Of course they have. MS are putting ads everywhere in Windows. The revenue potential is huge and they have more than enough private information on everyone to do targeted ads.

Microsoft would be insane not to go down this route. It's inevitable.

We need more devices for sale that don't use Windows, because this won't stop. Microsoft is a publicly traded company and their stakeholders demand infinite growth.

The only way to get away from this is to use some kind of FOSS operating system

Thunderbird is a great alternative to Outlook.

Email spam is already bad enough I don't need that shit built in

A couple of weeks ago I tried Outlook 365 when Windows Mail made me mad for the 1000th time because it has issues to actually send the E-Mails from one of my accounts…

Anyway, outlook started and of course just added my Microsoft Account ignoring all other accounts that could’ve been imported from Windows mail. There was a new mail so I clicked it. Although Firefox is my default browser, edge opened and there was a website. It took me multiple seconds to realize that Microsoft just baited me to click an ad and earn a couple of cents.

I got so angry that I installed thunderbird. If I compare it with older releases from a couple of years ago it did get a whole lot better. I’m very happy.

Windows gave me so many reasons in the last months that I also ditched it completely. Running Linux Mint now and just like thunderbird it is so much more refined if I compare it with the past…

Paying money for crappy subscription based software like office (need it for work) and still getting ads was definitely the no 1 reason to switch.

Nice, now you have to pay for giving your data to Microsoft, lol. Who would do that?!

Vermont can outlaw billboards across the state, but when it comes to everything digital, it seems like nothing's safe. We cannot even check out email on a dedicated email client application without being subjected to ads, both in the form of spam emails, marketing lists, and now even ads from the program itself.

IMO the government should be stepping in to regulate where ads can be placed, just like Vermont did with billboards.

So protonmail is pretty cool.

I do not understand why anyone would use Outlook when thunderbird is free and, in my experience, much more functional.

Yeah this was an immediate no from me on my home PC that I run windows on so I went and downloaded Thunderbird and have been happy ever since.

This is basically "dog bites man" territory at this point.

This was always the case in the web version of Outlook, and the mobile client. If you subscribe to 365, ads are removed.

I noticed this last year when I moved away from 365 and started getting ads on the Outlook mobile client. I ended up binning it off and just used the default Mail app on iOS, which is a shame because the Outlook app on phones is actually superb. Not good enough to put up with ads though.

The moment I saw them trying to do this, I switched to Thunderbird.

The article only seems to mention free consumer accounts, if I didn't accidentally skip a section. Does anyone know how this will affect M365 subscribers (both consumer/enterprise)? I use Outlook every day at work and the lack of features in the web app make it basically unusable for me.

Donate to Mozilla Thunderbird. Free software isn't free.

At least running Pihole eliminates these ads, same for the Android outlook app.

The constant shitty changes that I have to combat are enough to make me explore other options, however. I don't want to have to fight against the software I use.

I'll give Thunderbird another go (used it years past and bounced off), and failing that maybe I'll pick emClient back up (used to use it for managing multiple Google work accounts).

My difficulty is that I use a Microsoft hosted email, and integration with third party applications for contacts & calendar has always been an issue. Maybe it's time to move those to my Nextcloud instance?

After a while after you switch to Linux, the Microsoft headlines start getting funny instead of infuriating. 😂

I saw these adds ages ago when they first let me try it out. Immediately reverted. Ill stop using it once it stops working.