this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2024
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[–] TheGrandNagus 165 points 9 months ago (9 children)

Of course they have. MS are putting ads everywhere in Windows. The revenue potential is huge and they have more than enough private information on everyone to do targeted ads.

Microsoft would be insane not to go down this route. It's inevitable.

We need more devices for sale that don't use Windows, because this won't stop. Microsoft is a publicly traded company and their stakeholders demand infinite growth.

The only way to get away from this is to use some kind of FOSS operating system

[–] [email protected] 61 points 9 months ago (4 children)

The Grand Nagus advocating for free and open source software... there must be a novel rule of acquisition I have not heard about yet!

[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago

Rule of acquisition number 1,337: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

Sounds pretty on-brand for Rom

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

It's in the revised "wormhole aliens" edition .

[–] Krzd 5 points 9 months ago

Rule 69420: You shall sell the product, not be it.

[–] Pantsofmagic 40 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Someone there wants to go back to 20+ years ago when your friends mom's Internet Explorer windows included 75 different toolbars and there was only a little bit of browser space left. The hayday of "Buddy Bar" is returning for your Edge, Outlook, and Taskbar. Next will be explorer and Excel. The future is looking bright.

[–] pete_the_cat 16 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Man, I had a girlfriend once like 20 years ago who’s dad knew I was into computers and he was so proud to show me this neat Banzai Buddy software he found, he thought he was so cool.

That was the moment that I realized that, actually, something was wrong with all the adults on this planet.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

the little purple desktop buddy could come back now.. powered by ai

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

The only way to get away from this is to use some kind of FOSS operating system

Been doing this for like 10 years now. It was easy to see the future of windows when windows 8 and 10 started sending user data to their cloud. Next step is always serving ads.

And people pay for Windows too. :)

It's not too late to switch to Linux but you are very late if you haven't done it.

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[–] linearchaos 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The bane of the public company. Once you get big enough that you're no longer able to sustain 20% yoy growth your investors will force you to leave no stone unturned.

They've already put in telemetry

Next they'll put in ads

Then they'll sell subscriptions to get rid of the ads

Then the subscription will become the minimum viable product

Then they'll put ads back in

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[–] [email protected] 68 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Email spam is already bad enough I don't need that shit built in

[–] [email protected] 45 points 9 months ago

Hi @[email protected], we are sorry to hear you are not satisfied with our ad service. We always strive to bring you the best user experience on the web and in your Windows Operating System. We want to offer you a 10% discount on your next purchase for a 24 month Office365-VPN Home Suite: [STAYSAVE10]. We hope you like us more now. Thank you for reading this ad.

[–] [email protected] 55 points 9 months ago (1 children)

A couple of weeks ago I tried Outlook 365 when Windows Mail made me mad for the 1000th time because it has issues to actually send the E-Mails from one of my accounts…

Anyway, outlook started and of course just added my Microsoft Account ignoring all other accounts that could’ve been imported from Windows mail. There was a new mail so I clicked it. Although Firefox is my default browser, edge opened and there was a website. It took me multiple seconds to realize that Microsoft just baited me to click an ad and earn a couple of cents.

I got so angry that I installed thunderbird. If I compare it with older releases from a couple of years ago it did get a whole lot better. I’m very happy.

Windows gave me so many reasons in the last months that I also ditched it completely. Running Linux Mint now and just like thunderbird it is so much more refined if I compare it with the past…

Paying money for crappy subscription based software like office (need it for work) and still getting ads was definitely the no 1 reason to switch.

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[–] [email protected] 53 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Nice, now you have to pay for giving your data to Microsoft, lol. Who would do that?!

[–] [email protected] 24 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Just a few hundred million people, I guess.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (1 children)

One must consider all who use outlook for business, there is no ads and I believe the say even no tracking. 🤷🏻‍♀️ so yea, I use outlook as well, but not because I want and not with ducking ads.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Just to clarify: there’s Outlook (M365) which is just the old Outlook, both as an app and webapp. Then there’s New Outlook, which looks like old Outlook but is a different, incomplete and hot garbage replacement for Windows Mail, Calender etc. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook_com/forum/all/new-outlook-vs-outlook-in-microsoft-365/e367b524-b637-49ac-8405-3d801af343c1

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Well the "old" outlook included in M365 has now the option to „try new outlook“ which I activated. It looks like the Outlook in the screenshot (and like the web version of outlook) How many versions of outlook are there now?! 🤣

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

It actually is the web version, iirc

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[–] w2tpmf 9 points 9 months ago (3 children)

No one is paying for it. It's a free app.

This isn't Outlook from the paid Office suit. This is the shitty free "Mail" app that has been renamed to also be called Outlook because Microsoft sucks at naming things.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 9 months ago

You pay for Windows.

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[–] asdfasdfasdf 48 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Vermont can outlaw billboards across the state, but when it comes to everything digital, it seems like nothing's safe. We cannot even check out email on a dedicated email client application without being subjected to ads, both in the form of spam emails, marketing lists, and now even ads from the program itself.

IMO the government should be stepping in to regulate where ads can be placed, just like Vermont did with billboards.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 35 points 9 months ago (1 children)

So protonmail is pretty cool.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Made the switch last year from Gmail and I love it. I set up a custom domain and a catch all address as well, so I can give out [email protected] as an email and it gets to me. Particularly nice for finding out who's sharing my information, as well as picking out phishing emails. Banking coming in from [email protected]? Immediate red flag.

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[–] Anti_Face_Weapon 15 points 9 months ago (6 children)

I do not understand why anyone would use Outlook when thunderbird is free and, in my experience, much more functional.

[–] EncryptKeeper 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Prior to this new version of Outlook, Outlook was much more functional than Thunderbird and it wasn’t close. That being said while a year ago I’d say you were smoking dope, as of right now you are correct, new Outlook sucks.

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[–] ZooGuru 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yeah this was an immediate no from me on my home PC that I run windows on so I went and downloaded Thunderbird and have been happy ever since.

[–] sugartits 6 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Why was that the red line for you, given all the other shit that's already in Windows?

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[–] avapa 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The article only seems to mention free consumer accounts, if I didn't accidentally skip a section. Does anyone know how this will affect M365 subscribers (both consumer/enterprise)? I use Outlook every day at work and the lack of features in the web app make it basically unusable for me.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

the standalone office application called 'outlook' is still existing.. (for now, and until microsoft comes up with a way to fk that up too)

some moron at microsoft just decided it would be a good idea to dilute the strength of the outlook name by using it on webmail and the new (cr)app version in windows.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (2 children)

It's already on the way, the office app "outlook" has a "new outlook" mode, which is this same web based version that only talks to Microsoft servers, so even if you use a non Microsoft email account, Microsoft takes your credentials,syncs your email to their server and then shows it to you through the web outlook.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (3 children)

The moment I saw them trying to do this, I switched to Thunderbird.

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[–] DirkMcCallahan 10 points 9 months ago

This is basically "dog bites man" territory at this point.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

Donate to Mozilla Thunderbird. Free software isn't free.

[–] Quicky 9 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

This was always the case in the web version of Outlook, and the mobile client. If you subscribe to 365, ads are removed.

I noticed this last year when I moved away from 365 and started getting ads on the Outlook mobile client. I ended up binning it off and just used the default Mail app on iOS, which is a shame because the Outlook app on phones is actually superb. Not good enough to put up with ads though.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

At least running Pihole eliminates these ads, same for the Android outlook app.

The constant shitty changes that I have to combat are enough to make me explore other options, however. I don't want to have to fight against the software I use.

I'll give Thunderbird another go (used it years past and bounced off), and failing that maybe I'll pick emClient back up (used to use it for managing multiple Google work accounts).

My difficulty is that I use a Microsoft hosted email, and integration with third party applications for contacts & calendar has always been an issue. Maybe it's time to move those to my Nextcloud instance?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

After a while after you switch to Linux, the Microsoft headlines start getting funny instead of infuriating. 😂

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

There's a School of Rock musical!? Awesome. Gotta look into tickets.

Engaged 2019 apparently. Oh well.

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