This is why you should still be ad-blocking online

Having just pointed out how different Google's advertising-fuelled business is from Facebook's surveillance-fuelled shop, I suppose it's only fair to point out that being distinctly different from, and less evil than, Facebook, doesn't automatically make the crew at Google into paragons of virtue.

Por ejemplo, take this report from Huffpost:

The ad caught Gordon Turner’s eye immediately. It was an official-looking online video encouraging viewers to apply for the “Senior Booster Program,” which entitled those 65 and older to government-issued payments of $1,728. For Turner, a 77-year-old Texan on disability benefits who lives alone and financially supports his elderly mother, that kind of cash could go a long way. So he clicked the ad’s link right away to input his personal information, and he waited.

Unfortunately for Turner — and the more than 10 million others who’ve viewed this video — no such program exists, and no check will be coming in the mail. Behind the Google ad, and hundreds of others like it, is 1111 LLC, a little-known affiliate marketing company run by a former pro MMA fighter from the Canadian prairies. The firm, which also operates a network of pro-Trump news sites and MAGA merch e-shops, has quietly erupted into one of Google’s top-performing and highest-spending political advertisers

1111 LLC has pumped out a deluge of slickly produced videos via Google ads in recent months that promote entirely fabricated government handouts [...] Many of these ads are designed to look like news segments, with miscontextualized footage of President Joe Biden at his desk appearing to sign documents related to the bogus payouts. [...] They have collectively been viewed well over 100 million times in a matter of months, according to public Google data, sparking false hope in an untold number of households nationwide as the coronavirus pandemic drags into its third calendar year.

Shady companies fleecing people online is a story as old as the internet, but what’s noteworthy in this ruse is Google’s complicity. The tech behemoth has pocketed more than $2.2 million from 1111 LLC since September to run ads that cruelly con its own users while flagrantly violating its own policies — and, experts say, federal law.

Dammit, Google, must you?

A while back, I was watching The WAN Show, a weekly tech-focused podcast on Linus Tech Tips, when Linus, a YouTuber who makes a significant chunk of his company's revenue from Google Adsense, opined that ad-blocking was tantamount to theft; if not outright piracy, it was at the very least privateering.

Linus was wrong. There's a false equivalency at work in his argument, in which ads served up by Google are essentially the same thing as the ads that you'd see on network television: a minor nuisance which is borne by the audience in exchange for otherwise-free programming. The problem is that online ads aren't at all the same as the TV ads of the long ago time; online ads are lousy with scams and grift, when they aren't actually installing malware on your system when they're auto-executed by your browser. 

Do you remember cryptojacking? Because I do.

And then there's the creepy surveillance aspect of things; even Google, whose business model is still viable if the link between advertising and surveillance is broken, isn't yet a surveillance-free zone. There's a reason why the U.S. Congress is marking up legislation right now which will mandate a stop to the process; a looming legal problem that Google is trying to get ahead of by making cross-app tracking more difficult, much like Apple has already done.

And even if online ads weren't dangerous to your security, invasive to your privacy, and occasionally outright-illegal scams which Google not only fails to detect, but profits from, online ads are intrusive to the online experience, to a truly obnoxious degree.

Do you remember when a U.S. Congress, who couldn't agree at the time to keep their own fucking lights on, came together to mandate a decibel cap for television ads? Because I do.

Do I like LTT's content? Yes, I do. It their content so good that I'd be willing to give up my privacy, my security, my emotional well-being, and subject any number of desperate people to an endless (and apparently unstoppable) fire-hose of lies, scams, phishing attacks, misinformation, radicalization, and addiction? Yes, addiction; our current epidemic of opiate addicts is a direct consequence of Oxycontin advertisements which were pumped into people's homes, depicting an opiate painkiller as addiction-free, side-effect-free, and totally safe.

BTW, Purdue Pharmaceuticals, who were responsible for that ad campaign? They're desperately trying top settle the resulting class-action wrongful-death lawsuit... so far, without success.

Online ads aren't a relatively-innocuous thing which we endure to get access to free content. They're often dangerous, frequently outright evil, and demand far too much in exchange for showing us a few minutes of a movie trailer on YouTube... which, I'll remind you, is already a fucking advertisement, and shouldn't need to also be supported by selling additional pre- and end-roll ads... or mid-roll ads, for that matter.

So, no, Linus, ad-blocking isn't piracy, or privateering, or theft of any description. It's self-defence. If Google want me to stop blocking the ads they're hosting and serving, then that ad stream needs to be independently certified as 100% clean, by people whose word we can trust on the subject. In other words, not by Google themselves, who have a vested material interest in shading the truth on this subject.

Microsoft just revealed their next version of Windows, and I have more questions than answers

So, it's official: contrary to what they'd said previously, Windows 10 will not be the last version of Windows that Microsoft releases. Windows 11 is definitely coming, it's definitely called Windows 11, and today we got a look at some of its sexier features.

First, the good ...

Windows 10 is very pretty. A lot of people, myself included, hated the flat, designed-for-touchscreens Windows 8, and while Windows 10 restored the start menu, it didn't fix the ugly look of the thing. Windows 11 was very clearly designed to mimic the much, much prettier Aero Glass UI of Windows Vista and Windows 7, and it's a huge improvement.

Gone, too, is the ugly "live tile" blue void that takes up space next to W10's start menu. Live tiles still exist, but Microsoft has renamed them to Widgets, and banished them to their own sub-menu; those who are interested can call up the Widget menu using the button on the task bar, and ignore it otherwise.

Windows Updates have apparently been improved as well, with smaller updates loading in the background, rather than shoving themselves to the fore and preventing users from doing anything else while the updates happen. They've also finally found a way to get some Android apps into the Windows Store, too, although it's the much, much smaller subset of Android apps that Amazon have on their app store.

... which brings us to the less-than-good ...

Google Stadia is an even worse deal than I thought

It looks like I may have one crucial detail of the Google Stadia package completely wrong.

Like many people, I was thinking that Stadia was basically "Netflix for Games," but if the team at Techlinked are correct, then Stadia may closer kin to XBox Game Pass, with a monthly fee that only gives access to a few free games, with major AAA titles being something you'll need to purchase separately in order to secure access outside of that free period.

This means that the US$1090 over 8 years cost of Stadia that I had calculated as being comparable to the average 8-year cost of console ownership is wrong. The Stadia actually costs US$1690 ($1090 for the service, plus $600 for the games), which amortizes over 8 years to US$211.25 per year, compared to the US$112.50 annual cost of console ownership over the same period. With the added disadvantage, for Stadia, that you own nothing at the end of those 8 years, compared to the console experience which leaves you with a console and 10 games that you own.

Much of Stadia's marketing is still deliberately vague, so clarification on these details could still emerge and magically make the whole thing suddenly awesome, but I doubt it. If this is indeed how Stadia will work, then Stadia... sucks. Even the free version won't actually be a new gaming paradigm; it'll just be a new digital distribution channel. Which nobody wanted. Mazel tov!

Google Stadia is a bad deal for the average consumer, and you should avoid it

Like many people, I was immediately skeptical when Google first announced their Stadia video game streaming service. Details were sparse, and questions abounded, from the technical (several previous efforts at video game streaming had failed because of latency issues), to the basic economics of it all. How much would it cost? Would it be worth its asked-for price?

Well, as of today, we have a few more details, and while the technical issues are still awaiting some hands-on "in the wild" experience to be adequately assessed, we can certainly assess the economics of it all. So here's my ake:

Google Stadia is a rent-to-own scheme, with the added disadvantage that you never actually end up owning anything, and the average gamer should stay far, far away from it all... at least for now, while the "Founder's Pack" is the only version of this thing available.

This isn't based on any subjective aspect of the Stadia "experience," either, even if Google clearly wants consumers to make decisions based on exactly this sort of nebulous, emotional criteria. No, my objection pretty much comes down to simple math. For consumers, the Stadia numbers simply don't add up.

Why not Windows 10?

Given that my recent foray into PC Gaming on Linux were... underwhelming, shall we say, some of my readers (yes, all three of you) may well be wondering why I don't just bite the bullet and switch to Windows 10 already. True, the "free upgrade" offer has ended, and Windows 10 will not cost money, but I was honestly always going to want more control over my PC than WX Home offered, which would always have meant a Professional license... in other words, Windows 10 was always going to cost me something up front.

So, why not just switch already?

It's a good question, and one which I've struggled a bit to answer myself this past week. Was I just being stubborn? Or did I still have concrete, valid reasons for sticking with Windows 7, while hoping that Valve and Steam Play would be able to solve the Linux gaming performance problem at some point during the upcoming year?

Today, though, I had a eureka moment, when I found my nebulous reasons for sticking with W7 suddenly crystallized into a single paragraph by Paul Thurrott. He was writing about Microsoft's decision to de-escalate some of WX's advertising bullshit. After downplaying the reversal as "not much of a win," he goes onto describe  Microsoft's approach to Windows consumers thusly:

Everything else that is still wrong about Windows 10 is still in the product and will move forward with version 1809.

In other words, the slippery slope I first warned about way back in 2012, when Microsoft quietly began its first sneaky advertising additions to Windows 10's predecessor, is still very much an issue. And has escalated over time. The ongoing and unnecessary compromises to Windows 10---rampant advertising, attempts at pushing users to Microsoft Edge, pre-bundled crapware, and more---continue unabated. There is no major software platform that is this hostile to its own users. [Emphasis added.]

"That's it!" I thought. "That's the reason!" It's not just WX's ongoing issues, which I could probably live with or work around, it's that Microsoft treats all but their largest Enterprise customers with thinly veiled contempt, most of the time, and has done so for years. Sure, maybe this latest half-hearted walk-back marks the beginning of a trend towards less bullshit in Windows... but I'm not planning to bet money on it.

Seriously, fuck Microsoft at this point. If Valve can get Steam Play working well enough to provide a moderately decent gaming experience on Linux (or, hell, SteamOS), I'll put up with some performance issues, rather than give Microsoft the satisfaction.

Amazon's Twitch streamers are revolting

I mentioned yesterday, more or less in passing, that Amazon had announced that they were eliminating the ad-free Twitch streaming benefit from the basic tier of Twitch Prime, basically at the same time that Valve were confirming that they would be launching their own streaming service, Stream.tv, in the near future. It seemed like a truly bone-headed move, even at the time, but I was mainly focused on the possibility that the move would leave Twitch vulnerable to competitors in a way that it hadn't been, up until now.

What I didn't take into account was the reaction from Twitch's current user and content creator community. And, oh boy! are they ever double-plus-unhappy about this:

Compared to other online ads, Twitch ads are relatively unobtrusive. But they’re still obnoxious as hell. You tune in to watch your favourite streamer, and then the same 10-second ad plays three times in a row. Unfortunately, Twitch announced yesterday that Twitch Prime will no longer offer an ad-free viewing experience. [...] Twitch justified the decision by saying that this will “strengthen and expand that advertising opportunity for creators so they can get more support from their viewers for doing what they love.” So basically, more money for streamers.

Many streamers take issue with that stance, though, given that they were previously told that they’d still pinch pennies from Prime viewers as though those viewers had watched ads — even when they hadn’t.

“Partners don’t see any direct benefit from the Twitch Prime ad-free removal,” Justin Wong, formerly a Twitch VP of six years, said on Twitter. “There are possibly indirect benefits depending on whether viewers will subscribe to avoid ads. In other words, the ‘benefiting creators’ shtick is BS.”

Some streamers are turning off ads on their streams, while others (who don't have access to that function) are telling their viewers to ad-block. The only other online content creator I can think of who is cool with ad-blocking is Jim Sterling, whose YouTube vids are ever ad-enabled (he supports his channel via Patreon, instead); for content creators to be turning off ads and encouraging ad-blocking on their own content is almost unheard of.

I'm beginning to think that Amazon may have really stepped in it, this time.

Kotaku's article has a lot more detail - it's a little inside baseball, unless you're fascinated by the business models of Twitch streamers, but if you are it's well worth reading.

Speaking of what consumers want...

Check out this new Chromebook ad:

Shots fired! That's some deep shade...

Mehedi Hassan at Thurrott.com broke it down like this:

The ad pretty much highlights why Chromebooks can be better than most Windows and Mac devices for some users. Especially now that Chromebooks support Android apps, they are much more of a compelling alternative to Windows laptops for people who don’t need to do a lot of power and professional features. If I was a regular customer looking for a new laptop, this ad would most certainly make me want to get a Chromebook, or at least consider looking into one. It’s honestly pretty good.

So... comparing Chromebook, which a consumer-centric product that's available now, to "Modern Life Services," Microsoft's currently-vaporware which nobody wanted or asked for, which one do you think shows a better understanding of consumer wants and needs? Which one is better evidence of a consumer-centric corporate culture?

Of course, Google's new ad actually shows older versions of Windows, and not Windows 10 per se, but to consumers that are turned off Microsoft and more trusting of "don't be evil" Google to start with, that probably won't matter much.

Microsoft, meanwhile, is hiking the price of Windows 10.

This round goes to Google. Your move, Microsoft.

Yes, Facebook's fiasco really did get worse...

Remember just yesterday, when Mark Zuckerberg was trying to explain their Cambridge Analytica dealing away as some sort of outlier, and talking about how, sure, in hindsight, they probably shouldn't have taken CA's money, but how were they to know at the time? Well, pretty much all of that was horseshit. CA wasn't any sort of an outlier, and the amount of data they received was not at all abnormal.

From The Guardian:

Before Facebook suspended Aleksandr Kogan from its platform for the data harvesting “scam” at the centre of the unfolding Cambridge Analytica scandal, the social media company enjoyed a close enough relationship with the researcher that it provided him with an anonymised, aggregate dataset of 57bn Facebook friendships.

Facebook provided the dataset of “every friendship formed in 2011 in every country in the world at the national aggregate level” to Kogan’s University of Cambridge laboratory for a study on international friendships published in Personality and Individual Differences in 2015. Two Facebook employees were named as co-authors of the study, alongside researchers from Cambridge, Harvard and the University of California, Berkeley. Kogan was publishing under the name Aleksandr Spectre at the time.

[...]

“The sheer volume of the 57bn friend pairs implies a pre-existing relationship,” said Jonathan Albright, research director at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University. “It’s not common for Facebook to share that kind of data. It suggests a trusted partnership between Aleksandr Kogan/Spectre and Facebook.”

[...]

Facebook has not explained how it came to have such a close relationship with Kogan that it was co-authoring research papers with him, nor why it took until this week – more than two years after the Guardian initially reported on Kogan’s data harvesting activities – for it to inform the users whose personal information was improperly shared.

[...]

“We made clear the app was for commercial use – we never mentioned academic research nor the University of Cambridge,” Kogan wrote. “We clearly stated that the users were granting us the right to use the data in broad scope, including selling and licensing the data. These changes were all made on the Facebook app platform and thus they had full ability to review the nature of the app and raise issues. Facebook at no point raised any concerns at all about any of these changes.”

Kogan is not alone in criticising Facebook’s apparent efforts to place the blame on him.

“In my view, it’s Facebook that did most of the sharing,” said Albright, who questioned why Facebook created a system for third parties to access so much personal information in the first place. That system “was designed to share their users’ data in meaningful ways in exchange for stock value”, he added.

Whistleblower Christopher Wylie told the Observer that Facebook was aware of the volume of data being pulled by Kogan’s app. “Their security protocols were triggered because Kogan’s apps were pulling this enormous amount of data, but apparently Kogan told them it was for academic use,” Wylie said. “So they were like: ‘Fine.’”

As I wrote yesterday, Facebook is the problem, here. They didn't just fall in with bad company, through no fault of their own; they jumped into shark-infested waters with a bucket of chum, ignored the circling fins (the warning signs that their own processes threw up), and raked in the money quite cheerfully right up until the moment when it became apparent that they were, indeed, bleeding heavily and about to lose an unknown number of corporate limbs. They didn't care when it mattered, and they didn't act when it mattered, and they damned well knew better at the time.

And now for something completely different

Let's lighten the tone a bit, shall we? How about I stop talking about the evils of Facebook to discuss the stupidity of Google, who have just given YouTube users yet another reason to ad-block. Yes, really.

From Gizmodo:

YouTube, the world largest video streaming platform, wants you to start paying money to watch Kendrick Lamar’s latest music video—and to force the issue, you’ll start seeing a lot more advertisements between specifically music videos.

Bloomberg reported that Lyor Cohen, YouTube’s global head of music, said during a SXSW interview that music video watchers will see advertisement increases the company hopes will annoying the shit out of viewers enough to buy into their new rumored streaming service, Remix.

Specifically, Cohen said:

There’s a lot more people in our funnel that we can frustrate and seduce to become subscribers. Once we do that, trust me, all that noise will be gone, and articles people write about that noise will be gone.

You—yes, you, the YouTube consumer, will be lovingly frustrated by a poor advertising experience, then be seduced into a monthly payment to avoid those unwelcoming ads. Sounds like a great plan: annoy your loyal user base until they pay money to not hate your product.

Was it just this morning that I was praising Google for being far more consumer-focused and consumer-friendly than Facebook? I think it was. And yes, I do feel just a little bit foolish for doing so. Only a little bit, mind you... in the grand scheme of things, this latest bad idea really is just hurting themselves, and not affecting me at all. Still, though, what are they thinking?

Well, apparently they're thinking that they can just target the YouTube version of "whales."

A YouTube spokesperson told Gizmodo in an email that not all users will see more ads, but a “specific subset of users” might.

“Our top priority at YouTube is to deliver a great user experience and that includes ensuring users do not encounter excessive ad loads,” the spokesperson said. “We do not seek to specifically increase ad loads across YouTube. For a specific subset of users who use YouTube like a paid music service today—and would benefit most from additional features—we may show more ads or promotional prompts to upsell to our paid service.”

Yeah... good luck with that, Google.

This is why I ad-block...

...and why I'm not relying on Google's built-in ad-blocker, which (naturally) won't block ads served by their own sites.

ArsTechnica reported on this first, but Gizmodo has a really good article about the problem:

As Ars Technica first reported on Friday, users on social media started complaining earlier this week that YouTube ads were triggering their anti-virus software. Specifically, the software was recognizing a script from a service called CoinHive. The script was originally released as a sort of altruistic idea that would allow sites to make a little extra income by putting a visitor’s CPU processing power to use by mining a cryptocurrency called Monero. This could be used ethically as long as a site notifies its visitors of what’s happening and doesn’t get so greedy with the CPU usage that it crashes a visitor’s computer. In the case of YouTube’s ads running the script, they were reportedly using up to 80 percent of the CPU and neither YouTube nor the user were told what was happening.

[...]

Gizmodo reached out to YouTube for comment on Trend Micro’s claims, and a spokesperson acknowledged the problem:

Mining cryptocurrency through ads is a relatively new form of abuse that violates our policies and one that we’ve been monitoring actively. We enforce our policies through a multi-layered detection system across our platforms which we update as new threats emerge. In this case, the ads were blocked in less than two hours and the malicious actors were quickly removed from our platforms.

The part of the statement about the ads being blocked in less than two hours doesn’t align with Trend Micro’s assessment that the ad campaign has been a problem for at least a week. When we asked YouTube about this discrepancy, a spokesperson declined to comment any further.

But a source with direct knowledge of YouTube’s handling of the situation told Gizmodo that the two-hour measurement was just being applied to each individual ad run by the hackers, not the ads en masse. YouTube approves a clean ad submitted by a clean account set up by the hijacker. When the ad goes live, the attackers use various cloaking methods to subvert YouTube’s system and swap the ad with one that includes the malicious script. A couple hours later, the ad is detected, taken down, and the user who submitted it gets their account deleted. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

I was actually going to give Chrome another try, in part to see how its newly upgraded ad-blocking feature stacked up against uBlock and AdBlocker, but I think I'll be holding off for a while longer. Forget the desirability of the thing, when even sites like YouTube, run by companies as large as Google, are delivering ads loaded with malware, it simply isn't safe to let ads of any kind run in your browser window.

Of course, the more that I become accustomed to ad-free internet, the harder it becomes to ever turn the ads back on. I don't know what sort of an experience Chrome's built-in ad-blocker delivers, but the fact that users like me aren't less and less interested in even trying it anymore, thanks to egregious abuses like cryptojacking, probably spells real trouble for the advertising industry.

And then, of course, there's the problem that advertising doesn't even work anymore:

Sorry, advertisers. It's too bad that you all didn't decide to behave sensibly and ethically, before we developed the ability to simply shut you out completely. Now you have to come up with an ad that can go viral as a stand-alone piece of content, which ad-blocking users will choose to watch, and which still doesn't sell the product it's supposed to be flogging. That Vitamin Water ad may well have introduced the world to Feel It Still, but I it's probably done more for "Portugal. The Man" than it did for Vitamin Water sales, and how much did it cost to hire Aaron Paul for that thing? GG.

What does this mean for the internet that we're used to, filled as it is with "free" content from sites that can only keep operating if they're supported with ad revenue? Honestly, I have no idea. I suspect, though, that we're only a few years away from finding out.

Windows 10 Enterprise ignores user privacy settings

From Windowsreport:

According to Mark Burnett, an independent IT security analyst, the OS lets users enable their preferred privacy settings only to ignore them after the fact [...] Despite having telemetry and the tracking-related services disabled, the system still connects to these services. Adding a few extra reg hacks doesn’t help blocking telemetry services. [...] With every possible setting to block connections to Microsoft disabled (except updates), a bunch of advertising-related connections are still visible. [...] Ultimately, Microsoft doesn’t honor it’s own Group Policy settings. For more details about this strange Windows 10 Enterprise behavior, you can check out Mark Burnett Twitter page. You’ll also find screenshots for all the privacy issues listed above as well.

The actual Windowsreport article isn't much longer than the except I've blogged here (and which I've rather savagely cut down, to avoid simply quoting their entire article), although it mentions some more technical issues like the system still connecting out to perform IPV6 Teredo tests, even with both IPV6 and Teredo diabled; the system still connecting to SmartScreen, even with SmartScreen diabled; and so on. The basic point seems pretty clear, though: Microsoft is still ignoring user privacy settings to harvest data to which those users have explicitly denied them, and they're doing it so that they can advertise to these users... and these are Enterprise users, remember, not just people making personal use the PCs in question.

I'll admit it: I'm a little surprised to learn that even Windows 10's Enterprise edition has these issues. To find this sort of Microsoft bullshittery in the Home edition, or even the Pro edition, wouldn't have surprised me at all, but Enterprise is the really expensive purchase plan, the one that Microsoft is pushing to larger corporations. I'm not a larger corporation, but if I were, this is the kind of thing that would turn me off Windows 10. Almost two years later, and Microsoft are still screwing up on basic privacy. GG, Microsoft! Well done.

It will be interesting to see what happens with Windows 10 adoption rates over the month...

UPDATE:
Mark Burnett ran some more thorough tests on a clean install of Win10 Enterprise, and posted about the results here. His summarized assessment of the situation boils down to these points:

• I made mistakes on my original testing and therefore saw more connections than I should have, including some to Google ads.

• You can cut back even more using the Windows Restricted Traffic Limited Functionality Baseline but break many things.

• Settings can be set wrong if you aren’t paying attention. Also, settings are not consistent and can be confusing to beginners.

• You are opted-in to just about everything by default and have to set hundreds of settings to opt out, even on an Enterprise Windows system. Sometimes multiple settings for the same feature. Most Microsoft documentation discourages opting out and warns of a less optimal experience. It’s almost like they don’t want you to opt-out.

• But you can’t completely opt-out. Windows still tracks too much.

• Home and Professional users are much worse off due to limitations of some settings and lack of an IT staff. I’m not going to bother with captures from those systems, this has already been shared by many others. Spoiler: it’s bad.

• I’m not saying ditch Windows. I’m saying let’s fix this. If we can’t fix it, then we ditch Windows.

Turn off all the advertising in Windows 10

From Mark Wilson at betanews:

Pretty much since the launch of Windows 10 there have been complaints about ads and usage tracking in various forms. You might think that Microsoft would listen to complaints and consider removing ads from its operating system, but in fact more and more have been added.

We've looked at the various ads (or app suggestions, app tips and so on to use Microsoft's phraseology) that have cropped up over the last couple of years, but the release of Windows 10 Creators Update seems like a good time to revisit the topic. So here, once and for all, is how to kill all the ads (or whatever you want to call them) in Windows 10.

For such a short article, the list it gives of places where Microsoft have shoe-horned in some unwanted advertising is actually somewhat impressive:

• Ads in File Explorer;
• Ads in the Start menu;
• Ads on the Lock screen;
• Ads in the Share dialog;
• And elsewhere in Windows 10 (yes, there are more). 

Click through to betanews for all the detailed instructions about where to find all the relevant settings and how to set them to turn all the advertising off.

Wilson ends his article with a plaintive, "Have we missed any?"

Yes, Mark, you probably have. 

Q: Is it time for Microsoft to rethink Windows 10?

Spoiler alert! The answer is, "Yes." Yes, it is.

Wayne Williams at Betanews has a more detailed answer, though:

It’s easy to understand why Microsoft took the decision to take Windows 8 in a new direction. PC sales were falling, and people were transitioning to iPhone, iPad, and Android devices. Microsoft felt it needed to do something radical to remain relevant in this changing world, and an operating system that could run on PCs, tablets, and smartphones seemed like a smart move.

The problem, of course, is the Start menu-less Windows 8 was too radical an approach for PC owners -- the bulk of Windows users -- and the OS itself was simply too half baked. There were too few decent non-PC devices around, and Microsoft had to build a Windows Store from scratch -- not easy.

Fast forward to 2015, and Microsoft brings out Windows 10. On paper, this had everything going for it. It was replacing a disliked predecessor, it offered what seemed like the best features of Windows 8.x combined with the best features of Windows 7, and it was free. What was not to like? Plus, like Windows 8.x, it could run on PCs, tablets and phones.

But Windows 10 hasn’t been the sure fire hit it was expected to be. It will be on 1 billion devices by 2018, Microsoft crowed. But even forcing users to upgrade to it didn’t get the OS any nearer to hitting that magical number. Windows 10 has a market share of around 25 percent now, which isn’t bad, except that’s half of what Windows 7 has, and people have stopped upgrading.

Williams then goes on to discuss why people have stopped upgrading in more detail, basically boiling it down to two main issues.

First, and apparently foremost, is Windows 10's focus on apps:

And here’s the biggest problem with apps -- they’re now universal, and designed to run on any device running Windows -- PCs, tablets, smartphones -- but who has a Windows smartphone these days? Pretty much no one. The whole point of Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps is you can install them on any Windows device you own, but if you only own a PC they why would you want to install an app when you could install a more powerful program, and enjoy greater choice?

Second, mentioned only in passing, is the non-stop advertising:

The main issue people are -- rightly -- hating on in Windows 10 at the moment is the adverts that Microsoft has peppered the OS with. These, for the most part, are to push apps, but I doubt the Windows Store has enjoyed a huge uptick in downloads as a result of them -- it’s just another annoyance Windows 10 users have to put up with.

Weirdly, Williams spends several paragraphs discussing the problem of apps, and only one talking about the adverts. Yes, both the Universal Windows Platform's anti-consumer approach, and the relentless drive by to monetize their Windows user base in any way they possibly can, are problems. But I think they miss the point, somewhat. These things are problematic, in and of themselves, but they're not the root of the problems; they're symptoms of more serious underlying issues.

Microsoft's entire approach to a Windows user base that has thrived on choice and freedom is to limit choices wherever possible, and coerce users when they can into behaving in ways that benefit Microsoft as a corporate entity. Only when the backlash has proved too intense has Microsoft backed off on these two strategic imperatives, and they never back off for long. 

That's why the Creators Update will once again include a setting that allows users to block the installation of Win32 software -- something which has been built into Windows 10 from the beginning, and which was initially turned on by default until the PR backlash forced Microsoft to back down.

That's why the Creators Update will once again be auto-downloading itself, even over metered connections, long after Microsoft apologized for doing that, and appeared to reverse course, after terrible PR forced them to admit that there were problems with the practice they hadn't considered. Apparently, they've reconsidered, and now think the practice is just fine. This, in an update which also allows users to postpone restarting after updates are installed, something else they had to implement because of terrible PR.

The major underlying issues here are trust, and choice. When Microsoft altered the behaviour of the "close window" button to force Windows 10 upgrades, it undermined trust, just as discovering that Windows 10 includes a built-in keylogger, again enabled by default, undermines trust. 

Removing the option to disable Cortana, even though Cortana monitors everything the user does and uses cloud-based services to perform even local hard drive searches, limits choice and undermines trust, as does locking Cortana to Edge and Bing, a combination of software and service that the market has resolutely refused to use when offered the choice.

Pushing ads through the OS, a behaviour that's seen in no other operating system, undermines trust, even as it attempts to influence users' choices.

Every time Microsoft denies security updates to people running Windows 7 on 6th generation SkyLake CPUs, it undermines both choice and trust... choice, because people who've bought and paid for Windows 7 explicitly have the right to run it on any one PC of their choosing, and trust, because Microsoft are now violating that agreement to unilaterally force users onto a new product that those users have repeatedly refused.

This is why people aren't switching to Windows 10 anymore, even though they can still do so for free, something which we're all supposed to pretend is some sort of secret even through everybody already knows who cares to know. They don't trust Microsoft to treat them and their choices with any kind of respect at all; they don't trust Microsoft not to spy on them; they don't trust Microsoft to keep their own given word. Darth Microsoft have altered the deal one too many times, now, going back to bad practices again and again, for anything they say to be believable anymore.

Does Microsoft need to rethink their Windows 10 strategy? Yes. Yes, they do. Desperately. Now would be a good time; in fact, they may already have left it too late. 

They need to change course, here. But will they? Probably not unless and until they're forced to. 

Here's why Microsoft's fans should stop defending them

Michael Allison is on a tear over at MSPoweruser. His latest op/ed piece, "Microsoft’s ads in Windows 10 are getting out of control," may not have been as polarizing as Mark Wilson's assertion that Windows 10 was more advertising platform than operating system, but a quick perusal of its comment section will show a fair smattering of the usual fallacious counter-arguments.

Allison, however, has clearly given this issue a lot more thought than those commenters, and today he posted another piece, dismantling every single one of their objections, in detail. It's a fantastic read, and not only because he used "Tu Quoque" in a sentence.

This is one of my favourite parts:

“But Apple and Google do it too”

This is what is known in logic as a “Tu Quoque” fallacy or as all people who deal with small children know the “How come he can do it but I can’t” argument. It’s not really an argument so much as it is pointing or that someone else does the same thing, ergo they should be allowed to do the same thing. In most cases, it is a logical fallacy because it a) is an attempt at deflection from the topic at hand and a red herring, and b) the comparison is never really appropriate.

Take this example where Owen Williams compares the uproar over Windows 10’s advertising and notes that Apple’s Mac OS pops up a notification whenever default browsers are changed. I’m sure some people are complaining about it, but it is disingenuous to compare to this to Windows because Microsoft does exactly the same thing in Windows 10 when you deviate from the Microsoft recommended defaults and that is not what people are complaining about.

And there's this point:

“But Windows 10 is free, how do you expect Microsoft to recoup their investment”

This is a terrible argument on several fronts.

Firstly and briefly, unless you’re a Microsoft shareholder or employee, you have no business worrying about Microsoft’s bottom line. Your contribution to Windows revenue begins and ends at the online or in-store checkout where you presumably paid for it with hard-earned money.

Secondly, Windows 10 is not free. It comes pre-installed with PCs in which case it is purchased by OEMs and then the pricing is bundled in with that of your PC, or it can be purchased by users from Microsoft who sells it at a base price of £109.99. One way or another, you’re paying for Windows.

But this may be the most important section:

Finally and more importantly, there’s is an issue of trust and trust being violated there.

Microsoft promised explicitly that Windows 10 would be free, They made great pains to explain that the Windows 10 upgrade was not free with an asterisk or with hidden terms and conditions but genuinely free. While some online pundits and commenters argued that Microsoft giving out Windows 10 for free meant that Windows 10 was being monetized and that Microsoft would slowly take control from the user, they were dismissed as crackpots and spreaders of FUD.

Playing devil’s advocate for a moment here and assuming that this is what Microsoft is actually doing, this implies that Microsoft deliberately lied to their customers when they marketed Windows 10 as free with no strings attached. Much like with the Windows Phone 8.1 upgrade “promise”, OneDrive kerfuffle a while ago, this erodes trust in Microsoft’s word. It implies that Microsoft can promise something explicitly, and then change it once you’re sufficiently locked-in.

Well said. Very well said.

And, finally,  there's this point:

“But you can turn it off”

You could turn Cortana off before too. Simply speaking, would you turn it on if it was off by default? If no, then who does it benefit.

What can I say? I agree completely. In fact, many of these are essentially the same arguments that I've been making for months, if less eloquently (or more pungently). Seriously, the whole thing is great, and if you've been following this issue at all then you should absolutely go read the entirety of it.

(Yes, I've linked to the article five different times in one blog post. What can I say? I'm hoping someone from Microsoft happens on this, and clicks a link.)

Windows 10 isn't an operating system, it's an advertising platform

The hits keep coming, this time from Mark Wilson at betanews:

Microsoft is disgustingly sneaky: Windows 10 isn't an operating system, it's an advertising platform

Don't believe what Microsoft tells you -- Windows 10 is not an operating system. Oh, sure, it has many features that make it look like an operating system, but in reality it is nothing more than a vehicle for advertisements. Since the launch of Windows 10, there have been numerous complaints about ads in various forms. They appear in the Start menu, in the taskbar, in the Action Center, in Explorer, in the Ink Workspace, on the Lock Screen, in the Share tool, in the Windows Store and even in File Explorer.

Microsoft has lost its grip on what is acceptable, and even goes as far as pretending that these ads serve users more than the company -- "these are suggestions", "this is a promoted app", "we thought you'd like to know that Edge uses less battery than Chrome", "playable ads let you try out apps without installing". But if we're honest, the company is doing nothing more than abusing its position, using Windows 10 to promote its own tools and services, or those with which it has marketing arrangements. Does Microsoft think we're stupid?

When Windows 10 first hit computers without a price tag, questions were asked about what the hidden cost might be. We've talked about the various telemetry, privacy-invading and tracking features that are to be found, and this is certainly part of the price one pays for a free operating system ... sorry, ad platform.

But as more and more ads have gradually crept into Windows 10, the implications of using Windows 10 become ever clearer. Microsoft has boasted about the millions and millions of computers that now have Windows 10 installed. These are not just additions to the user-base, they are consumers ready to be advertised at. It is a captive audience staring at screens all around the world -- perfect for pummelling with ads as there's nowhere to hide!

Microsoft is not only incredibly aggressive with its advertising, it is also disgustingly sneaky. Many of the various forms of advertising that can be found in Windows 10 can be disabled, but don't expect this to be easy, particularly if you're not completely au fait with the world of technology. [...] Seriously... who would think that in order to hide the OneDrive ads, you'd need to flick a toggle labeled Show sync provider notifications?

[...]

It might feel as though we're going over old ground here, and we are. Microsoft just keeps letting us (and you) down, time and time and time again.

It's time for things to change, but will Microsoft listen?

Yes, Microsoft is now even losing betanews. So... Will they listen? Will they change?

My guess is: no. Not until they're forced to, anyway. But it's interesting that even outlets like betanews are now mentioning Microsoft's past history of losing antitrust lawsuits when talking about Windows 10.

I still don't think Microsoft are likely to face any antitrust action while Trump is POTUS, but if there's enough public outcry, who knows? Trump likes to present himself as a populist, watches his poll numbers obsessively, and might like nothing better than to score some cheap consumer-advocate cred by taking a swipe at a target as large and obvious as Microsoft have made of themselves.

Beware of the camel's nose...

Microsoft's Windows 10 advertising bullshit continues to generate bad PR for the Redmond firm... today, from Michael Allison at MSPoweruser:

There was an old Arabian fable of a camel, a man, and tent. In this tale, the camel asks the man for permission to stick its nose into his tent – after all – it’s cold outside in the desert and it would be unreasonable to claim that the nose would cause sufficient discomfort to the man. After this request was acquiesced to, further requests followed. “Oh can I just stick my shoulder in?”, “How about my hump”, “At this stage, you wouldn’t begrudge me my tail?”. Each request was small and unobtrusive, but at the end of it, the camel had control of the tent and the man did not.

That’s how I feel about Microsoft’s loading of Windows 10 with ads. The firm initially loaded its Windows PCs with Candy Crush and the users didn’t mind. [...] Then Microsoft enabled Windows 10 Spotlight on PCs by default and started showing ads on it, and I defended that last year, arguing that “Microsoft’s recommendations were completely harmless and not as irritating as the words “ads” would imply.” [...] Microsoft went on to trigger several OS-wide pop-ups to dissuade users from using Google’s Chrome and Mozilla’s FireFox. [...] Now the Windows 10 File Explorer is now telling me about just how wonderful OneDrive is if I just pony up £8.99 a month.

If I’m permitted to mix my metaphors, Houston, the camel is in the tent. [...]  Microsoft’s adware is getting out of hand, and its past time Redmond began paying more attention to the wishes of its users.

I'd say it's about a year and nine months past time for Microsoft to begin paying more attention to the wishes of its users, but let's not split hairs. The important thing is that even people who, by their own admission, previously defended this bullshit, have now stopped defending Microsoft's indefensible bullshit.

Everybody has had enough, including people who used to serve as their apologists:

It is too hard to defend Microsoft on this one, and I’m not going to. It is getting frustrating to set up your Windows PC with Windows 10 Pro and having to unpin Candy Crush and Minecraft straight out of the box, then deal with the other ads as well. A PC OS should stay out of your way, not try to sell you stuff. At this point, one wonders if Microsoft even needs the Windows Store, when the whole OS seems to be a bazaar.

Oh, and for those who are still saying that Microsoft isn't doing anything that Apple hasn't already done, with the iOS/MacOS App Store? Allison's got a little history lesson for those folks, too:

It wasn’t so long ago that Apple was critiqued for pre-loading iPhones and Macs with U2’s Album and had to apologize in return. Now Microsoft preloads Windows PCs with Candy Crush of all things and “stickies” it as well as Twitter to the top of your account so it is always the first thing you see in your Store library. Next, Microsoft suggests apps and games for Windows users in the Start Menu’s App list. Then, the firm begins to prompt Windows users to use (the terrible, terrible) ad-ridden by default Edge rather than Chrome. Then we get ads in the action center telling you what you use, and now ads in File Explorer pushing you towards paying for OneDrive. Taken together, Microsoft now has ads in every major area of the Windows interface with the exception of the desktop itself.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again and again until Microsoft change course: Windows 10 is malware, because it behaves exactly like malware: software used to [...] gather sensitive information, gain access to private computer systems, or display unwanted advertising. The only reason people aren't calling it malware is because it's been published by Microsoft. That's bullshit: if your OS behaves like malware, then your OS is malware, by definition.

Of course, Trump is the U.S. President now, and his Commerce and Justice departments are unlikely to do much of anything at all, so Microsoft are probably safe from further legal entanglements in the U.S., at least at the federal level. I guess that leaves us hoping that France, or the EU, will act.

Microsoft Sells Out On Windows 10 Users

Apparently, I'm not the only person who's fed up with Microsoft's non-stop shilling.

From Knoxville's Daily Sun:

Windows 10 has been ramping up its “promoted apps,” or more commonly known as those pesky adverts, since May last year. Currently, the adverts are seen on the lock screen promoting game apps while some even disguise itself as tutorials/guides.

If you’re one that doesn’t want to change from Chrome, Microsoft hasn’t given up on you yet. Take a look at this screenshot obtained from Extreme Tech.

Windows is acquiring a new technique entirely. This time, there’s no way to disable it without affecting potentially useful updates for your cloud storage. Look at the image below to see how Microsoft is pushing the Office 365 now.

That is basically an advert built-in to file storage. To make things worse, the Reddit user had already paid for Office 365. You could always opt to turn “sync provider notification” off but this would jeopardize notification for your cloud storage.

Well, this just looks like Microsoft is selling out on Windows 10 users.

Not an especially well-written piece (sorry, Staff Reporter, unless you're a content-generating AI bot, in which case you don't have any feelings), but I'd say that "selling out" is pretty apt description of what Microsoft's been doing for the last couple of years.

I mean, I get it: Google has a better business plan for the 21st century, and Microsoft really want a piece of that action, in spite of being really late to the party. So, they're trying to leverage their one asset, the ubiquity of Windows, to force their way into the mobile OS market, and to have their own walled-garden storefront, and to have their own web search service, and to monetize everything they sell with advertising. I can see why they'd want to be Google.... and Apple, too, since they're also trying to force their way into the consumer electronics market, having already failed at that a few times now.

But Google didn't become Google by force. They became Google by building a better mouse-trap, by building a customer base who use their products because they prefer their products, and who haven't continually tried to change the relationship with those customers, practically overnight. Not that Google haven't mis-stepped, but they didn't double and triple down on those errors by forcing the issue still further: Google+ didn't become a thing, so Google stopped trying to be Facebook, and let it go.

Microsoft won't let it go. Nobody is using the Windows Store? No problem: they'll just push tiles for "promoted" apps directly to your desktop, to be "discovered" (and maybe accidentally installed/purchased) by users. Nobody is switching from Chrome to Edge, or from Google to Bing? No problem: they'll just push the ads that they would be serving via Edge/Bing directly to the OS itself, via the File Explorer. And why not? Windows 10 was built for this, specifically, in the same way that Windows 8 was built for this, specifically.

The answer is, "Because users won't stand for it, that's why not." I'm expecting Windows 10 to shed even more market share over this month. Look for their EU regulatory issues to not go away, either.

Darth Microsoft alters the deal again, adds even more ads to Windows 10

Consider this, from WinBuzzer:

Microsoft’s Windows 10 policies are once again angering customers. This time, the company’s decision to advertise on the platform has led to complaints. Microsoft is using Windows 10 to actively promote several subscriptions for its services, including Office 365 and OneDrive. Users have taken to social media and revealed disgust at the action.

It seems the ad notifications are set to default in Windows 10 builds. Microsoft is promoting a new Office 365 and OneDrive bundle. I don’t particularly want to repeat the offer here, because then Microsoft is getting even more (free) advertising.

[...]

Needless to say, Microsoft is getting some heat for this decision. Redditors have been calling the company out on this tactic and pointing out that even those with existing Office 365 subs are seeing the advertisement. 

Or this, from betanews:

Oh joy -- playable ads arrive in Windows 10

Playable ads -- that is ads that mimic an app and let you interact with it -- aren’t new. I see them from time to time on my iPhone, and never interact with any of them. Because, why would you? However, Microsoft says that playable ads are not only better than regular ads, they are more profitable.

And now they are arriving on Windows 10. The Playable Ads preview goes live in the Windows Dev Center today, allowing developers to offer their own interactive adverts.

And then remember that Windows 10 is losing market share right now, and ask yourself if you're surprised?

I own an Android phone, and my phone will occasionally let me know if there's an update available for the OS itself, but it doesn't spam me with advertising for any other apps, whether Google's own or otherwise. Google is an advertising company, who make all of their money by selling advertising, but even their Android OS isn't pushing adverts in your face all the fucking time, by the OS itself or otherwise, and seriously I doubt that iOS works any differently.

So, why does Microsoft think that baking advertising and push media "features" into Windows 10 is a good idea?

If someone opens up the Windows 10 Store, then by all means, you can push "recommended" apps to the top of their front page, and charge developers an advertising fee for the higher-profile product placement. That's fair game -- it is, after all, a store, that they're taking time out to visit. But when someone's just working in the OS itself? No, you don't get to push playable fucking ads in front of them as they're working, or add extra tiles to their desktops for your other software that they haven't installed and aren't interested in. Or, worse yet, already fucking own.

Seriously, can't Microsoft even make this "feature" smart enough to detect when someone already owns a piece of software, and not serve them additional ads for it? And should we be attributing that to malice, or to incompetence, or both? Are they really this desperate? Or do they really not care?

Just this week, Microsoft were scoring PR points by announcing that Windows 10's Updates would be slightly less shitty to experience, but this advertising bullshit takes another major pain point of the OS and makes it even more painful. What a great way to send more customers fleeing back to Windows 7... which doesn't have any of this built-in advertising bullshit. GG, Microsoft. Well played.

The one piece of good news? Apparently, sufficiently technically-savvy users can turn some of this down, or off.

From Thurrott:

I’ve led the charge against Microsoft’s advertising efforts in Windows, noting back in 2012 that the software giant cheapened Windows 8 with ads. Despite my warnings about a slippery slope—Microsoft would only escalate its in-box advertising down the road, I cautioned—Windows 10, sadly, was even worse.

And now the Creators Update is coming, bringing with it yet another escalation of in-product advertising. Most notably, and most disturbingly, in File Explorer.

(Ad-like notifications for OneDrive do appear in File Explorer in the Anniversary Update, but people running the Creators Update are now seeing actual advertising.)

To be clear, File Explorer is the Windows 10 shell, a core part of the operating system. So like the mobile apps that first bore advertising back in Windows 8, yes, it is very much a “part of” Windows, or “in” Windows. It is Windows.

This is a sad state of affairs. Fortunately, you can turn off this terrible intrusion. Here’s how...

(Click through to Thurrott.com for the detailed step-by-step.)

#fuckyoumicrosoft