After 40 years of being free Microsoft has added a paywall to Notepad
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It's a lot more feature filled and frankly not very nice looking if all you want is a simple replacement for Notepad. Notepads (with an s) is much better imo.
Thanks for mentioning Notepads, never heard of it but it looks interesting. I already use quite a few different note taking apps, but still often start with Notepad when I don’t know where the info will eventually end up…
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But it is though, it's for a feature that you don't need and can just turn off and never see again...
I think you got used to used to it, if you would use Linux for 15 years (like me), then going back to Windows really shows all these problems of Microsoft.
The biggest problem here that you get this pop-up in the first place.... And I'm pretty sure it's not only Notepad, all Microsoft products (including Windows) is getting worse and worse due to enshittification.
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- Keeps your progress if you exit without saving
- Supports tabs so you don't have 5 separate notepad windows open
- syntax highlighting for programming languages and markdown format
- plugin support
- can handle extremely large text files (I've opened 50gb text files and used ctrl+f to find terms and it worked fine)
- superb tools for manipulating text (e.g., use reg expressions). Super easy to make mass edits.
- dark mode support. That alone makes it superior lol
Just to point out that on Win11, Notepad also:
- Keeps progress without saving
- Supports tabs
I use a bunch of text editors / note taking apps regularly (or semi-regularly) and Notepad is one of them (among others also Notepad++, VSC, Obsidian, Geany, Notion…).
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This is misinformation. They added the login requirement for their Generative AI and the actual notepad doesn't require a login. But I guess we're ragebaiting today.
Is the Genevieve AI enabled by default?
After opening the notepad app does it ask you for that login?
Is your access to notepad restricted by the login?
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Every PC I've ever owned has had some version of vi installed on it pretty much on day one of my owning it.
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The title is quite sensational compared to the content. They only added an AI Rewrite feature for notepad that requires a Microsoft 365 subscription. Considering the cost of AI, and the fact that it will very probably run in the cloud, it is very reasonable that it isn't free. Everything else about notepad remains free / included with the price you paid for the OS.
They give Copilot out for free so it’s weird that they’re charging for the Notepad AI feature.
Hell, just copy and paste the content into Copilot and ask it to rewrite it, I bet it’ll just be doing the same thing but for free.
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How much shit are people going to endure before realizing Windows isn't for them any more?
Dump the damn thing and use Linux. Yes, Linux is friendly, easy to use, you can play most games, you don't need your proprietary programs because there are Free alternatives that are just as good that might take you a moment to adjust to (don't cry about how it's different, that's Baby Duck Syndrome), and so on.
And Microsoft facilitates fascism and government spyware and all sorts of evil crap. So does Apple. And Google. Throw away your phone, use Linux on your PCs, free yourself.
Linux is as messy and more as the apartment where I live (really bad).
If you want the operating system to make sense, use OpenBSD (no Wine, no Linux emulation, thus only native games) or NetBSD (there is Wine and Linux emulation, but limited) or FreeBSD (generally can do the same as Linux), but all three port graphics drivers from Linux with significant lag, and hardware support is worse in general.
And Microsoft facilitates fascism
There's a lot of Linux in systems that governments and militaries use.
Throw away your phone,
Yes, right. Also change job so that an Android device for 2FA weren't a requirement. And get used that I can't communicate with someone over TG/WA/VK in transport.
And still be surveilled, because the information you give about yourself without an Android phone is sufficient, carrying one is a symbolic decapitation of your privacy and dignity, "symbolic" is the word.
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How much shit are people going to endure before realizing Windows isn't for them any more?
Dump the damn thing and use Linux. Yes, Linux is friendly, easy to use, you can play most games, you don't need your proprietary programs because there are Free alternatives that are just as good that might take you a moment to adjust to (don't cry about how it's different, that's Baby Duck Syndrome), and so on.
And Microsoft facilitates fascism and government spyware and all sorts of evil crap. So does Apple. And Google. Throw away your phone, use Linux on your PCs, free yourself.
Crying about it being different isn’t baby duck syndrome; saying it’s better/worse compared to what you’re used to is.
People just don’t want to spend hundreds of hours re-learning things that already work for them.
It is objectively easier to stick with something you know than to learn something new, so that’s what most non-technical users do.Pretty much everyone in IT should learn linux at some point though.
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It's so stupid that they're making these additions to notepad. There is a need to have a basic text editor on an OS that isn't going to try to "help" by giving recommendations, automatically backs up files or whatever other shit they're trying to jam into it.
They had wordpad and if they wanted to add additional features into that, that's completely fine. There are use cases for something that does a bit more than a simple text editor like notepad can do.
My guess is that they tracked that people used notepad more often than wordpad so they removed wordpad. Then started making notepad more like wordpad without considering why people used notepad more frequently.
It is batshit crazy. Notepad was never meant to be what they are making it into. Not even WordPad should have AI nonsense. It's just not for that.
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I want a clean, advanced, well designed desktop and Im okay with redoing my work flow
Use Gnome
Gnome is cool but can it be slightly more Windows?
Use Cosmic (PopOS)
I want lots of customization, advanced features, and a traditional windows desktop metaphor
Use KDE
I want Windows and don't really care about customization
Use Cinnamon
Dude the Windows 9x look was fucking dope
Use Mate
Im installing this on a potato
Use XFCE
Just try out multiple desktops in a live environment and see what you like before you commit. In fact, I recommend people to use a linux live session for several weeks or months before switching, just to get used to it.
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Yeah, Gnome is like the Apple of the Linux world. The devs have the same kind of “we know better than you do” mentality towards design. The issue tracker is a lot of “hey the OS won’t let me do [edge-case scenario that an OS should be able to do, but which most users won’t bother with]” followed by the devs going “Gnome isn’t designed to support [edge-case scenario]. Bug report closed.” Like the devs have a very “it’s not a bug; It’s a feature” mentality, and anyone who runs into that bug must be using the OS “wrong”.
we know better than you do” mentality towards design
And I agree with them. I think people should pick whatever desktop environment needs the least amount of customization for their needs. Keep it simple. If Gnome works out of the box, use it. If KDE works out of the box, use it.
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Crying about it being different isn’t baby duck syndrome; saying it’s better/worse compared to what you’re used to is.
People just don’t want to spend hundreds of hours re-learning things that already work for them.
It is objectively easier to stick with something you know than to learn something new, so that’s what most non-technical users do.Pretty much everyone in IT should learn linux at some point though.
If you are in IT I'd hope you know some version of Unix. Consumers I wouldn't expect them to know, they just want it to work and don't care about configurations and how it works.
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It is batshit crazy. Notepad was never meant to be what they are making it into. Not even WordPad should have AI nonsense. It's just not for that.
Sure but with Wordpad I wouldn't much care if they spam it up with this kind of crap. It's something that doesn't have much use now, because there's notepad for basic text files and Word or Libre Office for actual word processing. So if someone wanted something to type up some notes that get automatic backups, and have AI recommendations (not that it would be me, but who knows?) just put it on there so we still have a simple text editor that's installed by default.
If they're going to enshittify something at least don't enshittify the basic tools of the OS.
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This is misinformation. They added the login requirement for their Generative AI and the actual notepad doesn't require a login. But I guess we're ragebaiting today.
Upvoted for visibility.
I recommend Notepad++.
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Upvoted for visibility.
I recommend Notepad++.
I use Kate on the windows work pc
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Upvoted for visibility.
I recommend Notepad++.
I use Kate on the windows work pc
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So, turns out that they final push that convinced me to start learning Linux is the ol' Text Document.txt of all things. Swear to God, I thought that it would be the automatic updates nuking my unsaved work (again), but here we are...
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Is the Genevieve AI enabled by default?
After opening the notepad app does it ask you for that login?
Is your access to notepad restricted by the login?
"But it turns out that, while this screenshot is indeed real, those eagle-eyed enough should already be able to tell that something isn't quite lining up here. In fact, nearly any Windows 11 user could open up the fully updated Notepad without getting this pop-up at all, even if they aren't already signed into a Microsoft account. So, what's the deal here?"
"The key is in the exact wording, identifiable within the first sentence: "Sign in with your Microsoft account to use Rewrite and its features in Notepad." This is a prompt that exists, yes, but one that's exclusive to Copilot+ PCs and explicitly requires the user to trigger it by clicking the Rewrite button, as confirmed by our own testing."
Please read the article. No. My access to notepad is not restricted. I also don't run any copilot features of any kind on windows 11. Yes, I believe Generative AI Copilot is enabled by default, but in this case the only time you get promoted to login is when you use a feature in notepad that directly needs copilot in order to work and you the user have to select that feature. Meaning you can use notepad without it entirely and never even see this prompt at all.
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Not our fault you won't listen to common sense and reason. Enjoy your bloated fascist spyware just because you think Linux users are creepy or whatever the fuck you think.
Great example of what I’m talking about
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I use Kate on the windows work pc
I love Kate, but I've only been using it since last August. Been using npp for a decade before that, even as my IDE, and I felt like it was stronger than Kate.
Kate has a lot of features that are not well documented or that you have to tape together to make something functional, while npp just works out of the box or with one of its many addons. Additionally the Kate documentation website is atrocious, lacking even basic search functionality. I had to join their IRC channel to get help figuring out something (path to some obscure config file that the latest version actually reads from), and while they were most helpful, I really shouldn't have had to go through all that trouble.
Maybe my approach to trying to solve a problem was wrong, coming from Windows + npp.
