has become as well, but I primarily play COD with my friends and I don't see them moving to another game for my hatred of Windows.

Get an Xbox then and use m/KB with crossplay. Or play better games, apex runs through proton, get them to play that instead. Anyone switching away from cod is a good deed.

I don't think you understand how group dynamics work, my friend.

And I'm not gonna play on an XBOX when I have an ultimate gaming PC just lying there.

I don't think you understand how much I don't give a shit that you have an "ultimate gaming PC" just lying there...I gave you options, take em or leave em, but ultimately you're choosing not to do a damn thing about it and will just keep eating Microsoft Windows ads with every update. At least an Xbox is kind of expected to have ads since it's somewhat subsidized. As for group dynamics, if your friends won't try other games with you, sounds like you need better friends.

Oh boy, who pissed in your coffee?

That's fair, just tired of explaining shit to uninformed windows fanboys that don't understand what they're talking about.

Want low latency audio production? There's a distro with a low latency kernel for that.

Need a hyper focused gaming distro? Guess what, there's a distro for that.

You want something so easy to use that even your tech illiterate grandparents can't fuck their PC with something as stupid as updates? Well what do you know, there's a distro for that as well with immutable OS's that look and feel like Windows.

Windows fanboys spew bullshit like ease of use and not breaking their shit when they click buttons, but the reality is Linux is no different, it can be as easy or as difficult to use and break as you want.

The sad bullshit fact is if you use Windows, your PC is Microsoft's and not yours, if you use Linux your PC is yours to control, and nothing hits that home like bullshit advertisements on your start menus and settings app.

DLSS is AI-based and FSR is not, right? I always wanted to know how is FSR not inferior when Nvidia is the leading AI chip company, so shouldn't that give them the edge?

Where did I say dlss is inferior? I've used them both, dlss is better quality yeah, fsr has better frame generation with less latency. Fsr isn't as good, it gets the job done though and is available on literally everything unlike Nvidia. If you have Nvidia use dlss, if not use fsr, if you hate yourself then use XeSS.

Nowhere did I imply that you said that. Thanks for the information though, that's what I wanted to know.

entire home tab is just ad space and can be disabled
or just upgrade to enterprise, comes with no ms 365 ads and the home tab is disabled out of the box.
you'll get literally zero ads or bs like onedrive in built-in apps, and even anti features like ms account login can be disabled (os will just skip right to local account creation)

if you're in the know, check out vlmcsd on github and "test" windows enterprise with KMS. It can run on everything from a pi, to docker, to openwrt. If you're really gangster, you can set up SRV records and get auto activation on your lan

massgrave can activate enterprise by hwid

Oh I'll have to check that out I thought I read something about that method being patched.

Tho I do like just booting a new install and its already activated automatically :P

it got patched but they fixed/worked around it.
successfully activated my enterprise install by hwid in 2023

Now's a great time for us all to switch to an open source solution. I suggest Linux Mint or Ubuntu.

For a community that loves Linux so much, Lemmy seems really obsessed with everything Microsoft does

Honestly if there was a Linux anything that I could just buy and install as easily as Windows, I'd totally be up for it because well I'm not completely tech illiterate, most of my computer knowledge comes from the '90s and early '00s when I was young. All I ever see about it online though is a bunch of conflicting tech speak that I just do not understand.

If you want I can walk you through installing/getting ready for linux, it's genuinely incredibly easy now.

There is conflicting gobbledygook online for the simple reason that people like to try and find their ideal setup

Tbh you can actually quite easily buy a computer with Linux pre installed (ironically they cost more than the ones that come with windows though). I wouldn't recommend it though, regardless of tech literacy. The problem is that Linux is like 70% easy and great, 20% frustratingly glitchy and unfinished, and 10% getting stuck on completely impossible problems that you will lose weeks of your life to before eventually concluding that no solution actually exists. Nothing ever quite just works, there's always some caveat or minor issue and you end up chasing rabbit holes instead of actually using your computer to do what you wanted to do