Proprietary Torment and The Just Universe
Jul. 10, 2025 [technology] [memes] [proprietary] [advertising]It’s been a while since we last checked in on the normies to see how their relationship with tech has been going. Let’s relax and take a little tour of what exciting new methods their proprietary overlords are using to rule over them.
Microsoft is charging ahead with a one-two punch. First making Microsoft online account creation and internet connectivity a hard requirement in the Windows 11 installer.
They’re now seeking to follow up by disabling a workaround which had become popular by the useds to sneakily create conventional local user accounts. 7/10, Microsoft. You left some loopholes open but you beat them nearly to submission!
Microsoft will be implementing an “AI agent” to change settings that are difficult to find on behalf of the useds. Just to reemphasize: The multitude of Windows settings menus is so vast, so inconsistent and ever-changing that they feel it necessary to build a bot that traverses their UI just to toggle simple settings. And yet, Linux is the one that is “difficult to use”.
Edge browser (Google Chrome wearing cosmetics) has been baked in as a dependency for “desktop apps” such as the Windows Store. Basically electron, but even worse. When users investigate how to remove Edge, they’re directed to dark patterns page which seeks to frighten them away from the venture.
A not so sneaky way of promoting Edge to a level of ‘importance for the functioning of the system’.
the next time you have a dozen programs open, open Task Manager and force kill all the “Edge WebView2” processes and watch some of your open programs disappear or break
Windows gamers have been whining about getting disrupted mid-game by full-screen popover ads nagging them to install Windows 11. Nice. Predicably, there are those in the comments huffing and puffing “This time I’ll do it! This time I’m going to switch to Linux! Just you watch!” Of those who actually make an attempt, how much you wanna bet they’re ♫ not going to last? ♪
This one I find hilarious. Microsoft have combined the storage space of what used to be separate email and file storage. Windows automatically backs up the used’s local files to Microsoft’s remote storage, eventually filling it. They then lock the associated email account and demand subscription tribute because all of the ’email storage’ has been consumed. Oh, Microsoft. You really do have the lobes for business.
How about promotional shortcuts that get added automatically by updates? That’s a thing now over in Windows land. Even users running enterprise versions of Windows, a strategy used by some to try feebly to avoid such abuse, report that these ads still get installed unsolicited in the background.
Yes, Tik Tok, Disney streaming and Xbox, such a professional environment. I didn’t intend to single out Microsoft, but this post is already lengthy and sifting through the brain damage at reddit is making me queasy. Anybody who has ever touched a Windows box will know that there is an endless torrent of these incursions on one’s sanity to be had.
“Why don’t they just install Linux?!” you might say. Well, let’s take a moment to remind ourselves what we’re dealing with when it comes to the average person:
Many people don’t even know which continent they inhabit. And you expect them to provision an operating system? Are you delusional?
And even if they could. Would you really want them cluttering up your favorate community distro? There is a very real competency barrier to Linux and that is not a bad thing. That is simply a sober observation. There is a large swath of the population who probably should be on the iOSes and Androids and Windows’s of the world. Forever suffering every torment conjured by their proprietary masters.