Search bar? You disable that on install. You don’t really use the start bar anymore either. Everyone I know just hits the windows key and types the first couple letters and hits enter I don’t really look at what’s on the start bar

What? We were talking about updates and now something completely different? I have like 7 windows 11 machines none are making me fill out polls. What search bar are you even talking about?

What?

If your fine want updates you can literally just… Duane them through group policy. But that’s not a good idea. What they are forcing are security updates. You really want those. They don’t take very long at all and their effectiveness increases based on how many people are up to date. The more people who are up to date the more difficult and expensive it is to create malicious software, it also becomes more difficult to spread malicious software to begin with.

Thing is there are so few things to count against Windows compared to MacOS or Linux, they need to make the most minor of inconveniences seem astronomical by comparison. “Haha you have to install a security update you can delay for 5 weeks that takes 4 seconds to install”

I have 3 windows machines in my house that are over 50 days running right now

You forgot digital mixer, SMT assembly systems and gas generators

Websites need to generate revenue. If you run a torrent site you are probably well aware that those who visit your site are craftier than your average web user. If people are using ad blockers then you aren’t able to generate revenue to pay for hosting and your own time maintaining things. Your option then is to try your best to make the ads on your site even craftier to try and bypass adblockers so you can monetize. Your other option is to let all the ads get blocked, get no revenue, make the website become solely your financial burden… Or you know. Your users disable the adblockers when on your site and the ads won’t have to be so aggressive and your site can monetize.

You don’t need to speak in absolutes dude. There are definitely good public trackers out there that use ads. No reason to get all angry about it.

Well that’s kind of the thing, that’s why Google announces they are ending those things. Most companies just end development silently and let those things differ l drift off without support or intention to solve issues which becomes incredibly telling for anyone who comes along and decides to integrate that software into their systems or daily life which later just becomes a massive problem down the line.

Announcing the end of something, and even coming up with a solution for it like domains switching to square space, GPM transferring user songs into YouTube music, and SketchUp selling to Trimble are low or even zero hassle solutions that result in longer term support for their users without throwing a “sorry it’s all broken now, go fuck yourself” methodology

As a millennial that was born near the end of the cut off I think millennials will adapt well and likely better than most any other group except maybe Gen x.

We were brought up in the infancy of personal computer technology where everything was more difficult and convoluted than it is for preceding generations. We started out at minimum using DOS and having to circumvent the older operating systems where even the simple task of chatting with your friends online was a multi step process. Since that point things have really only gotten simpler.

If we were to create a meta person who has the general computer competence of their generation and tested them I think we would find that Gen x and millennials are not only as well adjusted to modern technology but also faster to adapt to it. They will likely be faster at solving issues and problems as the skills and knowledge they had to adopt early in life to do even simple things still applies to the basis of all computing that we have today. Even very simple things like file navigation, adjusting basic computer settings, setting up a computer, modifying files, and even using web searches to troubleshoot problems are strengths that millennials and Gen x will have that will likely see a fall off from there after in the other generations.

Computer incompetence has become increasingly more common over time to the point we are reaching now in the United States where it’s fallen off so much is becoming a crisis as kids growing up now can simply only use phones and tablets and actual basic computer skills have become an issue. With the cheap cost of electronics there is even less interest in kids to learn how to solve issues on their devices as they see it as easier to just buy a new device altogether and avoid troubleshooting altogether.

I mean, scrolling down that list, those all make sense. I guess if Google just did what all the other companies do and silently let go of these things instead of announcing that they are ending them so that developers and users know ahead of time not to expect long term stable and support that would be one thing. Google’s development process isn’t the same as everyone else’s though and their current method of developing tandem products and then gauging success of each and then folding the best features of the less successful one into the main one is obviously not a bad methodology as we have seen. As well it’s kind of important to a company to not waste resources on projects that customers both don’t find interesting and consume more resources than they generate while at the same time serve no greater benefit to anyone as a whole. Like, what do you want them to do? Nobody needs a web browser toolbar anymore, it’s 2023. Everyone screamed at and hated the entire concept of stadia, so they ended it. GPM was a financial failure with very few users that was due for a massive code overhaul. Like damn people, chill out.

I couldn’t speak for rural Ohio

That doesn’t make sense

What do you mean by “there’s absolutely nothing to do in it”?

Yeah but that’s not even true. It’s cheap to live here and employers pay well, with lots of available work. Maybe in whatever area you live it’s rough but it’s pretty easy to thrive with very little education in the cities, I’m not sure why you think that someone’s money would now be worthless, it’s the polar opposite as your cost of living is going to be lower. I’m not sure what has you saying drug use is higher than anywhere else though, quick look at various studies show it’s about on par with the rest of the US. As far as people wanting to leave, I don’t know many but the ones that do are generally people that don’t apply themselves to anything and have a mindset that the reason their life is shit is everyone’s fault but their own. Sadly yes, we are a red state due to gerrymandering but that’s not a problem that can be solved by turning away intelligent people who are capable of shifting the imbalance. Do keep vocalizing the issue with this though because we need more attention brought to conservative corruption here, and good things are coming of it as we recently had some of them get locked up with sentences that weren’t a bullshit slap on the wrist which is cool

Yeah they have definitely tried that angle in the past