zlacker

>>mfwit+(OP)
Windows is just full of hostile, anti-user patterns these days. I've considered building a windows box just to have a gaming rig multiple times over the last few years, but every time an article like this or their crusade against Chrome reminds me that Bill Gates is still the same anti-trust monster he was in the 90s.

>>frob+Z1
Google has an equally annoying crusade against anything that isn't Chrome. Visit google.com with Edge (on desktop) and you immediately get a popup on the top right "Google recommends using Chrome. Built for Windows. Easily search on Google with the fast, secure browser". As if there was any material difference between the browsers.

We need a comeback of antitrust enforcement with teeth to get both Microsoft and Google to do honest competition, instead of backhanded methods.

>>wongar+l6
I'd say it's far better because messing at the OS level is straight out evil.

On Firefox I can stand the suggestion to use Chrome when I use google, I can even block it with uBlock, but haven't really bothered to.

Now, when they keep tweaking my OS settings, and use every upgrade as the excuse to reset my browser settings over and over, then I get mad. When I get ads on my start menu too. That's why I don't use windows anymore.

>>dietr1+6q
This doesn't make much sense to me

> I can even block it with uBlock

You can also block such things in your OS. It requires more expertise to modify machine code rather than obfuscated HTML, but in the end, it's cosmetically altering software to make it look the way you want it to.

Equal levels of 'evil' either way, to me

If they had gone out of their way to add DRM specifically to the pop-up (detecting div deletion for the web version, for example), that would be more evil, but such things aren't being done for showing browser advertisements (might come as a side effect for Windows licensing, but one who chooses to employ licensed software naturally invites that)