Will definitely file these methods away for the future. Microsoft just keeps getting skeezier and they didn’t do this shit the last time I had to install Windows. This new laptop is the start of a transition to as close to 100% Linux as I can get.

Bought a Win 11 laptop recently (it’s now a linux device), and on first boot up there was no way to gracefully decline using a Microsoft account to sign in. Luckily, I was in a hotel and couldn’t connect to the wifi without going through a login page, so the lack of internet connection allowed me to set up a local account. In any case, if you’re forced to log in with an MS account, OneDrive starts syncing right away. You can disable it, but maybe not before it’s already done some damage.

Your mistake was trying to do literally anything yourself. Just sit down and let daddy Microsoft take care of everything for you.

emo-stroking

Is that what my girlfriend & I were doing in her bedroom in the early 00s listening to Brand New and Death Cab?

For gaming, you’ve got Steam, which is pretty close to the ideal legit content delivery service. You don’t even necessarily have to pirate in order to demo games if you’re comfortable paying up front and making a decision within 2 hours.

Nothing similar exists or has existed for TV/Movies. Netflix was pretty good for a while, but you’ve never had the option to download the content to your own hard drive. Now you’re not even allowed to log in to your account on as many devices as you want.

Give me a service that’s a free storefront where I can pay a one-time fee for content that I’m actually interested in and download it to my hard drive as many times in as many places as I care to. Bonus points if I can stream to other devices that I’m logged in to and lend my purchases to my friends & family like I can with Steam. I don’t care if there’s DRM in the form of me having to log in to actually use the content if I can use it the way I want.

There is, but it’s not very active at all.

!listentothis@lemm.ee

Are you me? I've been going wild the last 4 years. Mind sharing a top 5 or something? I'll show you mine if you show me yours.

Great topic. A lot of my discovery was through /r/listentothis, but I'm 100% off reddit now, so these recommendations are helpful.

I've basically never used Twitch. Are you saying there's something akin to independent radio on there? How are these streams structured?

Watch YouTube!? Ride a bike!