Devs slam Microsoft for injecting tech-support scam ads into their Windows Store apps Application makers are crying foul after some of their programs distributed via the Windows Store popped open tech-support scam ads on users' desktops. A thread in Microsoft's support forum, active since April 28, details the scandal: programmers who use Redmond's Advertising Software Development Kit (SDK) to display ads in …
My most common use of Windows is the self-service checkouts at the super-market (I know they are Windows because I have seen them crashed). Next on the list is probably ATM use. They were (are?) XP. Once every five years I tell a Windows device that I have arrived for my regular check-up at my local surgery. It is possible there are some other Windows machines I use less frequently that have successfully hidden their OS by not crashing when I see them.
Some self service checkouts are linux based, like the ones at B&Q... You don't usually see because they rarely crash, although i have seen them reboot once during a power outage.
Most ATMs nowadays are running windows 7, XP ones have largely been phased out.
Many devices use windows because its easier, and developers to write the frontend software are easily available, but its stupid to have a full featured os on a device intended to provide a very limited subset of functionality.
I'll add a common reply. [see icon]
You really do need to get out of Mommy's basement a bit more often.
[see icon]
There are a lot of us who have avoided using anything bearing the MS logo where we have control over the choice for years. Linux, Android and the Apple world make it easy to do it where we are in charge.
OThers have made the IMHO mistake of going with Windows Embedded for a variety of reasons but most of them really don't hold up to serious examination but as the saying goes, 'There's Nowt as queer as Folk'.
Software from Redmond ? Snog, Marry or Avoid? And the answer is Avoid like the plague unless there really is no other choice.
No problem. Last month I visited some relatives and got my VERY FIRST contact with the Rubbish from Redmond in calendar year 2019.
You're well ahead of me then. None thus far, none on the horizon.
Most likely place I'd even see it is at my Doc's office, and I haven't been there in quite a while and don't expect to visit any time soon.
I've currently got an HP tower on the side of my desk reformatted from the Win10 it was sold with & given a copy of Ubuntu instead.
It cost me a pretty penny to have that done, I'm totally blind else I would have done it myself, but I hope it will be worth every penny.
Because it's got Orca (the screen reader) installed & running which allows me to interact with it.
I am slowly, painfully, baby steps at a time, tip toeing my way through how to use it at all, hopefully eventually becoming proficient enough with it to use it as my primary computer.
It is not an easy task, the hurdles seem infinite in quantity & Sysifisian of quality, and my Windows knowledge does me little to no good in the world of Linux.
But I am learning, I'm making progress, and the end goal is being able to ditch Windows all together.
I sure as hell won't be "upgrading" my current Win7 system to Win10, down that rabbit hole I refuse to go.
As I've said many times before, MS wants me to upgrade & they've done everything in their power to convince me to do so, but they've convinced me to upgrade right the hell off the MS Infinite Treadmill(C)(TM).
Shadow Systems, how is Orca working for you?
Friends used to use Window-Eyes and JAWS, but Apple's Voice Over has been much easier (and good lord, much less expensive!)
I tried Emacspeak long ago. That was too...too much like EMACS. Blinux looked promising but is gone. Is Orca easy to learn?
It's great at some things, utterly sucks sweaty monkey poop at others.
I'll be trying to figure out what a set of menu icons^1 are supposed to do only to have Orca hiccough & start reading bits that make no sense & may not even be part of said menu.
^1: When icons include some form of AltText or Description that allows them to be read aloud by a screen reader. Most do not include such bits & are thus "invisible" to Orca.
Or I'll ask it to read the entire page to me, sit back to listen, & wonder WTF when it starts repeating itself. Why is it starting over from the beginning? Fast forward back to the last place I can remember prior to the twerk & restart... Only to have Orca read as if nothing were wrong.
It's all hit & miss - even if/when Orca works like it needs to there are programs (even bits of programs) that give it fits, cause it to shit itself, or otherwise make my life hell. What might have been a simple act to visual folks turns into an hours long freescale climb of Mount Whatthefuck over something(s) that the program coders missed, didn't care about, or actively created in such a way as to intentionally fuck with your head.
An example is taking a right-mouse-click Properties view of something. In Windows+Jaws it's the right application key. In Orca it's supposed to be the same but often doesn't work. Finally get it to work & the Properties screen comes up. Except the folks that made the widget are using images of the buttons instead of text, no text descriptions, so I have no way of knowing WTF any of the buttons do. I have to get a sighted helper, borrow their eyes, & memorize what the buttons at each position do. ("Button 1 is for disc clean up, button 2 is for defrag, button 3 is for compressing the drive", etc.)
Now multiply that kind of crap by every program on the computer. NONE of them were written with Accessibility in mind, all of them have quirks to learn & learn to get around, and I can't get proficient with the computer until/unless I learn all those quirks. That's hundreds of things to memorize. I'm already so old my brain leaks, so trying to cram it full of a whole new OS worth of data?
*Holds skull in both hands & sways woozily*
Ow ow ow ow owwwwww...
FWIW some of us try to help. I have a couple of blind friends, and ask their advice about my website and the softsynth I work on - it's possibly unique in having a full command line interface. I've also tried to promote the topic at the Linux Audio Conference for a couple of years.
Websites>We rely on ad revenue to keep this site going.
Me> My Granny got scammed when visiting your website by an ad that claimed her PC was infected and paid $500 for a dubious service she didn't need nor ill afford on her fixed income!
Websites>Shrug then grimace.
Me>Activate ad blockers/content blockers on all PCs I am responsible for.
Websites>We rely on ad revenue to keep this site going. Please disable your ad blocker.
Me>Shrug then grimace.
>Now where is that finger icon???
What we actually need is the: "Give The Finger (GTF) mechanism that communicates a user's opinion of an ad received (and tracking details of the relevant ad) to ad delivery network owners and arbitrage service. Ad's that have received a GTF shall be blocked (ie. not served again) until the ad has been reviewed by an independent assessor."
It shouldn't be too difficult as basically we have the main elements of this system with the Do Not Track (DNT) and DCMA take down notices. However, doubt it will happen, unless it can be sold as a profit earning stream to ICAAN.
Websites>We rely on ad revenue to keep this site going.
Users> But, I enabled ads; why can't I get this content.
Web Proxy Admin.>To ensure that this organization and its customers are protected from your risky browsing behavior and advertising services who are apathetic about infected content--advertising services have been blocked for the entire organization, and there is nothing you can do to unblock them.
Hacker>Ha, used a Javascript blocker to disable the Javascript that detected that ads were blocked, and now I can get to the content (most of the time).
ah, a nice, green, safe, walled garden where sheep graze and their fleece is gently trimmed by invisible shears... Shame about wolves digging a hole (or parachuting), but never mind, just a bump on a long road to the the wall-building nirvana :)
According to the developers, netizens who downloaded their apps are being interrupted by their browsers opening up new tabs displaying an alarming message that wrongly claims their PC is infected or damaged, and are directed to a scammer-owned website that offers to fix the supposedly broken machine for cash.
Oh yeah since WIndows 10 was out thats in my powershell script to remove.
And middle finger to linking my local user account to an online Microsoft.
I don't see the point in downloading software or games for the PC that have any form of ad, there is decent enough open source software for most software needs (Gimp, LibreOffice, etc...) and paid options for anything else (dbPowerAmp, Vegas Movie Studio, etc...).
In my experience, whenever someone makes a technical request or provides a technical solution that starts with the word "just", that person is talking BS and should be regarded as an idiot concerning the subject. For example, "Just open the firewall so I can download this app that isn't allowed here at work" was a real request I got. It seems MS is playing to this and it makes it even more obvious what we are dealing with.
Similar to when people use the word 'simply'. I remember many moons ago the Haynes manual for the Austin Metro had this as the first step for gapping the distributor points
First: Simply drain down the cooling system and remove the radiator as described in...
Far better advice would be 'find someone with small hands' :)
Here's a crazy idea:
Produce an app that is so useful that people would be willing to pay for it.
If folks are not willing to pay for it, maybe, in truth, it isn't really any good, since it demonstrably has no value for the the users?
What does it say of your wonderful product that no no one will even stump up the price of a sandwich to use it for a year?
Do you think that weighing it down with a bunch of (the internet's universally terrible) ads is adding value to your app? Making it better?
Are you proud of having users whose estimation of your product's value is ... zero?
The Internet: where free stuff is worth every penny you pay for it
'"Microsoft does not send unsolicited messages to request personal or financial information, to provide technical support to fix your computer, or to send intimidating alerts with threats to take action,"
In fact they apparently do send exactly these types of unsolicited messages -- it's Microsoft's ad SDK, and so Microsoft's responsibility to filter exactly those types of messages out of the ad stream it provides.
disgruntled coder at GameFace.LLC. "How do you expect users to trust using any app on the Microsoft Store when they keep having a browser popped open with an obvious scam site?"
disgruntled user at Home. "How do you expect users to trust using any app on the Microsoft Store when they keep having adverts in them ?"
Ummm, so if you download software from a developers own site and spams you with adverts, that is called Adware and blocked by AV.
But if you download it from an official appstore where they take a cut of the revenue, it is not Adware and so AV should not block it.
Isn't that called anti-competitive practice ?
I guess MS don't want to help those developers either.
Or the developer of the "Start" app that pops up bottom-left and puts adverts around people's programs.
If Microsoft can't be bothered to properly vet adverts deployed by their advertisement platform, then that affects Windows 10 itself.
The worst part is that blocking these ads needs firewall configuration, and average Joe can't do that.
At work I have no choice but to use Microsoft. At home on my desktop and lappy I am a peguinista (male version whatever that is) and have been for over 20 years. Micros**t can kiss my rosy red rectum. They put out garbage software and charge monster licensing fees for the end user to be their beta testers.
I had those annoying malware ads using Microsoft's OWN Soltaire Collection App. Just finished my game of FreeCell and BEEEEEEEEEP! with a browser window opening saying "you have been infected". And they kept popping up, until I closed Solitaire.
It seems to be fixed now. Just the regular annoying ads, which can safely be ignored (no I won't cough up just to remove the ads, that's bloody ransomware)
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
