It’s a nightmare scenario for Microsoft. The headlining feature of its new Copilot+ PC initiative, which is supposed to drive millions of PC sales over the next couple of years, is under significant fire for being what many say is a major breach of privacy and security on Windows. That feature in question is Windows Recall, a new AI tool designed to remember everything you do on Windows. The feature that we never asked and never wanted it.
Microsoft, has done a lot to degrade the Windows user experience over the last few years. Everything from obtrusive advertisements to full-screen popups, ignoring app defaults, forcing a Microsoft Account, and more have eroded the trust relationship between Windows users and Microsoft.
It’s no surprise that users are already assuming that Microsoft will eventually end up collecting that data and using it to shape advertisements for you. That really would be a huge invasion of privacy, and people fully expect Microsoft to do it, and it’s those bad Windows practices that have led people to this conclusion.
I wish Linux weren’t completely fucking impenetrable for casual users.
It’s gotten a lot better over the years
When I first tried it (back in 2010) it was pretty rough all around but after trying it again recently due to the whole TPM requirement for Windows 11 I’ve found it to be really straight forward
Linux Mint is really user friendly and is what I’ve even put on my grandma’s pc
Your grandma probably hates the fact that you did though. There’s a small chance that’s not the case but I’d be shocked if she hadn’t complained about it many times to other people.
People in my family are straight forward and blunt with their opinions and how they feel about things. She did mention it was weird looking but she was willing to try it out because her system was going to be insecure before the end of next year.
She’s had no complaints so far in the last few months.
I think it is pretty grandma-proof; less is more. Windows xp-like start menu with no web results or other nonsense there, just internet button, picture viewer, and solitaire. Updates can be automated and there’s no easy way to break the ui, like accidentally removing the task bar.
Exactly what I was thinking when I installed it for her
I was even able to give her Space Cadet Pinball back (she was a big fan back in the day and still kills it)
Link to the Flatpak BTW
Man, your grandma is cool.
Only sometimes unfortunately
As long as anything political or related to religion is avoided she’s mostly fine
It isn’t impenetrable. ChromeOS and Android are Linux based after all. If you don’t want to be prayed upon by Google you can use things like UBlue (inc. Aurora, Bazzite), PopOS, or Mint.
The advantage of PopOS and UBlue being you can download an image with Nvidia drives pre installed.
PopOS is a very mac like interface so you might not like it. Otherwise it’s pretty much install and go, has good community support, and even comes pre installed on some high end machines.
In the case of UBlue they include images for specific manufacturers of laptops like ASUS, Framework, and Microsoft surface. You also get fully automatic atomic upgrades with rollback in case of failure, similar to Chrome OS. This means even if you do something very stupid like reboot in the middle of an OS update, it won’t matter. It’s engineered to be almost unbreakable even for new Linux users thanks to being partly immutable. You get a choice as well between varieties for normal users called Aurora, one of gamers called Bazzite, a development one called Bluefin, and a server version too. Being based on Fedora it’s also reasonably up to date as well, but without sacrificing stability like Arch does.
Linux Mint is the classic easy to use Linux that runs on most computers made in the last 10 years and often older. It does sometimes struggle on newer machines with drivers though as it’s not using an up to date kernel. What it’s good for is that it pretty much just works when you have it installed and set up. It’s popular so you should get plenty of community support. It’s a quite similar interface to Windows while arguably looking better and definitely using less resources.
It’s just a little different nowadays. Like the other user said, they just don’t know they have a choice or what to choose and follow whatever they know…
And what was one of the early bolsheviks’ regime strongest points? They created schools and made people literate en masse, and did it with their own curriculum. People became less suspective to ex elites and religious propaganda, and became their target audience.
Adobe, Google, MS give discounts and special programs for education because this way people get used to their products. Many local organizations that touch these casual users don’t have a real IT department and just flow with what’s given, they don’t make an informed choice like corporations. And that’s probably the place where this switch may even start to begin. A class of students who started with e.g. KDE Plasma would be used to it more than they used to Windows, same with other software. They can already do their homework and play most games. What else do they need?
The sharp corner is to find money to fund select schools to show others it’s not scary and makes it even cheaper for them in the long run, maybe some special troubleshooting team to teach them the ropes. I’ve heard from some users there and on reddit that their computer classes with a geeky teacher who installed Linux is how they’ve rolled in without a problem.