• @[email protected]
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    281 month ago

    Oh look, with the threat of a big enough fine, you can uninstall those things.

    Or at least hide the front ends for them.

  • @[email protected]
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    931 month ago

    To get pedantic for a second. The title of this post is “Microsoft gives…” as if this was an altruistic act that Microsoft decided to do for some people, when the article states they did it to comply with a law.

    A much better title would have been “EU Forces Microsoft to Give Users More Control:” It returns the credit to the people who deserve the credit and clarifies that it wasn’t something Microsoft did willingly.

    • 𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘
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      141 month ago

      Not pedantic. The specificity, imo, is extremely important here, and the poor phrasing really bothered me, too.

    • @[email protected]
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      21 month ago

      The only correct answer. Also too little too late for MS. Suck up a little bit of inconvenience to gain back your life with 🐧

  • @[email protected]
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    126
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    1 month ago

    Since this sublemmy doesn’t have any requirement for the title to be the same as the source, can we actually have a correct title: “Microsoft abides to laws in EU and does <…>”, or even better “Microsoft is forced under EU law to <…>”.

    The title makes it appear as if it’s out of charity and goodness of their corporate heart. (Fabrication)

    • @[email protected]
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      21 month ago

      The title makes it appear as if it’s out of charity and goodness of their corporate heart

      Only to someone that has been living under a rock for the last decade. Everyone else is able to deduct from the “to European users” in the title that the EU forced their hand

      • @[email protected]
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        11 month ago

        Correct. You’re right, without context (or as you put it - living under a rock) one comes to the wrong conclusion.

    • Saik0
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      21 month ago

      I mean they kind of are? It’s not like M$ couldn’t just pay the fines and keep things as is.

      • @[email protected]
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        131 month ago

        No its not, the object of a corp in this modern era we live in is to milk as much money out of the customer without caring about them. The EU laws are the only thing protecting their customers from microsofts greed. microsoft IS being forced to do this and thats a GOOD thing.

        • Saik0
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          11 month ago

          The only mechanism of “enforcement” that the EU is levying is fees/fines. M$ can absorb a large amount of fees/fines pretty readily if it means complete market capture.

          There is no “force” here when it’s just the “cost of doing business”.

          The EU isn’t raiding M$'s headquarters and capturing board members/C-suites. There is no “force”.

            • Saik0
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              11 month ago

              I don’t think you understand the fact that the DMA allows fines of up to 20% of a company’s global total turnover for repeated infractions.

              And how many times has that happened?

              None? Great, we’re on the same page now.

              • @[email protected]
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                51 month ago

                because no company has dared to ignore it yet. Those high fines are for repeated infractions, As in if you just pay the fine but don’t change the behaviour your fine goes up.

                • Saik0
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                  1 month ago

                  https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/news/first-fines-issued-eu-digital-markets-act

                  Yes… it’s only been 1.1 months since they’ve first issued fines under the DMA… What a long and litigated history! Definitely shows what you claim it does over it *checks notes* 2 issued fines ever.

                  Funny part is, DMA has been law since MAY 2023. So in 2 years… it issued 2 fines ever… less than 2 months ago.

                  But right! NO COMPANY EVER DARES IGNORE IT!

                  LMFAO. Right.

                  https://www.theverge.com/news/627522/apple-meta-eu-dma-antitrust-fines

                  The Financial Times reported in January that the EU was planning to soften its regulatory practices around Big Tech following an increase in pressure from the US, with the new EU Commission that took office in December reportedly being more focused on enforcing compliance than issuing hefty fines.

                  Weird… Doesn’t sound like the commission even wants to issue fines at all!

      • @[email protected]
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        21 month ago

        Microsoft is also after those juicy administrative contracts, and right now, with US-skepticism sky-rocketing everywhere in Europe, they are terrified that the EU might mandate that administrations have to use (or, at least, have to use more in the coming years) European-made software.

        Loosing those EU contracts wouldn’t just be lost money at a time where Microsoft is pumping more and more money into AI with not a single cent of profit on the horizon, it’s also leaving the door open for a competitor to gain worldwide legitimacy and challenge their monopoly in business software.

        And that is worst case scenario for them. That’s why every tech giant has been pourring billions into trying to capture the chinese market. Because where they did not succeed, another brand started taking their place.

        How would you feel if, in the coming years, a good chunk of the EU administration were to switch to Nextcloud? If, following that move, ISPs started providing those same services to end user? If more and more people switched from MS Office to other office suites that ACTUALLY follow standards and are interoperable? Would one’s reasons for staying with the MS Ecosystem in general crumble?

        And if you think that’s not possible, remeber where Yahoo was, and where they are now. In the recent Google trial, there were internal memos showing that Google was actually concerned about DuckDuckGo, and had to prepare a strategy to ripost just in case. DDG has 0.3% percent marketshare.

        All giants have clay legs, it’s just a matter of making them bend the knee :)

  • @[email protected]
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    91 month ago

    Windows users are a revenue stream, not customers. M$ views it’s users as a sort of raw material that can be processed with dark patterns for ads and subscriptions. And like everything else, Americans are treated with the most disrespect and coercion.

  • @[email protected]
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    111 month ago

    Too little too late? Some European businesses have already made the change to open source. Shit should be free to anyone doing business with it anyway.

  • @[email protected]
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    31 month ago

    IMHO modern personal computing is as bullshit as XV century tournament armor.

    Something should be done.

  • @[email protected]
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    461 month ago

    Please let them also remove all the XBox nonsense. The other day my laptop from work that runs Windows 11 Pro gave a big ass prompt if I didn’t want to try XBox Game Pass with the new Doom game. It’s basically an ad for games on a Pro machine, ridiculous.

      • @[email protected]
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        31 month ago

        Thanks for the suggestion. It’s my laptop from work, I have zero say in what software it runs, I don’t even have admin rights on it. None of my personal stuff runs Windows. But it might help other people on their own machines.

    • @[email protected]
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      171 month ago

      You know what is truly ridiculous? It’s when I installed Windows N (the version without all that bullshit), but each time I launched a game, it complained that some Xbox app was missing. When I finally said, ‘Fuck it, let’s install that crap,’ I learned that it isn’t even possible to install on that Windows edition. Yet they would still show me the error about the missing app nonetheless. Every. Single. Time.

    • @[email protected]
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      141 month ago

      You can already do that:

      Get-AppxPackage "Microsoft.XboxApp" | Remove-AppxPackage
      Get-AppxPackage "Microsoft.XboxIdentityProvider" | Remove-AppxPackage -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
      Get-AppxPackage "Microsoft.XboxSpeechToTextOverlay" | Remove-AppxPackage
      Get-AppxPackage "Microsoft.XboxGameOverlay" | Remove-AppxPackage
      Get-AppxPackage "Microsoft.XboxGamingOverlay" | Remove-AppxPackage
      Get-AppxPackage "Microsoft.Xbox.TCUI" | Remove-AppxPackage
      Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\GameBar" -Name "AutoGameModeEnabled" -Type DWord -Value 0
      Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKCU:\System\GameConfigStore" -Name "GameDVR_Enabled" -Type DWord -Value 0
      If (!(Test-Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\GameDVR")) {
      	New-Item -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\GameDVR" | Out-Null
      }
      Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\GameDVR" -Name "AllowGameDVR" -Type DWord -Value 0
      

      You’re welcome

      • @[email protected]
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        131 month ago

        That’s a ridiculous step by step guide. Let me see if I can simplify.

        Step 1: plugin your ventoy flash drive with Linux distro

              • @[email protected]
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                61 month ago

                A freedom-focused decentralized platform is naturally going to attract people who love freedom-focused decentralized software. You should learn to love that about Lemmy, lest your own misguided desires contribute to your suffering.

                • @[email protected]
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                  Oh I do love that aspect of Lemmy, I just don’t want it shoved down my throat at every opportunity. I could make a post asking for windows advice and would be met with useless comments saying install Linux.

                  I use Linux for my media server, and I love it for that.

                  I tried to use Linux as my daily driver, partly due to the comments on here making it seem seamless. It was not seamless and a lot more involved than running windows for the handful of games I like to play on it.

                  I also like honesty and I don’t believe people on here are honest about the failings of Linux as a daily driver and that annoys me.

      • @[email protected]
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        11 month ago

        Every time I see PowerShell syntax, I have this dissonance where I feel like it should be better than Unix shells, its command are surely more descriptive, still… It disgusts me for some reason. Too long, maybe?

  • @[email protected]
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    541 month ago

    Europeans have the Freedom to Uninstall SPYWARE? LoL COMMIES here in America we have TRUE FREEDOM of being FORCE FED SPYWARE with NO Other options!

    • @[email protected]
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      41 month ago

      the other option is a faster, more privacy focused, free, open source operating system.

      I made the switch a little over a year ago, I know not everybody can/wants to - but major distros are honestly polished enough these days that I haven’t looked back, I should have switched to Linux years ago.

      Not everyone will agree, but I think Ubuntu + installing apps through Flatpak is a winning option.