In all appearance of an ad-supported operating system is probably not that far off. This article takes a look at some of the finer points behind an OS which is financed with ad views, and more specifically the logic behind a free version of Windows which could make this a reality. There are a few issues which must be resolved first, but with Microsoft refining Windows Live and shifting some of their focus to advertising, many of the pieces seem to be falling into place. A few years ago we featured an editorial and poll on the subject here at OSNews.
The Ad-Supported Operating System
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Consumers simply love advertisements! They won’t even sit on a bus stop bench unless it has a picture of a real estate agent on it.
This idea will be absolutely huge, and the only thing that will eventually replace it is spyware-supported OS.
You would actually be surprised how “cheap” consumers can be. 😉
Edited 2006-08-04 01:38
“You would actually be surprised how “cheap” consumers can be. ;-)”
So much cheap as to use a FOSS OS?
Sometimes you _need_ Windows you know. For one reason or another. And for these people, a free, but ad-supported OS, can be a welcome option. Don’t think black and white here, Linux is not always the answer to everything.
“Sometimes you _need_ Windows you know.”
There’s no technical reason why you need Windows. It’s purely a result of their monopoly that there is certain software that only runs on Windows.
That said, I’ve been Windows free at home for about eight years now and have never needed it. I’ve got on perfectly well with the “software and devices that run on Linux”.
The fact you could need a certain OS is pretty absurd. Didn’t we once manage on DOS and Windows 3.1?
There’s no technical reason why you need Windows.
———-
Just like there is no technical reason why you need Linux or Mac OS.
Hell, there is no reason to use any OS at all if you only use well behaved apps
I disagree. I want an OS that runs on my firewall box (which has no hard drive) and which provides a decent set of firewall rules.
Linux and BSD are my only two choices on that instance, both on purely technical grounds (sadly, Windows XP is not capable of fitting on a single diskette or providing the functionality I need).
Take your gross generations and shove them. 🙂
Exactly. You just use what fits your needs. I’ve only ever run one OS on my home computer. Went from TRS-80 -> Dragon 32 -> Atari 800 -> DOS -> Windows 3.1 -> DosLinux -> Mandrake -> Ubuntu.
An operating system is general purpose, and these days you can do just about anything you want with a system. I’d hate to be stuck in a situation where I rely on 2 programs on operating system X and 3 on operating system Y.
I just thought the word “need” seemed strange in that context.
“Linux is not always the answer to everything.”
Heart pounding….vision blurry….knees weak….
Cheap-enough to only use Adware Windows after they can get a patch to remove the ads.
My feeling exactly… I don’t want to bother with adware. I’ll buy the real deal if it’s good enough, and if there’s a free alternative… tough luck. I suppose an ad-infested preview could help suck in paying users, but Microsoft already has such a large customer base (and such a shoddy reputation) that they’d probably be wasting money on “free” adware.
If something like this hits the streets, I doubt that only MS would use the idea. Google is more prone to use it on its upcoming GoogleOS, as Google’s business IS ads.
there is no upcoming googleOS.
The title on this story should be “The Ad-Supported MS Windows Operating System”.
This should be about the worst idea i have read in a long time.
“The Windows kernel would probably not need much work judging from how well some spyware/adware manages to integrate itself, though users would have to ensure at least occasional internet connectivity in order to allow Microsoft to track advertisements and make new ad units available.”
On a second thought… So many (windows) users are already using an ad-supported/infested OS, this probably wouldn’t affect them anyway…
It’s the ’90s all over again. This portends the revival of the free ad-covered car. Who knows what vast riches we’ll soon be able to get from ad tattoos. I have a great idea, let’s take novels and give them away for free, only we’ll fill 15% of the pages with advertisements suggested by Ad Sense.
Hopefully the ads are always in one part of the screen, so you can just cover it up with thick paper or something.
I would do it. Provided that the ad-based OS was better than other free OSes, which is unlikely.
Ewww! What a terrible idea! An Ad Supported OS, man someone has been sucking on the crack pipe too long.
</opinionated sarcasm>
Why would anyone tolerate an ad-supported OS when Ubuntu is completely Free and arguably more advanced that Vista?
People would have to go out their way to get a lousy computing experience.
And it is called Unpatched Windows 2000 / XP (Hell and in many cases can be fully patched 2K / XP Machines).
So now what, you get the mal / spy / ad ware installed on your computer at the time you install the operating system to keep the illusions that your computer starts to run slower when the ads start appearing at bay?
Interesting but I do not think it would occur. I think users rather use a friends copy without ads than to use a legal copy with ads. Of course it could just be me. Heck I use to love opera but could not stand the ads even for that!
Opera is ad free for long time now.
I didn’t say it wasn’t.
But I am happy with firefox now and phoenix back then so too bad opera didn’t do that years ago. Of course, either way they didn’t miss out on any revenue from me. 
that it won’t be a free operating system. Or at the very least the ads won’t be left in any free version for long. No, no. As any magazine or cable provider will tell you, you can charge people for your products, and then sell your customers to advertisers anyway.
They already tried something like this a few years ago with free PCs that were ad supported. No one wanted them, not even for free. They’ve also tried free ad supported internet, didn’t work. Now AOL is going to try that. Boggles the mind.
Edited 2006-08-04 04:14
The problem with the ad supported internet is that people found ways to block the advertisements and disable softwares functions that made it viable, such as disconnecting you when you weren’t viewing ads (at the computer). It worked very well before people started screwing the ISPs by using their free ISP but not actually viewing the advertisements. Some prevented the advertisements from loading which prevented them from earning money, while others found ways to hide them, so advertisers didn’t want to pay for the space.
The situation now is starting to repeat itself with stuff like AdBlock with people blocking ads on websites now even though its the only source of revenue for the website. They are just asking the websites to switch from providing the content for free to a subscription based model.
The situation now is starting to repeat itself with stuff like AdBlock with people blocking ads on websites now even though its the only source of revenue for the website. They are just asking the websites to switch from providing the content for free to a subscription based model.
I think the problem is not specifically that there are ads on a website, the problem is more that today ads are very agressive. It seems a lot of ad-publishers (or how you call them) finally understood that pop-ups and pop-unders are not appreciated by the ‘public’. Or well, they don’t understand that, they probably only noticed that many browsers come with a built-in pop-up disabler.
Yet, ads are still very agressive, many of them are using flash and are fighting for cpu time. You can laugh with that, but if you’re using a laptop on battery and you’re reading a news website, these flash ads will shorten your battery life. Also, if you’re having work run in the background while reading a website, it’ll take cpu time from that. Fact is, it shouldn’t use my cpu for things I don’t want.
They are also fighting for your attention, with movement, with agressive flickering or whatever. These distract you immensely from the thing you are trying to read… the thing you visited the webpage for in the first place.
Another thing is that if you look at the amount of data you download when visiting a webpage…. you’ll see that most of that data is not actual content, but ad data. So, in fact, you are paying for data you don’t want and don’t need.
Many of today’s websites are very agressive in the amount of ad content on a page. If you regularly read news websites, you know you literally have to search for the article text between the ads. Or sites like tomshardware which spread out an article over several pages, so they can serve more ads (one on each page). (I just gave up reading the latter, it’s way too annoying)
But not even that is enough. Even though it’s hard to spot the article text between the ads, someone had the bright idea to make the article text itself return ad revenue too. Oh yeah, let’s just popup an ad, when someone moves his mouse over some article words. Those article words are underlined for no reason, and it makes the article even more hard to read. Not to mention you get lots of Microsoft ads when reading an article on Linux.
I believe I should not be forced to consume all ads which websites are trying to feed me. I literally feel bombed with ads. Those articles are becoming poisoned gifts. I believe I do not have to waste my time and bandwidth on content I’m not interested in. I believe I have the right to do anything I want (for personal use) with content that’s been made publicly available. A website is content which has been made publicly available… I think I have the right to take only those things that interest me.
I’m not necessarily against a subscription based model that let’s you view webpages the way it was meant: you get the information and not the crap. The problem with that is that if each website needs a separate subscription, that it’ll be a very high cost (and a lot of time-consuming work) if you want to switch to a no-adds-web. For example, if you’re reading news sites, for example using news.google.com as a source, you’ll come across several different news sites. To which ones would you need to subscribe then? Now, suppose that with one subscription, you can access a whole range of news sites ad-free, and for a reasonable price.. then that might actually be an attractive model to a lot of people I think.
But as for now, I’m seeing the world wide web through pink glasses, as a friend once put it. It’s sad in a way, since you loose touch with the real state of websites these days. But it was just getting too much.
I wouldn’t bother with ad-filtering just because they place one or two static ad banners. That wouldn’t pay off. Now at least I’m able to read those articles.
Oh how I agree with you, mister. Exactly my sentiments.
At least in the past, the animated GIF banners were friendly enough to stop moving, when you hit the “Esc” key. Flash is too arrogant for that.
Actually, I have one more point to add. Geographical (non)locality. Based on which sites I browse, I mostly get US centric ads. Ads for US companies. Often, they don’t even ship to my country (.cz) and even if they did, postage would make their products too expensive. Google Ads is probably the only ad-serving service that delivers me Czech ads on sites written in English. Since the advertising companies pay for the ad I have seen, even though I will not buy for them (not in the next few years, I guess), they are effectively wasting money on me. So, one more reason (for me) why _not_ to look at their ads.
For the record: I do not block non-moving ads for local companies, nor do I block Google’s ads. They are text only (good), mostly relevant (good) and in the last weeks even for local companies (good).
If someone switches to subscription – tough luck. Depending on what site it is, I might pay for it, I might not.
Fact is, it shouldn’t use my cpu for things I don’t want.
Alright. If you don’t want to use the required CPU and bandwidth to visit a certain website, then I believe you don’t have to. The way to prevent using the CPU by the said website is by not visiting the website.
Another thing is that if you look at the amount of data you download when visiting a webpage…. you’ll see that most of that data is not actual content, but ad data. So, in fact, you are paying for data you don’t want and don’t need.
Even if you are paying for the ad data, that is your form of a subscription to help pay for the other end of bandwidth.
I’m not necessarily against a subscription based model that let’s you view webpages the way it was meant: you get the information and not the crap. The problem with that is that if each website needs a separate subscription, that it’ll be a very high cost (and a lot of time-consuming work) if you want to switch to a no-adds-web.
No, the webpages were meant for you to view advertisements and also get information. Its not one or the other. The owner of the website still has a very real server bill and it would be appropiate for a very high cost for removing a website’s revenue.
I run a couple of technical oriented websites and I tried not to overload users with ads, but people are blocking my 2 little text-only google-ads. While the number of visitors to my website, bandwidth usage, and server resource usage has gone up, my advertising reveneues have not. The impressions have not gone up. The click amounts have not gone up, because at the same rate that my site is growing, more and more people are blocking the ads. It now turns out that I’m losing money running a couple of the sites… I also can’t afford to pay for a server upgrade that is necessary without putting my own money towards it.
I’m faced with the decision of using more intrusive and increased ads or moving to a subscription based model.
The situation now is starting to repeat itself with stuff like AdBlock with people blocking ads on websites now even though its the only source of revenue for the website. They are just asking the websites to switch from providing the content for free to a subscription based model.
This would only become a problem if many more users were aware of and employed ad-blocking software. Since it is very unlikely that Microsoft would include such a feature with their own browser, I think we are safe for the moment.
However, it would be nice if Adblock included an option to download ads as normal, but just have them not show up on the page (rather than blocking them outright as happens now). This way, as far as the advertisers are concerned, I viewed their ad.
However, it would be nice if Adblock included an option to download ads as normal, but just have them not show up on the page (rather than blocking them outright as happens now). This way, as far as the advertisers are concerned, I viewed their ad.
And then ads will perform even worse then they already do, so the advertisers will not be willing to pay as much, so you’re not helping the problem at all. You’re just moving the problem. Plus many advertisers are now paying on a per click basis. If you don’t see the ad, you’re now using the bandwidth to download it with a 0% chance of you clicking on it.
Firefox is becoming more and more popular. On my technical oriented website, around 60% of the people are using Firefox. I estimate probably around 30% of my visitors are aware and have employed ad-blocking software. We aren’t safe, websites are suffering, its not fair that people are providing you content for free and then you won’t even view advertisements. Imagine if people did this on radio stations. You’re listening to it, they’re using the money from advertisements to pay for their radio towers, employing DJs, and a little bit of profits. If someone came up with technology to automatically scan the radio stations and find one thats not playing ads and automatically switch to it so you would NEVER hear an ad on the radio, it would be devistating to everyone, as radio selection would become more limited, ad amounts would be increased.
If you don’t like it, don’t use the radio. Go buy CDs or pay for Sirius satellite radio (not XM, they have ads now too, so I personally cancelled their service, I was paying for ad free music channels and they don’t deliver).
“And then ads will perform even worse then they already do, so the advertisers will not be willing to pay as much, so you’re not helping the problem at all. You’re just moving the problem. Plus many advertisers are now paying on a per click basis. If you don’t see the ad, you’re now using the bandwidth to download it with a 0% chance of you clicking on it.”
Okay, how about this – adblock automatically clicks on the ad for me – loads it up in a tab in the background, then automatically closes it once it’s finished loading? Everyone’s happy.
Actually, I often support sites I like by middle-clicking on their sponsers’ ads so they load in a new tab (in the background), then middle-clicking the tab to close it after a few seconds, without having to waste my time looking at it. Is that wrong?
We aren’t safe, websites are suffering, its not fair that people are providing you content for free and then you won’t even view advertisements. Imagine if people did this on radio stations.
Newsflash – they do. Look, you’re not going to make me feel bad about blocking advertisements. Your example with the radio doesn’t work – myself and everyone I know skips to the next channel when commercials come on, just like we do with television. Always have done. Maybe a gadget will come along that automates the process for me, but the end result will be the same as it always has been – me not watching/listening to/viewing adverts.
No market for such a “Windows experience”.
do you really think ad supported OSes will do that badly?
I suspect the ad supported network connections of a few years ago would have done better if they’d had someone like google driving the advertising.
er wait, google ad-based wifi is just around the corner.
“Google is more prone to use it on its upcoming GoogleOS”
Except that there is no GoogleOS.
Maybe itll look like, and be as slow as cosmopod. I used to use it, even mith the side ad bar, until it became infested with ads. I felt as if I was signing up for a “use our crippled adware server” type service. It ceased to be usefull.
It was like Juno all over again (when the CEO had one of those “more ad dollars” type trips).
Anyone remember that?
Click check email
click ad, click ad, click ad, click ad, dowload email, required new ads download, click ad, click ad, click ad, click ad, click ad.
Then you get to your messages, and they are all ads from Juno except for one that was spam, and one that was from a friend. And then you replied to that yriend, but after clicking trough some more ads, it wont send because you exceeded your download limit.
That would be the ad supported OS.
According to Joel Spolsky, the Juno CEO eventually became disgusted.
Always ads on my desktop? Or even worse, popping up all the time? No f**king way!
Better pay directly the money that would be generated by viewing ads then viewing those ads …
The ads market is about as saturated as it can get.
I never really saw the sense of ads. I mean, it’s ok to tell me “Hey, we got a new product and it can do this or that” but going on crying some silly slogans for hours and repeat the same thing after a 15 minute break is just annoying.
I NEVER bought a product because it was advertised.
Must be some sort of Jedi trick that only works on weak minds
If anyone else has beta tested any of the new “local” client applications under the Live umbrella, they’ll know exactly how Microsoft plan to introduce advertisements to the desktop.
The new Live Mail client (a re-hash of Outlook Express) has a HUGE advertisement banner, taking approximately 1/6th of the horizontal width of the screen when the application is maximised. This is a full height advertisement. It makes the client completely unusable on a 1024×768 laptop display.
The Live Messenger product still has the adverts, however they appear to have suppressed that familiar “click” noise from Internet Explorer when the advert changes.
If this is the future of the desktop operating system as used by the masses, I’m glad I have just-as-good-if-not-better free alternatives.
“You can continue writing your letter after the break…”
Whats new? Adsupported television, games, newpapers, websites… advertisement on ur belly, in the sky, on your dog, your car, not to mention shareware programs that print a banner onto your edited image.
Iam afraid it will going to work well.. unfortunately… But it will be broken eventually.
For now iam able to surf the web almost adfree, but it will be harder to ignore ads in the future.
“The situation now is starting to repeat itself with stuff like AdBlock with people blocking ads on websites now even though its the only source of revenue for the website.”
People don’t mind ads in general, people mind ads that are obtrusive, annoying, irrelevant and distracting.
For example, I do not much mind the ads on osnews since they don’t get in the way as opposed to, say, cooltechnews or tomshardware.
It’s not my problem the people making the ads cant do their job and make me interested instead of annoy me.
People don’t mind ads in general, people mind ads that are obtrusive, annoying, irrelevant and distracting.
Exactly. I don’t mind a few banners here and there but when I visit a site and a huge flash animation pops up covering the page (that I can’t seem to close for some strange reason) it quickly gets under my skin.
Can you REALLY blame people for filtering out stuff like that? It’s downright infuriating.
So what’s new, 3 minutes after install Xp is popping up ads everywhere. Why do people think others will be bothered by this it’s nothing new
I already use Windose, and every now and then, some porn pops up while I’m surfing the web or reading my mails, so yes, my Windose already has advertising
We shouldn’t be comparing an ad-based OS with ad-based web pages. I’m often willing to put up with ad-based web pages not because they’re free (though that helps), but primarily because I use the web to locate and consume information. Ads, when done properly, actually make it easier for me to locate the information I want.
Unlike most web pages, the applications that run on a desktop operating system are primarily intended for content authoring. This requires giving the user an environment that promotes an efficient workflow, supports concentrating on the activity at hand and uses all available resources (screen and processing) to give the user the best possible experience. I think that advertisements are antithetical to this and that most people that use an application for serious authoring will gladly pay for something ad-free.
I would use DOS/GEM before i would use an Ad “Supported” OS.
“However, it would be nice if Adblock included an option to download ads as normal, but just have them not show up on the page (rather than blocking them outright as happens now). This way, as far as the advertisers are concerned, I viewed their ad.”
And has also wasted your bandwidth, something that you may be paying for.
Can I get the porn ad supported version please?
What a bad idea, but worse it’s unimaginative too. How about a scheme where the consumer gets a free OS in return for giving his spare cpu cycles ala Seti@Home ? The company could then sell on this cpu time, maybe even paying back a bonus to some users that provided lots of cycles.
Ad-supported software is so “dot-bomb”, distributed computing is where the buzz is. Also it’s less annoying, less intrusive and it’s a little more 21th century.
Edited by the spell czech.
Edited 2006-08-05 14:30
searching for extraterestial live is even more waste of time than looking at advertisements