The breaking point for me was when I was showered with Copilot+ pop-ups on every single hover. Let me fucking copy/cut/paste/format in peace. I never asked for any of this, and neither did any user of any level of expertise.
Switched to OnlyOffice as it felt to perfectly answer my needs. There are still some quirks with non-UTF-8 documents, but you know what, I’d rather iron those issues out than be shoved a product I didn’t request nor need at every single interaction I have.
I highly encourage anyone that hasn’t done already to explore alternatives to the M*crosoft Suite, if they haven’t done it by now. Every update is just the worst form of enshittification known to humankind. Can’t wait to have an intrusive slop AI agent tell me how to do my Maths in the Calculator app next.
Let apps be just apps again 🗣️🗣️📢
Apps? It’s programs and applications!
Jesus christ. So glad I ditched MS. It’s like getting out of a cult - once you see it looking in from the outside, you finally realize how terrible it is.
This made my blood boil, and then I remembered I switched to Linux a month ago… all good.
I switched earlier this year. No ragrets.
At this point that’s almost like ransomware.
At this point, why even have desktop apps at all?
Teams and Outlook are basically busy glorified web browsers that load the online version… Now word is going to send your shit to the cloud whether you like it or not?
Google docs does this, but they don’t have a desktop app to deceive you with. You create the doc, and edit it where it is, on the cloud, using a web interface that’s vaguely “word”-like.
The only people this will “help” is all the inept business people that can’t figure out where to put their data so it’s not lost. There’s lots of those.
It’s way better than a web app! it ships with a separate browser the user has zero control over and with more permissions to abuse. /s
Yay webview2!
also /s
If you mind that Word documents are stored in the cloud by default, you need to modify the default setting
…or just use some other app for your private documents and Word only for work-related stuff or such. I use Word/Office at work and have absolutely no issue with all the documentation being saved in the cloud. But for private stuff I would have to think twice if I want this.
I switched to OnlyOffice for my work files. I have had no compatibility issues with my coworkers
Not to be used to train AI. We promise.
LLM’s out here running wild. How Rude.Maybe I should switch to Linux again.
They’d break SO MANY international and data security laws if they tried breaking into people’s OneDrive, it’d be hilarious to see the number of lawsuits they’d lose by default.
they’re probably already doing that to a smaller degree, and slightly protecting themselves with an obscure clause in their TOS. besides, you only lose lawsuits if you get caught - and churning things through AI is a great way to erase any fingerprints that identifies stolen data
they’re probably already doing that to a smaller degree, and slightly protecting themselves with an obscure clause in their TOS
As soon as you find proof, you have literally free money up for the taking at any court.
you only lose lawsuits if you get caught - and churning things through AI is a great way to erase any fingerprints that identifies stolen data
That’s… not how any of this works…
an obscure clause in TOS won’t be a small print of an evil villain speech exposing their plot in clear wording. what it would be is something worded vaguely enough to make things seem like the end user technically agreed to what was being done, it could also be an “and” where you expected “or”, or an ommision of a specific thing… my point being - it’s always going to be a technicality that in case of a lawsuit would be a valid defence in the eyes of law
it very much is how it works though? show me a lawsuit someone lost before they got caught commiting a crime. and how would you even go about proving that your unpublished documents were used to train AI? even an entire life’s work of one person is just a speck in the training data, it’s impossible to definitively prove your work was stolen and used to train an AI. besides there will always be plausible deniability that the AI just made shit up that happened to look kinda like what you once wrote
an obscure clause in TOS won’t be a small print of an evil villain speech exposing their plot in clear wording. what it would be is something worded vaguely enough to make things seem like the end user technically agreed to what was being done
That means nothing. Illegal terms can’t be enforced in contracts or terms of service.
it’s always going to be a technicality that in case of a lawsuit would be a valid defence in the eyes of law
No. Written law always takes precedence. If they spied on your data stored in OneDrive, they’d lose by default the moment the case hit the courthouse.
As for your second paragraph: yeah, I agree. If they did that, the damage would’ve already been done. But it would kill the business once found out. The benefit is not worth the risk.
For example: you’re saying that they would use it to train AI, right?
They don’t train AI. They get a trained model from OpenAI.
Why I use libreoffice.
This might be when I finally jump ship and go to Linux. I should do Mint, right?
Having switched many relatives to Linux recently too, Mint will be your best jumping off point for a familiar feel and pain free experience as someone new to Linux. If you love that and find yourself wanting more, then the world is your oyster! I started on Mint and ultimately settled on Fedora Plasma after trying out a half dozen different options.
I don’t want to type stuff into a command line. Like ever. If this is possible then I’m in.
Before doing anything you can try out different Linux Distros at Distrosea
Yes. You may distro hop eventually, but you will not go wrong starting there from Windows.
I stuck with it. I am OK that somebody else did a really nice configuration out of the box for me. It’s still an open Linux system. I make embedded computers do the right thing all day at work, and at home I’ve been getting more outside work done than ever. So any projects like setting up an Arch install to learn more about linux will at minimum have to wait for winter.
The most important choice from the beginner is not even the distro, but what window manager to use, that will be your first interface and you need to be comfortable with it first.
Remember that most major distros now offer live ISOs, which means you can easily try them out before committing to an install.
Just do mint. If you don’t like it, try another. I went mint and it felt comfortable and worked so I’m happy with it. Might try Debian next time for more stability and less cutting edge.
Swoopin in to recommend: https://fedoraproject.org/atomic-desktops/
Aurora is my go-to nowadays
I found popos to also be beginner friendly, and I believe at the time it was specifically for people with nvidia cards but I’m not sure that makes a difference anymore.
Either way I liked that popos was being supported as a product by a company selling hardware, it seemed more reliable at the time.
Mint is great too, I believe both have windows style desktops you can choose, and also have app stores you can install programs through instead of using command line.
I’d recommend downloading both and then load them up but dont install them as you can test them out before going through the installation wizard.
Last thing is to make sure you know the category your OS is. You will need to web search for the more general category sometimes, for example with popos it would be Ubuntu. Popos and mint both have great documentation online though and forums and such.
Some executive noticed that they can’t sell you larger cloud storage if you haven’t used it up.
Then someone on the office copilot team said they wished they had access to more comprehensive data about what people write with office apps and the rest is history.
To anyone thinking “LibreOffice still has issues”, here’s the LibreOffice donation page to help them fix it up and be rid of MS Office forever.
I would love to switch to LibreOffice (or similar) but I haven’t been able to find a way to get tables to work in the same way they do in Excel, and that’s a deal breaker for me. None of the suggested approaches come close to being able to select a range, press ctrl+t and immediately be able to filter/sort/lookup using column names from anywhere in the document. I use that feature dozens of times a day, and so does everyone in my circles that deals with financial data.
I think you name the range, and then you can do the same using ctrl+shit+L
I may not remember right, but I haves used calc and excel interchangeably since it was open office. Some things in excel drive me up the wall, some things in calc do to.
Either way, the best thing I found was get the data out of spread sheets and into something that can work with it better. Like sql or pandas.
But I get that for financial work, it is a staple. Which frightens me to no end.
What about OnlyOffice?
You can purchase the Microsoft apps , word, excel, PowerPoint, as a package that you own. There are no upgrades. You own them.
I am in the process of moving to Linux and Libreoffice at the moment. I’m working at getting myself off of Onedrive.
Once complete I will start the process of getting off Google. I’ve been using Proton for years and I am going to remove any other online support.
this operating system still costs like $100
/ per year
Try 150$ :(
There are other ways, if you have to use it but don’t want to give Microsoft money. One way is just not to activate it. Almost everything still works. There are also ways to get cheap keys or activate it for free.
A better way is not to use Windows, but not everyone can avoid it all the time.
I’ll just leave this here… https://massgrave.dev/
All good advice! I was mostly commenting on the price of it being absurd, I haven’t purchased a copy since XP possibly back in the day.
Operating system sold separately. Some assembly required.
Who the fuck pays full price for windows? Just buy an oem license for like $15.
i don’t need a license to kick myself in the nuts
I use a big glass water bottle for that. But a steel bar would work well.
Libre office does the job for me! Auto save on cloud sucks. At least you can turn it off! For now.
Auto save on cloud sucks.
Depends on the cloud. I like my files being automatically backed up to my private Nextcloud server.
I understand, everyone has different options on this! I prefer to choose what stays local and what on cloud.
Auto save on cloud sucks
Why?
Because I do not want Microsoft to have access to all my documents.
This
That’s not how cloud save works!
The files are saved to local storage that then gets sync’d up to the Cloud. The files are available both on- and offline.
“Access” as in: have anything to do with them? Then why tf are you using Word on Windows?
“Access” as in: be able to read them? That would be super illegal for them to do and the easiest class action lawsuit win in history. EU fines would eat them alive.
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Because I do not want Microsoft to have access to all my documents.
That’s not how cloud save works! …
You need to explain why you think the second statement refutes the first.
I think I accidentally posted that on the wrong comment. My bad.
As if windows does not send telemetry
Telemetry ≠ Uploading whole documents Which does not mean I defend Windows telemetry but it’s quite different
Comes from a person who hasn’t written telemetry. It’s either useless or contains private information
Private information doesn’t necessarily mean “entire contents of all word documents I have ever created”
Cloud storage has nothing to do with anything/anyone reading the contents of your files.
It’s absolutely mind boggling to me how many completely ignorant people are on the Technology community here.
Just imagining the fines from the “won by default” lawsuits that MS would suffer at the hands of their EU users makes this whole notion hilarious!
What an ignorant thing to say…
Don’t use Windows either.
because your phone/laptop doesn’t have a global wi-fi connection, and you might want to open a document pause for dramatic effect outside of your home or work!
Depending on your setup, you will always have an offline copy, too.
I have never seen a setup where that’s not the case.
I’ve yet to see a cloud storage solution that doesn’t have offline-storage.
Like… WTF is going on? This is the Technology community, and yet you people come here and comment like you’ve only dealt with computers in the 90s…
The file is saved locally, then - as soon as there’s a network connection - gets uploaded to the Cloud and remains in both locations. You can access it from both “ends” - if you edit it in the Cloud or on a different device, the changes get sync’d down, etc.
i’ve seen my friends who never changed a setting in their life struggle with not being able to access their files when their internet died. how default settings work i do not know exactly myself, i don’t use cloud saving
There are only two possibilities here: either they were trying to access these files offline on a different device, or they had their storage completely full.
In the latter case OneDrive will kick out the oldest files to Online Only, so that you still have space to save newer stuff locally.
Oh, I guess there’s a third option - they were using some obscure third party cloud storage. Something that’s not Filen, OneDrive or DropBox.
No, I don’t think they will. LibreOffice
Laughs in LaTeX?
I’ve been writing all my college papers in LaTeX and it’s been great. They look so professional, and it’s easier to work on a collection of text files than one monolithic document.
I swear typesetting your papers is worth half a grade point at least. Then once you find Zotero and realize it will automagically handle your citations and you have auto biblios and cites working in LyX…life changing, absolutely.
I’ve never learned latex but it seems like a huge learning curve. Never even proficiently learned vim yet
Not too bad with LyX. Get templates and modify them. It is a learning curve but entirely doable.
Not really like Vim at all. But yes its a bit of a learning curve. Imo its worth it but I’m an engineering grad student so it is especially suited to my uses.
It really depends on what you will use it for. Using it for plain text doesn’t require much, some advanced layouts require a bit more digging, if you’re including fancy graphics, equations, bibliography, footnotes, etc, you’re going to look at managing the relevant libraries to gandle that (they are very well made and very convenient). All in all, it can be as complex as you want, but it can also be quite easy to use.
Also LaTeX is way simpler than plain TeX.These days you can just use AI to make the outline for you and go from there. Should be easier than ever
Google doc for me. It is free and it is good enough. /S
That’s interesting, since Google Docs has always automatically saved files to the cloud.
I’m waiting for them to edit the comment and add an /s tag.
Tbf, if they are in K-12 as a student or teacher, they’d probably have to use google docs anyways.
