this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2023
568 points (94.7% liked)
Technology
59106 readers
4500 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
It was October Spooky when Microsoft dropped the GetWinX.exe icon on everyone's Win7 and Win8 taskbars. The first time, we all followed the directions and dove into the registry to remove it, because it wasn't enough to just delete it. The icon would self restore.
Then Microsoft reinstalled their adware in a critical security update Big Mic also started using dark patterns making upgrading opt-out, and hiding the onay anksthay toggle.
Thats when an engineer, UltimateOutsider, I think, created the GetWinX Control Panel which not only did the full remove in a wizard but also monitored on boot to see if it came back.
It was a reassuring day. I think no matter how much the companies enshittify, it will only drive pissed off engineers to write hard bypasses. It's how we got the GCP. It's how we got Windows Loader for every release since XP's activation process.
That kind of shit is why I run GNU, and so should everybody else.
You don't run gnu; you probably run Linux. In the same sense, you don't mention how you ride the tires to work but you probably mention riding a bicycle, bus or car. You go to see art, not the tools used to create it, and this is why van gogh's art is on display and not the brushes he used to such great effect.
Keep it in perspective no matter how hard the feet-picker wants to distract you.
No, I run GNU. I don't give a fuck whether the kernel is Linux or HURD, but I do care that as much of the system as possible is copyleft instead of merely permissive.
Well this whole exchange was definitely the dumbest pedantry I've seen today.
Well done.