Windows 10 Now Showing Full Screen Ads On Lock Screen

[TopWargamer]

Why are you guys all flipping out? Sure maybe it's technically an advertisement, but it's not like Microsoft is all like "BUY THIS GAME/MOVIE." They're being really chill about it. It's an image for crying out loud. Nothing more to it. It's a great, not intrusive way of showing an ad. Besides isn't that what you all want - ads to not be intrusive? That's what Microsoft is doing. 

[diapersarefullofshit]

The last Microsoft product i bought was windows vista, Balmer apparently tricked me into buying it. I still feel cheated, I vowed to never ever give Microsoft my money again until they fix it. I am running linuxmint 17 now and it is great, no ads and runs alot better out of the box (and i do not know much about linux). Microsoft are con-artists or street-hustlers, can not wait until they bleed to bankrupsy.

[WolfDeville]

People complaining over nothing... It's not like they force you to watch a 30 second video it's just an image and you can disable it anyway.... I'll be keeping it enabled, it does 0 harm to me and MS make a quick buck off it.

[Thony]

If MS includes ads then paying for the OS is bunch of bullshit. 

 

Default should be OFF and they should just tell us "hey, here is new feature, want to try it?" using a small popup in the task bar. 

 

Edit: seems like a despareta call for money. Is MS having financial problems or are they just testing us how much shit we can put up with ?!

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, TehStranger? said:

People complaining over nothing... It's not like they force you to watch a 30 second video it's just an image and you can disable it anyway.... I'll be keeping it enabled, it does 0 harm to me and MS make a quick buck off it.

Yeah totally agree. Full screen ads with several buttons that takes you to their website/store/whatever and the setting for turning it off is so well hidden that users will need a guide to disable it? Totally fine. Especially on a 100 dollar product that people buy, when the previous versions had no ads at all.

/s

 

Love how it is obvious that they are boiling frogs but people are basically shouting "I can barely feel the warmth, turn up the heat even more please!".

I really don't think it was a coincident that they started with no ads, then introduced the start menu ads, and now the lock screen ads. I wonder what Microsoft has planned next. Notification ads maybe?

[AlTech]

4 hours ago, QueenDemetria said:

Microsoft should just make Windows free already...

It's their cash cow. They make boatloads of money from it. It's their best selling consumer product behind office.

[ShadowCaptain]

Honestly as long as its confined to the lock screen im fine with it

[AlTech]

3 minutes ago, ShadowCaptain said:

Honestly as long as its confined to the lock screen im fine with it

Amazon does this all the time on kindles but nobody gives them flack about it.

[ShadowCaptain]

Just now, AluminiumTech said:

Amazon does this all the time on kindles but nobody gives them flack about it.

On the amazon tablets you can pay for a version that does not advertise, and they are upfront about the advertisements

 

 

[deviant88]

uninstall all the apps forcefully block all microsoft servers possible disable everything in settings panels, install classic shell start menu and so on

[LAwLz]

11 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Amazon does this all the time on kindles but nobody gives them flack about it.

Nobody gave them flack? Maybe not that you heard of, but on the forums I browse they were getting flamed like crazy (and people made plenty of programs to remove them). But that was kind of acceptable because it was a heavily subsidized tablet and before you even bought it Amazon went "this version has sponsored screensavers, do you want one without? It will be 15 dollars more". Here it is "I didn't have ads yesterday, but now I do, without any warning".

Also, Amazon wasn't boiling frogs which Microsoft clearly is. Amazon went "let's sell a cheap tablet and make money from ads". Microsoft is going "let's keep the price the same and just see how many ads our users will tolerate by slowly introducing more and more".

 

If Windows was free, or they reduced the price compared to previous versions then I would get it, but this sneaky "let's introduce more and more ads with updates" really rubs me the wrong way.

[suicidalfranco]

5 hours ago, Syntaxvgm said:

 

Yep.

 

This reportedly happens both with people that bought it outright, and who got the 'free update.'

 

You can turn them off by turning off spotlight 

 

but still, I really have an issue with this. 

 

Remember, when something is free, you are the product. 

 

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3037396/windows/windows-10-lock-screen-ads-begin-with-rise-of-the-tomb-raider-push.html

 

at MS you are also the product when you pay

[ADM-Ntek]

if this continues windows might soon have unskippable unmutable video ads.  

[A/C]

Who cares, as long as you can OPT out I see no harm no foul.

 

Maybe someone doesn't mind looking at ads, maybe someone wants to help M$ out by turning them on...

 

If they decide to force this on users then I will have a problem with it, until then it doesn't bother me one bit.

[WolfDeville]

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Yeah totally agree. Full screen ads with several buttons that takes you to their website/store/whatever and the setting for turning it off is so well hidden that users will need a guide to disable it? Totally fine. Especially on a 100 dollar product that people buy, when the previous versions had no ads at all.

/s

 

Love how it is obvious that they are boiling frogs but people are basically shouting "I can barely feel the warmth, turn up the heat even more please!".

I really don't think it was a coincident that they started with no ads, then introduced the start menu ads, and now the lock screen ads. I wonder what Microsoft has planned next. Notification ads maybe?

Clicking those buttons are 100% optional...

 

And I'm sorry, but if someone needs a guide on how to change their wallpaper then they should fucking kill themselves.

[AlTech]

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Nobody gave them flack? Maybe not that you heard of, but on the forums I browse they were getting flamed like crazy (and people made plenty of programs to remove them). But that was kind of acceptable because it was a heavily subsidized tablet and before you even bought it Amazon went "this version has sponsored screensavers, do you want one without? It will be 15 dollars more". Here it is "I didn't have ads yesterday, but now I do, without any warning".

Also, Amazon wasn't boiling frogs which Microsoft clearly is. Amazon went "let's sell a cheap tablet and make money from ads". Microsoft is going "let's keep the price the same and just see how many ads our users will tolerate by slowly introducing more and more".

 

If Windows was free, or they reduced the price compared to previous versions then I would get it, but this sneaky "let's introduce more and more ads with updates" really rubs me the wrong way.

I think you need a little hug from out dear friend @KemoKa !

[KuJoe]

When my PC is locked, there's going to be an image there anyways (and I won't be there to see it) so I couldn't care less what the image is as long as it's NSFW or something like that.

 

Who locks their PC, leaves the monitor on, and stays at their desk?

 

Also, does anybody on this forum know somebody who actually paid for Windows 10? Let's complain more about free stuff.

[KemoKa]

29 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

I think you need a little hug from out dear friend @KemoKa !

Actually, to be honest, this whole thing makes me kind of uneasy as well. @LAwLz has a good point. I mean, it's almost unanimous on this thread that people don't really care or mind at this point. That's fine, I guess. I mean, objectively speaking, these aren't terrible ads, they could easily be just random wallpapers. But if people are so comfortable with ads being injected into a product that they themselves bought with actual money, all it will do is prompt Microsoft to push a little further, to see how many ads they can push to consumers before it gets annoying. So where do we draw the line here? Is there a line? Are people just so used to being marketed to that they'll be just as apathetic to unavoidable fullscreen takeover ads that they have to watch before they log into their computer as they are with these images? From what I've seen from the F2P mobile gaming industry, I would say yes, or that at least that's where we're headed. There needs to be a line drawn by us between the consumer and Microsoft that tells them what we won't tolerate. And when I say line, I mean a massive, jagged, Grand Canyon-dwarfing chasm that has the gaping jaws of Linux at the bottom should Microsoft overstep their bounds.

But as we've seen, the non-techies of the world (and there are many) are very good at being submissive, unquestioning little sheeple. Mark my words, Microsoft will eventually be milking this ad campaign like the cash cow it is, and the hundreds of millions of blind little lambs won't have the cognitive ability or concern about it to actually do something about it.

[Ethnod]

8 hours ago, DeadEyePsycho said:

I mean, the ads aren't exactly that invasive but the precedent that could be set is what is worrisome.

I think you mean that HAS been set, most people who are outraged are too lazy to make a big deal out of this and as such Microsoft will weather the tiny storm in a tea cup and we will have adverts on our lock screens and in 5 years they will be on the start menu.

 

I for one will be tweeting MS to let them know that if they think I will be paying for an OS with advertising on it they are delusional, never mind the security implications... cause we all know how secure banner ads have been right?

 

PS: @KemoKa I bloody well care lol  I stopped pirating Windows after XP and have owned 1 copy ever since... Well this means I have bought 1x copy of XP and 1x of Windows 7 cause the others... would not have taken them for free tbh. But with this... now my upgrade to Win10 is on hold and I'll be watching this like a hawk. If they keep going down this road I'll be moving to Linux full time, especially if Adobe get their shit sorted on Linux... maybe I'll move to MacOS....

Edited February 25, 2016 by Ethnod

[Colonel_Gerdauf]

So much ado over absolutely nothing... again.

 

These are add placements on "Windows Spotlight", a lock screen setting where Microsoft provides you the wallpapers in the first place. It takes little to no effort to change it to something of your own, so the practical chances of people seeing these "new" ads are fairly slim. Also, those ad placements had existed since very early in the lifespan of Windows 8.

 

Good grief, are people getting desperate in finding something to flame Windows 10 for. The telemetry "issue" for instance has already been effectively debunked by a lack of response from networking groups, whether you like to admit it or not.

[sof006]

Okay, so... just turn it off? People complain about absolutely ANYTHING.

[Ashaira]

could it be because of the home version? i have the pro version and i have not had any of the add problems people have reported since the beginning.

[NateGSR117]

I don't think this is right, last thing I want is ads as soon as I wake my computer after a long day.

[GoodBytes]

I moved the thread out (I am supposed to lock it, but I'll the conversation continue)

 

This is not news (Well already posted). People here have reported this before. It was also mentioned at Microsoft BUILD event last year, which was reported here. This is the disabled by default, Windows Spotlight feature. Basically, someone has to pay for the fancy photographs you have been enjoying. Microsoft license them from many photographers.

 

 

 

If you don't want the ads, then don't use/enable Windows Spotlight, and use your own images.

 

 

[vanished]

5 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

I moved the thread out (I am supposed to lock it, but I'll the conversation continue)

 

This is not news (Well already posted). People here have reported this before. It was also mentioned at Microsoft BUILD event last year, which was reported here. This is the disabled by default, Windows Spotlight feature. Basically, someone has to pay for the fancy photographs you have been enjoying. Microsoft license them from many photographers.

 

 

 

If you don't want the ads, then don't use/enable Windows Spotlight, and use your own images.

 

 

Chromecast does a similar thing (shows cool pictures endlessly from a variety of sources when idle). I suppose google is just funding that through the advertising they do elsewhere on the web then?  I'm wondering because it seems very similar, yet they don't seem to show any ads on the chromecast.