I won't switch her browser to firefox. I'm not her tech support although I am in tech. Welcome to 90% of users.
If I was her tech support, and I wanted to prevent the browser being changed by the user, I would.. Explain it to the user. And if they still changed it after that - guess what, that's their choice. But I could, just like you, prevent that with group policy. And when you do that, you won't get prompted to change it, just like my work laptop doesn't prompt me to change it. So what is the issue? The fact that if you do your customization and don't complete the full power user process, the OS can't tell if it was a random web page that did it? Maybe MS should collect some more telemetry on your laptop and run a compute-heavy AI to figure it out?
>I have spent so much time disabling all these ads on my Windows 10 Pro machine.
and why in the world would you do that? it literally takes two clicks in many different pieces of software that are available.
for the 90% of users - guess what, they wouldn't know about 1drive if windows didn't display an ad for it. What you call an ad, my wife calls helpful suggestions. When you're grocery shopping and you see a banner "apples 10% off today" that is also an "ad."
Microsoft is not a bad actor. The "google is worse" talking point is one I never stated, and a strawman you made up.
What you call "Ads" are simply defaults. And you can disable them in about a minute with one click in an app. You don't like edge at all? Guess what - there are fifty things you can do to completely disable or remove it - like change security on its folder or run a single powershell command to uninstall it.
Windows is an OS that is tailored to its users. That's not you - don't use it if you don't want. Here in the real world though, any power user simply changes the defaults in a couple of minutes, and at work there's a corporate image with all those turned off already.
You justify Microsoft's actions because of Google's similar actions, you say "Google is a bad player," the implication is clearly "Google is worse." There is no strawman here.
I have disabled all the promotion for one drive and the browser and similar garbage. Yet no matter what, they change the OS to come up with new ways to advertise at me, even if it's only a few times a year. It's an ad even if MS claims they think it well help users. I've heard non-technical users complain about this shit too. They just want their computers to work and not bother them.
Given that people are annoyed by Windows 10's promotions, I would say they are mostly taking advantage of their situation. Some of their actions are helpful to their users, some are not-so-helpful. People tolerate ads if they have to, they do not like them.
Regarding apples 10% off, when I am home with my apples, the grocery store does not break into my house to tell me about more apples.
I haven't made anything up. The point is simply that the OS should not try to use dark patterns to try to change people's settings. The assumption that this is good or that it is done to help the user, rather than something they can simply get away with, is ridiculous.
If I was her tech support, and I wanted to prevent the browser being changed by the user, I would.. Explain it to the user. And if they still changed it after that - guess what, that's their choice. But I could, just like you, prevent that with group policy. And when you do that, you won't get prompted to change it, just like my work laptop doesn't prompt me to change it. So what is the issue? The fact that if you do your customization and don't complete the full power user process, the OS can't tell if it was a random web page that did it? Maybe MS should collect some more telemetry on your laptop and run a compute-heavy AI to figure it out?
>I have spent so much time disabling all these ads on my Windows 10 Pro machine.
and why in the world would you do that? it literally takes two clicks in many different pieces of software that are available.
for the 90% of users - guess what, they wouldn't know about 1drive if windows didn't display an ad for it. What you call an ad, my wife calls helpful suggestions. When you're grocery shopping and you see a banner "apples 10% off today" that is also an "ad."
Microsoft is not a bad actor. The "google is worse" talking point is one I never stated, and a strawman you made up.
What you call "Ads" are simply defaults. And you can disable them in about a minute with one click in an app. You don't like edge at all? Guess what - there are fifty things you can do to completely disable or remove it - like change security on its folder or run a single powershell command to uninstall it.
Windows is an OS that is tailored to its users. That's not you - don't use it if you don't want. Here in the real world though, any power user simply changes the defaults in a couple of minutes, and at work there's a corporate image with all those turned off already.