this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2025
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You're trying to paint windows in a positive light when Microsoft is desperately trying to spy on us and force more advertising on us even though we really don't want it, and the only reason they can do that is because they have a monopoly. So yeah, it really is that awful.
And if we want to do side by side comparisons of the available software packages, most things that you would need for your average office setup are free and come by default on your major Linux distros. On Windows, you have to install them manually, and the default options are mainly commercial. So you're paying more and possibly getting something worse, depending on your personal preferences about each software package and its alternative. That's pretty bad, my friend. Windows is competing with free and losing, but they have inertia and a monopoly.
My personal experience with Windows has been different. ~~I've not seen advertising in Windows; where have you seen that?~~* I'm a bit shocked about Microsoft spying on me, too. Do you have any sources on that? It feels like that should be illegal in Europe and would make headlines.
I don't use desktop office software and haven't purchased any desktop software in probably a decade. My business makes heavy use of Google Workspace and uses online services that are agnostic to the operating system. The only things I'm really installing on my machine are developer tools through
apt-getand games through Steam.*) Edit: Windows periodically prompts to use Edge or subscribe to Office 365; I had forgotten about that because it's perhaps less frequent here in Europe.
Open up your start menu and start typing, what comes up? Is it just apps or in other words program within your local hardware? Are there suggestions from the Internet or in other words an advertisement.
The results are honestly pretty spot on, at least for my use cases, and this isn't different from how Chromebooks or MacOS does it (although for the latter, Spotlight results are hilariously terrible). Even Linux distros often combine on-device and online search results—are those also advertisements? I'm puzzled why Windows is called out in particular on this.
If my Linux distro searched the internet, when I opened my launcher, I'd be finding a new Linux distro.
I distinctly recall a version of Ubuntu that not only showed search results, but Amazon shopping links.
And i no longer use Ubuntu. I remember that too. I also remember such large push back that it was removed
I still have fond memories of using Ubuntu. At the time, it must have been 2009 or so, I was working at a company developing desktop software for Windows, OS X and Debian. It'd be so confusing to constantly switch between operating systems because it'd mess with my muscle memory, but Ubuntu was my favorite because of POSIX and the fantastic file manager.
For my purposes and from my experience, things have improved tremendously on Windows, despite it being popular to hate upon. I still frequently use Mac as well and it's really hardly changed at all. I confess that I only ever use Fedora on a remote instance for very specific purposes and can't really judge it fairly on day-to-day usage.
I don't use a PC for very much anymore, so I have little need to use my laptop. But when I do, I've honestly just gone with Linux Mint just because it works. And I have Lineage OS on my phone, which is my primary computing device.