I stuck with 7 for an extremely long time under similar reasoning. Like I missed win 8 completely and only got 10 in maybe 2018. And only because I needed a version of directX for work that was unsupported on 7.

And it was the same shit back then. 10 was pulling a lot of the same tricks. Ads, reinstalling candy crush without permission, more bloat and antifeatures.

Eventually a combination of third party tools and understanding of how to keep the garbage at bay made 10 tolerable. And, I guess, now 10 is the semi-reliable legacy alternative to the current shitfest.

Is there a Shutup10 analogue for Windows 11? Or an LTSC? Not looking forward to having to go through that dance again. But I assume the day will come.

As a counterpoint to most of the cynicism here, this is how the company I now work for formed. Caveats include: the founder had a lot of money because he had previously worked for a big name Internet company when it was a startup, and we spend almost all of our time as contractors for other studios rather than developing in-house IP.

Every day the mask slips further

Yeah, no. You said not voting for Biden is voting for a worse situation for Palestine, which is only true in swing states. Which, I suspect, you know. I didn't change the topic; you brought up non-election years and other ballot issues.

But if you need it spelled out (we both know you don't:) if you don't live in a swing state, your vote for president doesn't matter.

Don't be deliberately dense. We're talking about electing the president, and you asked about a comparison between Biden and Trump.

If you don't live in a swing state, your vote doesn't matter.

Ngo monitor is right wing bullshit with zero credibility.

Holy fuck. 373 games. I'm very touched that so many are giving their hard work away to support this cause. Got it and added the extra payment on.

If the administration admits this, it will be legally bound by the Lahey act, which constrains military aid to countries committing human rights violations. They know how ridiculous their denials look.

I think it's fair to acknowledge that everything is a trade-off, and without downvotes, we have to accept the downsides.

I'm not sure that's true - I'm pretty sure it comes from Japanese and other Asian games like Maple Story, then it got picked up by mobile games companies as they were figuring out monetization there, especially Zynga.

There are reports that low level Nazis involved in the Holocaust drank themselves stupid wracked with guilt. Meanwhile the IDF thinks they're a bunch of comedians.

constantly screwed over by apple changing things on their platforms.

This was it for me. Like, you're going to blame valve because apple keeps pulling the carpet out from under devs and users?

What if you do end up accidentally or negligently sharing this never-to-be shared identity? What if you're unlucky enough to live somewhere where the government is one of your principal adversaries, like a Palestinian in Israel or a gay person in any number of jurisdictions? And how would you prevent the proliferation of plain ol unsigned data?

No. How about you, are you anti-abortion?

I'm not sure I follow the last "or" clause, but you can bring the criminal liability to Microsoft if you think it should attach for this reason

Lol.

As long as security updates are bundled with antifeature updates, this amounts to "install candy crush or go to jail!"

I'd be fine with what you describe in the second paragraph, but that's not what's meant by "forced." That's opt-out. Forced is what's really objectionable, especially when it's abused, as discussed in the article and elsewhere in these comments.

Even at the risk of Microsoft adding more spyware to my machine, reinstalling apps I deliberately uninstalled, reverting privacy settings I set, strongarming me into using their browser, etc? All of which has been reported.

My hardware, my choice.

Meh. You're not just talking about just making it automatic or easy or recommended, but actually forcing everyone to have to go along with it and taking away the option to not do it.