"Microsoft reportedly broke Windows 11 by injecting ads"

As someone who spent most of this blog's early years documenting the evils of Microsoft's Get Windows 10 campaign (that's small "e" evil, as in the banality of evil... but yes, it was still evil), a headline like the one above is obviously going to get my attention.

The story itself is... well, a delightful documentation of the banality of evil, exactly as you'd expect it to be, by Rich Woods at XDA:

Ever since Windows 10 was introduced, Microsoft has been pushing through ads in its operating systems, and that’s obviously not changing with Windows 11. It started with the infamous Get Windows 10 app that would force itself upon Windows 7 and 8.1 users, often presenting misleading options that would trick you into upgrading. That was a long time ago, and today’s ads aren’t as nefarious.

Except when they break things. Yesterday after releasing new Windows 11 builds in the Dev and Beta channels (two different builds, mind you), Insiders reported that their Start Menu and taskbar were crashing. As it turned out, it was caused by Windows 11 delivering ads, as was reported by Daniel Aleksandersen, who dug into the issue.

First of all, Microsoft did publish a fix [...] in order to bring your PC back from a crippling issue that was caused by Microsoft sending advertisements to it, you need to make a change to the registry.

Yes, that's right... in order to prevent Microsoft from pushing unwanted advertising through your PC operating system, you have to edit the registry, something which Microsoft typically advises against for all but advanced users.

This means that Microsoft have, once again, turned the Windows operating system into malware... or, more precisely, adware, but of a type which the user cannot remove (since it's the operating system), and which only advanced users can work around, by doing something which Microsoft recommend against when they're not recommending you do it.

It's at this point that I'd just like to remind anyone who's interested that Linux exists, and that it's much more user-friendly now than ever. Seriously, System76's Pop!_OS distro, with its very slick Cosmic UI, is what I'm using right now, and I haven't had to open the damn terminal since I installed it. Everything just works, while leaving me as much in-control of the system as I want to be, and my OS isn't doing anything untoward while my back is turned.

Sadly, Windows users cannot say the same.

Two weeks later: Pop!_OS is still fine

It's been a couple of weeks now since I switched from Windows 7 to Linux. If you're thinking of making the switch yourself, and wondering what that's like, I feel like I've now got enough experience to tell you what you can expect.

Microsoft strikes again, flags anti-telemetry HOST file changes as malware

Microsoft does not have a great record when it comes to data collection. Starting with the release of Windows 10, when they insisted that they needed to collect essentially every possible kind of metadata from users in the name of maintaining the platform, only to later admit that at least half of that data collection wasn't necessary after all, Microsoft's built-in telemetry has been a pain point for privacy-conscious users for years.

Windows 10's telemetry system was a major contributor to the slow uptake of Windows 10, and Microsoft's later decision to add the same telemetry, retroactively, to Windows 8 and 7 as well was even harder to defend; neither older OS, after all, needed to be maintained in perpetuity the way Windows 10 did, and both were mature OSes and much more stable to begin with, so why did they need to harvest users' metadata? I'd still like to know; Microsoft never explained.

Naturally, Windows users generally, and Windows 7 users in particular, started looking for workarounds for Redmond's telemetry bullshit. Third party applications like Spybot's Anti-Beacon, or O&O ShutUp10, began to proliferate, turning off telemetry for users that cared enough to take steps to do so; meanwhile, Microsoft continued to ignore calls by data privacy advocates and activists to turn off the telemetry, or at least to allow all of their users to opt out.

Late last week, Microsoft finally responded. As reported by bleeping computer:

Since the end of July, Windows 10 users began reporting that Windows Defender had started detecting modified HOSTS files as a 'SettingsModifier:Win32/HostsFileHijack' threat.

When detected, if a user clicks on the 'See details' option, they will simply be shown that they are affected by a 'Settings Modifier' threat and has 'potentially unwanted behavior,' [...] it seems that Microsoft had recently updated their Microsoft Defender definitions to detect when their servers were added to the HOSTS file.

Users who utilize HOSTS files to block Windows 10 telemetry suddenly caused them to see the HOSTS file hijack detection.

I can attest to this not being restricted to Windows 10, or to Windows Defender; Microsft Security Essentials running on Windows 7 started exhibiting this same behaviour on my own system last Wednesday. Apparently, having already paid for the privilege of using Windows 7 or 8 is not enough; we're now expected to pay again, by allowing Microsoft to harvest our metadata, even though the operating systems themselves are either out-of-service, or approaching end-of-service.

So, what's a Windows 7 or 8 user to do? Well... personally, I switched to Linux.

Specifically, I switched to Pop!_OS, which seemed well-aligned with my game-centric use case. And while it's been a bit of a learning curve, I have to say that the experience of switching to Pop!_OS in 2020 was far less painful than my attempt to switch to Ubuntu in 2019. I won't say that it's been flawless, but it's been nearly flawless, and I won't be switching back.

Good job, Microsoft! You've finally manage to make using your products so unattractive that even a procrastinator like me has finally pulled the rip cord, and bailed on you. Sayonara, and good riddance!

If you're still on an older version of Windows, and wondering what to do next, I cannot recommend strongly enough that you make the shift to Linux. Don't accept an OS that acts like malware, or a giant corporate overlord who never listens to your concerns, and who does not care if you stay or go. Installing your new OS takes only minutes -- a far cry from my last Windows 7 install, which took hours, and even then needed me to install ethernet and graphics card drivers separately, along with hours' worth of updates, and OMG why didn't I do this years ago?

Time saved during OS installation leaves lots of time to acclimatize yourself to the new OS environment... which will still leave you lots of time to actually get back to using your PC. Seriously, I don't have a single regret, and I don't think you will, either. Give it a shot; you've got nothing to lose, except Microsoft's baggage.

Ubuntu dethroned by Manjaro/Arch as top Linux gaming distro

It wasn't too long ago that I'd posted about how Ubuntu seemed well on its way to becoming the top choice distro for basically everything, including gaming. That was before Canonical shat their own bed, though, announcing that they were dropping support for the 32-bit libraries that PC gaming generally, and Steam particularly, depended on. Valve, which had been recommending Ubuntu as the preferred distro for Steam, withdrew that recommendation; and while Canonical apparently walked back their decision on those 32-bit libraries, Valve's recommendation was not restored.

And now, just a few months later, we're starting to get a good look at exactly how much damage Canonical/Ubuntu did to their own cause with PC gamers, thanks to a great post at Boiling Steam, which sums up the trend with this chart:

In case you missed it...

... Windows 10 finally managed to hit 50% market share, according to NetMarketShare.

Some takes on this development were, sadly, predictable, such as Computerworld's, "Windows 10 user share surges as loafers heed impending deadline." Others were more balanced, though, such as Mike Sanders at eTeknix:

It’s been around 4 years now since Windows 10 launched and if one thing has been made abundantly clear, it’s that people have been very slow in adopting the latest operating system platform. In fairness, there has been good reason for this. Firstly, it’s hard to ignore just how hard Microsoft shoved this down our throats. We got the option to update to it for free, but this was part of a huge campaign that saw Windows 7 and 8 users badgered for months to do it.

Since then, following more than a few problematic updates, Windows 10 doesn’t exactly have a glowing reputation with a lot of the PC community. As such, many have stubbornly refused to make the update.

Following the latest figures from Netmarketshare, however, it may have taken 4 years, but Windows 10 finally has a 50% operating system market share!

[...]

Microsoft is likely more than a little embarrassed that it has taken this long for people to adopt Windows 10. Particularly given how hard they pushed it. Like it or not, however, we fully expect that number to really start spiking towards the end of the year with that end-of-support for Windows 7 looming in the not too distant future.

If you haven’t updated to 10 yet, you’re likely going to. So, try and make the best out of a bad situation?

Oh, I plan to, Mike. I'll be switching by the end of the year... but to Linux, not Windows 10. All that remains is to pick the most AMD-gaming-friendly distro; I'm currently leaning towards Pop!_OS, but Manjaro and (naturally) Ubuntu are both in the running.