I installed Opera and used it exclusively.
Why do people use Opera? It’s a proprietary Chrome fork owned by a Chinese company.
Perhaps for old time’s sake. It used to be using its own engine.
Yep. People have a bad habit of sticking to their habits beyond the point of usefulness. Myself included.
Chrome opera doesnt even resemble old opera. Vivadli is closer, and is led by the same guy that led old opera.
Unfortunately still closed source
There was a lot of BS advertising not long ago about it being a web browser “for gamers”, whatever that means.
Gamers are easy to market to.
they still sponsors lots of youtubers and marketing now is on tab grouping (available on most browsers), theming (which is weaker than vivaldi, and maybe zen too) and ai (all browsers can open a web chat app). but they market to people who are using edge or chrome by default, and to them, it looks fancy.
There is a good chance that this guy is a bit counter-cultural and does not want to use the obvious version of anything.
Look at the Windows mail client he tried to go with.
I love Vivaldi, which is like a spiritual improvement on Opera. I switched a few years back, and once you get used to the UI and the key shortcuts it’s just such a breeze using the internet. Magnificently customizable, very nice little extras. ALAS! Because Vivaldi is based on Opera which is based on Chromium and Google came out and started blocking or restricting addons (the implementation of Manifest v3 blocks a lot of API block requests that ad blockers rely on), I went back to Firefox. Because fuck that.
i enjoy being spyed on by china. and before the whataboutisim, i dont mind that the US or Canada spies on me.
You can also be spied on by me if you’d like to.
Just send your search queries to me.
For extra espionage, I’ll even make sure to use non-privacy respecting search engines (like Google, Yandex, Baidu) and AI for your queries.
Sounds good.
I like when they watch.
ohhh my ;)
#8 reawakened my nervousness about the lack of virus protection on Linux. With every milestone we celebrate it becomes more likely that malicious people target desktop Linux with their malware, and I don’t think the “Linux is inherently secure” mentality helps. I hope clamav’s on access scanner is fixed and improved so it becomes commonplace before there’s some big newsworthy scandal.
People were saying the exact same thing when I first started using Linux in 1999-ish
What is survivorship bias aka gambler’s fallacy?
I’m not saying Linux is immune, just that people have said that, practically word-for-word, forever.
That’s not it though. Linux doesn’t have a problem with viruses, didn’t have it before, doesn’t have it now. Predicting that it’s going to start right now 20 years in a row isn’t a good idea refardless, and pointing it out is a right thing to do.
Which doesn’t mean it couldn’t really start one day.
“I have never been hacked before. Why would it start happening now?”
No one said that though. What was said was that as more people use Linux we will see more malware. And they’ve been saying that forever.
Here is an article talking about it from 2003 https://www.theregister.com/2003/10/06/linux_vs_windows_viruses/
If I knew how to search Usenet these days I’m sure I could find something from the 90s
It’s not untrue, actually, is common sense that there will be more malware, but it implies Linux’s only advantage is security through obscurity.
People have been worrying Linux is going basically become Windows over the next couple of years for 2-3 decades now. Malware is a serious problem that Linux users should take precautions from, but it seems clear by now that what security advantages it has aren’t based on obscurity.
Granular permissioned access for apps from trusted supply chains is better than attempting deny lists based on signatures (AV).
I still use it, but I put way more effort into SLSA, securing containers, flatpaks, and limiting their blow back. From there its keeping up with CVEs in ways that do not create more or break functionality.
I will say A LOT of the Linux software ecosystem is was more secure than Window’s default.
I don’t think a Linux anti virus program would be such a big security win. Phishing is the biggest security threat to most users, and no amount of software can prevent that.
Sure, downloading and running random shit is a concern, but people in that group are a bit of a lost cause. The best solution for that is to harden the OS, prevent running executables through the GUI, or from user folders (I think SELinux could do that), disable sudo on the user account, and only allow installing Flatpaks. The security of Flathub may not be perfect, but it’s a smaller attack surface than the whole internet.
But even if you do that, an Indian call center scam is still going to manipulate your grandma into buying Amazon gift cards, so… It’s a lost cause.
… but people in that group are a bit of a lost cause.
touche. I don’t think the existence of other threats is a reason to dismiss this one. And I don’t think simply prohibiting running random executables is sufficient as it isn’t ‘most users’ who are switching to Linux. The people likely to switch to Linux are also the people likely to want to run programs that aren’t yet distributed in repos. I can imagine a scenario where the malware is hidden in a program hosted on a custom flatpak repo and requires permissions for normal operation that’d make flatseal ineffective for stopping the malware.
The ideal anti-virus in my mind would ignore programs installed from official repos and on access scan ones installed from anywhere else. It’d also keep track of critical vulnerabilities to give you a heads up about updating your system.
Why are we shouting?
Anyway, don’t waste your time with “antivirus” software. That is not how you secure a system.
Your viewer must be parsing
#8as# 8.You’re free to not ‘waste time’ with anti-virus but I prefer the peace of mind.
You need to put a backslash before the hash tag. In Markdown a # is a headet
No? There needs to be a space between on piefed and that’s how it works on github too.
https://www.markdownguide.org/basic-syntax/
Putting a space is a good practice for compatibility because different software behaves differently. But the standard doesn’t specify it per se.
As Lojcs said…
The Markdown format expects a space after whatever number of
#s you put at the start, for it to be a corresponding level header.
Due to different parsers having different types of leeways, it becomes a bit difficult to make sure stuff always matches.
e.g. I was once mistaken about the way tabs work for multi-level bullets and numbering because GitLab had more leeway. Usingdiscount, I realised where I was being wrong.The whole problem is because format doesn’t actually expects the space there, and it’s left to the interpretation of the parser
I thought the whole problem was that there was no de-facto standard and people kept on making their deviations while still calling it Markdown.
I personally like how Doxygen implements it.
Yeah. The power of MD is that it’s lightweight, versatile, and not very restrictive. You don’t need to remember a lot, and the parser is dirt easy to implement.
The negatives are that it’s not very restrictive, nobody remembers what’s what, and the parser so easy to implement, everyone and their dog has one, and they’re all slightly different
That is not how you secure a system.
Yes, but projects like Wayland which are trying to do this get shouted down.
I was almost sure Wayland had succeeded… Well except for people still stuck on Xorg because of accessibility features…
There is virus protection for Linux if you really want it (both free and paid).
They’re either targeting businesses (so obscene prices) or clamav, which is buggy
AV is a joke. Best thing is ephemerality. No persistence
Immutable, ephemerable, granularly permissioned, and encrypt EVERYTHING to enforce said permissions.
1000x better than software signature hunting
You lost me at the encryption part. How does encrypting enforce permissions?
Enforces confidentiality and integrity.
Encryption on transports protects from man in the middle and sniffing. At rest protects evil maid exploits, which for these systems is more about preventing malicious software being swapped in place of trusted software.
The same applies to encryption of links like pcie and memory with the time of transport and rest changing.
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It’s all fun and games until some asshole slips something into your trusted package manager.
Exploits are the deal pain
Yep SLSA is more than just a trusted end point. Package signatures, reproducible builds, SBOMs, signed commits and more!
Well yeah, you need to use Linux, the Linux way to make it secure.
If you are running VSCode as root after having logged into the DE as root and installing extensions willy-nilly, it won’t matter that your RHEL has SELinux installed.
“Why do people willingly use Windows?”
Because they are brainwashed into thinking it’s the easiest platform, and that any problems they encounter are because that’s just how computers are.
Sigh, please stop using that argument, it is an easy cop out, and you don’t actually help your cause by analyzing the real issue.
The real reason why people willingly use Windows is multifaceted and can be boiled down to a few points.
- It is the defacto standard. If you are going to use a desktop/laptop computer you will probably use Windows, especially at work.
- Most users know Windows in some capacity, this means that companies have an easier time finding staff than if they used something else, it wouldn’t be impossible but it would mean spending more time and money training the staff and causing them to be less productive for longer as they learn the system. This is slowly changing with the rise of web apps, chromebooks and Macs. But still, having IT support a fleet of Linux desktops/laptops when working in a non IT sector would be increadibly wasteful
- Software, like it or not, Windows has a huge amount of proprietary software dominance, organizations LOVE proprietary software and dislike FOSS for one reason. Liability. This means that they get a number to call, email to contact, a person to yell at, they can deflect complaints and seem like they are a strong decisive company by taking legal action against an external party, and not have the buck stop with themselves.
I am an IT technician, this is what I have seen in the corporate world.
By talking about “brainwashing” you remove most of the actual information that could help you figure out how Linux could be better suited for the masses, and to be frank, using a word like “brainwashing” makes the Linux community seem a bit unhinged/cultish.
Focus on facts, then you can use them to change the actual issue.
You missed reason 0:
- It is the default. Almost all computers today come with Windows. If someone clearly unknowledgeavle were to ask the salespeople in any PC store, they’d say some variation of “just use Windows”.
Microsoft managed to make sure “a PC” almost exclusively means “A computer [with Windows]”.
And they have spent a lot of effort for litterally decades to make sure most machines are as difficult as possible to use with anything but Windows.
also in most cases it’s simply the default.
Look if you’ve spent any time whatsoever interacting with clients, customers, whatever when it comes to development work for literally whatever be it software or web or mobile applications at the end of the day they all want the same thing. They want it to just work. Right out of the box, to simply work. The majority of people DO NOT want to customize their PC or online experience, they don’t want to tinker, hell these days they don’t even want to download an exe off a site - if it’s not in some kind of app store, it ain’t getting installed. They all want a thing to just work.
Windows, like it or not, provides that. They don’t want to use Linux, they don’t want to potentially have to open a terminal and type out some simple commands. Most of these people have never even opened a cmd prompt or powershell in windows in like…ever. A good chunk of people using windows don’t even know terminals exist.
I use linux, I use different distros, and I don’t blame anyone who refuses to make the transition even though they aren’t exactly enjoying their windows experience. They deal with it. Let them complain. A lot of people simply don’t have the time or even the interest to learn a new piece of tech and again I don’t blame them.
Can Linux also “just work”? sure, it can potentially but lets not kid ourselves here and lets REALLY be honest with each other. It’s not going to “just work” like Windows, for the vast majority of people, does.
For my totally tech illiterate wife, the solution was NixOS and GNOME. She struggled so bad with Windows ways of things and its UI, and how slow it was. Installed Nix and no more screaming, she does her spreadsheets for work, zoom calls and email.
Excellent points but I would argue that for the majority of users, Mint does indeed just work right out of the box. Everything that most people would need is already there.
Also, there are not much cash to swing around to incite companies to use Linux, windows and all their bs 365 crap on the other hand …
It’s wild how just a guy showing up, for free, “explaining” all the benefits of some shitty soft or process gets everyone on board super easily.
Most people have literally never heard of Linux.
Or because work requires us to
That sounds more like forced than willing to me.
No, its mostly because 99% of people dont build their own computers and because 99% of prebuilts/laptops come with Windows preinstalled. Thats literally the only reason. If all devices came with Linux preinstalled, most people would be too lazy to switch and buy a windows license. This would change the market share of Linux which would immediately cause companies to prioritize making their software run on linux. Its really just corporate inertia.
That too. But I also know a lot of people who aren’t tech-literate who refuse to consider buying anything that doesn’t come with Windows because “it’s too hard”
it’s too hard
That line is just about priorities.
Somehow they’d rather deal with MS frustrations that come from actual malice than troubleshoot Linux problems that come from devs not having enough time.Good ol’ inertia! Most people think anything but the familiar is too hard.
It’s the de facto standard for many reasons, none of them being individuals’ choices. Microsoft paid and pushed for Windows to become the default OS on pretty much all OEM hardware, they lobbied super hard to push people into using Office, they gave massive discounts on licences for corporations, big and small companies.
It has nothing to do with individual choices, it created the problem you mentioned in your comment though. People just became complacent and ignorant because of that, not the other way around.
True, that’s why I said they were brainwashed
The only real options for the average user are Mac or Windows. Linux just isn’t as user friendly, and a lot of the customization and flexibility of Linux is actually a determinant for non technical people.
I’m a technical person and I can’t stand Linux as a main driver. Love it for development and as a server, but it can be very janky for UI things.
I used windows out of concern that my university may use an application unavailable on Linux (I’m an electrical engineering major) I shouldn’t have been since even if there isn’t, I could always use bottles/wine to get the .exe file.
That’s fair. I’ve noticed that Wine’s support of non-game software can be hit or miss depending on what it is.
I’d say your case is more necessity than willingness.
Because what’s the alternative? Pay $1k+ for a disposable MacBook or suffer through making Linux work.
Don’t forget about the disposable laptops with Windows 10 that are no longer supported because Windows 11 doesn’t like their TPM or CPU!
Forget about TPM or CPU, Apple just stops supporting devices for no reason other than they’re old. If they even manage to survive that long.
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Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Brother LOL I don’t understand why you’re telling me this when you’re the one talking about TPM and CPU. Of course they don’t. I’m just pointing out why many many people choose to use Windows instead of Mac.
That said, Apple supports their phones longer than anyone else has to date.
We weren’t talking about phones. But since we are now, software support is meaningless when the hardware is completely irreparable.
So Microsoft and Google do the same stuff as Apple, but for some reason Apple’s the only one guilty of planned obsolescence?
BTW I mentioned phones because you said “devices”
So Microsoft and Google do the same stuff as Apple
They don’t. Not even close.
for some reason Apple’s the only one guilty of planned obsolescence?
Who told you that?
Sounds like someone who wants to hang onto their horse because it just works, but the mess that horses create on the road way affect everyone.
More like slaughtering a perfectly healthy horse when all it needs is new horseshoes.
My 7 year old penguin can lap most peoples horses.
Why would i want to use a new horse that comes crippled, always watches me, supports genocide, keeps putting the saddle back on that I keep telling it I don’t want to use, prevents me from riding it the way i want, and tells me my horse and assless chaps are no good every few years?
Yep, that’s the brainwashing!
What do you mean “Making Linux work?”
I know people like to joke this, but there’s plenty of “I use distro X because it works well with Nvidia gpus”, “I had to use XYZ to make the drivers for my steering wheel work” and “I use software XYZ which doesn’t quite work (fast enough) through Wine/Proton”.
Windows entire shtick is that due to its market dominance, companies will make sure their product works with Windows, hence it’s a very plug-and-play OS.
Sure, Windows does shit users don’t always want or like. But it doesn’t generally outright break things these days. And if it does, the instructions online on how to fix it are generally a bit easier to follow than those for Linux.
Linux being a bit harder to set up isn’t really Linux’ fault. And these days the chance that your distro outright works without tweaks is fairly high. But it’s not at the same level as Windows is yet.
@ChairmanMeow @Garbagio this is a fair comment. But except for gaming and some niche software (Photoshop, Cubase), I don’t think windows is really better than Linux. Nowadays you can easily use windows software via winboat or Gnome Boxes, and this works well for 50% of the windows-only software. 90% of the activities are in the browser. Many software have valid and usable alternatives. In the end, anyone could use Linux with the same easiness if just it was pre installed, at least in dual boot.
Yeah but that’s precisely the thing isn’t it: you need to know Winboat, Gnome Boxes, VMs etc… exist, you need to know how to configure it and how to use it.
I’ve installed Bazzite a while ago for my sister after my old gaming PC didn’t support W11 which I donated to her. Took 2 reinstalls because apparently it’s very easy to mess with hard drive mounting in a way that bricks the OS into an unrecoverable boot loop. Then, I needed to get her games working through Lutris, which did eventually work but updating those games then became an issue. I know how to do it, but she still has difficulty getting the steps right. Had I left it to do it herself, she would’ve been far too intimidated to even get started properly (and she’s above-average when it comes to computers). And of course 90% of computer work happens in the browser, but people are unlikely to switch if that remaining 10% doesn’t also just work out of the box.
Arguably this all isn’t Linux’ fault, but that doesn’t magic the issues away. Windows is just a lot more familiar and harder to brick beyond repair. Of course it’s less powerful and more bloated, but managing to get a Linux install to that point is often still quite hard for many people. And the average person has very little patience to make something work.
Windows doesn’t generally break things? Weird, I wonder why I’ve been having to tour my clients’ homes and having to either circumvent their arbitrary 11 requirements or install a pirated version of 10 LTSC. Must be a fluke. Besides, Microsoft is following every tech company and trying to replace actual programmers with AI, so I’m sure they’ll never fuck anything up again.
And the instructions online for how to fix things are NEVER easier. What on earth? Troubleshooting Windows for the last 15 years has meant browsing a dozen forum posts with your exact issue and getting nothing but a bunch of script-following helpdesk people taking 3 paragraphs to ultimately tell you to restart your computer. And now, on top of all that garbage, you have to sort past a bunch of generated garbage articles. Better hope someone posted your problem on Reddit and didn’t get their post deleted for whatever reason cuz there’s no way to find anything useful otherwise
Take a look where you are
I’m at home. Where are you?
I mean yeah the comment was pretty fair but what did you except saying “Linux doesn’t work” in !linux@programming.dev
I didn’t say that.
Whoever put autoplaying video with sound on that website should be executed.
The click bait headline was a clue.
you can and should globally disable autoplay in your browser settings
Me in an alternate timeline where Linux is proprietary and the defacto OS on the majority of computers:
Hello, my name is Jack Wallen, and I’m a glutton for punishment.
Bro really wants us to know hes been a bad boy 😭
Here’s my comments on it being a mostly normal user of Windows.
- Creating a local account was a pain - 100% true. I’ve done it. It’s annoying and it’s pain to remote into as well. There’s a very small set of people who care about though.
- Google Passkeys will not work - I have it working. I don’t remember it being too difficult and put the difficulty on my inability to execute it well. Saving passkeys are easy now.
- An email client that really frustrated me - what in the actual fuck. This doesn’t belong here.
- Natural scrolling is so unnatural - I don’t know what this is. It’s either that I use it and it’s natural, I don’t use it because it wasn’t turned on automatically, I used it and have change my norm to fit it
- Ads? Are you kidding me? - I’ve never noticed an ad. I don’t use the start menu often, but it’s not never. I also use Pro so they may not be there.
- Save As defaults to OneDrive? Why? - This is stupid that MS does this. I get why it works for them and I can even see the reasoning for having on by default for the average user, but ask first.
- Windows 11 uses so many resources - Yes.
- Virus and threat protection - another fail for MS. This should be a no brainer.
- Power and battery options - It does suck that it doesn’t detect that it isn’t a laptop. Pretty easy fix, but it would be better if it detected it
Three big problems if ads is becoming a thing. Three medium problems. One small, one you, and one what the fuck.
I agree that an email program is not Microsoft’s problem. However, there was a real issue there.
His point was that he knew how to easily use SSH to get around a badly behaved Linux GUI program that was monopolizing or disabling the UI. He did not know how to accomplish that on Windows.
As a Linux user, this scores points for me as it does highlight the flexibility, power, and control that Linux offers. It is also true that you have more power at the Linux command-line (even in a world with PowerShell) which is what SSH gives you access to.
That said, this article came across too much like “Windows does not work exactly like Linux and does not have all the things I love about Linux”. It also came across like a Linux expert being frustrated with a system he does not know as well.
We have had years of these kinds of articles slamming Linux when Windows people expect it to work exactly like Windows does. Those articles are dumb. We do not need to start filling the world with Linux versions of the same.
All of the stuff on this arrival is small time, first time run noise. Use it for a month and give an honest assessment of the pros and cons. What saved you time once the system was set up? What took longer? What entirely new capabilities got added to your workflow? What limitations were you just not able to overcome?
The two that I think are more systemic are OneDrive and Ads. Those are going to continue to drag on you long after the initial setup issues have faded into the background.
“I ditched Linux for Windows 11 for one day - here’s why its not a desktop for people who don’t need the features of linux”
This feels like an article for non-tech Linux users who hate Windows and want their bias confirmed.
Ok, that’s what it felt like
To me, it felt like an obvious imitation of the myriad of articles that often have someone try Linux out, shortly, and then – often with obvious not understanding or just a surface level insight – proudly and definitively stating (or, at least, subtextually implying) that Linux was interesting but clearly not ready to be a Real™ operating system, etc.
But it seems most didn’t read it as that, either.
Ah, maybe! I don’t have much experience with those kinds of article. If so, it probably nailed the tone such that I fell for it lmao
Would love to see someone who spent 30 years on Windows spend a week on Linux…oh boy…
We have seen that a lot. It often ends with an article a lot like this.
That said, many, maybe even most Linux users started Windows users first. So, not everyone writes a snarky article and goes back.
I think a Windows user that is adventurous enough to try Linux is more likely to be pragmatic and open minded about it. They can push through basic issues like the ones raised in this article to get to the real experience underneath. Many of them like what they find enough to stick around.
But we get our fair share Linux sucks articles that are not better than this one.
I hate that there is an adverisement for another article every second sentence.
Please just let me read the article in peace and put related stuff below.
HERE IS AN UNSKIPPABLE POPUP TUTORIAL FOR OUR NEW FEATURES! DID YOU KNOW ->>> ->>> ->>>
- Ads in an OS
°-°
No you have only 1 problem.
I totally misread the title 😭
That is a very deceptive title. These are problems he noticed in Windows 11, not Linux.On first glance, I understood the title as saying there were nine problems in Win11; it might be ambiguous but I don’t think it’s fair to label it as very deceptive.
It’s barely even ambiguous
It’s a very simple title, not hard to understand. I think this boils down to expectations of the title, for those who misunderstood it.
That’s how I read it first time, I don’t see how it’s misleading. I think everyone knows that Windows isn’t ready for the desktop.
I ditched A for B, and i found a few problems. Obviously the problems are with B.
That’s how I understood it, but you could read it as saying the author’s experience with Win11 revealed problems with his previous setup (i.e. Linux).
You could, but that’s obviously not the default way those sentences are to be read
The Mailbird issue isn’t really a Windows problem either.
But I’ll totally give him the OneDrive bullshit.
No, but he explained that the problem would have been easier to solve on Linux.
Not sure it would have been for a normal computer user though; I for one know how to SSH on my homeserver, but I don’t know how to do that on my desktop Linux.
It was installed in the Microsoft app store. It’s definitely their problem.
All the packages in the default Debian repos are verified. Malware that covers the screen in ads and locks up the computer (intentionally) would never make it into the Linux repos.
Sure I could see that being a Microsoft problem, but a bad app is not a Windows 11 problem.
That’s like saying nobody should use Linux because of the Shai-Hulud worm.
https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/npm-supply-chain-attack/
Shai-Hulud wasn’t installable in the the official repos
Only nine now? That’s so much better than it used to be!
When I first tried Linux (Mandrake, many years ago), I could probably come up with 9 problems in just the first hour 😆
It’s easy to find nine problems in Windows too, so this is pretty good for a free OS, IMO. It’s great to see Linux gradually become more mainstream (aside from Android and servers)
Edit: I’m a dumbass lol
The 9 problems were in Windows. He’s going from Linux to Windows. Title is a bit easy to misread.
Oops, that’s what I get for being on my phone hours after I should have gone to sleep. I’m an idiot at those hours lol
Skill issue
Indeed. I assumed that was obvious when I wrote it, but thanks for confirming.
