Did you know that pigs eat humans “far more often than people expect?” If not, surely you must have heard the important, breaking news that a priest “died” in 2016, went to Hell briefly and returned to inform the rest of us that demons like to play Rhianna’s Umbrella song over and over again. If you aren’t aware of these important news stories then maybe you haven’t been spending enough time using Windows’ search box and widgets section, which at least for me, are filled to the brim with tabloid trash headlines.
The stories come courtesy of Microsoft’s MSN content network, which syndicates content from hundreds of web publishers: some reputable, some less so. Full disclosure: Our parent company, Future Plc, has a syndication agreement with MSN and many of its sites, including Tom’s Hardware, occasionally have articles appear on the network. What’s problematic here, though, is not that MSN syndicates content but that it often pushes the equivalent of the Weekly World News table of contents right into the Windows operating system where it can be hard to avoid.
Actions have consequences. If you choose to use Windows, you choose to get fed garbage all over your operating system in the form of ads and tabloid news.
As someone who has worked on News recommendations…
Yes, “clickbait” content really receive clicks. And, yes, this should be ovious.
So, if you design a system that increases overall engagement, you’d surface a lot of low quality, low effort articles. That would be akin to stirring the sand in an aquarium.
What you actually need to do, is adding a second layer of filters that would keep the quality high, even if you lose a few points of engagement. Hence, if you don’t pair your “pCTR” model with a quality filter, you’d get this result.
(And that is what bothers me here. When I did almost the same exact thing, I would not be allowed to launch before handling these cases first).
sukru,
This has got to be one of my biggest gripes with youtube, I hate all the click bating and how much youtube is promoting it and displacing better content. And I hate the effect this has had on youtube channels…even those I otherwise enjoy have turned to clickbait tactics. This reminds me of the rise of cookie cutter SEO specialists in my industry, it hurt originality and at times I’d find myself making website usability worse to comply with the SEO company.
The inconvenient truth for me is that clickbait works for drawing in the general public, but boy do I hate how it dumbs down platforms and creators.
Alfman,
Can’t comment on YouTube.
But in general solving this problem requires spending additional effort, and sacrificing short term revenue. (Or maybe even long term, since people could only complain, but still continue using your app).
Back in the day, we did that in our project. And that brings higher product quality.
sukru,
IMHO the problem is twofold:
1) it’s way cheaper to produce at scale than quality original content.
2) it’s does just as well if not better at generating large views.
It’s created an environment where very low effort content with familiar faces, like react videos, get promoted to the top even with very little originality or content. I concede there’s no point in complaining about it because it’s optimized to generate easy money, not quality.
I’m being critical of youtube here, but I acknowledge the problem is broader than them alone, like all the coverage of Gwyneth Paltrow’ in national news.
Actions have consequences. If you choose to use Desktop Linux, you choose to lose a lot of compatibility in exchange for a little bit less junk. No thanks.
kurkosdr,
What’s the deal with this logic though? Does criticizing linux really make you more comfortable with microsoft’s direction for the windows OS? Frankly I think these kinds of us-vs-them turf battles mostly end up keeping users distracted from thinking critically about their own platforms.
“Oh so you have something bad to say about my platform? (Hard pivot and deflection) No your platform is the one that sucks”. Not only does this line of argumentation focus on things that don’t matter at all, like who gives a crap what platform someone else prefers, but it also ends up encouraging companies to treat us all like sheep.
As primarily a linux user, I take and give criticism of linux all the time. I care about the platform and I think we need to address criticism head on rather than deflect. A platform can only improve if users are honest about the shortcomings. IMHO taking pot shots at windows serves zero purpose in terms of making linux better and visa versa.
So let me ask you this: Do you think taking pot shots at linux is really the best way to respond to criticism of windows?
Thom tries to portray Windows as the OS for computer users who don’t know any better, that should be obvious by now. As if Windows doesn’t have a library of apps and games that don’t work at all on Desktop Linux, or as if Windows isn’t still the OS for graphical powerhouse desktops and laptops where all the proprietary extensions work (including things such as Nvidia OptiX and Nvidia Optimus) and where the actually good drivers from Nvidia are.
Do you think I like the various “monetization” junk that modern Windows shoves down the start menu? No. But going from that to encouraging people to ditch their OS with blanket statements such as “actions have consequences”, without bothering to consider the individual circumstances of each Windows user, is a bit smug and idiotic.
Also, there is probably some option somewhere to disable all that junk. I can’t be bothered because I am n Windows 10 currently and I have set it up with a local account, so I don’t get any of it.
In plain English, Thom is doing the good ol’ Linux zealot trolling where every annoyance of Windows is extrapolated into a reason to ditch the entire OS, without bothering to consider the individual circumstances of each Windows user. I am just calling it out.
A more reasonable thing to do is to provide a solution for the annoyance. I decided to look it up, and guess what?
https://www.whatgadget.net/how-to-remove-microsoft-news-from-taskbar/
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/how-to-remove-the-news-feed-from-my-start-menu/9f4b50aa-87a6-4996-937d-6b15b24c720d
But to do that, you have to not be a zealot that will not waste an opportunity to push users to their favorite OS (again without considering individual circumstances)
Why put all that effort in to fix a problem in a problematic platform like Windows, when you could use and own Linux instead? I’ll never understand why people put so much effort in to unsucking Windows.
It’s not actually true, I confess. I used to be one of these users. But I’ve moved on, and I recommend everyone else to do the same. Linux platforms (It’s not just one – Linux is just a kernel) are all very very good at this point. Gaming is often a better experience (faster on the same hardware, sometimes even more compatible, though yeah, sometimes less.) I get that there is some key commercial software for some people that only works on Window, but that’s increasingly not true any more.
(To directly compare – yes, you have to learn a bunch of stuff on Linux to make it work – but the same is actually true of Windows, and it’s even worse, because Windows sub-systems just aren’t very good. The only difference is that people already know Windows. It’s actually easier to learn the basics of Linux and family than it is the underlying systems in Windows, if starting from scratch, because unlike in Windows, those sub-systems on Linux are designed for real humans.)
CaptainN–,
Yeah, but “Windows” could just as easily be replaced with Linux, MacOS, BSD, etc. and still be true. It’s all kind of relative.
I migrated to linux as well, but I have to admit it wasn’t easy. There were a lot of things I still needed windows for, most of my favorite goto software was built for windows, not to mention my work was still heavily windows based. Not everything was better on linux either, it took effort. Microsoft wasn’t doing themselves any favors with FOSS developers though… in fact they were sabotaging their relationship with the FOSS community, making the windows kernel inaccessible to owners and calling FOSS a cancer. Their position was clear, and it actively drove many independent developers like me away. This was a huge strategic mistake in retrospect as the importance of FOSS continued to grow to the point where windows barely has any relevance in the server space. They’ve tried to bring us back to windows by supporting linux and improving their tooling for FOSS development, things which might have kept me from leaving windows in the first place, but it’s just not enough to rebuild trust and bring me back. Windows keeps getting worse as far as I’m concerned.
Yes, familiarity is a very important factor. All else being equal, people generally don’t want to change the tools/software/processes they know. Something might even be easier to use, but they don’t want to have to relearn how to do stuff. And sometimes there are legitimate reasons not to switch and it’s important for us to recognize this. IMHO it’s better to be on good terms with our windows using friends than to judge them. We don’t have to agree on an OS to get along 🙂
kurkosdr,
Ok, but aren’t you guilty of doing the same thing in the other direction?
Well, this is whataboutism. Sometimes these kinds of comparisons can be insightful, but it seems like your post was more about lashing out at linux than presenting something worth pondering in context of windows ads. Anyway I actually think nvidia drivers usually work fairly well on linux. In the past I’ve had numerous problems with the linux ABI breaking things, though not since nvidia has contributed an open source API layer to linux. I’m open to evidence to the contrary, but so far it’s been good for me.
That’s kind of the point. We should all raise our voices to speak out against this junk rather than be the turf war sheep they want us to be. When we’re sheep, it benefits them, and ultimately hurts us.
I can see why you’re saying that, but do you see why responding in kind creates the conditions for meaningless turf war? It’s easy to spark an us-vs-them mentality, even inadvertently, but in the end I feel this is extremely counterproductive. There’s a lot of common ground if we’re willing to look for it. If we all feel the same way about regressive developments like ads, then it’s imperative that we stay focused. The corporate goal is to use evangelicalism to divide and conquer the public, we need to be smarter and not succumb to such divisions.
Same.
This goes on in all directions. He’s got his own preferences, you’ve got yours, it’s fine. We can tone down the zealotry blame game, eh 🙂
The fact that Linus Torvalds himself refuses to support Linux with some of the software he makes thanks to being unable to get a stable ABI implementation should honestly be all that needs to be said when it comes to Linux.
You can use Windows XP era drivers in Windows 10 for older hardware if you need to with little to no effort, same goes with software. If your hardware hasn’t got some poor slob sitting in a basement keeping up with the constant breakage in Linux? Yeah…GLWT buddy. hell it doesn’t even have to be that old, Walmart over here still sells entry level laptops with Piledriver APUs and good damn luck getting those to work in Linux thanks to no hardware acceleration for older AMD hardware.
Frankly from what I’ve seen with Linux its “Team Blue or FU” which if you want to wave a team Intel flag? You are free to do so, but with Windows I have no problem getting AMD iGPUs going back to socket AM1 to work, not had any luck with any popular distro. And please don’t say “Distro X supports those” because I’ve found that their idea of “supporting” is “You get a VESA output with no hardware acceleration”…yeah that ain’t support.
When I don’t need a coder to slavishly work just to get my damn drivers functional in the latest version of Linux? Then and ONLY then will I say Linux is at least equal to Windows, but until then I’m sorry but if your OS can’t even manage to have what Windows had 23 years ago? That is just sad.
bassbeast,
There have been lots of hardware incompatibilities following upgrades from window xp and the fact of the matter is there have been many windows driver breakages since 23 years ago: capture cards, video cards, printers, scanners, I even had an incompatible mouse, etc. Far be it from being the exception to the rule, broken compatibility was a common complaint for those upgrading to windows vista/7. Windows 10 upgrades did go more smoothly in general but even so I’ve not had a single major windows OS upgrade where something didn’t stop working. It is what it is, users have to get over it and move on, but it does highlight a degree of hypocrisy some windows users exhibit in snubbing other operating systems.
You keep repeating this story over and over and over again as though it’s insightful, but it’s not. It’s gotten extremely boring. I’m sorry you’ve had this experience, really, but sourcing known compatible hardware is and has always been important when it comes to all alternative operating systems. You don’t want to be using hardware with bad driver support, that’s not anybody’s idea of a good time. That said, you need to learn how to select appropriate hardware and move on. Millions of people are using linux productively today. Like them you can learn to run linux on supported hardware, or you can choose to never touch linux again because it’s just not for you. Either way is fine, but it’s quite evident that your continuous stream of anti-linux rants stem more from your desire to create drama than to represent linux fairly.
No, not by a long shot, not even on 32-bit versions of Windows Vista and above. I know because I’ve lost Windows XP-era hardware in the transition to Windows Vista (despite the fact my version of Vista was 32-bit), including a tv tuner (the name of the hardware is AVerMedia AVerTV USB 2.0 Plus, the manufacturer themselves has ruled out providing a 32-bit or 64-bit Vista driver) and an HP laser printer (which despite the fact it gets recognized as a “dot4” printer, it doesn’t work). Even Microsoft doesn’t guarantee driver compatibility between Windows NT 5.x and Windows 6.x, so saying that Windows XP drivers work on Vista and above requires some heavy cherry-picking.
Windows 10 has its own share of breakages though, because sometimes Windows 10 and 11 will block drivers for Windows 7 and 8.1 in order to force you to upgrade to new ones, but without the OS upgrading the drivers itself (genius!). I have so far encountered this problem on a RealTek PCI-E card reader (google “VEN_10EC&DEV_5209 code 48” for the gory details) when upgrading from Windows 8.1 to 10, and my sister had non-functional WiFi after she was force-upgraded from Windows 10 to Windows 11 (google “intel wi-fi 6 ax201 code 10” for the gory details). Both issues were not easy to resolve. The RealTek PCI-E card reader issue required downloading a Lenovo driver for my Dell system, and the WiFi driver issue on my sister’s laptop required instructing her to download the Intel driver to her phone and then copy it over USB to the laptop, because the laptop had literally no way to connect to the internet (it was a Zenbook without an ethernet port, not that my sister has the necessary cable anyways).
BTW if this happens to you, here is the Intel driver:
https://www.intel.co.uk/content/www/uk/en/download/19351/windows-10-and-windows-11-wi-fi-drivers-for-intel-wireless-adapters.html
And here is the Realtek PCI-E card reader driver (for the above VEN and DEV):
https://support.lenovo.com/gb/en/downloads/ds103572-realtek-media-card-reader-rts5209-for-windows-10-32-bit64-bit-thinkpad-edge-e330-e335-l330 (filename is h3q201ww.exe)
I am sharing those links because these are components that have found their way into tons of PCs, not obscure hardware.
Long story short, Windows now has all the problems of macOS (where older systems will be arbitrarily cut off based on the CPU), but without the macOS guarantee that if the system is supported, it’s supported, period. Still better than Desktop Linux where your driver may have been coded by who-knows, but not by much.
Which brings me to my point: If you can get a Mac, get a Mac. You will get a high-quality integrated supported product that will be upgraded from the manufacturer for an X period of time, unlike Windows where the OS vendor will drop major upgrades without giving a rat’s ass about drivers (aka about integration issues with the system) and go “lalala” afterwards if a problem occurs (or spam you with nonsensical canned replies in Microsoft Answers, which is even worse). The Steam Deck also gets an honorable mention (if it fits your needs), because again, it’s neatly integrated with someone caring if the upgrades go well.
@alfman
Sorry for saying a couple of months ago that Windows 10 doesn’t break signed drivers for Windows Vista and above, as you can probably guess, I’ve learned the hard way this isn’t true.
kurkosdr,
Nah, no apology needed, you were going with the information you had. I learned stuff that day as well so it was quite a productive discussion. Thank you for having the integrity to say it though because I feel that some people would rather block the facts than change their conclusion.
The idea that old hardware is better supported by newer versions of Windows is so ridiculous, I don’t know where to start. In my experience, I can use all sorts of older hardware on Linux, just by finding the right packages (often this is automatic). 100% of the time? No. But it’s the same on Windows, or worse. On Windows often the only recourse is to find some binary package on some random archive website. Skeevy. This is just not a defensible claim.
And I agree with some others on here. From a pure product perspective, it’s hard to argue against macOS, especially since they’ve finally cleaned up their laptops and ship a functional keyboard! (Also, M1s are amazing power sippers.) I won’t claim they are affordable though… My main workstation (provided by my employer) is a mac. I probably wouldn’t use one if I had to shell out for it, even though I do really like the thing. (I’d probably wait for the upcoming large Framework!)
For completeness, for my main gaming machine is Linux all the way (okay, it’s a Steam Deck). My phone runs Linux (kind of, it’s Android). My old Yoga laptop still uses Windows, but that’s mostly because my son uses it as a drawing tablet, but I ran Linux (Pop!_OS) on there when it was my daily driver. My home assistant server runs Linux (as do likely, most of the smart devices it controls). Router and APs are Linux. WebOS TV and Rokus are Linux. Nintendo Switch and PS4 are FreeBSD, how about that? Eventually, I’ll migrate my main TV gaming PC to run some variant of Linux too – but for now, Windows is still required for HDR (see other comments about the limitations I’ve run in to with that). Mostly I can’t wait to finally be rid of Windows on everything. I did make the mistake of letting my kids use Windows, and they are kind of stuck on it now (there may be hope for my son though!) Every time their machines need something, it’s a reminder – Windows is unreliable. Every time – and I mean, literally every time, I try to play a game on my old laptop, it’s 2 and half hours of tinkering to get the game to work. Every time… (on Steam Deck, it always works, and I put all sorts of custom software on that thing, including Emudeck, with all my games, which I dumped myself, and Heroic, and a bunch of decomps I compiled on the Deck, like zelda3, Ship of the Harkinian and OpenGOAL.) The ladies in the house do all prefer iOS to Android.
For historical context – yes I’m that old – I’ve been using Windows since 1993, and used it as a primary platform for nearly 20 years. It’s not that I haven’t used Windows. It’s that I have, and I regret it. So much wasted time keeping that thing working.
Desktop Linux has that other big problem though, the problem of “a bunch of volunteers coded drivers for my device and now the manufacturer of the device has washed their hands off” (since Desktop Linux users will now buy the product anyway and the manufacturer sees no reason to invest in writing any first-party drivers for the Linux kernel).
This is my problem with Desktop Linux: You never know who coded your drivers. Instead, in Windows, the manufacturer has a strong business interest in writing good drivers, because it’s where 90+% of their users are. And the product will be judged on how well it performs under Windows (see how often drivers are mentioned when discussing Nvidia or AMD GPUs). So, Microsoft has an entire industry supporting their OS with manufacturer-authored WHQL-certified drivers.
Of course, none of the above is great. If a user has to deal with drivers, the user experience has failed. It’s one of the things that keep users into MacOS: In MacOS, a given laptop is either supported by first-party drivers (already integrated into the OS) or it’s not. Period. There is no scavenger hunt. And USB devices have to use standardised interfaces (since the OS heavily discourages third-party drivers), so US devices don’t need drivers either. It’s why people are willing to pay a ton of money for MacOS despite the fact it objectively has the narrowest hardware support in existence.
This is Desktop Linux’s big mistake: It tries to chase Microsoft’s sinking ship of “let’s try to support every hardware under the sun”, when Apple has shown everyone that a really good experience is achieved by “let’s support a dozen laptops but let’s do it well”. Which is what the Steam Deck does btw.
so US devices = so USB devices
kurkosdr,
Yes, it’s clear that many manufacturers don’t support linux drivers. and this has been a big gripe for decades. By all accounts this sucks and the barriers to entry are unfortunate. But on the other hand, once a driver is created by the FOSS community and added to mainline, I find that linux drivers can actually have better long term support than windows drivers. Because on windows, many manufactures don’t give a crap about maintaining drivers for EOL hardware. They actually want us to throw old working hardware away; neglected software & drivers are a desirable “feature” for them. I know this is going to be controversial, but assuming one can stick to only using hardware with FOSS drivers, I would actually would give the overall win to linux over windows despite the problem of manufacture support.
Maybe, but this allure of macos is highly subjective, I personally don’t find it very attractive. Although Apple’s ARM CPUs seem great for portable consumer devices, the total package includes several cons that aren’t easily solved. The OS isn’t to my taste and cannot easily be converted to FOSS operating systems. Apple hardware is rather lacking in the GPU department. They have an inferior platform for GPGPU/AI development especially now that they’ve discontinued support for eGPUs. Apple is notorious for vendor locking and DRM to make sure users struggle to upgrade and repair their own hardware…ugh! As someone who’s upgraded my own PC all my life, I find this a bridge too far. Apple are very hostile to owner rights and regressive on the ewaste front.
Don’t get me wrong, the rest of the industry leaves a lot to be desired, but apple products are well below average in terms of upgradability. I feel very strongly about consumers deserving computers/tech that are easy to fix and upgrade, Honestly apple would be in a great position to lead by example as a champion for openness and consumer rights if they so wanted to, sadly though they’ve been corrupted by the pursuit of money. Not only aren’t apple neutral, their lobbying and pressure over the years has been the polar opposite of what I value 🙁
I didn’t bring up Linux.
You did.
You clearly implied it though. Where are all those Windows users supposed to go to avoid the “consequences” of using Windows? BeOS?
@kurkosdr This is a site call “OS News” – “Where are all those Windows users supposed to go” – literally anywhere – and EVERYWHERE! There are so many options. I’d recommend trying a lot of them, and learning more about different Operating Systems. Especially if you are going to comment on a site called “OS News”. I mean, what are you here for?
That and they need to respect the default browser settings and not open Edge when you click the news or do a search from the start menu.
Actions have consequences. If you choose to use desktop Linux, you don’t get to complain about things that do not work on desktop Linux.
Actions have consequences. If you choose not to read the existing comments before entering a new one, you don’t get to complain when people don’t take you seriously.
Logically shouldn’t you have less advertising on a paid service? Typically free products and services are the ones full of ads, not the premium ones. Windows users put up with it, so it will only get worse. Microsoft can take your money for the OS then make more money from ads like the cable companies do.
kepta,
I agree with you, but…microsoft is doing this because they can AND because their users are mostly not pushing back on it. The cable company metaphor is apt and I think is a good prediction for where things are headed. Microsoft has been testing the waters for years, adding more advertising & tracking hooks into the OS and applications and seeing what they can get away with. If they can generate more profits with more ads, then it’s more likely than not that more is coming.
Alfman,
And let’s not forget, Windows has been free for a long while. At least since version 7 or 8, there has been a free upgrade path. That makes it 10 years or more.
OEM and enterprise licenses are still there, but consumer is effectively gone.
The way they want to monetize is now a combination of: ads, app store, tie-ins (news, edge, shopping, etc), and of course keeping the consumers in the ecosystem, hoping they would become enterprise customers.
So, this fits the model very well, even though many of us still assume personal edition Windows is a premium product.
sukru,
(my emphasis).
I nitpick the wording because windows itself is not free, only the upgrades are. (and as stated in other posts, some of us don’t actually want to “upgrade” because of anti-features).
I’d add planned obsolescence as another monetization strategy. Microsoft dropped support for many CPUs and motherboards in windows 11, even some that were relatively recent. It means that eventually when windows 10 is EOL, many owners will end up having to buy new windows licenses to upgrade. (I’m aware that there are technical hacks to work around this today, but I’m talking about microsoft’s intended policy).
Well, I’m with kepta on this, if windows were genuinely free then I’d understand why ads were necessary. But it still seems disappointing for users who are paying for the OS, like a big money grab. I predict windows will follow the path of cable TV, expensive and ads everywhere.
It does. Now I see clickbait in google feeds. Never on windows. Now I am sure it is there. But what options are people choosing. Is this just a “home” edition thing? I had home on my laptop until I upgraded it to pro so I could have control over bitlocker. (was an old whatever key, it was free, same for many other installs, possibly even the same key TBF).
It is about not turning the widgets off for the first thing.
A trashy article, complaining about trashy articles.
Fascinating turn in the cycle of lack of self awareness.
A lot like Facebook then? Except we don’t pay to use Facebook; it’s scandalous that an OS we pay for does this (even if it’s included in the price of a computer, but so are most commercial operating systems and they don’t spam you).
My FB is full of crappy, poorly researched stories from British local media websites, often plainly written by people who’ve never been to the area because they don’t know basic facts. I wrote a bit about this a few weeks ago: What use is Manston? A geography lesson for corporate ‘local’ media
“News” and advertisements should not be a part of or have anything to do with an OS at all. But I guess when you’re living in times where you can’t use god damn seat heaters in a car you own (if you can call it ownership anymore) unless you subscribe to it as a service, it’s no surprise. I swear there’s no bottom to the crap people will tolerate.
friedchicken,
Windows now comes in many forms, and tablets is one viable target.
Yes, on the desktop “news” is probably not the best integration. But for other use cases it might be legitimate.
And, again, yes I am sure people would more than tolerate. Non-OSNews users, could actually be liking this feature.
“News”, regardless of the platform, does not belong in the OS. At best you could argue it’s legitimacy as an optional service but certainly not a core function. The mentality that everything needs to be integrated into an OS is exactly how you wind up with a big steaming pile of crap. Leave news where it belongs, consumed at websites, apps, or playable content.
In the Netherlands I have seen Windows 10 show news from the right-wing De Telegraaf which is known to certainly stretch the truth a lot (essentially stating falsehoods regularly enough). Imagine having the untruth news from Fox News be primarily shown in the US inside Windows. I think this feature is quite dangerous.
It’s not that people will use Windows that bewilders me. It’s that they actively work to try and improve it, rather than the more sensible activity of trying to improve Linux, an operating system they can actually own. Why do people stay on Windows?
(For me, the only blocking feature is HDR support – after that ships, good bye forever to Windows!)
Also, it’s not like things are all ducks and roses on Windows when it comes to HDR and color profiles. It’s really ONLY useful for select monitors and TVs, and mostly just for media consumption (games and video apps). macOS is about 100x better at color profile handling and HDR support (and surprising, supports more hardware, by just following the specs, unlike Windows). I could get in to it, but managing color profiles outside of constrained hardware partner profiles, is just not a great experience on Windows (in many cases, it’s just not even possible to get it working right). But from what I can tell, many Windows users actually LIKE the over saturated GUI, so there’s that… (But again, if you like that, you can achieve that very very easily on Linux, even after they ship the color profile work that’s been ongoing – and it is looking like the right way to do it. Very exciting.)
It’s a bit ironic your website promotes articles like this one while at the same time having enabled by default “Legitimate interest” cookies. There is no such thing as **Legitimate interest** in privacy. Period.
Not to mention that it’s not allowed by the GDPR (even though many websites like yours try to squeeze them in).
FYI: your website has been reported to several organizations which monitor this behaveaur. It takes time but they will get to you at some point.
Damnshock,
I’ve got no issue with you taking a stand against tracking cookies, but there’s a pretty big difference between having ads and tracking on the websites you visit versus having those things built into your computer’s operating system.
I don’t speak for osnews, but most sites are not compliant and never will be. Despite GDPR’s verbiage claiming that protections apply world wide, the EU’s legal jurisdiction ends at it’s borders. In the exact same way that say china cannot enforce chinese laws outside of china, the EU cannot enforce EU laws outside the EU.
On a moral level, I will agree privacy is worth protecting, but all that GDPR compliance has done in practice is to litter websites with GDPR popups for website owners to cover their ass without really changing their behavior. Considering all this I think it’s best to assume any data you send to websites is not private and use a blocker to block 3rd party trackers. IMHO this is a lot more effective than placing faith in GDPR.