- A Chrome extension called “Microsoft to Microslop” that renames Microsoft references in browsers as a protest against the company’s aggressive AI integration.
- The extension reflects widespread user frustration with Microsoft’s Copilot AI, which faces extremely low adoption rates and growing privacy concerns among Windows users.
- Many users actively seek ways to remove AI features from Windows, highlighting significant backlash against Microsoft’s AI strategy despite CEO dismissals of complaints.
If you really want to freak Microsoft out, switch to Linux. Nothing terrifies them more than the moment you decide to leave.
And cancel any subscription you have!
‘you guys are paying for subscriptions?’
If you really want to freak Microsoft out show up at their executive’s houses.
Those are how to install Linux inside windows.
No, what you mentioned is just one of the options. They literally go over “bare metal” installs even if it’s just a skim. I always find their article funny because of that.
Everybody always goes on and on about how great linux is for gaming pcs these days. I recently poked around online to see if my rtx5070ti would be supported and found a bunch of people facing issues, and that Mint and Ubuntu weren’t recommended.
I dont want the AI nonsense, and Windows/Microslop blows, but I want my new gaming laptop to work correctly for several years given the money I spent on it. I can’t see making the switch when the gpu support is so convoluted.
Ive had many Linux machines in the past, so that bums me out.
Edit: someone should make a webpage that automatically reads the hardware and specs of your windows machine and then creates a table of suggested distros. That table should also include “what you’ll lose” that shows which features will become lost or finicky. And it should also include direct download links.
If the goal is to have morons like myself adopt it, it needs to be basically fool proof and easy. Linux is much better and easier than it was in 2003, but that doesn’t mean it’s two-click easy.
I recently poked around online to see if my rtx5070ti would be supported and found a bunch of people facing issues, and that Mint and Ubuntu weren’t recommended.
No idea what you could have been reading, but by and large, there’s very little difference between distros when it comes to GPU drivers.
However, if you want the smoothest experience, then just use a distro that comes with drivers that install with the OS. Best one I can recommend is Bazzite. You won’t have to mess around with GPU drivers at all and it doesn’t matter which Nvidia card you have, they all use the exact same drivers.
I tried looking it up myself just now, but I’m not really able to find anything that would indicate you’d have a bad time on Mint with your 5070 TI. There was one guy on the Nvidia forum that said he was having a bunch of problems, but turned out his BIOS was the culprit. Another person who reported a problem on the mint forums discovered that his card was outputting to his secondary monitor which happened to be off.
Support for the 5070ti was added in the 6.1 Linux kernel, while the latest version of Mint defaults to 6.12 now. You should be able to install it and then install the latest 580 Nvidia driver from the Driver Installer tool and be off to the races without any real trouble, at least from what I read.
System 76 (Linux laptop maker) now ships a laptop with a 5070 Ti, so I’d be quite surprised if you encountered significant issues.
Thanks for taking a second to research that. Maybe my search results are skewed for some reason because i double checked before posting that comment. Weird. I’ll think about it more.
No prob! :)
I’d normally suggest installing it on a separate empty drive to test it out, but I know it can be a real bear to access those to swap em out on a laptop.
In your case though, I think as long as you can get a Live version of Mint to boot successfully from a USB stick (like there’s no flickering issues at the desktop and everything renders correctly), that’s usually a pretty good sign everything will be fine after you install the Nvidia driver on a full install (not to say you 100% won’t encounter any issues, it’s still possible, but hopefully not!)
This weekend. I’ve asked my significant other to check through and backup any files she may need but we’re switching off Microslops ecosystem this coming week. Got it down to Ubuntu or Mint for an ease of use while not jumping in the hole too deep. But we are in agreement at least to turn away.
:: EDIT 17/01/2026 ::
Thanks Everyone. We went with Mint Cinnamon Distro. The hardest part being how to get into the BIOS and turn on the USB boot. Everything that was installed windows wise is now installed mint wise and got the other halfs’ bookmarks up and running in a browser for her (Vivaldi if anyone’s interested). VPNs up and working and so far so good. Didn’t get spammed to death with subscriptions windows which is a major plus.
Got it down to Ubuntu or Mint
Mint is good. Avoid Ubuntu; snaps just make your life hard. You don’t need to know what those are, and if you avoid Ubuntu you never will need to know.
Damnit I just switched to Ubuntu. That explains why I kept getting lost. What about Debian?
Debian and Mint are both good. The former is aimed at servers and the latter is aimed at desktop use. They are otherwise very similar under the hood.
That explains why I kept getting lost.
Anything specific I could help out with?
Hmm, okay. Yeah I was trying to set up an environment to dabble with machine vision and had trouble finding good instructions or guidance for programming env setup. I think in college we used something-Unix but it’s been so long I don’t really have a frame of reference anymore. So I’m looking for a low-overhead daily driver that’s also relatively common or amenable to maker communities
If that makes sense.
If you install Ubuntu already your fine.
Personally I don’t want to spend time working on my computer (that’s work me), so I use mint. Just about any flavor of Linux can have a basic development env configuration done.
Cool thanks, I’ll stick with it! At least until I’m familiar and want to try something new
Hmmm, now that is not something I’m qualified to answer. Hopefully someone else speaks up.
No worries, it’s all part of the experience
What did you use before? You might be able to use many of the same things, or find open-source alternatives that work the same.
Well I just dumped windows and MS office. For machine vision I’m only dabbling with openCV, so that’s already open source. The switch to libre office has been pretty nice though
Tried both, Mint wasn’t great for me for gaming because of older kernels and such so I switched to Nobara.
Isn’t Mint a version of Ubuntu?
There is a Debian-based version available
(yes I know Ubuntu is also based on Debian but LMDE removes the Ubu middle-man)
Yes. Though the parts that make Ubuntu bad aren’t the base code. The parts that make it bad are the Ubuntu-specific things Canonical puts on top, like Snaps. Mint doesn’t include those poor choices.
It can be hard to convince partners and family, so congrats on the success. My partner worked in IT support but is not a computer person and does not own a PC. I simply provide a family Linux computer and some hosted services to be used by anyone in the family, usually EndeavorOS with KDE. They are aware of world happenings to understand why it is important and the biggest complaint I received was that I need to apply more scaling because the text is too small. :D
With all that said, I think both our situations are anomalous, though becoming more common.
Go with Mint, Pop!_Os, or Bazzite.
Ubuntu is only really a good choice if you want corporate/business level support. And even then there are other options.
Avoid Ubuntu - it’s made by the Microsoft of the Linux world. If you want an easy transition from Windows specifically, then you really ought to run KDE Plasma as your desktop environment, as that is by far the most similar to Windows in terms of look, layout and workflow, and it is very flexible in what can be changed and adjusted. GNOME is the other big one, but it feels more Mac-like or tablet-like.
It’s preferable to pick one of those two, as they support the modern Wayland protocol, whereas other desktop environments still only support X11 or only partially support Wayland - I don’t want to infodump on you right now, but suffice to say that Wayland is more secure, and is widely regarded as the future of Linux, while the old X11 has security issues, and is only in maintenance mode now.
Mint, for whatever reason, and unlike almost every other distro, doesn’t come with KDE Plasma as an option. I would recommend Fedora - it’s very solid and well developed, an all purposes workhorse that can do anything you need it to, and it’s a first class citizen anywhere, since it is one of the most commonly used distros by far. My runner-up would be OpenSUSE. If you’re dead set on something Ubuntu-based, then I would take a look at Tuxedo OS, or perhaps just going back to the roots, and install Debian.
I’m definitely not knowledgeable enough to contrast and compare linux distros but I’ll chime in with my experience for two years now on Pop!_OS.
So far, I’m super happy! Was simple to install and setup. Aside from Photoshop, there’s nothing I miss, and when in a pinch I’ve got photopea ready to go. I’ve got steam on there for gaming with little to no issues. My ds4 Bluetooth works out of the box, better than it did on windows. The options for how to install apps are great (love the pop shop ‘app store’).
I do a lot of go development using vscode (happy to try an alternative but the go ecosystem and plugin support is fantastic for vscode) and it’s smooth sailing.
My biggest hiccups were trying to use experimental nvidia drivers but rolling back to stable releases wasn’t too painful.
Vscodium might be an option for you
Second vote for Fedora. I set up my wife’s laptop with Fedora KDE, and she uses it with no issues. She gets easily frustrated by tech hiccups, and Fedora KDE just works for her.
The only issue with Fedora, and it isn’t a big one, is that the maintainers are adament about only including OSS. This isn’t much of an issue except that it doesn’t come with some video codecs IIRC. This meant that some videos online wouldn’t play until you add the codec. This isn’t hard, but it is a small frustration point for casual users.
Go with Bazzite. It’s built off of Bluefin which is an atomic version of Fedora.
Bazzite has all the accoutrements for gaming built into it.
Personally, I’ve been on Garuda for quite a while now. I did use Fedora for a bit before though, and it was fine. I didn’t enjoy it as much though.
its not because they are adamant about OSS, but because the H.264 and H.265 codecs have software patents that require distributors paying a license fee. the situation is a bit unclear, that’s why some distros choose to distribute these drivers. Besides fedora, opensuse and others too do not distribute these drivers.
but flatpak versions of software will get downloaded along with these drivers, and that will work on any distro, because flathub decided they can distribute these drivers. bit of a courageous move, but I guess they know what they are doing.
New to Lemmy, Edited original post.
Linux Mint is a fantastic place to start (I would say the best place, personally). It’s especially good if you use an Nvidia card, as it makes the driver install trivial with the built-in driver installer tool.
If you don’t use an Nvidia card, I’d personally recommend going with the Linux Mint Debian Edition.
What if I do have an Nvidia card? I’ve been to and fro on switching for such a long time. I have so much random shit on my PC that it’s making the overhead to leave daunting.
Then I would suggest the standard Linux Mint Cinnamon, which as I said makes it extremely easy to install the Nvidia driver.
When I was your age, we called them Micro$oft. Too bad there were no extensions in Netscape Navigator.
I dunno why the dollar sign version lost favor with anyone. It’s perpetually true, easy to type, and communicates far more succinctly than any screed about M$’s greed and enshittification.
Micro$lop, why not both
Probably lost favor due to keyboard types, lots of folks type exclusively on digital phone keyboards where the $ is a bit more mechanically awkward than shift+4. But hey we still have Michaelsoft Binbows.
Doesn’t work anymore because “money = good/powerful/special”. You use Linux because you’re a cheapskate, not because Microsoft is shit. Etc.
I definitely started using linux because I built an HTPC, realized I didn’t have a spare windows license and didn’t want to pay for windows.
I use it for both
It was (and is) spot on but Microsoft won the war for minds and lots of people in the Linux community started using Microsoft products like vscode and calling them good guys because they were running Linux datacenters and making kernel contributions. Microsoft employed some really good people working on some cool things. You were called out for being immature and holding outdated grudges if you used slang terms and you couldn’t participate in conversations and be taken seriously.
Meanwhile Microsoft was still being Microsoft. They bought the defacto town square - github - in an attempt to control the platform. Then they mined the content to train LLMs. Now the LLMs bombard open source projects with crap. Even as Windows is dying they are trying to drag us down as well.
They are a big company and big companies sometimes do good things. No hate on their engineers. But Microsoft have always been the enemy and they will always be the enemy. It is their nature.
Spot on, no notes
Chrome is not a solution, it is a major part of the problem.
Switch to Firefox, and preferably switch to Firefox on Linux.except firefox is also part of a problem
Except it’s not, all the complaints about Firefox are moronic, none of them have any merit.
Don’t fall for the false propaganda or morons who think they found a problem when they have no understanding of the underlying mechanisms.
I’ve seen dozens of claims about bad things Mozilla does, and every time I investigate the issue, it turns out there is nothing there, or at most some sort of misunderstanding that is blown out of proportions.You can dislike Firefox as much as you want as a use case. But Firefox is still 100% above board with everything they do, there are zero shenanigans, but there is insane propaganda against them.
Firefox has some crazy cool new functions IMO, and they are generally completely non invasive.
they are generally completely non invasive.
Does this mean that you usually always have great privacy?
Absolutely.
Firefox will grow from a browser into a broader ecosystem of trusted software. Firefox will remain our anchor. It will evolve into a modern AI browser and support a portfolio of new and trusted software additions.
a quote from Enthony Enzor-Demeo, the current CEO of Firefox.
I like how you treat any rumors you don’t like as propaganda, implying ill intent, as well as call people morons for not trusting yet another corpo.
I personally use firefox for now, because i’m too lazy to set up synchronization between devices myself in an opensource browser.
The fact that they’re slightly better than their competitors is not a reason to fanboy over them and put a blind eye over their slow but steady shift towards enshittification.
Whether you like it or not, some people want AI features and Firefox isn’t in a position to snub their users. At least they give you a choice of enabling/disabling that functionality
Pardon, but some people want to eat shit and watch others do it. Some people still use facebook. I don’t judge them. But won’t be happy if they showed up and told me that i must do it as well.
And those features being what exactly? A small chat window drop-out so your lazy ass won’t need to open an ai chat in a tab? This is absurd.
At least they give you a choice of enabling/disabling that functionality
lmao. That’s how we got Windows as enshittified as it is now.
Sure, blind loyalty is bad, but your characterization of Mozilla is either ignorant or disingenuous. From Wikipedia:
The Mozilla Foundation will ultimately control the activities of the Mozilla Corporation and will retain its 100 percent ownership of the new subsidiary. Any profits made by the Mozilla Corporation will be invested back into the Mozilla project. There will be no shareholders, no stock options will be issued and no dividends will be paid. The Mozilla Corporation will not be floating on the stock market and it will be impossible for any company to take over or buy a stake in the subsidiary. The Mozilla Foundation will continue to own the Mozilla trademarks and other intellectual property and will license them to the Mozilla Corporation. The Foundation will also continue to govern the source code repository and control who is allowed to check in.
This doesn’t mean that enshittification can’t happen, but Mozilla Corporation clearly has different pressures than most corporations.
Again, propaganda against Firefox with no basis.
What is your claim? That because it uses AI, it inherently bad?
The AI functions implemented by Firefox are generally run locally. They are NOT sent to some central server, and they are NOT stored, and they are NOT used for biometrics.You show NOTHING, and yet you act like you made a point???
You are as much part of the problem as Microsoft and Google.lmao. You fail to beat the fanboy allegations with this comment. At this point you literally look like the guy from the meme in my eyes.
and again with the misuse of the word “propaganda”, this time topped off with the most basic demagogic manipulation i’ve seen in a while, comparing me to corpos, trying to… What exactly? Is the last paragraph there to make me feel bad? Because it provides no logical counter-argument to what i said. Sorry, but i’m too autistic to be ragebaited.
You’re the one, making claims without supporting them with any proof.
My claim is that firefox gets worse by adding the features nobody asked for, spending time and money for their development, purely out of FOMO of the AI hypetrain, while struggling to implement actually relevant modern technologies such as WebGPU. AI can be a useful instrument, but if i ever want to use it, i’d use specialized tools for that, and look for them at specialized places.
the misuse of the word “propaganda”,
No I use the word propaganda because the accusations are based on falsehoods.
My claim is that firefox gets worse by adding the features nobody asked for
Most of those new features are absolutely amazing, like the instant translation of almost any page,
Creating tags for images that don’t have them for blind people, is an amazing feature for blind people.
If you don’t like them you don’t have to use them. You don’t get to dictate that others shouldn’t have them on false accusations.
Some of us like a feature-full high quality browser, that respect our privacy.their development, purely out of FOMO of the AI hypetrain,
OK and which functions are that?
You’re just riding the AI hate train and think that’s the default correct position. And sometimes it is, but not in this case.
And guess again, because Mozilla is actually using AI for things that are both useful and noninvasive.
So why don’t you piss off and go use a terminal browser instead if that’s what you want.
Alternatively there are a lot of decent open source browsers you can use, that don’t have the advanced features of Firefox.
Use O&O ShutUp to delete Copilot if you’re on Windows.
You can do this in uBlock Origin without having to install another add-on by adding the following to
My filtersand enablingAllow custom filters requiring trust*##+js(rpnt, #Text, "Microsoft", "Microslop") *##+js(rpnt, #Text, "microsoft", "microslop") *##+js(rpnt, #Text, "MICROSOFT", "MICROSLOP")This will probably break some things but I’m not sure I care enough to figure out what. Enjoy.
Ublock really seems to be much more powerful than we think. I feel like it alone could replace almost every extension we have. Wish there were some friendly guides for it
Here’s a treasure trove of filters that block so much more than just ads
and that’s why I’m holding my face when people say ublock lite on chrome is just as good… no, it fucking isn’t. not because of gimmicks like this but because it does many things to protect your privacy which you don’t see.
Works like a beauty
Beautiful… Now change AI mode to Slop mode for accuracy
Can someone make it for Firefox?
This reminds me of the old cloud to butt extension
I have this working theory that the cloud to butt extension was the beginning of the downfall.
It was the point where the techies began to see the absurdity of the “just jam X into it” trend of technology development and got so frustrated at it they developed a childish (affectionate) extension to vent their disgust. Came out around 2013ish or so?
And over the past ~decade and a half, have we not seen that born out to the extreme? It’s around the time I felt myself start to get cynical and stop following tech news.
I wouldn’t say the extension was the beginning of the downfall; that kinda implies it caused the downfall.
I would agree that it was the canary in the coal mine – management types were ramping up their “just jam X into it” attitude, techies were starting to really feel it, and this was an initial, small protest. Unfortunately, despite the techies’ well-communicated newfound capability to run applications in my butt, the management types kept focusing more and more on their hype-oriented strategy – but that would certainly have happened without the extension too.
Yeah and it’s just as stupid
at one of my jobs a long time ago a copywriter had that extension on their work machine and published something like “upload files to my butt” to the official company site
Microslop should now start referring to themselves as “Micro$oft” to bypass this extension.
Using Chrome for this is ironic.
Firefox isn’t in a much better state, and most Chrome extension users are actually Chromium browsers, e.g. Vivaldi, Brave, Cromite
Waiting for the Firefox version of this.
There is!
Why, just stop using them completely. What are they trying to achieve with this? To stop MS from going all-in for AI? That’s not how it works.
Ew, Chrome.
The only Chrome I’m touching is userChrome.css
Edge users: “haha yes, ew, chrome”
someone make a virus that installs this extension on people’s computer without them knowing
It’d be a patch
Summary created by Smart Answers AI
🤔
Chrome
Ugh.
