Microsoft Recall.

Worse than all but the worst viruses, for real. Takes screenshots of everything (everything), and stores the contents where hackers can steal them easily.

It’ll probably get quietly reactivated every few updates, so you can never really afford not to be checking.

Windows keeps getting shittier, Linux keeps getting better and easier to use.

I switched due to the following problems with Windows and benefits with Linux:

• Recall, the most privacy invasive software I have ever seen being spun as a “feature” which was shown to be insecure as well. It used to be that if you didn’t pay for something, it meant you were the product. Now Microsoft wants you to pay them to be their product.
• Fucking ads everywhere in the OS itself
• It’s slow as all hell
• I would try to do something as simple in the UI such as hitting “Sleep” and Windows 11 wouldn’t do anything until the 4th click
• Windows no longer has a monopoly on games or music software - proton and DAW’s like bitwig should now be forcing Microsoft to compete to make their OS better, but because capitalism doesn’t work, they don’t, and so I have no reason to stay with their OS
• Linux is fast as fuck. Games like Armored Core VI and Death Stranding run better in an emulated state on Linux for me than they do natively on Windows because Linux isn’t running 1500 telemetry tasks at all times.
• Linux gives you choices of window managers. Don’t like the UI in Windows? Tough luck. Don’t like a UI in Linux? Change it in 2 seconds if you’re using KDE Plasma, or switch to another WM like Gnome, XFCE, Cinnamon, etc so that the computer works the way you want. You want to have some WM functionality only sometimes that no one WM offers? Install 3 WM’s, choose which one you want when you log in. Make the computer work for you.

On Windows 11 the final absolute last straw for me was when it stopped installing updates for me and gave me this:

So I couldn’t even trust the system was secure anymore.

Windows is stagnated because all of their development focus has turned away from making a competitive OS with good and useful features for the end user, and instead focuses now on how to get more dollars out of each minor action a user could possibly take when using it. Linux just feels more modern, more powerful, more useful, more secure, faster, prettier, cleaner, and cheaper than Windows now because it is 98% of the time.

Because things aren’t improving. Windows 11 is a bloated buggy mess loaded with privacy issues. They change things that have been working fine for years or decades or introduce new features that no one asked for and only get in the way and they don’t even test the changes properly to get bugs out. It’s clear they do not have users interests in mind and things are only getting worse as time goes on. The ship is sinking and Linux is the only lifeboat available.

Windows 11 has a massive keylogger built in. For decades we associated them with malware and now Windows is trying to normalize it as “good for the user.”

They say it’s off by default. But that’s like me having the detonation for a nuke casually sitting on my desk. Sure I could just not hit the button but I don’t want that shit in the same zip code as me.

I switched a year ago, after trying and failing multiple times over the years whenever I gave it a try.

1. Linux has massively improved, systemd is a lot cleaner than the mess of disparate shell scripts it displaced. Network Manager is also a lot nicer now than I remember it being when it was first introduced into Red Hat.
2. Windows hasn’t, in a lot of ways it was actually regressing. I used to get multiple shell crashes a week with no insight as to why, friends would claim it was just me but then receive an update and start having similar crashes. Also noticeable UI issues that went unfixed for multiple revisions, made it felt cheap.
3. MS went all in on AI garbage and was jamming it into everything, kept getting popup notifications and the like to try Copilot, notifications went from being useful to just being an ad delivery mechanism.
4. Gaming on Linux massively improved, last time I tried it OpenGL support was a mess. Now OpenGL is very mature, and all the D3D translation stuff uses Vulkan which has been rock solid for me. I’ve found games run better than they did on Windows on the same hardware, and the only game I’ve had an issue with was Destiny 2, which is intentional on the devs behalf (Luckily the game’s boring now)

I find I’m a lot more willing to let issues slide though, like I’ve had some Thunar crashes which I’m cool with since there’s like 4 devs maintaining it, vs. the multi-billion dollar company working on Explorer which I expect better from. Also unsurprisingly the only actual shop-stopper issue I’ve had was with a memory leak in the Nvidia drivers, the actual FLOSS stuff has been great.

Copilot. Win11 working only on mew hardware. Win10 going out of support. Basic bloated operation with little concern for what users want.

You’re in a linux loving, windows hating bubble here on Lemmy. There is no significant number of people migrating from windows to linux according to any metric we have.

Because Valve showed people that linux is not so bad after all. Might be also that people can ask ChatGPT for help and Microsoft is financing it’s own funeral.

The short version is 2 reasons:

• Microsoft requires Windows 11 computers to have special new hardware that not all computers have. Security updates for Windows 10 ends in 3 months. Many people are faced with a choice of buying a new computer, or installing Linux on their current one to save money. Others realize how much Windows 11 sucks shit and switch because Linux is better.
• Gaming on Linux has gotten a lot better recently. For many people, this was the main thing holding them back. Software support in general is better than ever.

Because windows won’t do with old laptops and 3 years is apparently enough to consider a laptop old nowadays.

This is not happening in the wider world, not on any appreciable scale. Here comes lemmy:

“NOAW! People ARE switching in DROVES!”

LOL, the vast majority of people can’t spell Linux.

For me it’s because it seems evident that Microsoft wants Windows to be saas and here’s the thing: I don’t like Windows that much. For over 20 years now, I’ve preferred Linux for server stuff and Mac for daily driver stuff, I’ve only tolerated Windows, mainly for gaming.

Since Windows 7 died (I skipped 8 altogether and reluctantly have been dealing with 10 with lots of hacks to keep it locked down), I have only been barely tolerating it - and games were the sole reason.

Well, Proton has now obliterated that, conveniently right as Microsoft has decided that what people REALLY need is for them to be 100% shit. I refuse to install 11. So I’m out.

The fact they keep trying harder and harder to make me switch off a local account is reason enough.

Because Windows 11 sucks the biggest one ever.