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Comment by bitsandboots | Hacker News Reader

So many good comments here, but I keep thinking about how thankful I am that PCs don't work like smartphones, and it's sad it's regressed to this point.

Android has so thoroughly defeated itself, that I feel crazy to say I'm thankful that microsoft doesn't run the PC world like google runs the smartphone world.

Windows itself is a bastion of stability and sanity compared to android. Things do not need to be upgraded prior to the hardware actually breaking of old age.

Beyond that, just like google, microsoft doesnt control the entire hardware-software pipeline. But just like google, microsoft is in a place of power where they could have made it incredibly inconvenient to own your PC, by dictating norms through a store, or discouraging any deviation of environment by safetynet.

My memory is bad here, but did this sort of thing ever end in antitrust lawsuits for microsoft in the past? And, when can we look forward to the same for google?

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Windows has had regular CA updates for about two decade now. If anything, Android works more like Windows at this point.

Microsoft has also added tons of DRM to Windows (which they later broke). Remote attestation is built into the OS as well.

Google has inconvenienced Android developers by altering the Android internals you weren't supposed to rely on anyway; Microsoft does this all the time as well.

We may need to wait a few weeks for an updated Magisk module. Honestly, it's really notm that bad. Just don't click the update button on the five or six devices that will receive Android 14 before then.

Microsoft tried, they just failed. For now. They are still trying. Windows 11 requires TPM and Secure Boot.

I think they were successful in obsoleting a huge amount of functioning computers, forcing my people to buy new hardware to run Windows 11.

For now, most people and businesses ignore Windows 11; they are happy with Windows 10. In 2025, once the Windows 10 support ends, it will be more interesting.

And this is part of my point: by the time microsoft kills old computers, if they even do, they'll be 10 years old, not 2 years old.

It's a super soft requirement. I have secure boot and tpm disabled on my pc and win 11 doesn't care.

Why? Because I can't set my prefered GPU with uefi enabled (which is required for secure boot), and I occasionally passthrough my windows disk to a VM when I'm dual booted into my Linux OS (so naturally windows can't use the tpm).

People forget that Microsoft tried to go the iOS route and control everything by signing everything from boot to executables which one would only get from the Microsoft app store. This is what spooked Valve into developing Steam Machines and Steam OS; I'm grateful for Proton, but it was necessitated by Microsoft aggressively closed designs.

"S Mode" is still a thing. On top of what you listed it also enforces Edge as browser and Bing as search engine. I'm not kidding: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-10-and-w...

S mode is like an ad-funded tier of a streaming service: you pay less up-front, but you are forced to watch more ads. Herding people to edge and bing is how microsoft makes sure they can present those ads.

Lets talk when You will have to go out of your way to even get access to privileged account in Windows. Right now comparing restrictions of TPM to android having majority of their api (and functionallity) gated is just laughable

Let me remind you Windows RT for ARM. Same restrictions of TPM, some screws tightened somewhat more.

>Same restrictions of TPM, some screws tightened somewhat more

Well yes, that windows was basically a direct competition to android (or tried to). Not sure what has TPM to do with anything really, but regardless;

I am not saying that Microsoft is pure hearted angel that would never dare to restrict client's freedom. Obviously they did it before many times and certainly will in the future.

What I am saying though, is that for now, Android is on completely different plane of user restriction then Windows (in it's main version) is. And even if Windows is constantly looking for opportunities to tigthen it's grip, none of the restrictions that are implemented right now can justify the conclusion, as if Windows is becoming so restrictive that it's reasonable to compare it to Android. Criticize them all you want, I will as well. But let's not bend the reality just so it's easier to say 'all corpos bad', rather then putting a small ammount of effort to distinguish between the levels of opression

I can kind of see how this could be a win for users though. I've heard that some 3rd world countries demand users to install the country CA so they can MitM all connections. By making this very hard, it becomes unfeasible to get users to disable their privacy.

That kinda presumes that those countries will be understanding. Call me cynical, but it seems more likely that having an Android 14 device will be considered as implicitly wanting to not install the country CA.

The update will eventually flow through to all devices sold. And these tiny shit countries don't have unlimited resources to just build their own tech like China can. They often take the extremely easy approach to censorship and then give up when it's too hard.

The last time I checked, cell companies produced custom android builds for the phone on their networks.

Presumably, they’ll just factory/ota install the malicious certificates.

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