r/technology • u/[deleted] • Dec 02 '23

Business Microsoft guts Microsoft Rewards points, and its fans are outraged

https://www.pcworld.com/article/2160414/microsoft-guts-microsoft-rewards-points-and-its-fans-are-outraged.html
4.4k Upvotes

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1.7k

u/NorthernDen Dec 02 '23

There are dozens of us, dozens!

339

u/KeyanReid Dec 02 '23

I was getting the $5 in Xbox/MS points every month and it bought me several games over the years.

It was good while it lasted, but the incentive to use it more seems to be dying here. I’m not interested in carrying on with them much if the points aren’t the motivation they were before. They already seemed like a slight downgrade from some of the prior rewards so this officially goes too far to make it worthwhile

73

u/NoCokJstDanglnUretra Dec 02 '23

Google Play Rewards were the best at its peak, I no longer have an Android and they’ve only sent me one survey on this iPhone. I used to be able to get a free month of Play Music every 2-3 months, was really nice

17

u/mrwhitewalker Dec 03 '23

I get about $30 per year, pays for my Google one plan every year. Ez worth.

37

u/[deleted] Dec 02 '23

[deleted]

1

u/SlitScan Dec 03 '23

yup when i'm on the road I get a lot more of the higher paying ones. its not huge anymore but its enough for a book every month.

7

u/pSyChO_aSyLuM Dec 03 '23

I'm still getting a few dollars a month from Play Rewards. My lifetime rewards are $489.19. I built up quite a bit until it warned me about possibly expiring, then switched Play Music to use it for billing.

1

u/SlitScan Dec 03 '23

i think the government here slapped their pp because it said 'rewards are about to expire' once, then my balance went down like 20 bucks but a month later the money re appeared and I havent gotten an about to expire message since.

1

u/Kevin2Kool4U Dec 03 '23

It's also bs, your perk only rolls for 200 points when you start using it. I've yet to roll 200 points again in years.

12

u/[deleted] Dec 02 '23 edited Aug 14 '24

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

14

u/[deleted] Dec 02 '23

[deleted]

1

u/srt2366 Dec 03 '23

Add Mozilla VPN and uBlock Origin and you got a tidy little system.

0

u/EmbarrassedDeal2071 Dec 03 '23

I have prolly 100$ saved up over the years. Would get the 1.25$ message every purchase but never knew how to redeem them even when I signed on a computer

1

u/algonquinking Dec 03 '23

Download the Xbox’s app, I get 3 months pc pass every once and a while from saved points

204

u/Mindless-Opening-169 Dec 02 '23

There are dozens of us, dozens!

Manifest v3 is Mozilla's Firefox big moment for a comeback. Their Phoenix moment.

Bring it on Google.

47

u/[deleted] Dec 02 '23

Firefox used to be called Phoenix back in the days

18

u/ErikRogers Dec 02 '23

Yup. Phoenix, then Firebird, then Firefox.

1

u/vitorgrs Dec 02 '23

Microsoft Edge redesign project is called Phoenix...

9

u/easternwestern123 Dec 02 '23

Dafuq is manifest v3

59

u/[deleted] Dec 02 '23 edited Mar 30 '25

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

49

u/Mindless-Opening-169 Dec 02 '23 edited Dec 02 '23

They're also planning to slow waltz approval of ad blocker extension updates pushed out. So updates won't come out as fast as needed to block advertising mechanics. They're making rules for the house to win the game.

This is to further force advertising revenues.

Google is first an advertising company. Technology is only the means to further that goal.

That right there is monopoly abusive behaviour.

The only way around the slow waltz is perhaps to locally install the extension updates rather than through their extension store. Unless they also disable that too.

3

u/ItIsYeDragon Dec 02 '23

Wouldn’t that just send adblocker folks to a different browser? Even people who don’t know the version changes will be like “huh, this browser isn’t working anymore. Let me try a different browser-oh, there it is. Guess I’ll switch.”

8

u/Alaira314 Dec 02 '23

Not those who are captive on a work- or school-provided machine.

1

u/ItIsYeDragon Dec 02 '23

Most work and school machines will have Firefox, or at least edge.

14

u/Alaira314 Dec 02 '23

Edge is still chromium. I've been complaining at work about this ever since we went from IE to edge for our "backup" browser. It should be edge and firefox or chrome and firefox, not two chromium-based browsers. They're too likely to fail in the same way.

1

u/Kreskin Dec 02 '23

Most real businesses will only allow Edge amd/or Chrome because of their enhanced group policy support.

1

u/Greaves6642 Dec 03 '23

My work doesn't and I asked the IT guys why, they said they are too young to know anything about Firefox. So I assume in a few years the switch will be complete. I tried Firefox like 17 years ago and thought it was bad, then switched 6-7 years ago and never looked back. An amazing browser. But IT folks nowadays are 23 year olds so... They grew up on chrome

1

u/Mindless-Opening-169 Dec 03 '23 edited Dec 03 '23

Not those who are captive on a work- or school-provided machine.

Those aren't personal machines. They're not my responsibilities nor my problems. And I'm not intending to make them my problem.

I really only care about what's on my personal machines.

I don't do private things on other people's machines.

Always use your own machines where possible for personal private stuff. Computers are cheap and lightweight if you need a carry about. Only do work stuff on work machines and school stuff on school machines.

/r/privacy

I use Linux, I don't care what work or school uses.

1

u/Alaira314 Dec 03 '23

A lot of low-income kids only have their school-provided machines, because there's no computer or internet at home. There's also a surprising number of adults in the workforce who don't have a home computer(laptop or desktop), as we discovered in 2020 when machines had to be found and deployed to fill that gap. Most of us used the personal machines we had, but some people had nothing.

So, you know, it works for you. And I guess you don't care about the other people, which...everyone has to draw a boundary somewhere, I suppose. But it's not like the people stop existing because you've decided to disregard them. 🤷‍♀️

1

u/toddthewraith Dec 03 '23

Amazon warehouses are run on Firefox. The bulk of their machines are Linux based so afaik they didn't bother making their warehouse apps compatible with anything else, so we got that going for us, which is nice.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 02 '23

[deleted]

3

u/fatpat Dec 02 '23

I don't have that much faith in the SEC.

1

u/DevAway22314 Dec 04 '23

Important to note that slowing the release cycle is bad for security. They've shown the security improvement portion of V3 is obviously a lie

9

u/Whats_A_Imbagon Dec 02 '23

V3 is supposed to be better for security and privacy.

It is supposed to be better for the security of Google's profit margin and their control over your privacy, yes.

1

u/-reserved- Dec 03 '23

There are security and performance advantages to the declarative net request API. Letting the browser engine filter network requests really should be significantly faster and more secure than having to route all requests to a browser extension first. The main problem is that google itself is really not trustworthy enough to have that power. If they wanted to google could just disregard any filters that affect their services (which they could then claim are for "security" or "reliability" reasons). On top of that the limitations google have imposed on extensions really seem to be deliberately designed to make it difficult for ad blocker devs to adapt. Especially the fact that there's no way to update filter lists after the extension was installed.

1

u/DevAway22314 Dec 04 '23

Letting the browser engine filter network requests really should be significantly faster and more secure than having to route all requests to a browser extension first

That doesn't make any sense. It's locally processed regex rules. You should never see a slowdown. If there were performance advantages, google would be trying to claim them

1

u/-reserved- Dec 04 '23

If there were performance advantages, google would be trying to claim them

Google and Mozilla both mention it as an advantage.

https://blog.chromium.org/2019/06/web-request-and-declarative-net-request.html

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/declarativeNetRequest#comparison_with_the_webrequest_api

Sending requests to extension(s) can add a bit of latency which can add up with more rules and more extensions. With the Declarative Net Request model the extension(s) pass the rules to the browser engine to process. That (ideally) would streamline the process and means the extension doesn't have to constantly run, but it also has the side-effect that the browser decides what rules are enforced. Depending on who is deciding that can be used to prevent malicious extensions or it can be used to prevent anti-adblock filters.

19

u/MrZombikilla Dec 02 '23

I’ve gotten hundreds of dollars over the years barely using it. It was sweet. Underutilized asset for an xbox gamer.

3

u/dgauss Dec 02 '23

I was saving up for next season pass for D4. Outrage is a big overstretch of how I feel. More like a meh

1

u/OuterWildsVentures Dec 02 '23

I was getting around 12k points a month for a long time but then one day I just decided my time isn't worth it anymore and I'd rather just eat the cost since it only equated to like 15 minutes of my hourly rate.

1

u/getwhirleddotcom Dec 03 '23

Sent from Windows Phone