this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2023
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[–] Skies5394@lemmy.ml 79 points 10 months ago (2 children)

It’s basically just their Outlook web app. It offers no extra function, and breaks a LOT of old functionality.

There’s a registry key to turn off the button.

[–] baduhai@sopuli.xyz 61 points 10 months ago (2 children)

There’s a registry key to turn off the button.

Of course it's a registry key.

[–] emptyother@programming.dev 44 points 10 months ago (1 children)

A registry key which is probably reset every 3rd update anyway, as usual.

[–] Land_Strider@lemmy.world 29 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Don't even need the damn button. Yesterday while playing some fullscreen game with critical network usage (CSGO) my windows 10 with edited group policies and registry keys to block updates just switched to the outlook from the old mail program and ran it in the foreground (behind the game).

Microsoft doesn't give a fuck about the user consent, the settings for updates, settings for game focus, out-of-the-way advanced user controls etc. These settings don't even need to be defaulted without consent via updates, it seems they outright don't work.

[–] nihth@programming.dev 6 points 10 months ago

Had a similar issue where my computer (w10) would restart while I was away and update my gpu driver which would crash regularly. There's two different places in windows where you can disable this, one in general and one for specifically the device. None of them worked. Basically was forced to do the whole restart to safe mode -> destroy driver -> restart -> install driver -> restart every day. What solved it was a gpo but at that point I was so fed up I ended up switching to Linux

[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 10 months ago

Oof. If you aren't using them, you can uninstall the default included MS Store Apps with PowerShell. Could have saved you some trouble.

I was going to say I had a similar setup and didn't get that update, but I remembered I had uninstalled the mail app.

[–] reddit_sux@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

Microsoft doesn't give a fuck about users.

[–] JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Do you mean CS2? I wish I could still play csgo....

[–] ky56@aussie.zone 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I heard you still can through the beta tab?

[–] JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 1 points 10 months ago

Yes, but you can't play because all of the official servers are offline. Only custom servers I think.

[–] kn33@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Well, it's intended for companies, so for them there's InTune policies or is GPOs. For us plebs, we just have to not press the button.

[–] Caaaaarrrrlll@lemmy.ml 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

GPOs

Group policy can be modified by a laymen by launching gpedit.msc from Super+R or the start menu.

[–] adavis@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago

The Android app has done this for years too.

After connecting my (non Microsoft) email account to the Outlook Android app I noticed the login location was geolocated in the USA... I live in Australia.

Unfortunately there's no way to turn it off.

[–] sunbeam60@lemmy.one 65 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I mean, duh!!

It’s a web version wrapped in some god-awful semi-native wrapper. Everything the app does is stored on the server. So, yes, like gmail, if you give it access to another IMAP account, the password is stored on the server BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS.

This isn’t a scandal. It shouldn’t be news.

The bigger discussion why are we pretending a server driven mail client is local?

[–] thomask@lemmy.sdf.org 37 points 10 months ago

That is the discussion. Microsoft is pretending by making it the upgrade path for two products which actually are local, and hoping users won't notice.

[–] Desistance@lemmy.world 50 points 10 months ago

Thunderbird ftw

[–] ares35@kbin.social 35 points 10 months ago

not just login credentials, but all your mail, too, even if you aren't using a microsoft-hosted mail account.

[–] brihuang95@sopuli.xyz 34 points 10 months ago (1 children)

What are the more "trustworthy" email clients? Thunderbird still good?

[–] ares35@kbin.social 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

the recent revamp of thunderbird is really good.

em client (commercial product, but free for some--2 mail accounts, home use only) is also a solid choice.

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Personally disliked emclient and went back to outlook.
Maybe I'll consider Thunderbird in the future now that it looks modern.
Already using Firefox.

[–] lemmyingly@lemm.ee 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Why did you dislike eM Client?

I've been looking at it recently because I'm currently using Mailbird. In recent weeks they told us that support for their current client will stop in 12 months time and we need to get on their latest client, which they want a one off payment AND an annual subscription. What greedy ducks.

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Some points I remember from the time I ditched it (around 3-5 years ago). They may changed them:

  • The payment was linked to the version. Wanna get a new major version = pay for the new license. It's like buying the MS 20xx package but in that case you only have the single client instead of a whole suite. (Ignoring the whole price difference)
  • Client UI wasnt my cup of tea
  • Multi account didnt feel as comfortable as it does feel on outlook.
  • Had some issues connecting my Gmail accounts and keeping them connected. Not aware of any issues with outlook
  • Afaik the database went bad at some point. Maybe imisremember it though

In essence, most issues were personal. Try it for yourself. Maybe the newer version suits you more than me!

Update: Seems like I either misremember it or I bought a license because of a feature (at the time). Anyway: They appear to have changed the licensing for home use to be free and only corporate users need to pay.

[–] kapnova9@lemmynsfw.com 34 points 10 months ago (1 children)

People complain about Apple a lot but I think Microsoft is a much more annoying company and it is very difficult to avoid their products/services. Same with google

[–] Chobbes@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

There’s definitely things to dislike about Apple, but a lot of the complaining just feels like some childish console war.

[–] douglasg14b@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago

Sure, if you only listen to and care about such petulant complaining.

There are actual gripes to be had that have broader implications.

[–] XenGi@lemmy.chaos.berlin 25 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

I don't get why people still use Microsoft services. How many data privacy scandals do we need, so they understand? Or do they still not care?

[–] mriormro@lemmy.world 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Because they're forced to? They own a large slice of enterprise.

[–] XenGi@lemmy.chaos.berlin 0 points 10 months ago

In taking about personal email. I also use outlook at work because I'm forced to, but I would never let these bastards touch my private Mails.

[–] Evotech@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It's insanely cheap for what you get

Business wise it's a no brainer

[–] XenGi@lemmy.chaos.berlin 1 points 10 months ago (2 children)

It's honestly pretty expensive compared to the alternatives. If you compare a business setup with windows plus office etc plus the support fee you can get all of that for free plus a much lower support fee from a variety of independent companies with Linux and libreoffice. The typical office worker really doesn't need the few corner cases where MS office maybe has an advantage. Honestly for a business I would even go with Google tools. Same data privacy issues, but at least the product works great. MS office in the cloud is hot garbage.

[–] Deftdrummer@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Well you got 15 words or so in before mentioning Linux.

[–] XenGi@lemmy.chaos.berlin 4 points 10 months ago

What else would I mention? Some doesn't have an office suite and figure is the only other competitor.

[–] Evotech@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago

imnate compatibility with other organisations is a huge selling point.

For companies at a certain scale / within a certain field I don't think it's even up for discussion.

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 10 months ago

I have a government job (shocking to me still) and everything is on Exchange and 365. I don't know why, other than "nobody ever got fired for recommending IBM."

[–] RocketBoots@programming.dev 17 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I wish I was a good enough dev to write a swift keys replacement. There's AnySoftKeyboard available, and they're doing an amazing job with swipe input which I prefer, but there's only so much one person can do.

[–] Nyfure@kbin.social 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Gesture typing is still in early development. The suggestions bar doesn't work yet so it's really hard to use. Nevertheless, looks promising, and it looks like development is starting back up. I'll keep an eye on it.

I have yet to find an open-source keyboard with gesture typing that is anywhere near as usable as Gboard, unfortunately.

[–] ultra@kbin.social 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

A compromise is this OpenBoard fork by Helium314 which is able to use Google's proprietary gesture typing library, which can be downloaded and loaded manually if you want to enable it. It's still a privacy improvement over using Gboard.

[–] RacoonVegetable@reddthat.com 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] bingbong@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 10 months ago

Ubiquitous Microsoft L

[–] WikiBayer@feddit.de 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yet another reason to use Thunderbird or Evolution. There must finally be mobile devices with Linux that are usable.

[–] MeanEYE@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Both of those are usable but that's about it. I use Evolution because it integrates with online accounts service well and I don't have to mine for contacts, but overall it's a sorry state of email clients in Linux world. Geary had nice ideas for a while, but it's also dreadfully optimized and development has kind of stopped.

It's also not such an easy to problem to solve either. Whole Gnome ecosystem got a lot better with new and modern applications with sleek designs, but email clients remain a pain in the ass.