[cptskippy]

> How is this shady

Largely because it's Microsoft.

Everyone else does cross promotion of their products but some people hold a special place in their heart for hating on Microsoft. It usually manifests itself with frothing at the mouth, exposition about how they were sued as a monopoly, and they're the devil. It's as if Microsoft was breaking into homes in the 90s and swapping your Macs out for PCs.

Someone will respond to this post with a laundry list of complaints about them that they've had saved off in a .txt to counter posts like this.

[celticmusic]

I've never had google ads randomly pop up on my desktop environment. When that starts happening, maybe you have a point.

[Cthulhu_]

I live in a browser half the time; the browser IS the desktop environment.

Conversely, I don't use the start menu. At best I hit start and type the application I use. But on my Windows machine I mostly live inside my browser and Steam / game libraries, which are pinned to my start bar.

[icebraining]

Does Chrome show ads by itself?

[runjake]

You should use Chrome and ChromeOS more. It's already happening.

[icebraining]

Which ads do Chrome/ChromeOS show, outside of those shown to everyone using other OS/Browser to access the same sites?

[cptskippy]

> outside of those shown to everyone using other OS/Browser to access the same sites?

That isn't a fair comparison because each company primarily advertises from their monopoly position. Google does not have a monopoly position on platforms, only services. Microsoft is the opposite.

If you flip it around, Microsoft shows you one advert if you haven't turned them off entirely. Where as Google shows you an advert every time you visit every service they have and you can't turn it off.

[scumbert]

Google lives in a browser. Your average consumer's computing rarely leaves the browser today. Apples to oranges.

[jevgeni]

And probably due to that GOOG’s tracking is way more intrusive. But yeah, the bandwagon isn’t going to jump on itself.

[celticmusic]

claiming it doesn't make it so.

[cptskippy]

> my desktop environment.

Is your desktop environment Chrome OS?

Do you get Microsoft ads whenever you visit google.com from the Chrome Web Browser?