In Windows 10, Ad-Free Solitaire Will Cost You $10 -- Every Year 296
Wired UK reports that the pre-installed Solitaire on Windows 10 capitalizes on the long-cultivated addiction that some users have to the game with an interesting bargain: rather than being an ordinary included application like it used to be, what may be the world's most pervasive on-screen office time-sink of a game now comes with ads, unless a user wants to pay (by the month, or by the year) to remove those ads. Notes the linked piece: "To be entirely fair, this is the same as on the Windows 8 version, which wasn't installed by default but could be downloaded from the Windows Store."
At $1.49/month or $10/year, this might be enough to drive some people who otherwise would not to check out some of the free, open-source games out there; PySolitaire is one of many in this incomplete list.
At $1.49/month or $10/year, this might be enough to drive some people who otherwise would not to check out some of the free, open-source games out there; PySolitaire is one of many in this incomplete list.
They're going to be charging money for the OS soon (Score:5, Insightful)
A year from now you'll have to pay money for this steaming pile...
Re:They're going to be charging money for the OS s (Score:5, Informative)
Look, everyone knew that something was up with the "free Windows" deal. Com on. MS never gives anything away unless doing so will make them money some other way. Now they are tracking you and your surfing habits even more than Google (because it's the OS doing the tracking) and they are going to shove ads in your face any way they can. I have a feeling that many people are going to wish they got an ad-free OS by paying up front. My concerns about upgrading grow with every dribble of information.
Windows 7; paid for, ad free, and I can control the updates.
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So Android doesn't track you? The Google apps inside Android don't track you? MS is behind the curve on this one...
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Android itself doesn't track you and you have many options as to which version of Android you want. Gapps isn't a necessity in Android, you only need it if you want to run Google's crap.
My phone runs a custom AOSP based build of Android, without gapps, and it works just great. I use F-Droid and Amazon for my apps.
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My phone runs a custom AOSP based build of Android, without gapps, and it works just great. I use F-Droid and Amazon for my apps.
Fair enough, and you can do that... but I hope you're aware that you're in the extreme minority and always will be... Your average consumer will never do that...
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Unless MS can mine data from the Steam client they'll get nothing from me. My Windows box is a headless Steam server I use to stream windows only games to my Linux desktop and laptop. The only thing installed on it is Firefox and Steam (and the games, of course). I've been using the MS Insider preview with Steam for a couple of months now, and it's been working great.
I've got to hand it to MS on the distribution/upgrade of Windows 10. I fully patched my Win7 Pro, reserved my upgrade and removed the Wind
Re:They're going to be charging money for the OS s (Score:4)
I think you missed the point I was making. MS is going to try and use Windows 10 to generate income in ways that don't involve charging for the OS up front. That means ads, tracking etc. I don't use smart phones because I haven't found a use for them that I need yet. But I do use a computer for work every day, and for entertainment. So when they announced Windows 10 was free, I knew that they had something cooking that I would not want to be part of. I expect ads on more things than just Solitaire, and so should you.
I have a feeling that we are going to hear lots more complaints about the "free" version of Windows as people have more experience with it. I also expect that if they get a few million complaints, they might make it so that you can pony up the $130 obligatory dollars per copy to make the "FREE" ad-based Windows into a paid-for, ad free version.
Re:They're going to be charging money for the OS s (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a feeling that we are going to hear lots more complaints about the "free" version of Windows as people have more experience with it. I also expect that if they get a few million complaints, they might make it so that you can pony up the $130 obligatory dollars per copy to make the "FREE" ad-based Windows into a paid-for, ad free version.
Yes, and then just like the cable companies, the ads will also sneak into the $130 fully paid version.
Re:They're going to be charging money for the OS s (Score:4, Funny)
I don't use any software that I haven't reviewed the source code line by line. I've almost made it through Lynx but until then I'm simply using wget and reading the HTML as bare text.
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There is Cyanogen mod...
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Now they are tracking you and your surfing habits even more than Google (because it's the OS doing the tracking) and they are going to shove ads in your face any way they can.
Recently it appears that TiVo, of all companies, has started to aggressively insert advertisements onto the screen when you're watching the TV shows you recorded. Rumor has it that Nest thermostats will soon be displaying advertisements on its display.
.
The computer companies seem to have been taken over by the advertisers. Microsoft is probably just jumping on the bandwagon to get some of the money.
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Completely agree. This is the new, wretched business model they are all pursuing. I would mind somewhat less if they offered both options, the ad-filled version for free, and the no-ad version for the regular price. This should be something that most people would probably say is acceptable. Forcing everyone to the ad-filled version, which will happen as they phase out 7 and 8, is not very good for customer relations. Obviously they will make an enterprise version that is ad free, so they should also make a
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Rumor has it that Nest thermostats will soon be displaying advertisements on its display.
Wait, a thermostat that you paid 10 times as much for as a regular thermostat is also going to display ads at you?
Lucky for us nobody spends more than 2 seconds a day looking at their thermostat. I suspect their ad revenue will be on the order of dozens of dollars a year.
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Linux. Just as ad free, just as easy to control the updates and it doesn't cost one, red cent.
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True, but I already own Windows, and my stuff is on it.
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Dual-boot? That is so 90's.
Just setup a VM (Virtual Machine) -- VMWare or even VirtualBox. You can even decide which Host OS you want:
* Host on Windows and Linux in a VM or
* Host on Linux and run Windows in a VM (which probably isn't a bad idea since you can track / block networking(
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Now they are tracking you and your surfing habits even more than Google
Do you have any quantifiable information to back that up? I'm pretty sure Google still tracks more for the purposes of turning you into a sellable product.
Re:They're going to be charging money for the OS s (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a really really obvious reason Microsoft gave away Windows 10 for free. They take 30% of all apps sales.
Give me a break. Solitaire is still free and *ad-free*. That's right I said Ad-Free, because it is if anyone actually bothered to open Solitaire on Windows 8 or Windows 10. If you want to play Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows 98, Windows 7 solitaire aka Klondike solitaire it's still free and it's still completley ad free.
They also added, in spite of everybody here being entitled little brats, 5 other versions of solitaire like Spider solitaire and freecell. If however you want to try out one of the "Daily Challenges" you may use the curated, daily content for the outrageous price of watching an ad.
God, Slashdot has really hit a new low. God forbid an app, that can be uninstalled is included with a free OS that gives you 5 games for free but offers one tiny bit of premium content in exchange for an ad.
If your tin foil hat paranoid brain can avoid clicking on the daily-challenge button you get multiple high quality card game apps for nothing. Or you can right click on the app in your app list (because it's not even pinned to your start menu by default) and click "Uninstall". Lord have mercy! The pain and trouble! Oh my!
They aren't tracking your surfing habits more than google. They're tracking them exactly the same. The OS isn't scanning the contents of your files and applications and uploading them. Put simply this is some of the most rediculous FUD I've seen in nearly all of Slashdot's anti-Microsoft FUD. Which is saying a lot.
For fuck's sake, Solitaire is not part of some master scheme to spy on you. In fact of all of the large tech companies Microsoft is the one most actively avoiding ads to pay for their products and instead choosing for subscriptions.
Re:They're going to be charging money for the OS s (Score:4, Insightful)
No one said solitaire was going to spy on you. I started this conversation because I don't like the move to an ad-based, MS-store-based business model. I would rather just buy Windows and have it be a solid, reasonably useful operating system. I mentioned the spying as an aside, which by the way, is really irritating nonetheless.
Are you defending the new MS business model? I personally don't like thinking about getting nickel and dimed all the time when I use something. I'd rather pay up front and not have to think about how much this costs or that costs as I use the OS.
Re:They're going to be charging money for the OS s (Score:5, Insightful)
e I don't like the move to an ad-based, MS-store-based business model.
If your biggest complaint is that there are ads in some areas of the solitaire suite then just spend the $1 per month for the next 10 years and you'll be back to where you were paying for windows before. You can even write it off if you're a business as an expense instead of a purchase.
Better, take the $170 for Windows xp/7/8 pro and invest it. Every month you should make about $1.70 in returns. Take that $1.70 and get solitaire every month for life. Take the other $0.70 and every other month buy yourself a nice ad free version of the apps you want for $1.50 like MetroTube. Most ad supported apps in the store also have an ad free version you can buy outright.
Meanwhile the Microsoft Store Based business model works great. All of your purchases are instant. No more filling out a shady as hell paypal form and waiting for a cd key to arrive. No more trying to find virus free freeware on Downloads.com which then ends up installing a firefox extension to spy on you. No more installing tiny applications which may or may not solve the problem you have and may or may not add a rootkit to your system. The Store is safe, it's well sandboxed by the WinRT APIs. It's cheap, since most apps are more like $1.50 instead of $9.99. It's convenient, you just search and all of the apps are in one place, you don't google and hunt through their poorly designed 1980s BBS inspired website. All of the libraries and packages are included no hunting for dependencies. And yes there are some ad supported apps, but I'm fine with that because I believe in developers being able to make a livelihood but sometimes I'm not willing to actually buy an app outright. I'm more than happy to look at a reasonable amount of ads in an app if I don't feel like spending the $0.99 for it. And when I do feel like spending a couple dollars to support an app it's bought outright 99% of the time and I can install it easily on all of my computers without registration or DRM or any bullshit.
Re:They're going to be charging money for the OS s (Score:4, Insightful)
Just understand that your long rationalization of how convenient and awesome your computer lifestyle is overlooks the blazing moral issues the rest of us are displeased with. What you really are endorsing is a future where the single corporate gatekeeper model is perpetuated with said gatekeepers in a position of power which has never been so concentrated in the history of the world.
All of the large OS and Web Service corporations are gunning for this role: to be positioned such that they will
1. Extract profit on all human purchasing activity
2. Control what you are allowed to see via advertising, search and censorship bubbles
3. Complete awareness of who you are and what your personal motivations are so as to maximize the above while providing value to the nation states in which they must operate who would gladly be given access to the above data treasure.
This is all being sold to you in the name of your benefit and convenience. And you bought it.
This I'm sure will sound alarmist to you, but we see the end game, you don't. Enjoy it while you can.
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The only people who actually like Windows are shills and idiots who don't understand security and privacy
And gamers.
... no one is paying for that (Score:5, Insightful)
... and they know that... which means they're inserting ads in shit because "fuck you"... and that's cool. So long as we're on the same page. I'll respond by redirecting the DNS entries of their ad domains to localhost. And then go around systematically replacing, kneecapping, or tweaking all their shit to make it do what I want it to do.
Why?
First law of computer security.
Physical security is the first law. And I have possession of the OS in my hot little hands. Which means it does what I want to do so long as I can figure out what they did and I'm willing to sit there and fix it.
Which so far I've been willing to do.
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Or, you know, you could just not use Windows 10.
What you can pay for instead... (Score:3)
I hope that what you're missing is the businesses that supply professional laptops will continue to offer them with Windows 7 and no junkware for the foreseeable future. They'll cost more than all the consumer junk that is subsidised by pre-installed promo junk and spyware and so on, but if you want a system that actually works in your interests, someone will probably sell you one at a viable price unless some sort of legal agreement actively prevents it.
I also hope that this is finally the must-get-worse-b
End of preinstalled Windows 7: October 2014 (Score:2)
I hope that what you're missing is the businesses that supply professional laptops will continue to offer them with Windows 7 and no junkware for the foreseeable future.
I don't see how they can continue to do that lawfully. From Windows lifecycle fact sheet [microsoft.com]: "End of sales for PCs with Windows preinstalled [...] Windows 7 [...] October 31, 2014"
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And anyhow, even if there were some legal issue with going against its "end of sales" statement, Microsoft could sell licenses for Windows 7 to a company that builds system images. That company would sell l
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From your own source:
Windows 7 Professional ... Not yet established **
** Microsoft will provide one year of notice prior to the end of sale date.
The consumer Win 7 Home line isn't generally shipped preinstalled any more, but the Win 7 Pro line used by power users, small businesses and the like is still available in the normal way, with many suppliers offering it if you ask.
BitLocker is Ultimate-only and Ultimate is gone (Score:2)
Windows Professional didn't start to include BitLocker until Windows 8. You need Windows 7 Ultimate for that, and that was withdrawn from inclusion with PCs along with Windows 7 Home Premium. Is Anytime Upgrade from Windows 7 Professional to Windows 7 Ultimate still in operation?
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We can only hope. For a long time, Microsoft has been the business you turned to when you wanted to get stuff done. They were notable for not having the effectively enforced upgrade cycles of Apple, Google, and most of the major Linux distributions, and instead provided systems you could count on using, with support for essential bug/security fixes, for periods measured in years or decades, not months if you were lucky. I want that Microsoft back, and they would surely get more money from me and my companie
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buying ad-free Solitaire for the five years that you plan to use the laptop. Or what am I missing?
Buying ad-free Solitaire won't fix any other system ads, user data collection, etc, that are the actual reason not to use the OS. Solitaire's basically completely beside the point; there are free versions of the game anyhow, so problems in Microsoft's version are moot. The info in this link [msfn.org] ought to give you more of an idea of the security issues that a lot of people are talking about here.
Re:... no one is paying for that (Score:5, Funny)
Take your hexedit, strike Windows down with all of your hatred, and your journey towards Linux will be complete...
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"Darth Sudo" has an ominous ring to it.
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Re:... no one is paying for that (Score:5, Insightful)
That doesn't seem like a productive way to spend your evenings and weekends.
Second law of computer security. Don't use platforms you don't trust. Do you trust Windows 10?
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still using windows 7 and intend to keep doing so. I'm planning to skip Win10. They skipped 9... doesn't MS know... even numbered Windows releases are shitty. :D
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Exactly.
Where's that hosts file guy when you need him....?
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Probably posting something about cows.
but someone will pay... (Score:2, Interesting)
OS will be free, but IPv4 stack is licensed separately. Oh, and IPv6 is yet another separate distinct license. And you want share out your files and printer on your windows box to other computers/"smart" appliance on your lan? that's another distinct license. You want your games to work? Direct3D is a separate license too.
I predict Win10 will be the most profitable OS for MS, ever.
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What are you talking about. What licenses are you talking about here? You're making it sound like MS can nickel and dime basic features and monetize them separately. They're not going to be able to do that. They try that with the corporate world and the corps will go linux and the instant that happens MS is fucked raw because they're never going to switch back.
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That assumes you didn't buy the full all inclusive package... which... is what you do.
have you seen what a corp pays for an oracle licenses? The MS licenses are chump change.
Companies generally laugh at software license fees... they pay more on pretty much anything else.
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Heh, sounds like Windows 3.1 or VMS. :)
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... and they know that... which means they're inserting ads in shit because "fuck you"... and that's cool. So long as we're on the same page. I'll respond by redirecting the DNS entries of their ad domains to localhost. And then go around systematically replacing, kneecapping, or tweaking all their shit to make it do what I want it to do.
Why?
First law of computer security.
I'm taking bets on how long until they put their ad servers, required updates, etc. behind the same domain/IP as their activation servers, so it eventually stops working entirely (or nags you incessantly) if you try to block it that way.
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Given that all of that can be bypassed... I don't really care.
For one thing, I only install site licenses. MS doesn't fuck with me. For another... I don't let MS workstations through the firewall to any domain I haven't approved. I do not allow my workstation domains to talk to MS. Why would I do that? For what purpose? I download updates to a central server and then push them to the workstations. The workstations do not connect directly to MS and individually download updates for every workstation. That wo
By using it all you're giving your implicit assent (Score:3)
that this kind of bullshit is okay, same with Apple.
Microsoft has always been evil but they're not even trying to hide it any more. I'm a hardcore gamer so for now I'm sticking with Windows 7 Ultimate on my desktop but my next upgrade will probably not be Windows. Not that Valve is spotless but I sure trust them more than the other, worse, options.
Spending time trying to clean the shit they rubbed in your face out of your eyes doesn't help anyone else. How about just don't let them rub shit in your face?
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I trust no one. Do whatever you want with the OS. If it is in my hands then it will do what I want it to do. It will not phone home. it will not rat me out. It will speak when spoken to and speak to whom I permit it to speak. Period.
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And what do you do if Solitaire refuses to run if it can't contact the ad servers, hm?
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Commit suicide.
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Assuming I care, I patch/crack it so that it does what I fucking tell it to do.
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In married couples it's almost always the man that configures the technology in the house, unless there's technology-oriented male offspring available to do it instead, and there will be a fairly large number of them that are already used to blocking ads in their browsers; a large chunk of them will look for how to block other ads now that they know such a thing can be done, and they will turn to their broadband routers and prewritten lists to do so eve
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Yes. Just decide suddenly to stop using the monopoly that has had a choke hold on the industry for 30 years. That may well be longer than you've even been around.
Way out of hell (Score:5, Informative)
1) Use Solitare from e.g. Windows 7 (google for Microsoft Games Patcher).
2) Update your hosts: http://pgl.yoyo.org/ [yoyo.org] and http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/ [mvps.org] .
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3) Go to the drug store and buy a deck of cards...
Next time you go to fix Grandma's email, bring along a deck of cards and ask her to show you some solitaire games. In fact bring four decks -- some of the old games required more than one.
Hmm... (Score:4, Informative)
Sure they're giving you Windows 10 for free, but will they still charge people who actually buy a copy of Windows 10 for an ad-free version of Solitaire? My guess is yes - duh.
After reading various articles about the business model for Windows 10, the actual new Privacy statement, and all the information it will collect and Microsoft will share, it seems clear that we are not Microsoft's customer, we're their product. (My niece's Fisher-Price toy notes that "The sheep says 'baaa'".)
Windows as a Service (Score:5, Insightful)
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I don't see the problem with that.
posted from my Android phone.
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Me neither. I think Windows should be a painful and offensive as possible, to punish exactly the sort of people who should be punished.
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And so it begins....
How does it begin with Windows 10 having changed nothing about the Solitaire app from Windows 8?
Giggles (Score:2)
Carrys on with stable 8.1
I can't bring myself to care (Score:5, Interesting)
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"I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced."
And workplace productivity improved 10%. Suck it up princesses, if you want to play solitaire at work, it's only fair you buy your own copy!
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Escape one monopolist by flocking to another? I guess the irony in that is lost on most Steam fans.
That's because the 'Steam fans' know more than you.
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So it's extra embarrassing for you that they don't see your phantom irony.
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Sort of. I'm actually not a fan of Steam, and their fans are ignorantly spreading the word that DRM is okay for permenant purchases. Despite all that, those fans know something you don't. In light of that level of moronism, your original statement was dumb in a painful sort of way.
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Steam fans are gamers who don't understand computer technology.
A subset understands, but doesn't care about the same things that you do. I pay rental-level prices for games that may disappear at some point, and which I need to be connected to Steam most of the time to play. They collect data on which games I play, how often, how long, etc. Frankly, I don't care that they know those things. It would suck if a portion of my game library suddenly disappeared because something happened at Valve, but I see that as part of the price, besides the $5-$10 per game that I've bee
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I used to be rabidly anti-DRM, but my mindset has mellowed somewhat and is similar to your's now. When I'm buying a game for $5 in a steam sale, more often than not it is a game I'm not likely to ever replay. Same with digital purchases on XBL. The games I know I'll replay (Baldur's Gate, IWD, Mass Effect, etc) I have physical discs for or have purchased through GOG.
DRM is perfectly fine for something you only want to play once and can get at rental prices.
Kaching (Score:2)
Next, Minecraft by the hour!
Windows Solitaire?? (Score:4, Funny)
Well, I've always said it was the only decent software Microsoft ever wrote...
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Well, I've always said it was the only decent software Microsoft ever wrote...
New Bank branch was opening the next day, I was installing the security system. The tellers, managers, all had nothing to do, they had been trained and ready, everyone of them were at their station playing solitaire.
Copy Solitaire from Win7 and save the world. (Score:2)
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Microsoft. Where SaaS means Solitare as a Service. (Score:2)
TSIA.
MS charging for solitaire... (Score:2, Insightful)
Yet another reason to upgrade to Ubuntu.
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Yeah, cause there are no other solitaire games for Windows you can play instead that are free. The rules for the game are owned by Microsoft, after all.
Talk about a case of wanting to throw out the baby with the bath water.
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Good thing my Android comes with a free Solitaire (Score:3)
Good thing my Android comes with a free Solitaire game then. I might not have survived if it hadn't ...
Disclaimer: Some sarcasm might be present in the above text.
com.kmagic.solitaire is free software (Score:4, Informative)
There exists free (as in DFSG) solitaire for Android [f-droid.org].
Not Your Win 3.1 Solitaire. (Score:3)
The Microsoft Software Collection is full screen with themes, sound and animation. You won't see the adds if you are playing old-school Klondike without the daily challenges, leaderboards, and so on.
SolSuite [solsuite.com] is the gold standard for Windows solitaire, with about 600 variations, 80 card sets, 300 card backs and 100 backgrounds. Frequently discounted to $10 and bundled with MahJong or Sudoku,
Re:Not Your Win 3.1 Solitaire. (Score:5, Informative)
PySol Fan Club Edition [sourceforge.net] is free (GPL 3), installs easily, and has a lot of features.
From the webpage:
PySolFC is a collection of more than 1000 solitaire card games. It is a fork of PySol Solitaire.
There are games that use the 52 card International Pattern deck, games for the 78 card Tarock deck, eight and ten suit Ganjifa games, Hanafuda games, Matrix games, Mahjongg games, and games for an original hexadecimal-based deck.
Its features include modern look and feel (uses Ttk widget set), multiple cardsets and tableau backgrounds, sound, unlimited undo, player statistics, a hint system, demo games, a solitaire wizard, support for user written plug-ins, an integrated HTML help browser, and lots of documentation.
We're doomed (Score:2)
Solitaire is the only reason to use Windows (Score:2)
Shit! May as well buy a Mac now.
host file level adblock (Score:2)
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use this http://www.abelhadigital.com/h... [abelhadigital.com] system wide adblcoking.
I'll give it a try, I edit my HOSTS file by hand and UltraEdit, HostsXpert I've used but has a tendency of replacing the space after local host with a tab.
Microsoft is tricky to block, a lot of the times you end up blocking a certification site. The very first thing your system (Win7) does is send a request to Microsoft, that I blocked after KB3035583.
http://www.nirsoft.net/ [nirsoft.net] has two programs I use HTTPNetworkSniffer and smartsniff (both require Wincap) as well as reading ToS's is how I determine what's need
Sure no subscription model (Score:2)
MU-HU-HA-HA-HA
Free and open source? (Score:2)
At $1.49/month or $10/year, this might be enough to drive some people who otherwise would not to check out some of the free, open-source games out there
Out in the real world, people only care about the "free" part - doubly so, given we're talking about Windows users.
Yea, would be nice... (Score:2)
The next Vista / Metro! (Score:2)
There is nothing "free" about Windows 10, and I predict this will come back to bite Microsoft like Vista and whatever that "Metro" thing was.
I don't use Ubuntu, but this offers great potential for them, and for the average non-tech savvy computer user, it offers the "cleanest" experience.
There's nothing Windows 10 about this (Score:4, Informative)
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Slashdot has ads????
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Yes, every story about autonomous cars.
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Aren't there ads on Slashdot
Only if you don't disable them...
and pretty much every other operating system like Android, iOS etc
The OSes themselves don't have ads, unless you count the various app stores. Although on Android, the Google Apps packages do some phone-home stuff, if that's what you're actually worried about. They aren't an essential part of the OS.
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Are you referring to the fact that http://slashdot.org/subscribe.... [slashdot.org] "is not available at the moment. We apologize for the inconvenience"?
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Ubuntu Extensible Firmware Interface (Score:2)
How does lack of BIOS "force" you to use Windows 8.1? The last time I tried Xubuntu 14.04 LTS, it supported UEFI just fine. And all the desktop applications I use either have a port, have an alternative, or work in Wine.
(Yes, I know that's not what it stands for.)
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I can see that happening, along with whatever else Microsoft decides that they want to monetize/hold ransom. That has got to be the reason the rollback feature only works for a month. Once they have you, they have you and can push whatever updates or change whatever settings that they want on your PC. Disabled snooping? A new silent, background update that you can't disable will turn it back on without your knowledge.