this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2026
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  • A Chrome extension called “Microsoft to Microslop” that renames Microsoft references in browsers as a protest against the company’s aggressive AI integration.
  • The extension reflects widespread user frustration with Microsoft’s Copilot AI, which faces extremely low adoption rates and growing privacy concerns among Windows users.
  • Many users actively seek ways to remove AI features from Windows, highlighting significant backlash against Microsoft’s AI strategy despite CEO dismissals of complaints.
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[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 280 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (12 children)

If you really want to freak Microsoft out, switch to Linux. Nothing terrifies them more than the moment you decide to leave.

[–] digitalFatteh@lemmy.ca 52 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (6 children)

This weekend. I’ve asked my significant other to check through and backup any files she may need but we’re switching off Microslops ecosystem this coming week. Got it down to Ubuntu or Mint for an ease of use while not jumping in the hole too deep. But we are in agreement at least to turn away.

:: EDIT 17/01/2026 ::

Thanks Everyone. We went with Mint Cinnamon Distro. The hardest part being how to get into the BIOS and turn on the USB boot. Everything that was installed windows wise is now installed mint wise and got the other halfs’ bookmarks up and running in a browser for her (Vivaldi if anyone’s interested). VPNs up and working and so far so good. Didn’t get spammed to death with subscriptions windows which is a major plus.

[–] skaffi@infosec.pub 28 points 3 weeks ago (6 children)

Avoid Ubuntu - it's made by the Microsoft of the Linux world. If you want an easy transition from Windows specifically, then you really ought to run KDE Plasma as your desktop environment, as that is by far the most similar to Windows in terms of look, layout and workflow, and it is very flexible in what can be changed and adjusted. GNOME is the other big one, but it feels more Mac-like or tablet-like.

It's preferable to pick one of those two, as they support the modern Wayland protocol, whereas other desktop environments still only support X11 or only partially support Wayland - I don't want to infodump on you right now, but suffice to say that Wayland is more secure, and is widely regarded as the future of Linux, while the old X11 has security issues, and is only in maintenance mode now.

Mint, for whatever reason, and unlike almost every other distro, doesn't come with KDE Plasma as an option. I would recommend Fedora - it's very solid and well developed, an all purposes workhorse that can do anything you need it to, and it's a first class citizen anywhere, since it is one of the most commonly used distros by far. My runner-up would be OpenSUSE. If you're dead set on something Ubuntu-based, then I would take a look at Tuxedo OS, or perhaps just going back to the roots, and install Debian.

[–] ieGod@lemmy.zip 10 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm definitely not knowledgeable enough to contrast and compare linux distros but I'll chime in with my experience for two years now on Pop!_OS.

So far, I'm super happy! Was simple to install and setup. Aside from Photoshop, there's nothing I miss, and when in a pinch I've got photopea ready to go. I've got steam on there for gaming with little to no issues. My ds4 Bluetooth works out of the box, better than it did on windows. The options for how to install apps are great (love the pop shop 'app store').

I do a lot of go development using vscode (happy to try an alternative but the go ecosystem and plugin support is fantastic for vscode) and it's smooth sailing.

My biggest hiccups were trying to use experimental nvidia drivers but rolling back to stable releases wasn't too painful.

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[–] buttmasterflex@piefed.social 7 points 3 weeks ago

Second vote for Fedora. I set up my wife's laptop with Fedora KDE, and she uses it with no issues. She gets easily frustrated by tech hiccups, and Fedora KDE just works for her.

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[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 15 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Linux Mint is a fantastic place to start (I would say the best place, personally). It's especially good if you use an Nvidia card, as it makes the driver install trivial with the built-in driver installer tool.

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[–] RamRabbit@lemmy.world 10 points 3 weeks ago (12 children)

Got it down to Ubuntu or Mint

Mint is good. Avoid Ubuntu; snaps just make your life hard. You don't need to know what those are, and if you avoid Ubuntu you never will need to know.

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[–] lightnsfw@reddthat.com 12 points 3 weeks ago

If you really want to freak Microsoft out show up at their executive's houses.

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[–] Nelots@piefed.zip 170 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

How brave, using Google Chrome to protest Microsoft... with an extension that only changes things locally. I promise that Microsoft doesn't care one iota about you renaming things to Microslop with an extension. This is like proudly calling yourself a protester because you hung a sign up in your room where nobody else can see it. I guess it could annoy them a tiny bit if they see it become really popular I guess?

In other news, it's really funny seeing an AI summary at the top of this article.

[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 14 points 3 weeks ago

But but but, this way I get to feel like I'm doing something without actually doing a damn thing, and continuing to support Microsoft

[–] adespoton@lemmy.ca 11 points 3 weeks ago

MS cares about one thing there: download numbers. Because when people using Edge go to the extension store, Microslop will be featured as a popular extension, which will lead to people learning about why that’s so.

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[–] Ludicrous0251@piefed.zip 107 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

You can do this in uBlock Origin without having to install another add-on by adding the following to My filters and enabling Allow custom filters requiring trust

*##+js(rpnt, #Text, "Microsoft", "Microslop")
*##+js(rpnt, #Text, "microsoft", "microslop")
*##+js(rpnt, #Text, "MICROSOFT", "MICROSLOP")

This will probably break some things but I'm not sure I care enough to figure out what. Enjoy.

[–] morto@piefed.social 32 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Ublock really seems to be much more powerful than we think. I feel like it alone could replace almost every extension we have. Wish there were some friendly guides for it

[–] flameleaf@lemmy.world 14 points 3 weeks ago

Here's a treasure trove of filters that block so much more than just ads

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[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 66 points 3 weeks ago
[–] Passerby6497@lemmy.world 65 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah, let's make fun of one slop peddling giant by adding some spyware to another slop peddling giant's product (that's also spyware)

[–] FireWire400@lemmy.world 20 points 3 weeks ago

Take that, Nutella!

[–] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 57 points 3 weeks ago (12 children)

If you want to make Microsoft's CEO cry then you install Linux and convince all of your friends to do the same.

Using their OS, feeding them telemetry, being opted into their cloud storage but swapping some letters in your browser content is about as useless as mopping a sewer pipe.

[–] phaedrus@piefed.world 19 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

They're also suggesting a Chrome extension, as if Chrome doesn't also feed a fascist beast's slop machine.

[–] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 11 points 3 weeks ago

I can't fault them, their heart is in the right place even if they don't actually know what to do.

Give 'em tips as you can and wait a few years, we were all idiots at one point

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[–] Janx@piefed.social 54 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)
[–] Samsy@lemmy.ml 16 points 3 weeks ago

Edge users: "haha yes, ew, chrome"

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[–] SethTaylor@lemmy.world 53 points 3 weeks ago

Make Microsoft and Google cry by using Linux and a different web browser

[–] damnedfurry@lemmy.world 52 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

What an idiotic article, from the headline down.

Locally replacing some letters with some other letters is going to make Microsoft's CEO cry? Really?

Also, I'll not be using Chrome, lol.

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[–] OldQWERTYbastard@lemmy.world 43 points 3 weeks ago

Um.... If you're still using Chrome, that's on you.

[–] Godric@lemmy.world 35 points 3 weeks ago

Chrome

Ugh.

[–] lightnsfw@reddthat.com 29 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Microsoft's CEO won't give even the slightest fuck about you doing this.

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[–] shittydwarf@piefed.social 27 points 3 weeks ago
[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 26 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Literally this morning a client had a production problem. I asked for documentation and they sent a SharePoint link. I replied that we do not have or want access to their Microsoft ecosystem. They wasted over an hour trying to figure out how to email me a set of logs because their MS Org configurations do not allow sharing of files outside of company hardware. Good shit.

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 10 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I hear signal is a great place to share information with many people.

some of them may even be the ones you want to share it with.

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[–] OnfireNFS@lemmy.world 23 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

This reminds me of the old cloud to butt extension

[–] yamper@piefed.social 10 points 3 weeks ago

at one of my jobs a long time ago a copywriter had that extension on their work machine and published something like "upload files to my butt" to the official company site

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[–] Bruncvik@lemmy.world 22 points 3 weeks ago (8 children)

When I was your age, we called them Micro$oft. Too bad there were no extensions in Netscape Navigator.

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[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I don't get why these lazy one-off text replacement extensions keep making "tech news". You can do this shit easily with a short userscript, and there are plenty of extensions for practically every browser that let you set your own text replacement settings. No need for individual extensions for each.

  • slams -> literally disintegrates the bloodline of
  • keyboard -> leopard
  • cloud -> butt
  • microsoft -> microslop
[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 9 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

What meme archive of antiquity did you dig that up from?

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[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 21 points 3 weeks ago (12 children)

Chrome is not a solution, it is a major part of the problem.
Switch to Firefox, and preferably switch to Firefox on Linux.

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[–] Bluegrass_Addict@lemmy.ca 18 points 3 weeks ago

lol microslop was the one that removed all the features. I just removed the spyware (windows itself)

[–] artwork@lemmy.world 17 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

It's rather sad when such extensions don't refer to their source code in descriptions.
Meanwhile, Google Chrome extensions are to be updated automatically.
Sorry, I won't install it, since I have no trust in the source of it, and I care about my time to not re-check it on every update.

[–] NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world 16 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Librewolf, is my response.

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[–] kablez@lemmy.world 15 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (7 children)
[–] NihilsineNefas@slrpnk.net 15 points 3 weeks ago

Oh you you really ahowed google and Microsoft who's boss, now make sure you enable analytics so that google can legally say you gave them permission to track every interaction you have.

It'll only need a couple more coal power plants and unfettered access to the water table

[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 12 points 3 weeks ago

Summary created by Smart Answers AI

🤔

[–] boaratio@lemmy.world 11 points 3 weeks ago

Or maybe don't use chrome as well.

[–] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 10 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

"Wnat to make a billion dollar company cry? use an even worse billion dollar companies attempt to stranglehold control of the internet!"

[–] Siegfried@lemmy.world 10 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

CADs... we need professional, reliable CADs working on linux. Photoediting is a lost cause. (Imo, of course)

I just grew a pair of balls and installed arch exclusively for gaming. As things are now, temperature monitoring looks easier than I expected and I just tried 7 games, all working like a charm.

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[–] eruchitanda@lemmy.world 7 points 3 weeks ago

I don't like green Chrome so I'll switch to rainbow Chrome and add an extension.

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