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Windows Windows 8 Marmite thread... Because you either love it or hate it

Discussion in 'Software' started by TheStockBroker, 28 Feb 2012.

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Windows 8: what is your opinion?

  1. Love it: I'm already using it or planning to do so.

    59 vote(s)
    41.0%
  2. Hate it: this evil spawn of Satan will never defile the sanctity of my computer.

    37 vote(s)
    25.7%
  3. It's OK with a Start Menu replacement and while bypassing Metro.

    48 vote(s)
    33.3%
  1. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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  2. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    And yet the recent top seller Android app was a scam. Gosh.

    I agree that Microsoft needs to seriously tighten up its store, but this problem is not exclusively theirs.
     
  3. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    Just a lot more prevalent in the Microsoft store than the others, it seem they have gone for quantity over quality.
     
  4. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    I'm not sure you can say that it's more prevalent. The Windows Store is smaller (especially for Windows 8.x) so scams show up more blatantly. The Android store is huge, and more developed, and consequently scam apps are more sophisticated. On the Windows store no scam app has ever made it to top sold/downloaded program. On Android, it has. Ought to tell you something.

    No excuses for Microsoft's lackadaisical approach, of course.
     
  5. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    I say that because as explained by How-To-Geek...
    Saying that just because a single scam app has made it to top sold/downloaded program for a single week on Google play, shows that they are all just as bad just isn't comparable.

    The Microsoft store is (imho) the worst of the lot as it has many apps pretending to be legitimate programs, it's understandable for some scam apps to make it into any store as the vetting process can't look through the code of every program.

    But when it's a simple matter of the people doing the vetting process to just install or run the program to see it doesn't do anything, directs them to a malicious web site, or is flagged as malware, you would expect the most obvious scam apps to not be allowed, it's almost like Microsoft isn't vetting a single program.
     
  6. loftie

    loftie Multimodder

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    WP store is similar, I've reported a fair few things such as chrome browser, firefox etc with them still being on there the last time I checked. While they may or may not be scams, why MS allows them on there when they know too well they aren't what they are pretending to be I have no idea.
     
  7. GoodBytes

    GoodBytes How many wifi's does it have?

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    I think the real problem, is the race of highest app number.
    So no one is doing anything.

    Then again, you have scam applications on MacOS, and Windows. Some have viruses, or is malware, and people install that. Junkware is even included in most PCs one buys to drop its price (or maximize company profits)
     
  8. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    Actually, that is exactly what I expect a curated store to do. Else what's the point?

    That I agree with, and I think it is heavily damaging for Microsoft. It already struggles to sell the idea of Metro apps and its ecosystem. Allowing crap to proliferate on it is commercial suicide. But this is Microsoft: the serial killer of great possibilities.
     
  9. loftie

    loftie Multimodder

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    Is it though? I haven't really seen much around about the amount of scam apps, in any app store tbh. I mean I know there are articles out there but I don't see is a a sticking point. On the other hand, take WP, talk to someone about it and you bet that they've heard that there aren't any apps in it's app store. With it's number being compared to the other app stores. As if any app store requires that many apps, a lot of the apps are just junk regardless of the store.

    I think GoodBytes is right, they want a higher number of apps in the stores so that they can put to bed the arguments of no apps. The same old 10/20/30 etc apps that 'everyone' wants will be there, probably are there already but MS just can't shake the image of no apps. So yea, they're letting it fill with s**t and they'll probably take action against individual apps if reported enough.
     
  10. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    You've got a point: quantity of apps is more in people's awareness than quality of apps. But as long as the 20 or so must-have apps are covered, and they look super sweet, who cares about the rest?

    Microsoft needs to make Metro/WP apps look so sweet that it feels as if your eyeballs are licked by a thousand little kittens. It needs to sell why WinRT is a superior successor to Win32 in ways that are obvious to the end user. It is not doing that now.
     
  11. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    Seriously ? High standards much. Inspecting the code of every program just isn't viable, it could take months to audit some of the larger apps, I'm not sure developers would be willing to wait for months while Microsoft examine every line of code.
     
  12. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    It should be fairly easy to run it and see what functions it accesses and what it doesn't. Take the scam anti-virus program Virus Shield in Google Play. You'd expect it to have a database of viruses and rifle through the files and perform some comparison function. However a cursory examination of the code revealed no database, no scanning activity, just a basic bit of code that changes one image to another (indicating "safe") when you tap a button.

    I don't expect censors to go through code line by line. But then again there are many software tools that will do that for you. It's why we have virus scanners and debuggers in the first place.
     
  13. Anfield

    Anfield Multimodder

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    I doubt it would make enough of a difference without also educating users.

    The brainwashing of the masses by apps from companies such as facebook and twitter that con people into agreeing to grant the apps permission to do whatever the f*** they want has turned off all common sense in too many people.

    Its UAC in Vista all over again, while UAC would have been a great idea in theory to improve security it was easily defeated because people where too stupid to understand its purpose.

    In other words, the anti virus scam app could simply go legit by putting *do nothing and take your money anyway* in its permissions lists and then what? It would officially not be a scam app any more, but people would still fall for it.
     
  14. impar

    impar Minimodder

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  15. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    It seems Microsoft is making a start on tackling the scam apps, good news :)

    How we’re addressing misleading apps in Windows Store
    http://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2014/08/27/how-were-addressing-misleading-apps-in-windows-store/
     
  16. impar

    impar Minimodder

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    Greetings!

     
  17. loftie

    loftie Multimodder

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    I really don't understand this guys blog post, he's posted this online with what I'd consider to be a rather unsensational title, but then puts in the OMG YOU CAN'T HAVE BOTH line which everyone seems to be falling upon. Here's what I posted on Hexus as a response to the news post they did.

    From the 'sources' comments:

    AKA he doesn't know

    and

    AKA he doesn't know. If he knew he wouldn't be saying things such as "I believe" he'd say "this is how it's going to be". Regardless if this turns out to be true or not, all this guys know is that Microsoft could possibly force the MUI or Desktop on some form factor somewhere at sometime. Considering the talk (rumours?) of the RT/WP merge if it's anything it'd probably be that. And since WP has no Desktop. Well that's my guess anyway.
     
  18. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    Not having both touch (Metro) and desktop immediately would nix devices like the Surface Pro 3, Lenovo Yoga and other much-touted hybrid devices so that ain't going to happen.

    It also makes sense that when Windows RT and Windows Phone converge, there will basically be a non-desktop, non-win32 lightweight touch OS for phones and small tablets, and a full-fat Windows x86 with win32 and desktop, that can also run winRT apps and offer an optional RT touch interface for hybrid devices. Hopefully the win32 and win32 GUIs will also be updated to be more similar and coherent.

    The article is basically a wall-of-text of idle speculation with no new facts.
     
  19. IvanIvanovich

    IvanIvanovich будет глотать вашу душу.

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    Erh yeah... so RT+phone merge will be more like phone, which we already knew about. I don't see much point on having a desktop on small devices... though, eliminating it entirely could also be a poor move. I say this because it kills some of the ability to use it like a 'real' PC if you were to dock it with a larger display, keyboard, mouse to do 'real work'.
    Desktop will have option of full screen or small start menu, and option to run modern applications in windowed mode... which we already knew about. Small start menu and running modern apps windowed may be the default setting in some scenarios. I suppose from a particular point of view that is 'doing away with' modern on the desktop since they will be more like traditional desktop in that way.
    I'm pretty sure 9 will appear to be more like 8.1 with some useability improvements rather than anything that is really that radically different. I think they will be playing it safe on 9 instead of introducing any really big UI changes since big UI changes are what seems to freak out large percentage of the Windows userbase. There is no way they want another repeat of 8 perception wise.
    As far as GUI changes go, I would be ecstatic if they managed to go through all the resources and get all icons to be the same style. It still makes me laugh when some icon pops up that looks like it was made for XP or even 95. I find those inconsistencies terrible.
     
  20. impar

    impar Minimodder

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