No doubt this has gotten more "seamless" in recent years than it was at first.
The exact definition of "deceptive trade practices".
I work on a Mac, I run servers on Linux, I game on Windows.
More and more it seems people don't even find it necessary for that.
I'm "the Linux friend" for a lot of my friends, and over the last year-ish a surprising number of them have asked about advice for switching to Linux. I've helped four people attempt the switch, and three out of the four have stuck with Linux so far.
Apex Legends at least was running fine on Steam Deck prior to november 2024 when they instituted this change, and I can tell you from personal experience it had very little impact on cheaters, which was their excuse for the change (supposedly most cheaters were connecting via Linux clients).
The other game changer (heh) was going all in on amd: cpu, integrated gpu, and discrete gpu via oculink.
Nvidia may be the best overall performance for gaming and ai workloads, it still doesn't play nice with linux gaming
Granted, I could get that on Macintosh. But while their fans like to claim that Apple's engineering is all about usability, that hasn't been true for quite some time. It's now become a status/elitism thing (see, e.g., yesterday's conversation about Tahoe icons). And their UX model is very contrary to my way of thinking about things.
Might need a little update to bring it up to date.
Disclosure: I fear technology and my daddy is not rich.
Macs are as much about the hardware than the software, and the OS is just another Unix variant. Much closer to Linux/BSD than Windows.
I like tech (no fear, I've been coding for 41 years at this point), but I don't like configuration, I'm a programmer, not IT, and also I heavily lean to getting shit done, so I prefer tools that don't get too much in my way.
I abandoned Linux on the desktop after I lost a battle with Linux audio. I can't freaking believe there's not a single thing that unifies everything, it's such a pain in the ass to setup right.
On notebooks it's a lost battle due to issues with power management that require way more fiddling that I'm willing to invest into.
Valve saw exactly this scenario, because you're right: Windows isn't good for stability any more. Windows isn't good for driver compatibility anymore. Windows isn't good for being easy to do your own thing. It's only good for gaming...
even this has gone away for me, exited first with Bazzite and am now on CachyOS. Still got a debloated Windows11 on a different SSD for when friends want to play games with kernel-level anticheat or other bs.
feels good to be free of Microsoft. work on a Mac, game on Linux, phones run Android.
But the decision has been made and for my own convenience I've got a new nvme for OS.
Flawless experience on non-nvidia hardware though.
It's just an optional update whenever I remember to check for one.
Apple give you a middle finger with a "Something went wrong" or just spins forever. No information whatsoever on what the problem is and how you could possibly debug it. Compete lack of tooling to help with that too.
Probably my favourite example was when it was giving me an error message of "A device is using too much power, try unplugging and replugging it". Which device? Which port? What is "too much"? HA, FUCK YOU. I spent hours trying to debug this (so there is a tool that can give you power use per USB device, but it's a point in time one). In the end rewired everything because it was just impossible to discover what the hell was its problem. Another fun one was trying to extend my macOS screen to an iPad, where the button just wasn't there. Why? What was I missing? Who knows.
Another fun one: “Updates are available. Do you want to install them?” What updates? What software is getting updates? What do they fix? No information, just a notification asking you whether you want to install vague updates.
Personally, only TFT is a blocker for me, and you can get an inferior version working on linux, but it only takes you playing one of those games for it to be a blocker.
Current Windows gaming experience is almost like a console, just play and forget, (if you just use your machine for that).
Another potential issue is that I have games in all the major launchers (and a GamePass subscription), and the only one that works reasonably well on Linux is Steam.
Even live-service games are less of a hassle than they used to be. BDO works well, Genshin works with occasionally having to update Proton, and the new shiny Where Winds Meet worked for me from the first day (never even tried it on Windows :P)
I think in the last 6 months, I've dual-booted for pretty much these things:
* To install a new motherboard's RGB-tweak utility because it doesn't work right in OpenRGB yet. Ran it once to pick settings, then it seemed to write to NVRAM since it's been stuck that way now.
* To use ham radio programming software that was clearly written by a single hobbyist and I didn't expect to work on anything but happy-path Windows systems.
* To try a weird specialty keyboard with a nonstandard card-reader (most of them just appear as normal HID keyboards, this one was a custom USB endpoint which apparently emulated a serial device with the right software. In the end, it didn't work well in Windows either-- the software was apparently mostly Win7-and-below.
* To deal with an old scanner that the vendor provides a Linux software package for, but only as a binary .deb that didn't seem to work well on Void. (Problem solved by picking up a used scanner explicitly supported by SANE for $10 at the Goodwill)
Otherwise, spot-on to my MO
Amiga users have been here before.
Some computers are shared by six family members, each with their own MS account and 1TB of storage. OneDrive makes it so the computers can have a 1TB hard drive but still give everyone ready access to their files by not storing them all on the hard drive.
If I don't want something synced to Onedrive then I usually save it in my downloads folder or another separate folder I create outside Onedrive. I've never had any problems.
The comments by people who hate make me wonder why my experience is so different than theirs.
If I don't want something synced to Onedrive then I usually save it in my downloads folder or another separate folder
My complaint is that MS has intentionally made it SO DIFFICULT to do that. There's a significant amount of extra clicking and thinking necessary to go through the steps to do it.
> OneDrive makes it so the computers can have a 1TB hard drive
No, it's a 1TB storage account accessible via the Internet, and wholly dependent on a good Internet connection, especially if you actually use most of that 1TB. Non-tech people will take misrepresentations like this at face value, which further makes tech a disempowering force.
The problem comes when people who don't want to use it are tricked,.manipulated, fooled and dark patterned into using it against their understanding.
1) Microsoft aggressively attempting to convince you to use OneDrive, no matter how many times you turn it off.
I've had a Dropbox subscription since before OneDrive became a common name, and it works for me, so I have no real use case for OneDrive. That doesn't stop Microsoft forcibly "helpfully" re-enabling the OneDrive app and embedded link in the quick access bar regularly...which leads to
2) Microsoft attempting to sync your user profile in OneDrive, and bugs that arise from how it implements that.
I've never enabled this, so I haven't dug into how it works, but the first time I ever encountered OneDrive discussion in tech or adjacent circles was people complaining about OneDrive syncing of user profile folders breaking some games.
I assume it's something like the comedy of errors that could come out of folder redirection and software not expecting multiple people touching it at once, or the comedy of conflict resolution on a filesystem layer that isn't expecting that for semantics, but I have heard more complaints about OneDrive in this context than I've heard anything else about it.
So I suspect that it works fine, if you use it as a Dropbox-alike.
Using it as a Folder Redirection/Roaming Profiles replacement, or trying to say "no" to Microsoft, is where the problems ensue.
I wouldn't have minded Onedrive, in fact I would have used it a lot more, if it just showed up as an external mounted drive in Explorer where I could just paste files and folders I want shared or backed up. But nope, Microsoft in their infinite wisdom just have to sync up my entire home directory by default and have Office/365 only save docs and sheets to cloud by default. No thank you.
I understand the point, that everything is a bit convoluted and badly explained and may even lead to bad stuff happening. When you disable OneDrive Backup (good feature) and OneDrive deleting all your files locally with a little shortcut to OneDrive in the Cloud with all your files? Yeah... that is bad practice, but an easy fix for MS. Besides that hickup I currently don't undestand what the fuss is about.
I know my Documents/Pictures directory isn't sync'd, I don't want it to be... to me my workspace is far different than what I want backed up to the cloud... I also have a local nas that is also setup for cloud sync for my service accounts. I emphatically do NOT want system default workspace directories sync'd.
I enjoy my car, but I would dislike if someone took it without my consent and signed me up for uber instead.
What’s mainly wrong with OneDrive is that it doesn’t work how most people expect, it’s on by default, and it deletes files from your local PC without asking. No matter how nice it is if you understand what’s going on, those details are enough to make it hate-worthy IMO.
Try adding Teams, Sharepoint and 9000 more people in the mix.
Oh and MS Office that will try to force it on you.
When more people Google "How to disable xyz" than "How to enable xyz," that would be a strong hint to most of us, but it doesn't mean anything to Microsoft's developers. ("Hey, at least they're engaging with the product," they tell each other.)
OneDrive is an easy and well integrated cloud drive. The principle of having a cloud drive is not new anymore, and I believe people should get over the fact that, indeed, the files on the cloud drive is... In the cloud; colour me surprised!
Now if you proceed with he same horrible lawnmower and cut off your other foot, then that might be on you.
While the analogy is being stretched, same applies here - if Microsoft makes terrible footguns, then that's on Microsoft even if the users should have stopped using Microsoft by now.
Not necessarily. I don't use Microsoft on my personal machines, but my employer forces me to use it at work.
Also - lots of people are used to it and habits die hard, regardless of technical merit etc.
I will say that the Microsoft Office OneDrive save experience is completely subpar. It behaves completely separate & unlike Windows Explorer and is just unpleasant to work with.
Using OneDrive is often fine. Having it imposed on you is a breaking change.
On the other hand, UX for doing that sharing is clunky.
And I believe it's pretty well documented that the reason for the File-Save experience being so awful is that Microsoft is actively trying to deter us from using our own local storage, and coercing us to use their (subscription) cloud products.
I’m pretty sure it had worked just fine for the users in the article too, until it didn’t.
IMO they should clearly encourage users to keep backups elsewhere in case something happens, but they’re currently doing the exact opposite: encouraging users to back up (and on Windows even store) files exclusively on OneDrive.
Microsoft gets their tendrils everywhere.
Oh, you want to download all photos so that you can free the cloud space? Too bad, you can only download them one by one. Or use Google Takeout and leave half of them undownloaded.
[0]. A huge shoutout to the folks behind the amazingly solid https://github.com/abraunegg/onedrive
To point out how shambloic it was it was originally called SkyDrive but they were forced to rename it thanks to a trademark lawsuit. I mean, they launch a product that is so important to them that they are willing to make us all miserable shoving it down our throats and they can't be bothered to spend a few $100 or $1000 on a trademark search.
I was working with Word and found that it defaulted to OneDrive which I could have lived with if it worked. Except it didn't work and when I tried to save documents I could not save.
Needless to say that was the last time I used OneDrive. Microsoft doesn't get it
Force somebody to use it -> It fails -> Somebody never uses it again
I have OneDrive completely disabled on my personal PC. I still found I couldn't find files that I had created with Word in the filesystem. Turns out even if you don't have the OneDrive service running on your PC, Office will store files in OneDrive directly through the API -- it's not hard to turn off (thanks Copilot!) but it's one more thing to be resentful about.
Whatever you do, don't try to sync a git repo folder with OneDrive.
The UI in Windows is intentionally designed to confuse the issue so people unintentionally end up using One Drive, which is free until it isn't and then they can jam you with a subscription. Many of my students barely have an understanding of what a file system is and how it works now due to this horrible user-hostile UI.
MacOS is headed this direction as well. Congrats linux: you just need to continue to get worse at the relatively slow rate that you always have and you will be the best desktop/laptop OS within a few years.
Arguably it's already the best desktop/laptop OS. Hopefully within a few years it can be the most popular desktop OS.
Then again... maybe this year is the year of the linux desktop...
I'd really love if some vendors would license Pop from System76 for more, broader hardware support. I think it's just about the best out of the box experience in Linux for most users.
But it isn't the students' fault, I guess they are still learning how to use computers.
This is purely an IT Administration fiasco. The IT admin should simply exclude the repository folders/paths from OneDrive. Or make everyone to save non-code documents to a separate shared network path, which is a storage drive that gets automatically backed up daily.
https://www.thewindowsclub.com/how-to-remove-a-folder-from-o...
Win the game by doing nothing while the competition drives themselves into the ground via enshittification.
After 40 years of computing this is the best we can do? No wonder we can't have nice things.
Maybe the Windows users should be called "victims" at this point.
This is cartel to remove the data ownership possibility from people. Recently Polish youtuber got his video blocked because he showed how to play locally stored mp3 files (accused of breaking yt policy on allegedly showing people how to download illegal files)
If we allow companies to put an equals mark between not storing your own data in cloud and piracy, this will finish the cartel's objective very fast.
no major issues here. sure its got the occasional bug, and is missing some features i think it should have... but all in all its very usable.
This happens as part of the PRISM program, whose existence was leaked by Edward Snowden last decade:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM
as part of that program, online communications and storage of all users of large US tech companies, including Microsoft, is made accessible to the NSA.
But consider the alternative... :(
It's insane to me that there isn't a simple, GUI-based app that provides this utility in a clean, straightforward way. Basically just "dropbox, but let me set the destination to another drive on my PC/network/VPN (or a 'repo', for 'advanced' users)".
Just a plain interface that shows me my files and allows me to say "I want this folder to be backed up to here, here, and here". I can do that manually for every folder I want backed up, but other users may opt to backup a whole drive or whatever, depending on need.
Seems like a slam dunk. Frustrating that I don't know enough about the footguns with backups (duplications, cpu limiting, etc) to just write the app myself, but I have been looking at what the eframe and rustic libraries can do together. Feels imminently do-able by someone who has a lot of experience with backups. But maybe it's even passable do-able by someone who just knows what he wants.
Sometimes the best solutions are the simplest.
So what’s gone wrong?
I wish the ergonomics would be more standard so switching costs aren’t so high.
The shenanigans that happen when you 'link' to files, or not, from Teams to Outlook to Sharepoint is beyond me.
They also constantly sneak it into Word. If you don't pay close attention they suddenly save your local file to some Cloud Desktop folder.
OneDrive just deleted all of my files
Works out really well. They all work perfectly for their intended uses.
Are you implying each one's intended uses are different? What are the differences?
My company uses Dropbox which is windows and mac.
For some reason Microsoft gave me 40Gb of free storage on skydrive in their early days, and it was always a little off to use, mostly due to search. So it ended up being used to store misc files like software installers which I can always find elsewhere if OneDrive misbehaves.
I just noticed yesterday that Copilot or OneDrive is pressuring me to set it up and my options are: Yes, Remind me in 1 week, or Remind me in 1 month. Like, what the fuck is that?
It is a testament to the power of tech policy momentum that a company can crank out absolute shit for decades and the corporate world just keeps on using their software because "that's what we've always used".
As far as I'm concerned, I'm fine with these tech CTOs replacing their software engineering workforce with LLMs because the bar is already on the fucking floor when it comes to use experience.
The engineers can’t be completely to blame here, Microsoft is too consistently bad for that. It is a high-level strategy issue. Replace the Product Managers with LLMs maybe… a bunch of random matvecs couldn’t possibly be wrong so consistently, right?
It's basically just holding your computer for ransom because guess what the 20 gigabyte they give you for free doesn't cut it lmao. Don't call it a backup my SSD is 2 terrabyte and I ain't paying you anything.
Back in October I had issues with the Linux dlang Onedrive client deleting all the files shared with me. Unlike Microsoft, the developer actually acknowledged there could be a problem and we figured out the cause was new unintended behavior caused by an old config option, really long issue thread for it here: https://github.com/abraunegg/onedrive/issues/3475 (TL:DR it was a very niche situation unlikely to have affected anyone else, I have more concise thoughts on it in the Gentoo bug: https://bugs.gentoo.org/964370 )
So that was really bad, but we were able to restore all the deleted files from her OneDrive web using its recycle bin. That leaves me with the issue I'm facing now. Some of the files which I created and put in the share she shares with me have my ownership but OneDrive doesn't recognize I created it and she can't change the permissions to share back to me. So now I have to figure out how many files are affected here and I guess copy them on her side so the new files get her ownership and share back properly to me.
I do want to say as well, those files just don't show up at all on my side in OneDrive but they DO show up in my Office apps recent list. It just refuses to let me open them. She sees them though with my ownership and both the web and windows onedrive clients throw errors if she tries to change the permissions. Absolutely maddening.
don't you mean adblock?
Aside: WTF isn't the Teams wiki using markdown files you can edit and sync locally? I mean if this has changed since I last tried, cool... but that's the single biggest thing I wanted from this. Now, I just put a _docs directory into my projects and have markdown files in there sync'd to the git repo... I've given up on files in teams for the most part.
Also with teams, splitting up chats and meating chats is a pain... the "activity" indicator doesn't tell you WTF subtab for chat something is in now. I used to at least halfway like teams if you avoided (over)using features, now it's just a craptastic mess.
I think they're related. Software Engineering is about enumerating these edge cases and dealing with them. That requires skill.
Vibe-coding, or even prompting for larger chunks of code doesn't force you to enumerate these edge-cases.
And I firmly believe that reviewing the code for those edge-cases is harder than writing it yourself, as by nature you have to work backwards. You've arrived at a place, and you need to find out which routes were taken, and whether those routes are correct. Guardrails, snow-chain warnings, slope % warnings etc.
When you've arrived at the place it's easy to say: eh, whatever. We got here. Ship it. Especially with the push from above these days to go faster.
It was in my history? Check
Recent documents? Check
Visible in the file explorer? Check
Desktop? No dice
Try to open from the file dialog... error. The message? Can't get it from some URL.
My wife wakes up and starts crying. She's spent hours. What the fuck? I understand computers, and files don't just disappear.
"Were you editing it with Tritium?" (blames my product!)
Wait, a URL? I bet it's some OneDrive dark pattern.
Fix it by de-selecting "backup" multiple times and then clicking "submit". Files magically re-appear after I make sure to tell Microsoft to "keep my local copy".
What happened is exactly what it suggests. OneDrive migration doesn't just copy your files to a server. While the migration is occurring, the operating system is optimistically re-mapping them all to a cloud URL and/or deleting them entirely.
Halting the migration and disabling "backup" returned the mapping back to the local disk, and I was able to open the file as normal.
I know, it's as crazy as it sounds and your bet was my bet at first as well.
does everyone hate it?
I don’t rate the apps I use unless other than to give it 1 star for doing something I hate. My banking app’s transaction search doesn’t work at all, so it gets 1 star. But 1.9M ratings resulted in a 5 star average — who are the freaks giving their banking app 5 stars and why?
looks like millions for my banking app (Chase) rating 5 stars
do you really not understand why people might do things different from you?
Why would anybody ever want their pictures to disappear from their phone if they delete them on the web? It doesn't make any sense.
It makes perfect sense to me. I rely on that feature. My monitor is big and it's much easier to use the big screen to sort vacation photos and delete the 90% which are garbage and not worth preserving. When I delete the garbage ones, of course I want to delete them everywhere. (And if I accidentally deleted the wrong photo, I can undelete within 30 days.)
I put the effort in to move off gmail, was worth it. Now gmail is just my spam inbox
I remember playing the backup & restore game when rebuilding my PC, which I just happened to do last night as I received a new SSD. I didn't have to worry about documents and thanks to a separate volume, redownloading my Steam library, either. That was a massive time save. And it didn't have to be OneDrive, it could have been any cloud sync service -- but OneDrive works just fine.
The user just fucked up and had a conniption fit on Tiktok.
The user fucked up. Sadly HN even gobbles this shit up with no thought.
Was it user error? Maybe, maybe not, but that's irrelevant. If it's so easy to make an unrecoverable and catastrophic mistake, it's a tool that's too dangerous to use on the daily.
Shift+Del and rm -rf don't have any guardrails around them. In tech you are surrounded by footguns and bear traps. MS made it that much worse by wrapping these in dark patterns that may change without notice but the logic that "dangerous things should be prohibited" is a perfectly good way to end up living in an environment where someone else curates what you can and cannot do. For your protection of course.
A tool isn't dangerous because you can make an unrecoverable and catastrophic mistake (you can make one with a kitchen knife and we still use them every day). It's truly dangerous if it can and does act against your wishes, interests, and reasonable expectations like OneDrive did.
The article is accompanied by a TikTok video I can't scrub through so I can't tell why it's not possible to go to OneDrive's recycle bin and recover the lost data.
How about no. I dropped some important documents on a few flash drives that I have lying around.