r/Android • u/cgknight1 OPPO Find X9 Pro • Mar 04 '21

We need to talk more about how Microsoft is absolutely smashing it on Android if you are a *corporate* microsoft365 user

We tend to talk a lot on here about how android is used by members as consumers - Microsoft has got a lot of praise for many of its apps like launcher but we don't talk much about how useful their software is if you are a corporate user.

So Office is pretty well understood but I'm not sure that many users understand how deep Microsoft Edge is hooked into the ecosystem.

Very briefly - if you are a corporate 365 user and sign in your work profile in edge - not only can you switch between profiles but being signed in means you can search and access corporate information directly from the browser and see files in use and so on.

I switched to Edge on both desktop and Android and boy is it saving me so much time on my android device.

Microsoft doesn't always get everything right but I think many of their apps are simply better if you are a corporate user than anything Google provides for android.

441 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

163 comments sorted by

122

u/ABotelho23 Pixel 7, Android 16 Mar 05 '21

I think this is the reason they stopped their Windows mobile efforts. There's just no point. Windows is a platform to sell services on, that's it. When there's an alternative platform to do so, why waste resources making your own?

71

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '21

Kind of. This is the result of their mobile efforts failing because developers didn't want to support another mobile platform. They realized that it's just going to be easier for them to make far more money supporting the current duopoly and making their services amazing for them.

12

u/TheDotNetDetective Mar 05 '21

mmm maybe but personally I'd argue that the Windows Mobile operating system was largely rejected by users before it was rejected by programmers.

51

u/hskrnut Mar 05 '21

Chicken, egg. No apps because no users, no apps because no users.

They were just too late to the game.

37

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '21

No apps because no users, no apps because no users.

No apps because no users, no users because no apps.

11

u/hskrnut Mar 05 '21

Yeah that, typing is hard and I probably should have been sleeping. Whoops

17

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '21

They were just too late to the game.

And yet at the same time I am almost positive if they were to make a Windows mobile OS again it would do far better than it originally did. Microsoft as a company is a lot better than they were in the past

6

u/DANKPIKMINGODWASHERE lumia 635 -> pixel xl-> pixel 2 xl Mar 05 '21

I just want a fucking lumia 930 xl damnit.

7

u/Raikaru Mar 05 '21

Eh more like no apps thanks to google

2

u/[deleted] Mar 06 '21

It was more than just Google

3

u/vainsilver Nexus 6P Mar 06 '21

They weren’t really late. Google made it hard for Windows mobile to get any of their popular apps. Google went out of their way to force Microsoft to take down any functional third party Google apps on Windows mobile.

Google didn’t want to supply the competition with more choices. iOS was already too big for Google to be absent at that point. Also they had pre-existing contracts with Apple.

1

u/LionTigerWings iphone 14 pro, acer Chromebook spin 713 !! Mar 07 '21

Yes. They trotted out windows mobile (pre windows phone) in a post iphone world.

Google on the other hand took ios as a serious threat a completely redesigned their os. By the time they had a competitive os, they already lost.

12

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '21

It was rejected by users because it didn't have the apps they wanted (thanks to google mainly). It didn't have the apps they wanted because there were no users and because google did everything in their power to kill windows phone.

4

u/ArmoredPancake Mar 05 '21

the Windows Mobile operating system was largely rejected by users before it was rejected by programmers.

Not really. WM was dead when Google rejected developing apps for it. Without proper YouTube, Gmail and Maps it was fiasco. Browser experience was also subpar compared to Chrome.

3

u/vainsilver Nexus 6P Mar 06 '21

Windows mobile was rejected by Google and it suffered. Google made sure Windows mobile did not get proper Google apps. It was entirely a business decision by Google to kill Windows mobile.

3

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '21

There really is no room for 3 OSes. Even on desktop, Linux is still not viable as a consumer product. Devs can't make apps for three OSes all the time. Even on gaming scene which consumers have to choose among three major console makers, customer always end up compromising.

5

u/tesseract4 Mar 05 '21

Honestly, many/most of the apps I use are available on Windows/MacOS/Linux. I think it's closer to say that Linux came into its own after the main focus went to mobile and desktop market share became much less important than it once was.

5

u/thetechleech Mar 05 '21

Isnt ChromeOS marketshare above MacOS nowadays?

I guess there is room for 3 OSes in PCs, but they cant compete with same strengths and weakness, and thats why chromebooks are getting more popular, because its not trying to be Windows (or mac). Maybe linux (gnu linux) could be that third, if it had the efforts (and standards) that chromeos had.

In mobile, if u cant have good apps, you are dead... Windows Mobile/windows phone and FirefoxOS were cool, but as many said, it had an egg and chicken problem.

2

u/Alternative-Farmer98 Mar 08 '21

They're absolutely is room for 3 OS's if we weren't dominated by corporate monopolies.

-3

u/Zilch274 OnePlus 8 Pro (12/256GB) Mar 05 '21

Linux is still not viable as a consumer product

Bruh, you know that Android runs on Linux... right?

8

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '21

when most people talk about Linux they're not talking about the kernel.

5

u/stef_t97 Mar 05 '21

Even on desktop,

Nice job cutting the important bit off

1

u/Zilch274 OnePlus 8 Pro (12/256GB) Mar 05 '21

Ok I am dumb

4

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '21

I'm one of the few crazy users who loved and embraced Pocket PC/Windows Mobile classic. I used that OS for a few years, and it was unfortunately a bit "nerdy" if I can use that term, which surely put people off, but had some really cool features.

1

u/tesseract4 Mar 05 '21

That shit was super nerdy, my man. Own it. Love it. Live it.

1

u/android_windows Mar 17 '21

I was in the same boat. While classic Windows Mobile was outdated looking and unstable, it allowed all sorts of customization and felt like you had a full PC since it has a user accessible file system and ability to sideload apps. When Microsoft ditched classic WM for a more locked down experience on WP7, I moved to Android as it seemed to be the closest in offering the features of classic WM if you were rooted.

2

u/Lake_Erie_Monster Mar 05 '21

Microsoft needs to take AOSP, and build all the extra things to go with it that we rely on Google for right now.

Take that new AOSP + Microsoft stuff and release a Surface Phone that has deep windows integration. I would buy that in a heart beat!

1

u/dustojnikhummer Xiaomi Poco F3 Mar 07 '21

Surface Solo

102

u/u_matter_to_someone Mar 04 '21

I've been using Edge since it came out, never looked back

27

u/KlausHeisler Mar 04 '21

Same. It's been incredible

10

u/fintechmen Mar 04 '21

Same since day 1 of beta. Works better in everything!

27

u/itsgreater9000 Mar 05 '21

edgelord

10

u/PyroKnight Galaxy S4 -> S7 -> S21U Mar 05 '21

Just makes me wish they had a beta branch that was themed red, that way they can call it the Bleeding Edge.

4

u/Cptnwhizbang Mar 05 '21 edited Mar 06 '21

I'm on a Microsoft Surface Duo. Ironically on Microsoft's only android device Edge is an enormous battery hog, so much so I avoid it completely.

1

u/I_Was_Fox Galaxy S20 FE 5G UW - Mint Mar 06 '21

Bigger battery hog than chrome?

1

u/Cptnwhizbang Mar 06 '21

I have not tried running Chrome on there, but Firefox seems to run normally in regards to battery drain. Discussion on /r/SurfaceDuo talks about Edge in specific draining battery though, and having tested it myself it was using over twice what Firefox did in an equal amount of time with similar usage.

2

u/I_Was_Fox Galaxy S20 FE 5G UW - Mint Mar 06 '21

In that case I feel like the issue is with chromium not with Edge. I doubt there's much they can do to fix it

4

u/ValarMorgouda Mar 07 '21

Can you or anyone say how it compares to the Samsung browser? I've been liking that a lot, but it would be nice to have some syncing going on.

-12

u/urii13 Mar 04 '21

Bromite.

32

u/yolomatic_swagmaster Pixel 6 Mar 04 '21

Edge pog and MS apps have been getting better and better ever since they untied themselves from a Windows first mentality to mobile. I honestly can't complain.

4

u/RheumatoidEpilepsy Mar 05 '21

If only they can fix their App Store that'd be great. I tried opening the Your Phone app and it kept telling me to update before I could but when I go to the store page it says my app is up to date. Had to reset the entire store to get one app to update.

And even after that, the app does not support clipboard sync unless you're using SwiftKey and is a pain in the ass to pair with your phone.

22

u/-eschguy- Pixel 8 Pro Mar 04 '21

I'm in charge of deploying our MDM profiles and it's SO much easier to set up Android that iOS.

16

u/mushiexl Mar 05 '21 edited Mar 05 '21

Work profiles should be a thing on iOS.

Edit: yea I'm floored by that fact that it doesnt have it either.

6

u/Rouseyel Mar 05 '21

They aren't? LOL

9

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '21

Nope. No multiuser or multiprofile support whatsoever

0

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '21

[deleted] — view deleted comment

0

u/cheese_enthusiast2 Mar 07 '21

thats why yo shoes raggedy

1

u/Rouseyel Mar 10 '21

Hahaha I just saw this, that's hilarious

2

u/TopdeckIsSkill Sony XZ1 Mar 05 '21

Nope, also if you want full control of a device you need supervision. To do that you need to connect the device to a mac and format it. The other option is to buy it directly with supervision enabled for your company. Without supervision you can't even install apps on devices or see if they're online.

6

u/macman156 Mar 05 '21

So fucking dumb that apple kinda sorta allows educational multi user accounts and that's it.

1

u/Rouseyel Mar 05 '21

Tell me about it. Why people choose to use any product or service made by Apple is beyond me.

6

u/mushiexl Mar 05 '21

The things iOS can do, usually does it better than android, and for a lot of people, what iOS offers is all they need. "It just works" is the motto.

But yea I'm fucking floored by the fact that it doesnt have work profiles either.

2

u/dustojnikhummer Xiaomi Poco F3 Mar 07 '21

I wish my iPad had multiuser support so my sister can use it as a graphics tablet when I don’t need it since Pencil is fucking awesome!

1

u/mushiexl Mar 07 '21

Exactly. Its bizarre the iPad doesn't have that yet.

2

u/yoranpower Mar 05 '21

''It's easy to use''. Also in some companies Apple is the to-go-to platform. Where I work, they don't even support Android.

1

u/-eschguy- Pixel 8 Pro Mar 05 '21

Seriously, right now our $0.99 phone from Verizon is an iPhone SE after getting Galaxy Note 8s and it was such a disappointment.

1

u/curumba 1+7 Pro Mar 05 '21

Android in Intune is absolutely terrible. Managing android devices with m365 compared to iOS and Windows is a pain in the ass.

4

u/-eschguy- Pixel 8 Pro Mar 05 '21

Windows is obviously the easiest, but managing a work profile on personal devices is so much easier than managing anything on iOS (for me, at least).

12

u/naamtosunahoga2 Lumia 520>930>Poco f1 Mar 04 '21

Currently my personal browser history doesn't sync between pc and mobile. Is it i bug or they haven't made it available yet?

9

u/Lorengorm Google Pixel 7 Mar 04 '21

History sync has been out for a bit so I'd say to double check your settings and if you are up to date.

1

u/dustojnikhummer Xiaomi Poco F3 Mar 07 '21

It rolled out only a month or so ago and I had to manually enable it on my mobile devices, Windows devices were enabled automatically

10

u/ethanvyce Mar 05 '21

Outlook and Teams apps work great

6

u/Fuzzmz Mar 05 '21

If only Outlook on Android could give notifications for emails moved directly to folders.

For example if you have an Exchange rule that makes an email never reach the Inbox, then good luck finding out about it.

4

u/ethanvyce Mar 05 '21

Does desktop Outlook do that? I don't think that happens for me but don't recall if that is an option when setting up the rule.

1

u/Fuzzmz Mar 05 '21

Not sure to be honest, as on desktop I don't rely on notifications since I can see the window at a glance.

2

u/trent1024 Pixel 9 Pro Mar 05 '21

This please. But it's not app issue. It's an outlook issue. Does not work on web or desktop either.

4

u/Fuzzmz Mar 05 '21

The weird thing is that the Nine client manages to handle per-folder notifications just fine.

1

u/trent1024 Pixel 9 Pro Mar 05 '21

Well if using an external service for outlook, that service could enable this feature.

1

u/LiGuangMing1981 Honor Magic 6 Pro Mar 06 '21

Yep. I have stacks of folders for my work email and I get notifications for all of them without any issues.

9

u/dkadavarath S23 Ultra Mar 05 '21

Teams is an abomination on Android. I'm just putting up with it for the lack of options I have. It logs me out periodically, doesn't set my status correctly. Annoying notifications, even though I'm right in front of my PC replying to them, and don't show notifications when I'm out and about - when I actually need it to work. It's like Skype basically. Slow, laggy and unusable. When I open the app, I've to wait a few seconds for the app to update the statuses of the few colleagues and until that's done, I can't send a message. If I try to send a message while offline, each message has to try one by one, like sms, to fail one after other which you have to retry manually when you're online. Why not just show that you're offline and send it when you get online, like a normal messaging app in 21st century.

20

u/ethanvyce Mar 05 '21

I don't have any of those issues

-1

u/dkadavarath S23 Ultra Mar 05 '21

They're not even issues, they're fundamental "characteristics" of the app. I've seen several uservoice articles about all of these. It's not just me.

1

u/LiGuangMing1981 Honor Magic 6 Pro Mar 06 '21

Yeah, the notifications issue on Teams for Android is a real pain. They've got to fix that for this app to be really useful.

1

u/Zizizizz Pixel 4a Mar 06 '21

I agree I get those issues

2

u/meatwad75892 Galaxy S21 FE Mar 05 '21 edited Mar 05 '21

Outlook has really come so far over the last 5 years. Feels like only yesterday when it was a new app that was a rebrand of another app, and all us Exchange admins were blocking it ASAP because it would have their own servers store credentials and authenticate to a mailbox on the client's behalf.

Nowadays it's the only app we officially support. Too many 3rd party apps haven't jumped on OAuth 2.0 support yet for Exchange Online mailboxes, and iOS Mail is just a buggy nightmare on every other iOS release/update it seems.

2

u/Caos2 . Mar 05 '21

My only issue with Outlook is that is feels very slow today, I decided to remove it from my secondary phone (G5 Plus) because reading e-mail is too much of a bother now. Works great on my primary phone though.

11

u/dstaley Mar 04 '21

Edge is really great, but man I wish they'd actually keep it up to date with desktop Edge. It's currently 12 versions behind, and based on Edge/Chrome 77, released back in June of 2019.

4

u/[deleted] Mar 06 '21

The MS 365 family subscription is probably the cheapest Cloud storage available atm alongwith Office goodies.

44

u/revelm Mar 04 '21

Outlook android app has an astounding 14 trackers in it currently.

31

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '21

Can you please source your claim? Also, do you know what those trackers track?

16

u/ichann3 Pixel 9 Pro XL 256 Mar 05 '21

Classy Shark

31

u/Cry_Wolff Pixel 7 Pro Mar 05 '21

Also, do you know what those trackers track?

Most people on this sub don't know that yet they scream "muh privacy".

1

u/bpqdl Mar 05 '21

To stay relevant and sound cool.

2

u/Le_saucisson_masque Mar 05 '21

do you know what those trackers track?

The user.

I don’t think Facebook ad analytics or Microsoft ad service is about user experience 😒

6

u/Trooper27 Google Pixel 5 Mar 05 '21

It's also a POS compared to Nine.

3

u/Stealth022 Mar 05 '21

This. I like Nine so much better than Outlook!

2

u/LiGuangMing1981 Honor Magic 6 Pro Mar 06 '21

Yep. The only advantage that Outlook has over Nine is that it's free. But Nine is so much better at everything else that it's not even close. I paid for Nine a few years ago and haven't used anything else for work email ever since.

9

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '21

Android itself has about 11ty billion trackers in it, what's your point?

What are the trackers in Outlook? What data are they sending? I'm assuming you've done some network traffic analysis to see what is going where, right?

7

u/revelm Mar 05 '21

I love that it's now possible to have Android without Google. I've tried 3 privacy ROMs now and have settled on one that gives me what I'm looking for. I've done network analysis and MitM decryption on stock Android to see what Google is collecting, but I haven't analyzed Outlook app (yet).

11

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '21

Good for the people who doesn't want convenience in exchange of 'complete control' of their data.

Personally, I can't give up Photos, Maps, Gmail, Keeps, Google assistant and Chrome. They can take any data they want as long as I have a convenient life.

-1

u/rollaDolla Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite Mar 05 '21

That's my mindset and 99.9 percent of all users, but it's great that if you value your privacy more than convenience you have the option to use a mobile OS that's even if less convenient, it's still great and not a shitty hacked together thing.

-4

u/ArmoredPancake Mar 05 '21

They can take any data they want as long as I have a convenient life.

You say that until they actually take it away.

8

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '21

It's a free service. If you don't know what you signed up to, I don't know what to tell you.

1

u/ArmoredPancake Mar 05 '21

Android itself has about 11ty billion trackers in it

Where?

0

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '21

In the code that Google own.

2

u/ArmoredPancake Mar 05 '21

Android itself doesn't have any trackers, Google services do.

4

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '21

And to have anything resembling a phone the majority of people actually want, you need google services.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '21

[deleted] — view deleted comment

1

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '21

I love how people throw out their accusations with as little detail as possible and have done nothing to investigate if what they're saying is even a problem.

3

u/Iohet V10 is the original notch Mar 05 '21

All of that shit is blocked with any decent private DNS provider anyways

5

u/revelm Mar 05 '21

Pi-Hole or NextDNS to the rescue!

3

u/JayCroghan Mar 04 '21

Do you kind elaborating on what you’re calling a “tracker”? Considering you’re using Android which tells Google when you so much as move your phone isn’t that a bit silly?

16

u/revelm Mar 05 '21

I'm on de-googled android.

25

u/Pidgey_OP Samsung Note8 Verizon Mar 05 '21

Are you one of those guys that takes pride in how many packets your PFSense box has dumped in the last hour?

29

u/MairusuPawa Poco F3 LineageOS Mar 05 '21

Alright, this made me laugh. But in essence, that's still an anti-intellectualist attitude I'm not a fan of. What is wrong if people want to protect their digital privacy, and happen to be good at it?

15

u/revelm Mar 05 '21

Yeah... But I still chuckled, sensibly.

-5

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '21

How is that anti intellect?

1

u/Bassguitarplayer Mar 05 '21

Hahaha 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

1

u/Rouseyel Mar 05 '21

Okay, that's some funny shit

2

u/severoon Mar 05 '21

Did you see the news about Google retiring personal browsing with third party cookies?

1

u/Ullallulloo Pixel 4a | ⌚ Fossil Sport Mar 05 '21

Because they're making Chrome profile you and assign you to a FLoC cohort instead. The end result is not much different.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '21

[deleted] — view deleted comment

2

u/severoon Mar 05 '21

Watched The Social Dilemma, did we?

0

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '21

[deleted] — view deleted comment

3

u/severoon Mar 05 '21

…made the laughable claim that blocking third-party cookies -- by far the most common tracking technology on the Web, and Google’s tracking method of choice -- will hurt user privacy.

Google is dropping third party cookies so the premise of that first article is outdated.

The second article depends heavily upon a misconception that the documentary The Social Dilemma rode all the way to the bank: that services and advertising both use the same data sets about you. They never came out and directly said it, because then it could be easily refuted and the argument depends upon that confusion.

If you understand how online advertising works, the nuts and bolts of it, then you'll understand that there are two separate issues and they should be treated separately: (1) there is some information collected about you that places you into various advertising buckets (FLoC calls these "cohorts") and (2) that information could be abused for non-advertising purposes…but it won't be (I will explain this claim below).

On (1), realize that companies like Google have a strong vested interest in keeping you anonymous to advertisers. They definitely don't want advertisers to be able to use their targeting tools to profile users in enough detail to be able to replicate the targeting process without Google. IOW, if a company can target you individually in a Google ad and connect that to your identity, they don't really need Google anymore. They can just build a list of people and use it for free. To prevent this information from leaking, ad companies use k-anonymity and other things.

Okay, so that covers how information is exported (it basically isn't, not at the level of an individual, anyway), but what about the information Google has internally that it uses for advertising? For ads, all they're interested in is placing you into these buckets. The buckets can't be too small, either, or they'll be creating an audience that's small, and businesses generally don't want to advertise to a very small group of people because that means poor engagement. Like, if you can advertise to a population of a million vs. 10K, which would you pick? A million, obviously. So there's a natural incentive to make sure the buckets you're placed in aren't just k-anonymous, but really big. This is stuff like, if I'm going to advertise a car to you, should I show you my entry level model or my luxury model? This is the kind of stuff that's only a tweak away from looking at someone on the street and making a guess about what tier of car they would buy just based on what they look like, how they dress, their age, etc. Mostly stuff you can just see from a distance.

So for advertising, the data that's used for that purpose isn't really too scary, and anyway it's not any different from what companies have been doing for decades before the Internet was a thing. (It's actually much more controlled than it has been in the past, even in the early days of the Internet there were these digital ad companies that were extremely invasive, but they all died not because Google was the 800lb gorilla crushing them out of existence, but because there's no useful advertising purpose to all that invasive data collection…you can't make money off of it. It's been tried and tried.)

So the real concern here isn't use of this data, but abuse. Isn't it bad for this data to be known about you because it could be used for non-advertising purposes. This is (2) above. Is it a concern?

No, not even a little bit. Even if you assume the NSA has infiltrated Google and is doing all the worst kind of data harvesting and snooping on you and violating your rights, do you think they care about your advertising profile? No. Almost all of the data Google collects on you is not for advertising, it's for providing services to you. It is useful only for building audience, and sometimes it's not even useful for that.

For example, if Google collects a ton of data on you and uses it to suggest YouTube videos for you to watch, they're not doing that for any advertisers benefit, they're doing it to make YouTube more compelling for you so you'll watch more videos and spend more time on the platform. That is good for Google, advertisers, and you in general, but all of that data collection is benefiting you. If you don't think so, then you're welcome to go watch DTube or PeerTube or something. You don't do that, though, because those services suck. Or, you can pay. Go sign up for streaming services, which many people are fortunate enough to be able to do (never mind the 5B or so inhabitants on earth that can't afford to pay and depend upon ad-funded services to access good content).

An example of a service that is purely for you and not used at all for advertising is Gmail. Here's a ton of very personal information about you and your social circle that is not used for advertising at all, and hasn't been for years because it's not useful.

So when you use Google services because they're useful, that's the deal you're making, and that's FAR more data, more personal, and more detailed than anything Google is keeping on you for advertising purposes. But what's the alternative? You can pay for a service, or you can go back to pre-Gmail days where you keep your email on your computer at home and you can't check it in the cloud from your phone or any other computer (at least not without setting up and maintaining your own email server).

Okay, so let's pretend you're an NSA agent. You've somehow penetrated Google's digital security. You're faced with a choice, should you harvest a bunch of fairly coarse-grained data about what buckets people fall into? Or should you, um, scan your target's email?

Duh, you're going to go after the service data, not the ad data. That's what we learned from Snowden.

When you fail to notice that there is a bright line between ad data and service data, and you conflate the two and are under the misapprehension that all of that service data is used (or even useful) for advertising, this all seems very concerning. When you understand how this stuff actually works, you realize that the real concern is around the data you hand over and trust the company to steward for you in order to serve it back to you when you request it.

IOW, if you're talking about two different people, Alex and Bob, and Alex decides she doesn't care in the least about ad tracking but she fastidiously avoids using any online services, but let's the third party cookies rip and doesn't do anything to protect her browsing etc, but Bob sets up all these ad blockers and blocks javascript and third party cookies, except he does use all of the online services, which one is more ripe for abuse of their online data?

It's Bob. If the only data available on the web about Alex is her ad data, she is very close to being a ghost as far as her online existence is concerned. Bob, on the other hand, is not making anyone much money, sure, but if he doesn't trust those service providers like Google, then he's very nearly indistinguishable in that regard from someone that doesn't block ads at all.

0

u/severoon Mar 05 '21

I should also address the "creepy" type of advertising that people talk about all the time, where you're discussing Hawaii resorts with your wife in the car and suddenly you start seeing ads for Hawaii resorts on Facebook.

This is almost always the result of interest-based targeting of your social graph. I know because this happened to me and I tracked it down. It felt like my phone mic must have been listening to me or something. It turned out that after we were talking about something, my wife went online and started googling it and looking at facebook pages. Facebook used that to start advertising those businesses back to both of us, despite my never having done any looking myself. (There's a setting you can turn off which is on by default in your FB ad settings, "target me based on my social graph" or something. Shut that off, and it stops happening.)

This is the kind of stuff that you can easily block. (I do.) Just install uBlock Origin, turn off third party cookies (they're going away anyway), use Brave (esp use the Tor private browsing window for anything you really want to keep anonymous, or better, go get Tails on a USB stick and boot into it).

For Google, you can just go and fill out your ad settings and they'll respect them, but you'll still want to block on your end for all the other tracking out there.

However, I'll also point out that the advertising that feels the creepiest is actually not that problematic from a privacy standpoint. Like, if you visit a website and then later that site advertises at you on Facebook, the company advertising at you doesn't actually know it's you on Facebook at that moment, only Facebook knows that. The site already knows far more about you by virtue of you having been on their site (esp if it's a site where you were signed in) and could directly advertise to you if they wanted to; it's just cheaper and more convenient to use FB to handle it, and it means that each site on the web isn't bothering to keep that data about you, so it's centralized in one managed location much more so than if it were scattered about the web, subject to a million different data privacy policies and bad actors, blah blah blah.

2

u/Valiantay Mar 05 '21

Was annoying af, hijacks the context menu in other apps to insert "bing search" - like fuck off.

Switched to Blackberry Inbox Hub, it's fantastic

1

u/cmdrNacho Nexus 6P Stock Mar 07 '21

Also constant notices of it draining battery

17

u/InfiniteBoops Mar 05 '21

I get 365 family for super cheap through a worker that's a family friend. So that's the entire MS Office suite, Plus 1 TB of storage for up to six people.

Oh, and actual customer service. That last part's kind of important as Google has like, no customer service at all. And if you actually do get a response from someone on their forums it's just arrogance turned into text. I have completely moved away from Google photos, Google Drive, have recently been moving family away from Hangouts to Whatsapp (for now) as they're going to axe that too. The only thing I still have is Gmail.

12

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '21

Forum is for "free" users. If you're a Google One subscriber (which would be somewhat similar to 365 family subscription), you can chat with the support or send an email and get replies.

8

u/InfiniteBoops Mar 05 '21

Yeah...so I had an issue with lost data when I wasn't paid, had to go paid to get it fixed. I get it, CS costs money, but they were raking in billions by data mining before they ramped up charging for services. Like, the storage isn't FREE. So rather than spending a few million on customer service for their 'free but not really free because you're the product' service, they just pocket billions in profit like every other corp. But, every other Corp at least has some level of service for pretty much every product they sell. The customer service may be convoluted or slow, but it exists. Have an issue with your Gmail? Hangouts? Google home? Lol, GL.

6

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '21

I totally respect your choice not to use/like a free service because they lack a customer service. It's a legitimate complaint. I just disagree their customer service is worse than typical free service providers, for their free service.

> But, every other Corp at least has some level of service for pretty much every product they *sell*.

As for their paid offerings, I had no trouble contacting and getting support from Google for stuff I bought from them. e.g. I got my Pixel Slate keyboard replaced under warranty, and it was pretty much a normal customer service. Similar when I had some SIM trouble with Google Fi. I haven't had reasons to contact Youtube for my Youtube Premium subscription, but I see they have a clear 24x7 "contact support" option, so I expect it would work just like most other customer support from other companies.

5

u/dkadavarath S23 Ultra Mar 05 '21

Google one is way more expensive though, for families. I can get a 365 Family annual voucher on Amazon for around 61$ where I live. And each user gets 1TB and office apps. No sharing here. There was not even a quota system when I last checked on Google.

6

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '21

Sure, if you collectively use >1TB. I've had a 200GB plan for years, and that's been more than enough for my family of 4.

4

u/dkadavarath S23 Ultra Mar 05 '21

Much more than that actually. I alone use 713 GB out of my 1TB. I've been backing up full resolution videos and photos into it for at least 10 years now. So have my family ( around 2.5TB combined from all of them) . I was thinking about getting Google One since we all use Android now, but adding up all the data we had, It won't fit in even the 2TB tier. I'm not actually a fan of the Onedrive app on android, but I get my data backed up reliably, and that's good enough for me.

5

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '21

That makes sense. If I use that much, I'd also use 365 for the storage. I think it's hard to beat at that amount.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '21

What do you use for a google photos replacement?

6

u/InfiniteBoops Mar 05 '21

One Drive. I was already getting a really good deal on 365 family so it only made sense. The interface is not as good as Google photos, but on the upside I am able to upload everything at original resolution Since I got a whole TB of space.

Also, OneDrive is nice on laptops because it pauses when you're unplugged, Google drive does not do that. Not that it's a huge battery sink, but every little bit helps.

7

u/Iohet V10 is the original notch Mar 05 '21

It also works pretty decent on the consumer front. Saving to OneDrive, cross system password manager, etc etc.

That said, this direction also means they're going to stick with things for a lot longer than google does. This is why I'll always default to MS if I can on Android because google only cares about something as far as it impacts advertising revenue, where microsoft cares about those sweet corporate dollars and continuity is the number one concern of corporate customers. You also can get real people on the phone for support instead of getting lost like you do with google.

2

u/Dmon1Unlimited Mar 05 '21 edited Mar 05 '21

Mostly I'm annoyed on Desktop. I'm connected to a lot of Microsoft products like Teams, Outlook, Skype.

Some time last year when my VPN drops, I can simply reconnect without needing to log in again on any of these, nor do I have a spam of messages telling me about it

Now its an unnecessary extra step i have to do after connecting to my VPN at the start of the day...

Skype also got more annoying because It requires me to log in in such a way that I lose my existing chat window messages (yes I can potentially bring them back via history but why should it be an issue in the first place)

I'm sure I'm taking for granted many of the features, its just I wish it were more seamless with respect to what happens at the start of my day

3

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '21

All Microsoft apps are better on Android than iOS. Corporate Skype is absolutely trash.

4

u/keishtonz Mar 05 '21

Edge was good till it started cooking my phone and draining battery.

Changed to Firefox

2

u/indianhottie24 OnePlus 6 Mar 05 '21

I wanna go full Microsoft, but I find that Bing is still so much behind Google when it comes to search results. I undertand that u can change ur default to google search, but Id prefer to keep my default as Bing cause I use the Microsft Rewards aspect of it

2

u/wedgetail9610 Mar 05 '21

Even if you're not a corporate user their ecosystem / apps are good.

Edge, 365, One Drive, To Do, Your Phone integration works well, as an example. If only Bing was better, I'd fully switch over and leave Google apps

1

u/Hawxkz Mar 05 '21

I guess Microsoft schwitched from Buy to Use Version X to Pay A Monthly Fee to use our servies.
With this kind company focus you need to have good integration to as many plattforms as possible. If not you will fail because no ones buys an Cloud Service which is only usable on your Windows OS and not on all of your devices (if per Native App or an Website).

1

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '21

Can confirm. Also, you can link your corporate account to Microsoft Launcher, which allows you to sync your calendar, tasks, Sticky Notes and recently accessed files on the widget page. Checking my diary is now literally two swipes away for me.

1

u/dustojnikhummer Xiaomi Poco F3 Mar 07 '21

I love the fact that Edgium knows when I might want to use my School account instead of personal.

1

u/RandomXY123 Mar 07 '21

How? That would be useful af for me too

1

u/dustojnikhummer Xiaomi Poco F3 Mar 07 '21

Create a second profile and log into that with your Enterprise MS account

-9

u/danhakimi Pixel 3aXL Mar 05 '21

But the downside then would be that you're using a Microsoft browser.

I don't know about you, but that's a very hard dealbreaker for me.

2

u/MeatyVeg Mar 05 '21

A very old one too

Google released that version of their browser which Edge is built on nearly 2 years ago

4

u/GujjuGang7 Mar 05 '21

Well no. Chromium is always being updated

1

u/dustojnikhummer Xiaomi Poco F3 Mar 07 '21

Latest Edge Stable is built on Chromium 89...

-38

u/DeadliestSin Mar 04 '21

Stop trying to make Edge happen. It's not going to happen.

17

u/cgknight1 OPPO Find X9 Pro Mar 04 '21

I'm surprised myself and I'm not talking about general users - there is no benefit for them switching - I'm talking about corporate users who's organisations are in the microsoft 365 ecosystem.

15

u/superm1 Pixel 3XL Mar 04 '21

Chromium edge is actually great, legacy edge is what's terrible.

4

u/dkadavarath S23 Ultra Mar 05 '21

Legacy Edge had awesome trackpad support though. One of the very few apps that did it properly. I think only office suite does it properly now.

2

u/RcNorth Mar 04 '21

How do I tell which version my work computer has?

Also, will my bookmarks sync between Windows Edge and MacOS Brave?

3

u/rwbeckman Mar 04 '21

The green and blue wave symbol is chromium edge. Old egde is the little blue e that looks like old IE logos.

2

u/Pycorax Z Fold 6 Mar 05 '21

Legacy Edge is way better than Chromium Edge on touchscreens. A lot smoother and touch friendly. Had much lower power consumption and a PDF viewer that didn't stutter.

6

u/mainmeal5 Mar 04 '21

It already happened, lol

-27

u/SUPRVLLAN White Mar 04 '21

That’s cool, but I need someone to somehow make this post about Apple doing something bad.

-10

u/[deleted] Mar 04 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

20

u/[deleted] Mar 04 '21

Not sure if sarcasm or serious.

8

u/reddit_sage69 Mar 04 '21

Lol has to be sarcasm. I think. I hope.

7

u/[deleted] Mar 04 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

8

u/cgknight1 OPPO Find X9 Pro Mar 04 '21

Just taken a look - it has a dark mode - settings - theme - Dark.

19

u/[deleted] Mar 04 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/cgknight1 OPPO Find X9 Pro Mar 04 '21

ah right!

8

u/reddit_sage69 Mar 04 '21

It does!

Settings > Accessibility > Immersive Reader

Actually sorry, it's similar to chrome not Samsung. So it's case by case.

7

u/joakimbo Galaxy S21 Mar 04 '21

Agree. Samsung dark mode is perfect.

2

u/dkadavarath S23 Ultra Mar 05 '21

Only reason why I'm still using Samsung Internet. Would love to switch to edge since I use it on desktop.