this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2024
883 points (98.7% liked)
Technology
59589 readers
2910 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The fact this is even necessary makes me want to shit a brick.
"Do you want to make an online account?" No. "Okay, please set up your local account."
That should be it. And honestly, even that's egregious to me. Signing into online bullshit should be opt-in, not opt-out. Thank goodness I don't use Windows anymore, finally wiped the last Windows machine in my house this past week.
Microsoft's insidious insistence on online accounts is the main reason I stopped using Windows. Even with a local Windows account, one time I accidentally opened Edge, and it started automatically importing browser info from Firefox and then syncing it to the Microsoft account that I was using for MS Office. From my point of view, that was some extreme bullshit. Too much to tolerate. I didn't want Edge to import anything from anywhere - no matter how 'convenient and easy' it is. and I certainly didn't want it to upload anything - no matter what assurances of 'privacy and security' are claimed. And until that point, I thought accounts for individual apps could be keep isolated to just that app.
They have to go through all these gymnastics because otherwise, there is no compelling reason for any given user to create a Microsoft account just to use their damn computer. So they resort to trickery, nagging, and now tacitly trying to force the issue. Most users don't know any better so they'll just click "ok" on whatever pops up in their faces when they first power on their new PC and take the first thing that's offered, which in this case is to sign up for a Microsoft account and tie your entire identity to it. Non-nerds don't know the difference between that and a local account, and that's dangerous.
It's become normalized that in order to use any given device or software you're expected to set up Yet Another Online Account, and that normalization is dangerous, too. I actively try to avoid such things but it's becoming harder and harder as time goes on.