I am only bugged once I install what I want to use as default browser. Not everyday.

YouTube, Gmail, Google et all have a dropdown advertisement asking me to switch to chrome no matter which browser I user that isn't chrome..

Lets also not forget that MS apps show up on google store, apple store and are fully cross platform whereas google is selective in what it supports. We're at a day and age where Microsoft has Cortana, One Drive, Office, Bing, Skype, Photos and so much more on iOS, Windows, Android and people are telling me that MS is bad when google is good (and is far from as cross platform as ms is) I just say use whatever, but if people want to nit pick about "Ads" that everyone does without knowing how everyone does it, that's lame. MS has a TON of "Free stuff" that isn't always dropping toasts to switch browsers, switch to chrome so on and so forth..

If people have so much energy to hate on something, that should be directed at sloppy companies like Yahoo that actually are detrimental to security/safety..

After each login into Microsoft partner page, it welcomes me with a page telling me, that I will get the best experience with Internet Explorer. It doesn't even bother to check, whether Internet Explorer exists for the platform advertised in the User agent string.

With the Microsoft services, the crucial difference is, that "Cortana, One Drive, Bing, Skype, Photos" is stuff that Microsoft is pushing on people, not stuff that people asking for from Microsoft. It is me too solution, it is Microsoft's version of Google+, except that Microsoft didn't learn their lesson yet.

Out of this, Office is an exception. iOS and Android users would not give up their platform, but they were willing to use another lite office suite. On a platform, where there is not a such threat, such as desktop Linux, there is no Office port. Even the macOS port hasn't got feature parity with the Windows version. Google is treating Windows Phone exactly the same way Microsoft is treating other platforms with Office.

If you consider this hate, maybe you should also consider whether it is deserved. There's no reaction without action.

lol, I doubt that.. Microsoft doesn't support internet explorer anymore and would only recommend edge if you're on windows..

People are asking for these services.. just because you don't run them doesn't mean no one does. Skype is still the largest voip network, bing is slowly still growing against goole, onedrive is huge for private and corporations, Cortana ins on over 600 million devices..

As for office on OSX, it is updated all the time and feature comparable if you bother to run 2016 with updates enabled..

THe hate is far from deserved, its misguided.

Microsoft is so cross platform Visual studio for OSX is full RTM, Visual studio code runs great in Linux/windows/OSX, they're writing Linux drivers, they have the Linux subsystem for windows that runs native windows apps, they're a core supporter of the Linux foundation. .net is cross platform now too and they're starting to merge xamarin/XAML/xml forms so apps can be written once and run everywhere..

doing more for software and systems than google is but people will continue to have this misguided hate

Well, I about that message loled too ;). Later it became annoying and a nice example how Microsoft really cares.

If you claim people are asking for these services, then what about not showing them down the throats of those who didn't ask for them? Seem simple, right? If they are so popular, why piss off those who don't care about them? Why do I have look after every Cmd-O at Onedrive file chooser, when I'm never going to use it and there's no option "do not bother me with this again?". I'm sure that Cortana might be on 600M devices, but there are not 600M active users... more likely users what resigned on looking for a new ways to turn it off. See the difference?

Office for Mac 2016 is updated every month indeed, but it is still missing features. For example, everything that starts with Power (PowerQuery, PowerPivot, PowerMap), or Inquire. The Mac version of Office does work with exactly 3 ODBC drivers. It doesn't work with exactly the same ODBC drivers, that the Windows has no problem with (PostgreSQL, for example - it crashes).

There was a lot written about Visual Studio for Mac and it being a rebranded Xamarin. See past discussions here, at HN.

And let's go back to the Office for Linux, shall we? That's the Microsoft prime lock-in device for many. Drivers for Hyper-V or Linux subsystem for Windows help Microsoft, not Linux.

Also, shortcomings in the mac version of office may be shortcomings in the Mac OSX platform.

VIsual studio for mac is a re-write of xamarin, that doesn't change anything - xamaerin/visual studio/c# are all converging to offer a unified platform.

And i'm so glad you seem to know everything about everyone. THe same "billion google now" users probably only 1% USE it day in/day out.. but we're just going to be blindly bashing windows..

please, do us a favor and get over yourself. We get it, you don't run/don't like windows... so just stop wasting energy hating something you really don't have any clue about or care about.

same could be said of google/apple.. i'm just throwing these out as comparisons..

BTW, i never see any ads/popups other than after a fresh install when the guided tour is starting up so i have no clue what people are flipping out about.