Windows 11 Will Soon Block All Default Browser Workarounds

Not a point worth arguing, as someone will make out like 99% of all PC users absolutely 'need' MS Office, the Adobe Suite, and the latest and greatest gaming title with client side DRM/anticheat that isn't far off Malware.

The reality is far from what many people have been conditioned from primary school to believe. There's a reason why MS Office and the Adobe suite is literally given away to students, and it's not because the companies in question have the best interests of the children at heart.

It's a circle of consumerism.
When the business world is built on it, you can either learn it, or have a hell of a time doing the jobs that make real money. Call it successful marketing or evil monopoly- you have the world you have, not the world you want. Fighting Microsoft’s complete integration of the business process isn’t worth the time to me- I just use the stuff.
 
No, not really. Yeah if you want to work in the corporate world, you have to play by their rules. But there are other options.

For example, if you work for yourself or freelance, you can use whatever tools you want. If you start your own company, you can standardize on Linux and FOSS and just tell all your employees that is the deal.

I agree that Office is a good program, but I use LibreOffice and it works well enough. Maybe not perfect, but you can export PDF files that will work on anything (it gets more complex for collaboration). Or use the G-Suite, which is also good and better than Office for sharing anyhow.

For Adobe, yeah, they have a stranglehold. GIMP is just not as good as Photoshop, though for simple stuff most people do (like cropping images, color correction, etc.) it works fine. And for Autodesk 3D apps, I find Blender to actually be better in a lot of ways. So there are other options.
 
When the business world is built on it, you can either learn it, or have a hell of a time doing the jobs that make real money. Call it successful marketing or evil monopoly- you have the world you have, not the world you want. Fighting Microsoft’s complete integration of the business process isn’t worth the time to me- I just use the stuff.
The problem is, there's no reason the business world needs to be built on it. Most of the time the only reason most businesses run Windows environments is because it's all the IT department can handle. Bringing us back to the reason why no proprietary product should be forced on children in school.

Very few people 'need' the Adobe CC and everything it offers. I'd go as far as to state most people don't need the Adobe CC at all. As for MS Office, well it's the worlds least compatible with open ISO standards office suite marketed as the most compatible.
 
The problem is, there's no reason the business world needs to be built on it. Most of the time the only reason most businesses run Windows environments is because it's all the IT department can handle. Bringing us back to the reason why no proprietary product should be forced on children in school.
So you don’t teach the children, and then they find themselves lacking the skills needed to succeed with the tools in use. Chicken and the egg; to convert - you have to get all of it. So far, that’s never worked- especially since the open source solutions are not at feature parity.
Very few people 'need' the Adobe CC and everything it offers. I'd go as far as to state most people don't need the Adobe CC at all. As for MS Office, well it's the worlds least compatible with open ISO standards office suite marketed as the most compatible.
People always say this. You know what matters? Compatibility with the people you’re sharing data with. Those people use MS Office. For better or worse. So the standard is pretty meaningless when the product selected doesn’t care about it, but the business outcome is achieved. If I can share the data and files I need to, and people can read them, then the job is done. Doesn’t matter how you got there except to folks arguing about it in discussion boards and in the standards office.
 
Well instead of teaching MS Office in school, maybe they teach kids about how computers and digital interfaces work, so they can use any program.

I can download some new app I've never heard of before and be up and running and proficient in maybe 2 or 3 days. I can switch operating systems at will, I've used Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, ChromeOS, whatever, it's no problem.

If they taught kids computer fundamentals and how to think for themselves, they would have no problems switching OSes and programs in a few days.
 
Well instead of teaching MS Office in school, maybe they teach kids about how computers and digital interfaces work, so they can use any program.
most dont do any of that now, you use what you have on your device, or whatever is available on loan. they arent force into ms. in my old district it was everything, including the oddball kid with his own linux setup, they were the pitas...
not that thats on topic or that the topic is even an issue or true yet....
 
So you don’t teach the children, and then they find themselves lacking the skills needed to succeed with the tools in use. Chicken and the egg; to convert - you have to get all of it. So far, that’s never worked- especially since the open source solutions are not at feature parity.
Not at all. If they need to learn additional skills regarding proprietary solutions, they can do so at a tertiary level where their minds are matured enough not to be influenced - Because this is what it's all about, get them hooked while they're young. Computing didn't start with Microsoft and Adobe.

People always say this. You know what matters? Compatibility with the people you’re sharing data with. Those people use MS Office. For better or worse. So the standard is pretty meaningless when the product selected doesn’t care about it, but the business outcome is achieved. If I can share the data and files I need to, and people can read them, then the job is done. Doesn’t matter how you got there except to folks arguing about it in discussion boards and in the standards office.
And I run my business every day using a combination of KDE Neon, Libre Office, Thunderbird with the Lightning calendar addon and Insync. Nearly every PC user out there can do what they need to do without the need for proprietary products. Corporate USA are the ones creating compatibility issues; as stated, MS Office is the worlds least compatible with open ISO standards office suite marketed as the most compatible.

In my experience, people making sweeping statements regarding the Linux desktop and feature parity are fairly inexperienced with the Linux desktop in daily usage - This is where you claim you're not (and I fail to believe you).
 
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most dont do any of that now, you use what you have on your device, or whatever is available on loan. they arent force into ms. in my old district it was everything, including the oddball kid with his own linux setup, they were the pitas...
not that thats on topic or that the topic is even an issue or true yet....
We have things like the Pi400 literally designed as affordable educational devices, this is what kids should be using at school. Laptops, Chromebooks and especially Apple devices are quite simply too expensive and fragile.

Bust a Pi400? Buy another for three tenths of bugger all and stuff the SD card into it. All the school needs to provide is the monitor and the WiFi connection. And before you state that you can't perform daily tasks on a Pi400, I encourage you to take a look at my sig.
 
We have things like the Pi400 literally designed as affordable educational devices, this is what kids should be using at school. Laptops, Chromebooks and especially Apple devices are quite simply too expensive and fragile.

Bust a Pi400? Buy another for three tenths of bugger all and stuff the SD card into it. All the school needs to provide is the monitor and the WiFi connection. And before you state that you can't perform daily tasks on a Pi400, I encourage you to take a look at my sig.
cool story bro.
when i said a everything i meant it. several schools had them, they were ok for web based stuff but lacked app/program support and this is still way off topic.
 
Yeah a Pi400 would make a lot more sense for students, at least in the younger grades. Some specialized classes might need more power, for example graphic design or 3D modeling, but I think for basic stuff it would be more than enough.
 
So they lacked MS Office and Adobe products?

This is just discussion, there's no need to get nasty.
and educational apps, ipp communication apps, music class apps. there is way more to it then what youre hung up on.
lol ok...
still off topic. im done, before my warnings add up to a vacay.
 
and educational apps, ipp communication apps, music class apps. there is way more to it then what youre hung up on.
lol ok...
still off topic. im done, before my warnings add up to a vacay.
I use a number of Windows packages on my Pi400, they run really well using a combination of Box86 and PiApps. I'm not hung up on anything, the fact remains that you wouldn't sell vape solution at the school cafeteria, in the same sense you shouldn't be selling proprietary solutions, especially to primary school children.

Besides, there's alternative solutions to the situations you're describing that are more than adequate. Our children should be taught to think outside the square as opposed to being trapped in an ecosystem; and that's the crux of this thread - Microsoft doing their best to lock users into an ecosystem. Discussion isn't off topic, there's simply a vastness of grey here - Rarely is everything black and white.
 
Not at all. If they need to learn additional skills regarding proprietary solutions, they can do so at a tertiary level where their minds are matured enough not to be influenced - Because this is what it's all about, get them hooked while they're young. Computing didn't start with Microsoft and Adobe.
No, but that’s where it is. Someone will teach people those skills and arguably they’ll be better prepared as a result.
And I run my business every day using a combination of KDE Neon, Libre Office, Thunderbird with the Lightning calendar addon and Insync. Nearly every PC user out there can do what they need to do without the need for proprietary products. Corporate USA are the ones creating compatibility issues; as stated, MS Office is the worlds least compatible with open ISO standards office suite marketed as the most compatible.
And how large is your business? How many schedules are you coordinating with lightning? Last I checked lightning can’t handle available/unavailable between multiple folks, especially across organizations. I stopped fiddling with it a few years ago and use Proton mail (which, for better or worse, is just the web client for outlook wrapped in an app).

As for office- all it needs to be compatible with is itself. I don’t have a single business I work with, most of which are in the Fortune 500, that aren’t using Microsoft office.

I’ll give you the same challenge I give anyone else. Show me how, using open source software, to have 6 people editing the same presentation or spreadsheet simultaneously. All users must be able to see all other users changes, in real-time, preferably with tagging so you can see who did what. Each user has their own redo/undo tree independent from all other users, and cannot affect other users unless they’ve both edited the same section.

It’s not about one person doing work. Office won because it enabled collaboration. The only way I’ve found to do this in linux is using Teams, which is proprietary, and the online versions of their tools (ugh). Google suite can do the edits and sharing, but sucks at exporting and archival and doc management beyond a single thread of edits. I wish it worked- but this is what Microsoft does, and I can either complain, be ineffective at my job, or just use the tool. Which everyone else uses.

Corporate America runs on money. Office delivers an outcome.
In my experience, people making sweeping statements regarding the Linux desktop and feature parity are fairly inexperienced with the Linux desktop in daily usage - This is where you claim you're not (and I fail to believe you).
Been using it since Redhat 5.4 (5.2 plus patches and addons from the local LUG) in 1999. Had contributions to the winmodem crap stack back then as it was the only hardware I could afford (thank god when I finally got my USR modem with real hardware!). Current linux box is a 10980XE on x299 with (sadly) nvidia, as I had to RMA the 6800xt I was going to use. I also wrote a good pile of the docs on using SSSD and horizon for linux VDI for my prior company and two of my prior customers. Have 4 open source boxes in the house (one BSD, two linux servers, one linux desktop) to two dedicated windows boxes. Most are running Ubuntu 20.04 as I don’t have time to fiddle and it delivers an outcome. I run steam happily and game on my linux box, and short of hating GIMP with a passion (someone needs to hire that team a UI designer), do everything I can on open source. But I also have to either use published apps or wine to run office, because whether I like it or not, that’s what the world uses, and I understand why. That’s what my customers use. That’s what my company uses. That’s what all the folks we interact with use (94% of the Fortune 500). So…. I use it. I like LibreOffice. I’d use it if I could. But I can’t. It can’t do what I or my team need it to do. Standards don’t come into the discussion. Features and compatibility with the folks we interact with do.

Edit; fixed date and version. Was thinking of a different thing.
 
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So it's not really off-topic, though. The original article was about Microsoft blocking default browsers on Windows, which was misleading, it is really about Microsoft blocking circumvention to their special Edge links, that they are forcing users to use.

However, the core of this issue is corporations using their software lock-in to abuse users and violate anti-trust laws, and in general abusing their market dominance in anti-consumer, anti-user, and anti-competitive ways. That is what this is really about.

To get to the original topic, Microsoft should allow you to use any web browser you want, without making it super difficult, or blocking other vendors (like Firefox and Brave) from giving users a choice.

But since Microsoft is Microsoft, we know how they roll, even with the change in management they are the same company as before. The government is not going to step in (at least in the US), so it is the Microsoft way or the highway.

And with everything I said, the only logical conclusion is that if users are not happy with the situation, then since we know Microsoft won't change and the government doesn't care, we have to take matters into our own hands. Which leads to installing Linux and FOSS alternatives.
 
No, but that’s where it is. Someone will teach people those skills and arguably they’ll be better prepared as a result.

And how large is your business? How many schedules are you coordinating with lightning? Last I checked lightning can’t handle available/unavailable between multiple folks, especially across organizations. I stopped fiddling with it a few years ago and use Proton mail (which, for better or worse, is just the web client for outlook wrapped in an app).

As for office- all it needs to be compatible with is itself. I don’t have a single business I work with, most of which are in the Fortune 500, that aren’t using Microsoft office.

I’ll give you the same challenge I give anyone else. Show me how, using open source software, to have 6 people editing the same presentation or spreadsheet simultaneously. All users must be able to see all other users changes, in real-time, preferably with tagging so you can see who did what. Each user has their own redo/undo tree independent from all other users, and cannot affect other users unless they’ve both edited the same section.

It’s not about one person doing work. Office won because it enabled collaboration. The only way I’ve found to do this in linux is using Teams, which is proprietary, and the online versions of their tools (ugh). Google suite can do the edits and sharing, but sucks at exporting and archival and doc management beyond a single thread of edits. I wish it worked- but this is what Microsoft does, and I can either complain, be ineffective at my job, or just use the tool. Which everyone else uses.

Corporate America runs on money. Office delivers an outcome.

Been using it since Redhat 5.4 in 1999. Had contributions to the winmodem crap stack back then as it was the only hardware I could afford (thank god when I finally got my USR modem with real hardware!). Current linux box is a 10980XE on x299 with (sadly) nvidia, as I had to RMA the 6800xt I was going to use. I also wrote a good pile of the docs on using SSSD and horizon for linux VDI for my prior company and two of my prior customers. Have 4 open source boxes in the house (one BSD, two linux servers, one linux desktop) to two dedicated windows boxes. Most are running Ubuntu 20.04 as I don’t have time to fiddle and it delivers an outcome. I run steam happily and game on my linux box, and short of hating GIMP with a passion (someone needs to hire that team a UI designer), do everything I can on open source. But I also have to either use published apps or wine to run office, because whether I like it or not, that’s what the world uses, and I understand why. That’s what my customers use. That’s what my company uses. That’s what all the folks we interact with use (94% of the Fortune 500). So…. I use it. I like LibreOffice. I’d use it if I could. But I can’t. It can’t do what I or my team need it to do. Standards don’t come into the discussion. Features and compatibility with the folks we interact with do.

Edit; fixed date and version. Was thinking of a different thing.
And as predicted, now we're at the point where the usual individuals state that there's no replacement for proprietary software, that Microsoft products are essential to daily life in relation to one's PC and productivity. Which really isn't based on fact so much as conditioning. When Libre Office and WPS Office can open a docx file just fine, but MS Office cannot, that's not a compatibility problem with open source solutions.

I'm not interested in your experience regarding Redhat in 1999 anymore than I'm interested in anyone's experience regarding Windows 98 in 1999, as we're far from 1999. I fail to see why you're making excuses for running Ubuntu LTS to a KDE Neon user, in itself such a comment speaks volumes.

All I am stating is that Microsoft are pushing their ecosystem beyond just their Edge browser (why, I wonder, are MS so hell bent on us using 'their' browser, a browser based on Chromium?) and the conditioning of our young to proprietary products is wrong; they have their whole lives from young adults onwards to learn about proprietary products - Lets teach them basic computing away from proprietary influences first.
 
No, not really. Yeah if you want to work in the corporate world, you have to play by their rules. But there are other options.

For example, if you work for yourself or freelance, you can use whatever tools you want. If you start your own company, you can standardize on Linux and FOSS and just tell all your employees that is the deal.

I agree that Office is a good program, but I use LibreOffice and it works well enough. Maybe not perfect, but you can export PDF files that will work on anything (it gets more complex for collaboration). Or use the G-Suite, which is also good and better than Office for sharing anyhow.

For Adobe, yeah, they have a stranglehold. GIMP is just not as good as Photoshop, though for simple stuff most people do (like cropping images, color correction, etc.) it works fine. And for Autodesk 3D apps, I find Blender to actually be better in a lot of ways. So there are other options.

Ms Office is currently the best. There is no doubt about that. But that is not because Microsoft is somehow gods gift to Office Suites.

On the contrary it is because decades of killing all possible competition in its infancy, suing the ones they can't kill, and seeding schools and universities with free Student versions so that everyone learns on their products and want to use it when they are out in the real world, because that is what they know, and everything else "feels weird" by comparison.

They are on top because of shitty, borderline illegal business practices and only because of shitty borderline illegal business practices. Decades worth of them.
 
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And as predicted, now we're at the point where the usual individuals state that there's no replacement for proprietary software, that Microsoft products are essential to daily life in relation to one's PC and productivity. Which really isn't based on fact so much as conditioning. When Libre Office and WPS Office can open a docx file just fine, but MS Office cannot, that's not a compatibility problem with open source solutions.

But they can't open docx or even doc files "just fine". They can open them, but page breaks and margins wind up in the wrong place. Printouts look different, etc. etc. etc.

If you work with other people who use Ms. Office of any vintage (pretty much all of the people) you really don't have an option without serious compatibility problems.

I use LibreOffice for my own stuff as well, but if I ever get a .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .ppt or .pptx file sent to me from someone else, I know I had best open it in actual Ms. Office or it is going to be all screwed up.
 
Ms Office is currently the best. There is no doubt about that. But that is not because Microsoft is somehow gods gift to Office Suites.

On the contrary it is because decades of killing all possible competition in its infancy, suing the ones they can't kill, and seeing schools and universities with free Student versions so that everyone learns on their products and want to use it when they are out in the real world, because that is what they know, and everything else "feels weird" by comparison.

They are on top because of shitty, borderline illegal business practices and only because of shitty borderline illegal business practices. Decades worth of them.
OOXML was supposed to be an open ISO standard, removing all compatibility issues between office suites - Which should be what everyone wants as choice benefits all. But Microsoft pulled a move that was more political than technical and the standard was manipulated in favor of Microsoft in what can only be classed as a dubious ISO approval process.

Now Microsoft maintain control via loose coding and poor documentation of such standards, creating the situation we have today.

As consumers, we should be opposed to such manipulation; and yet, for some reason we're not? So what I'm asking is: Why do MS want us using their version of Chromium so badly that they're doing their best to strip the end user of their right to choice?
 
But they can't open docx or even doc files "just fine". They can open them, but page breaks and margins wind up in the wrong place. Printouts look different, etc. etc. etc.

If you work with other people who use Ms. Office of any vintage (pretty much all of the people) you really don't have an option without serious compatibility problems.

I use LibreOffice for my own stuff as well, but if I ever get a .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .ppt or .pptx file sent to me from someone else, I know I had best open it in actual Ms. Office or it is going to be all screwed up.
If you create a document under Libre Office, it will open in WPS Office just fine and vice versa. Problems arise when you get MS Office involved.

Having said that, the Google Workspace suite is pretty much 100% compatible, with better team collaboration features.
 
And as predicted, now we're at the point where the usual individuals state that there's no replacement for proprietary software, that Microsoft products are essential to daily life in relation to one's PC and productivity. Which really isn't based on fact so much as conditioning. When Libre Office and WPS Office can open a docx file just fine, but MS Office cannot, that's not a compatibility problem with open source solutions.

I'm not interested in your experience regarding Redhat in 1999 anymore than I'm interested in anyone's experience regarding Windows 98 in 1999, as we're far from 1999. I fail to see why you're making excuses for running Ubuntu LTS to a KDE Neon user, in itself such a comment speaks volumes.

All I am stating is that Microsoft are pushing their ecosystem beyond just their Edge browser (why, I wonder, are MS so hell bent on us using 'their' browser, a browser based on Chromium?) and the conditioning of our young to proprietary products is wrong; they have their whole lives from young adults onwards to learn about proprietary products - Lets teach them basic computing away from proprietary influences first.
I posed you a challenge - one I face every day. Do you have an open source solution to that problem? If not, it's built-in to Microsoft Office, so we use Microsoft Office.

I don't particularly care if you use KDE, Gnome, XFCE, or CDE running on old school Xfree86. They're all means to an end - use whatever one works for you. I want something that works out of the box - my job isn't fiddling with open source packages, and my hobby really isn't either anymore. I want it to work, my choice of distro lets me get to work. I was pointing out that I DO have extensive experience in the open source world, both personally and professionally. It does not yet have the required features to do what I need it to do, nor do I have the energy, effort, wherewithal, or desire to contribute other than financially to get it there.

edit: And of course microsoft is pushing their ecosystem - it's their ecosystem! Half of it (I'd argue the good half) solved piles of business problems - actual issues people faced. The other half is annoying, greedy as fuck, dangerous, and should be carefully managed and watched by anti-trust regulators. As for conditioning our young - if you want to open an open-source based school, you're welcome to do so. The job of education IT is not to pick "out of box" solutions, but to enable the delivery of education. At least, right now it is - that's a conversation for politicians though, as they (and the DoEdu) determine what the goals of schools are. Mine taught me Linux, way back when - but that's because I was inquisitive.
 
Ms Office is currently the best. There is no doubt about that. But that is not because Microsoft is somehow gods gift to Office Suites.

On the contrary it is because decades of killing all possible competition in its infancy, suing the ones they can't kill, and seeing schools and universities with free Student versions so that everyone learns on their products and want to use it when they are out in the real world, because that is what they know, and everything else "feels weird" by comparison.

They are on top because of shitty, borderline illegal business practices and only because of shitty borderline illegal business practices. Decades worth of them.
And building an ecosystem of collaboration tools that, for better OR worse, bloody work. I WISH there was an alternative other than GSuite - which has its OWN pile of issues - but there just isn't. I don't LIKE paying microsoft. But - it solves a problem. So I, the companies I work for, and my customers, all pay for it.

I hate the shit out of Office. But it does things that right now, no one else has managed to hit feature parity for. Things that get used more and more every day in the business world.

As to the second point - we can totally argue that all day. I don't necessarily disagree - but I see why the education IT departments go along with it too. Their job isn't picking out fun solutions to technical issues - it's enabling the delivery of education. And for better or worse again - this is the fast way to that solution.
 
But they can't open docx or even doc files "just fine". They can open them, but page breaks and margins wind up in the wrong place. Printouts look different, etc. etc. etc.

If you work with other people who use Ms. Office of any vintage (pretty much all of the people) you really don't have an option without serious compatibility problems.

I use LibreOffice for my own stuff as well, but if I ever get a .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .ppt or .pptx file sent to me from someone else, I know I had best open it in actual Ms. Office or it is going to be all screwed up.
Same if you export from GSuite (the big weakness there) - keeping archival chains for things (something we have to do) is really painful with GSuite.
 
I posed you a challenge - one I face every day. Do you have an open source solution to that problem? If not, it's built-in to Microsoft Office, so we use Microsoft Office.

I don't particularly care if you use KDE, Gnome, XFCE, or CDE running on old school Xfree86. They're all means to an end - use whatever one works for you. I want something that works out of the box - my job isn't fiddling with open source packages, and my hobby really isn't either anymore. I want it to work, my choice of distro lets me get to work. I was pointing out that I DO have extensive experience in the open source world, both personally and professionally. It does not yet have the required features to do what I need it to do, nor do I have the energy, effort, wherewithal, or desire to contribute other than financially to get it there.

edit: And of course microsoft is pushing their ecosystem - it's their ecosystem! Half of it (I'd argue the good half) solved piles of business problems - actual issues people faced. The other half is annoying, greedy as fuck, dangerous, and should be carefully managed and watched by anti-trust regulators. As for conditioning our young - if you want to open an open-source based school, you're welcome to do so. The job of education IT is not to pick "out of box" solutions, but to enable the delivery of education. At least, right now it is - that's a conversation for politicians though, as they (and the DoEdu) determine what the goals of schools are. Mine taught me Linux, way back when - but that's because I was inquisitive.
This is all just ranting, nothing more. The fact you're talking about DE's, as opposed to the point raised by my commenting over your apparent choice of distro used, speaks volumes.

You're 100% right, it is Microsoft's ecosystem. Microsoft can push their ecosystem all they want, I don't answer to Microsoft and this PC is my PC, it's not Microsoft's PC. I found a means to an end that doesn't involve Microsoft and there's countless others that can do the same. I don't even think of my OS, I just get on with work the same way I would under Windows. All these people that respond with the Photoshop argument, WTF are average users using such an expensive package for? Is everyone a graphic designer or professional photographer now? Are the licences used even legit or current? I fail to see any reason whatsoever why so many people absolutely need Photoshop for their simplistic tasks.

The point of education is to educate, not to condition our young to a product created by corporate USA forcing them to believe there's no other alternatives. You may have dabbled in Linux, it's obvious you don't use it daily.

So rounding back to my original point:

Not a point worth arguing, as someone will make out like 99% of all PC users absolutely 'need' MS Office, the Adobe Suite, and the latest and greatest gaming title with client side DRM/anticheat that isn't far off Malware.
Thank you for proving me 100% correct. Now if you don't mind, I'll get on with my Microsoft free life. You feel free to do whatever you like.

So we all hate Office, hate paying for it, and hate Microsoft. Here's a crazy idea: why don't we all switch to LibreOffice tomorrow? No compatibility problems.
Because people either don't believe Microsoft are one of the root causes of the problems we face (solutions apparently solving business problems by breaking open ISO compatibility between office suites), or they're just incapable of leaving all preconceived expectations at the door and learning something different. Quite possibly this is due to the fact that for as long as they can remember, they've been taught that proprietary is the only solution and they'll use Windows as it's on the device when they buy it.

What a sad world we live in. Corporations should not be given the leverage to strip end users of choice, freedom and privacy. If regulation actually worked, they wouldn't have the leverage to do so.
 
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I work in game development, and I see the same problem with Autodesk and their FBX "standard". FBX is a file format used for 3D models, commonly used in just about any game. But it is not a real standard, it is proprietary, owned by Autodesk, you have to pay tons of money for the SDK, the spec is not open, and additionally they make braking changes to the spec every year.

Big engines like Unreal, of course, have the money to buy the license to the SDK, and update their software importer every year. But if you use open-source or smaller engines (or if you want to write your own engine) you're pretty much screwed. And programs like Blender have reverse engineered the FBX format (legally) to support it, but it's a little dodgy and not 100% compliant.

Of course there is a real open-source standard, glTF, made by the same people that make OpenGL and Vulkan. And it's great and actually better than FBX. But since everyone learns and people in the industry use Autodesk, most of the models you find online are FBX format and don't work. It sucks.

But there is no legitimate reason for it to be this way. Autodesk makes their money by locking people in, and arbitrarily making changes to the spec every year, so of course everyone has to buy new licenses, old software is no longer compatible, etc. It's a racket and should be illegal.
 
I work in game development, and I see the same problem with Autodesk and their FBX "standard". FBX is a file format used for 3D models, commonly used in just about any game. But it is not a real standard, it is proprietary, owned by Autodesk, you have to pay tons of money for the SDK, the spec is not open, and additionally they make braking changes to the spec every year.

Big engines like Unreal, of course, have the money to buy the license to the SDK, and update their software importer every year. But if you use open-source or smaller engines (or if you want to write your own engine) you're pretty much screwed. And programs like Blender have reverse engineered the FBX format (legally) to support it, but it's a little dodgy and not 100% compliant.

Of course there is a real open-source standard, glTF, made by the same people that make OpenGL and Vulkan. And it's great and actually better than FBX. But since everyone learns and people in the industry use Autodesk, most of the models you find online are FBX format and don't work. It sucks.

But there is no legitimate reason for it to be this way. Autodesk makes their money by locking people in, and arbitrarily making changes to the spec every year, so of course everyone has to buy new licenses, old software is no longer compatible, etc. It's a racket and should be illegal.
Well said!

Basically, corporatism has shifted business from the days of providing value for money to the consumer, to a situation where we're locked into constantly evolving ecosystems that aren't really improving the end result; rather they're making tiny undocumented changes resulting in an ecosystem that is impossible to make truly open, thereby locking us into products and solutions, while slowly pilfering money from the back pocket of the consumer as well as privacy under the thin guise of a better experience with more security.

The ability to create change is deliberately made as difficult as possible, as people are literally taught from the ground up only to use the proprietary product, and therefore naturally fear the uncertainty of learning and thereby using an alternative. The conditioning is so intense, that people literally defend the locked down ecosystems they're a part of while money is ever so carefully lifted out of their back pockets while they willingly hand over their own personal information.

So I ask just why a corporation like Microsoft is so hell bent on us all using their own Chromium browser derivative when it's obvious the tech industry has become more of a master than the slave we thought it would be?
 
And as predicted, now we're at the point where the usual individuals state that there's no replacement for proprietary software, that Microsoft products are essential to daily life in relation to one's PC and productivity. Which really isn't based on fact so much as conditioning. When Libre Office and WPS Office can open a docx file just fine, but MS Office cannot, that's not a compatibility problem with open source solutions.
Five or so years ago (not 20), I took a community college class. As part of it, our teacher gave us .doc files (not .docx, .doc) and we had to fill them out and submit them. I was cheap, so I went with LibreOffice. I was getting points off for missing info, which confused me, as I found nothing missing on the .doc files. On a whim I loaded one into the online MS Word web page. Wouldn't ya know, there were additional graphs and tables Libre Writer just plain wasn't showing. I saw our teacher was still using Word for Mac 2008. Libre Writer could not properly render info in what at the time was an eight year old word processor.

Haven't touched non-MS Office since then.
 
Five or so years ago (not 20), I took a community college class. As part of it, our teacher gave us .doc files (not .docx, .doc) and we had to fill them out and submit them. I was cheap, so I went with LibreOffice. I was getting points off for missing info, which confused me, as I found nothing missing on the .doc files. On a whim I loaded one into the online MS Word web page. Wouldn't ya know, there were additional graphs and tables Libre Writer just plain wasn't showing. I saw our teacher was still using Word for Mac 2008. Libre Writer could not properly render info in what at the time was an eight year old word processor.

Haven't touched non-MS Office since then.
The irony there is the fact that it was most likely solely the outright cost of MS Office, combined with OOXML manipulation on behalf of Microsoft themselves, that caused the issue in the first place. As stated, it's the worlds least compatible with ISO standards office suite marketed as the most compatible. Add an outdated version of MS Office itself and you introduce even more compatibility issues, that are present even when opening documents on differing versions of MS Office.

I convert entire workplaces to Google Workspace and they seem to adjust just fine with very few issues.

In this day and age, office documentation should be standardized and 100% compatible across suites. This isn't the case because 'Microsoft'. So as stated, Microsoft are not solving business problems; ironically enough, they're creating business problems.
 
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Here is another point, Google uses the VP9 codec (a codec they purchased and modified) for YouTube, which is necessary for 4K video. While VP9 definitely is a superior algorithm, it is only generally supported in hardware for newer GPUs and CPUs.

However, mostly any device made in the last 10 years has H264 hardware support (which should work up to 1080p). Or H.265, which is well supported in hardware on all operating systems and supports 4K.

Google basically forces people to use VP9 (even rendering in software) meaning if you have an older computer you can get choppy videos, macOS isn't supported, and of course it renders best in Chrome (Firefox did fix it, but for a while YouTube videos in 4K were choppy without the right system).

Even though neither are really open standards, we have a situation where Google owns a codec, the browser, and a popular website, and deliberately made the experience worse for users, unless they used Chrome, the right OS, and paid to upgrade their computer. Even on macOS today you can't use it on Firefox.

I understand why they would use a new codec, it actually does work very well and is efficient, but they failed to provide a good fallback for users with different operating systems, alternate browsers, or old computers, when an existing standard would have worked fine. This is what I'm talking about.
 
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Here is another point, Google uses the VP9 codec (a codec they purchased and modified) for YouTube, which is necessary for 4K video. While VP9 definitely is a superior algorithm, it is only generally supported in hardware for newer GPUs and CPUs.

However, mostly any device made in the last 10 years has H264 hardware support (which should work up to 1080p). Or H.265, which is well supported in hardware on all operating systems and supports 4K.

Google basically forces people to use VP9 (even rendering in software) meaning if you have an older computer you can get choppy videos, macOS isn't supported, and of course it renders best in Chrome (Firefox did fix it, but for a while YouTube videos in 4K were choppy without the right system).

Even though neither are really open standards, we have a situation where Google owns a codec, the browser, and a popular website, and deliberately made the experience worse for users, unless they used Chrome, the right OS, and paid to upgrade their computer. Even on macOS today you can't use it on Firefox.

I understand why they would use a new codec, it actually does work very well and is efficient, but they failed to provide a good fallback for users with different operating systems, alternate browsers, or old computers, when an existing standard would have worked fine. This is what I'm talking about.
You raise a very good point.

I've noticed that even x264ify is no longer working as an extension to enable hardware decoding of YouTube videos on the Raspberry Pi. Although it was a few months back that it stopped working for me and I since uninstalled it so I could at least play something at medium resolution as opposed to nothing, I should try it again and see if it's since been upgraded and is working again.
 
So we all hate Office, hate paying for it, and hate Microsoft. Here's a crazy idea: why don't we all switch to LibreOffice tomorrow? No compatibility problems.
No features. Same challenge I gave Mazzspeed. It cannot do what I need it to do. :(.
 
This is all just ranting, nothing more. The fact you're talking about DE's, as opposed to the point raised by my commenting over your apparent choice of distro used, speaks volumes.
You brought up KDE Neon, not me. You still haven’t answered my challenge, because you can’t. Just like every other open source stallman neck beard, you believe standards matter. Not the business need. Not the money. Not the market.

Hint: this is why linux has a tiny fraction of the desktop market.
You're 100% right, it is Microsoft's ecosystem. Microsoft can push their ecosystem all they want, I don't answer to Microsoft and this PC is my PC, it's not Microsoft's PC.
And that’s fine. You can do what you want. If you worked for me, you’d have to use Microsoft’s tools, or find a different job - because you can’t do the job on LibreOffice. Sucks but it’s true.
I found a means to an end that doesn't involve Microsoft and there's countless others that can do the same. I don't even think of my OS, I just get on with work the same way I would under Windows.
I do too. I just run office in a VM because I need that set of tools - or I use the company issued MacBook Pro, also with office in it.
All these people that respond with the Photoshop argument, WTF are average users using such an expensive package for? Is everyone a graphic designer or professional photographer now? Are the licences used even legit or current? I fail to see any reason whatsoever why so many people absolutely need Photoshop for their simplistic tasks.

The point of education is to educate, not to condition our young to a product created by corporate USA forcing them to believe there's no other alternatives. You may have dabbled in Linux, it's obvious you don't use it daily.
Counter point: the point of education is to educate. Open standards are not part of primary school education. Math and spelling is. But we may be considering different levels. I mostly work with K-8 at the moment.

Why do you think I don’t use linux daily? That’s gotta be the weirdest statement I’ve ever been accused of. Because I don’t actually care about “everything has to be open source?”
So rounding back to my original point:


Thank you for proving me 100% correct. Now if you don't mind, I'll get on with my Microsoft free life. You feel free to do whatever you like.
Same to you. Not worth the argument anymore- I do with you the best with this, but I’ll stick with the tools that make me money.
Because people either don't believe Microsoft are one of the root causes of the problems we face (solutions apparently solving business problems by breaking open ISO compatibility between office suites), or they're just incapable of leaving all preconceived expectations at the door and learning something different. Quite possibly this is due to the fact that for as long as they can remember, they've been taught that proprietary is the only solution and they'll use Windows as it's on the device when they buy it.
Never had a standards issue. Not since everyone rolled to office365 (subscriptions suck, keeping everyone on the same version prevents compatibility issues, ugh but again- business problem solved, and sure, I wish they’d find another way, but the did solve that problem).


What a sad world we live in. Corporations should not be given the leverage to strip end users of choice, freedom and privacy. If regulation actually worked, they wouldn't have the leverage to do so.
Then build a competitive solution that solves the same problems. The good part about capitalism is that you can build a competitor. I’d start with something closer to GSuite, since they fixed the biggest issues (collaboration) and have smaller problems to solve (non-online access, apps, archival). Libre has the big problem to work on (shared access).
 
Well I'm an established programmer, and I could definitely build a clone of Office or Photoshop in not that much time. I problem for me is ongoing support. With a business level product or service, companies will expect constant updates, bug and security fixes, new features, etc. Plus some sort of email or chat support.

Getting a 1.0 version of the product would not be hard, and could be done in less than a year. However, the ongoing maintenance is a huge burden and only makes sense if you are making money to support the development and hire people to do it. Which defeats the purpose of FOSS anyhow, though I guess you could charge for support (some open-source companies do this).

So while I do see a need in the market, it is just too big of an undertaking with doubtful potential to make money from. I mostly develop games (I haven't released anything in a while though) but at least with that you can basically build it, fix some bugs in the first few months, and then have a finished product that can sell for years with no additional work. This is ideal for me.
 
Bingo. Look, I don’t like lock in. I try to run as much on open source as I personally can- but my job is being a datacenter architect, security networking and storage, and advising on end user computing. I can argue with a straight face that GSuite solves a lot of problems. I can do the same for the MS office suite, integrated with teams and OneDrive. I cannot do that with LibreOffice and a NFS or CIFS share - any more than I can argue that TrueNAS is a true replacement for NetApp or DellEMC storage arrays.

I have to deliver solutions. I’ve told companies to write it themselves, but from a business perspective, unless it drives a hell of a lot of net-new revenue with solid margins, paying people to write open source software sadly doesn’t compute (unless you ARE an open source company). Buy the solution and pay those people to solve your next big technical or design hurdle. That drives stakeholder value. And that, for better or worse, is the world we live in. love to have a discussion on how to get away from that, but I’ll be damned if I know how - and the answer isn’t “just don’t use proprietary software,” as that just doesn’t fly if you want to interact with others. :(
 
I get that. I work from home for myself, so I can basically use whatever tools I want. However, when I do need to collaborate with people, like you say, there can be problems because chances are they are on Windows and using Microsoft suite.

So yes, I also have a brand new Windows 11 machine I built about 2 months ago. I am not a Stallman worshiper, I like technology, I also have a Chromebook I love. And I do need the Windows machine for certain things, like working on apps that don't work on Linux, accessing some websites that glitch out with open-source software, etc.

I don't love it, but if you have a problem, that is a solution. While ideally Linux would be better supported, I understand that is not the case right now. So I will champion it, but I also have to get by in my life, and I don't mind having a second computer if that solves my problem.
 
You brought up KDE Neon, not me. You still haven’t answered my challenge, because you can’t. Just like every other open source stallman neck beard, you believe standards matter. Not the business need. Not the money. Not the market.

Hint: this is why linux has a tiny fraction of the desktop market.
Windows makes up the bulk of the desktop market as their OS is on the machine when you buy it, it's that simple. Linux is never going to be installed on the machine when you buy it in such numbers, as Linux has no marketing department. As stated, locked in ecosystems are actually stifling business. I also never stated that everything under Linux has to be FOSS, I stated that early education should limit the use of proprietary products, there's little doubt that proprietary software developers are in the game of hooking them while they're young.

As for the rest of your quoting, it's just mindless babble.
 
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Ms Office is currently the best. There is no doubt about that. But that is not because Microsoft is somehow gods gift to Office Suites.

On the contrary it is because decades of killing all possible competition in its infancy, suing the ones they can't kill, and seeding schools and universities with free Student versions so that everyone learns on their products and want to use it when they are out in the real world, because that is what they know, and everything else "feels weird" by comparison.

They are on top because of shitty, borderline illegal business practices and only because of shitty borderline illegal business practices. Decades worth of them.

I've seen G Suite used more and more in corporate environments but Office is still king there, so really most people follow the pipeline from 'free' student versions of Office straight into Office 365/Exchange for work. With that being said, schools in my area are pretty intertwined in the Chromebook and G Suite/Docs ecosystem now - for better or worse.
 
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