Windows 11 is a 'Minefield of Micro-aggressions in the Shipping Lane of Progress' (theregister.com)
- Reference: 0178492006
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/07/28/166238/windows-11-is-a-minefield-of-micro-aggressions-in-the-shipping-lane-of-progress
- Source link: https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/28/windows_11_is_a_minefield/
Goodwins contends that Microsoft has transformed Windows 11 into "an ADHD horror show, full of distractions, promotions and snares" where AI features "constantly video what you're doing and send it back to Mother." He applies the term malware to describe software that intervenes in work to advertise and monitors user data, concluding that "for Windows it isn't a class of third-party nasties, it's an edition name."
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/28/windows_11_is_a_minefield/
Teams was the canary in a coalmine (Score:3)
When I had to use Microsoft Teams at a couple of workplaces, I couldn't help but think "if this is where Microsoft is heading, then I need to de-Microsoft my life before Windows 11 becomes unavoidable."
Teams good experience Re:Teams (Score:2)
> When I had to use Microsoft Teams at a couple of workplaces, I couldn't help but think "if this is where Microsoft is heading, then I need to de-Microsoft my life before Windows 11 becomes unavoidable."
Yes, Teams is big, huge even, but the setup my corporate overlords is using is very useable, increases my productivity, and is ad-free.
I'm not doubting your bad experience, I'm just saying to the people who read your (and my) message, "your milage may vary."
I'm not "upgrading" to windows 11 (Score:3)
I am locked in hard to windows and use tens of thousands of dollars worth of specialty software to do my job and for which I have no non-windows option. I will not be upgrading to windows 11, full stop.
Re: (Score:2)
Just curious, what kind of job is that?
Re: I'm not "upgrading" to windows 11 (Score:2)
I'm in the same boat. I run a CNC machining business making medical device parts. All professional grade CADCAM software is Windows based. (No, Freecad is not professional grade).
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You lock that shit down and isolate it from the network like everything used to be before it became "smart." Problem is, everybody is mandating internet access to do anything with almost no good reason except that it's a great way to secure licenses or supposedly help with security updates... If I wasn't online, I'd not need security updates but if we didn't Agile develop buggy software that needs constant patching... Realistically, you have to lock down everything but a few domains and isolate the machi
Re: (Score:3)
No, Freecad is not professional grade
Depends on what you mean by "professional grade". It does sound like it does not do what you want, but I'm not using it for a hobby, which means it is professional. Does what I need to and it's a plus point that it runs on Linux which, so I don't need two machines or need to dual boot just to use CAD, which would be annoying. And to be sure I've lost patience with Windows.
I do know other people in somewhat esoteric (professional) areas who like freecad for it's python sc
Re: I'm not "upgrading" to windows 11 (Score:2)
I'm doing FEA that Solidworks is barely able to do; Freecad's FEA falls down if you have more than a simple bracket. I'm also using Mastercam for 5 axis CNC programming. And I need to keep my files local for NDA reasons.
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What will you do 3 years from October (assuming you pay for the 3 years of pay-for support)? If you are lucky, you will be able to either run in an isolated environment or run on LTSC or IOT. If you can't, and you must stay on Windows 10, assume you will be compromised within weeks of your version of Windows going out of support.
Re: I'm not "upgrading" to windows 11 (Score:2)
Better stock up on contemporary replacement parts. I'm locked in since all professional grade CADCAM software is Windows based. My computer died and I had to replace it, and the Microcenter tech told me the CPU I picked required Win 11. I did manage to clean it up, remove some cruft, and make it look more like Win 7.
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Are you running a Pro or Enterprise version of Windows? If so, this article does not apply to you. If not, why in God's name aren't you?
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> I am locked in hard to windows and use tens of thousands of dollars worth of specialty software to do my job and for which I have no non-windows option. I will not be upgrading to windows 11, full stop.
You will be. As soon as the speciality software tells you to.
Nigerian 419 Psychology - eliminate bright ones (Score:2)
They've likely realized that suckers are much more profitable and that the worse they make the OS the higher percentage of suckers they get. Anyone remaining on Windows by now is either forced by corporate or educationally subnormal.
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No. They realized they had untapped resources for profit available to them and chose to exploit those because simply selling someone a license for the software is a one-time transaction. They can make more money licensing over time, and even more money as an ad company.
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They know they are frightening educated / intelligent people off. They already make an enterprise edition so they could just make it easy to switch off all the spyware and run as normal, possibly with a small charge. Instead they decided that if you aren't willing to be and pay to be enterprise and you aren't a sucker who lacks understanding of the value of privacy then they don't want you.
Ecosystem lock-in Re:Nigerian 419 Psychology (Score:1)
forced by corporate or educationally subnormal.
Ecosystem lock-in ("I want/need to do X on the computer, the only way to do it is with Windows") is another reason why an educated, intelligent, rational person would choose to run a Windows computer.
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To be fair, I'd probably count that as "forced by corporate". It's the corporation making your software, but it's a corporate decision. Still, if you are in that situation you should be desperately trying to get an alternative. If there's an application you are using there's probably enough other people that it would be worth getting together and funding an F/OSS alternative to escape onto.
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> "I want/need to do X on the computer, the only way to do it is with Windows"
I've been in somewhat similar situations. But in my case it was "I want/need to do X on the computer." And then the Microsoft sales engineers would come in and speak (usually to our CIO); "Why do you want to do that? Perhaps we could sit down with that pesky engineer and go through his requirements document with a red pencil. Until it fits one of our products." Never mind that we were already doing "that" on SunOS, AIX, HP-UX and even a bit of Linux.
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Was there some reason you felt the need to insult everyone who uses Windows in violation of your personal preference?
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Firstly, not everyone, because I've made it clear I understand that there are those that have good reasons like being forced by corporate. Secondly I am accepting comments like "I've got software I can't move" and I guess people know that Microsoft will eventually force them off Window 10, so that's an okay excuse. Getting a little bit of a raise never hurts though.
However, having said that, the people that end up using the spyware edition just because they like it deserve a certain level of contempt. Nobod
Lol (Score:2)
True. A bit snarky but true.
Windows is not a professional operating system (Score:5, Informative)
Windows is a bleeping mess, if we ignore the grotesque violation of digital liberties, being in some regards a digital Epstein's island, after all Bill and Jeffery were good friends, what are we left with? Windows is basically the childhood predator, driving around in the white van, offering puppies, and candy, with the added benefit that the government is providing the van, and every street has special lanes, so people can access the van without delay.
Should we discuss the insane latency issues? How about the advance of unwanted, unneeded, and unrequested software. I've never seen Microsoft push Office harder than it has in the last couple of years, to the point, they're breaking Office installs, and then turning around and blaming the user.
Should we discuss the online account nonsense, that causes real fallout? Since the user is now tied to an account, having them access a different account, which they need to do because of terrible licensing, causes a problem. What's the solution? Oh, just enrol in more software, with equally bad licensing and fees, to get around a problem they caused. Again, want to go to support? They'll blame you.
Let's discuss how every bleeping area is trying to sell you, upsell you, or advertise something. Why? Want to change your browser, nope, Microsoft wants you using Edge, and they're not subtle about it, they will force change the browser. Want to use OneDrive, they weren't asking because, they need files for AI, and they can't risk getting a "no", so they take them. Do you want to boot the computer, but did an update the night before (without asking), better hope none of the Secure Boot settings changed because, and this is spectacular, you might be missing a bootloader, or it suspended to a state it can't wake up from.
Windows is not usable in any professional setting where you need reliability, stability, security, or usability. It's adware, wrapped in shareware, that operates as malware, without ever getting you a usable operating system.
Re:Windows is not a professional operating system (Score:4, Informative)
I recently got a MiniPC with a 8C16T Zen3 processor (5825U) and pretty low-end graphics (8 cores, max 2 GHz) and it came with Windows 11 and the fucking mouse pointer lagged, and not just a little but a whole lot. Slapped Devuan onto it (aside from resizing the Windows partition just in case I decided to care about it, mostly by hitting enter in the installer, after choosing to use the contiguous free space) and everything works great. All hardware was identified, all firmware was loaded automatically, everything works flawlessly.
P.S. Making Windows work without an account is still pretty easy, although it's a "secret" how to do it. (You can just google it ofc, but it's not available as an option until after you do the thing.) TL;DR: Hit Shift-F10 and then type OOBE\BYPASSNRO and it will reboot and then you can bypass that. I see there's also reports that "start ms-cxh:localonly" will work, but I did not try that.
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Define "professional". People who make loads of money with windows very much get a system that doesn't do anything what you say (except for the security fuckups). If it is then those "professionals" need to fire their system administrators who are obviously not setting up windows correctly in a professional environment.
Now Windows Home edition, sure. But even there that "upsell" you speak of is nothing more than a single popup twice a year when a feature release comes out. In a world of constant advertiseme
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> The problem with absolute statements is they are disproven by evidence. The world is run on Windows, professionally. It literally makes the world go around and contributes a shitton to the GDP of nations the world over.
The problem with statements is they are disproven by "literally".
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I don't think you've used Windows 11 lately, it's a shit show, and Microsoft doesn't even hide that fact. I would say professional means being reliable, stable, and accessible, everything Windows 11 isn't.
Everything I mentioned is a fact of running it, if I install Office 365 Business on Windows 11, why are their download buttons for Office 365 in the Start Menu still? You'd think those would go away, but they don't. However, the bigger issue, if you click them, they will down a different version of
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Wait, are you actually implying that wanting digital liberty, and a usable operating system, and therefore computer, is bad?
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The typical windows user, and indeed, windows power user, is so Stockholm syndrome'd, that, yes, they genuinely believe that digital liberty is a bad thing.
Self-inflicted pain? (Score:5, Interesting)
I have several computers in my office but the only one running windows is the one I use for video editing. Everything else runs Linux and has done for over 15 years.
The only reason my video editing rig still runs Windows is because it's just easier than battling a bunch of limitations tied to using Davinci Resolve under Linux. If BlackMagic Design could provide identical capabilities on Linux that Windows machine would be reformatted in the blink of an eye.
To be honest, I hate having to fire up the Windows machine because I'm constantly interrupted by all manner of ridiculous things I don't want or need and I'm constantly nagged to upgrade. If I step away for more than a few minutes I can sometimes come back to find that Windows has decided to download updates or do something else without being asked to do so. With Linux I am in *full* control of my computers -- with Windows, not so much.
Right now I'm considering altering my video editing workflow so that I can finally get rid of the evil that is Windows. Hopefully this will happen sooner rather than later.
Those who still use Windows for stuff like websurfing, word processing, spreadsheets and other day-to-day tasks are suffering a self-inflicted pain. Freedom and relief is just a download away. Do it!
Dig Dug with Premium Offers (Score:2)
What, in 2025, is the relative value proposition of Windows over, say, Linux? There used to be gaming, but I'm told every game is now on Steam, and Steam supposedly runs on Linux. It is just Office? Is it just that you can't buy a laptop without Windows installed on it?
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The value proposition of Windows is that you don't have to consider a value proposition. It's just the default. Most people don't care enough about their computing experience to change the default (not least of all because for most people their cellphone, not their desktop, is their primary device). You can make all the arguments in the world about why Linux is superior and fail to convince someone it is worth the time and effort to change. This is doubly so when talking to someone who has never installed t
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The problem is that Linux isn't 'superior.' Does it do some things better? Sure. Maybe a lot of things.
The vast majority of computer users simply *don't care.* Nor do they need to.
Windows works well enough, it does anything almost anybody wants 'a computer' to do, and you don't need to put too much thought into it.
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Steam is mostly just a store and launcher. They've made good progress on Proton and enabling Linux compatibility for Windows games, but if the game developer doesn't put any work in it's not always a good experience. They're not doing this to be an OS developer, but to just expand their market share.
Micro-aggression? (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, come on, 20+ years ago, Windows was already indistinguishable from a virus.
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Not true: viruses didn't crash nearly as much.
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Thirty years ago, the joke was that Gates was bragging that cars in the future would be run by Windows. Ford's CEO quipped "who would buy a car that crashes three times a day?"
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This is mostly true, but they've also made it worse. Additionally, every time you think they can't possibly make it worse they find a way.
A bit overblown? (Score:2)
I can only speak to my experience with W11 Pro, so maybe "Home" is worse. but other than MS occasionally changing my preferred search engine in Edge back to Bing (which is truly obnoxious), I don't see any of the nonsense he's complaining about. I see no evidence MS is "videoing" anything I do. I assume they send back a fair amount of telemetry just like every other non-linux OS and most programs do. It also never advertises to me and rarely engages in unwanted interaction, despite the fact that I use MS O
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I also run Pro and see nothing described. Maybe this guy should just stop complaining about being on the ad-supported-free-tier and spend the $99 already.
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I have Pro and I got pop-up ads on my desktop about "Upgrade to premium edition Some-A-Word-I-Forget", that turned out to be a Microsoft video game. (That I have never played) Plus things that are borderline-ads in my start menu, and my task bar, and my lock screen. "Do you like this image? Click here to find out more!" I can remove most of it, but it's annoying and makes the whole desktop feel like exploitative trashware. Plus Microsoft is making it harder and harder to opt-out of OneDrive sending them all
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I get Microsoft games ads at work, I didn't think this is a good thing
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You can have Windows Pro and an Enterprise license (i.e E3) for Office. I think that's what was meant.
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You can run Office Enterprise on Windows Pro. Read harder.
Suggest O&O Shut-Up (Score:2)
I've been using this for years to "tame" the amount of nonsense that Windows spews forth and/or collects about me.
I'm sure there are other more invasive or useful apps which do similar things, but I've had consistently good results.
[1]https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10/ [oo-software.com]
[1] https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10/
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This looks useful. Thank you.
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I have a better name for that useful tool... F**K_YOU_MS.. Just sort of falls off the tongue...
Eventually (Score:2)
Someone will do a study on productivity hits and business will move to Linux or demand removal of said features, home users went know the difference
The linked article is... (Score:2)
...just a rant, devoid of specific details
What exactly is the problem?
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No need to insult schizophrenics. Micro-aggression is DEI speak.
Enterprise (Score:1, Insightful)
please, just install enterprise win11. why do you expect the free home edition to not have ads and intrusive shit? everything else in techworld has the same problem. If you want control over your machines, you need to do a little research at least.
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Home edition of OSX does not have that shit, as far as I can tell from the description given here.
Re:Enterprise (Score:4, Informative)
> Home edition of OSX does not have that shit, as far as I can tell from the description given here.
Nope - not sure why you were downvoted labeled troll.
Fact is, Mac users won't put up with that abuse. Windows users will happily accept it, and like the turd you replied to, claim it is a feature they want, when they don't even know that if you buy a computer with any form of Windows, Microsoft gets a cut.
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Since I fully transitioned from Windows for personal use, and moved to MacOS and Gnome, every time I have to work with Windows 11, I just find myself swamped in UI garbage. It's not even the intrusiveness, it's literally just how messy and confusing everything is. I suppose with some effort I could learn to navigate around more efficiently, but why the hell would I?
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What originally turned me off from Windows, and I don't know that it is still like this, is that a "child" window could only appear within its "parent" window, rather than anywhere on the screen. That never made any sense to me, I never liked it, got something else and never looked back.
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That's what the *purpose* of a child window is.
You can easily make more top level windows if that's what you want.
Sounds like you just had bizarre expectations.
Re: Enterprise (Score:2)
"What originally turned me off from Windows, and I don't know that it is still like this, is that a "child" window could only appear within its "parent" window, rather than anywhere on the screen."
That has never been a requirement for Windows programs. It's called MDI and some applications use it and some don't. Some applications open multiple MDI windows, usually one per document, while others don't use it at all.
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> Nope - not sure why you were downvoted labeled troll.
People don't like being presented with facts that contradict their world view, especially if they indicate anything remotely positive about Apple products.
Fact: competing products have "home editions" that don't have the shit mentioned, apparently as "standard" in a non-enterprise product.
Fact: oh no! You horrible troll!
No wonder he is in a world of hurt.
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Some Apple OS X apps can get a bit spammy with notifications if you don't disable them. Apple TV in particular can get pretty obnoxious about new show announcements.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I don't know what any of that means.
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Not really sure what that means either.
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> Not really sure what that means either.
You aren't the only one. I suspect your antagonist forgot their Haldol prescription this morning.
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It means he wanted to feel superior to you over something ridiculous that almost nobody else cares about.
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Oh. Well, it doesn't take much to feel superior to me.
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What does that have to do with the post he replied to?
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Almost the same here, but in Wayland, so Sway instead of i3.
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+1
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No idea. For me, that price differential is irrelevant. Even if Windows laptops were given out for free, I'd still go buy a Mac laptop.
In any case, a few hundred dollars price difference on a device I'll use for many years (I used my last laptop for 12 years) is hardly a material factor in product selection.
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I didn't shop around, and I know Dell is not the cheapest possible option, but just for fun, I went to look.
Cheapest Dell laptop on their site $750
Cheapest Apple laptop on their site: $1000.
So, a price difference of a whopping $250.
How do the specs compare? No idea, but I'm sure that will be the next location of your goal post.
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Note: that's just straight up listed, not going through configurations or whatever else.
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Up front, or total cost of ownership ?
Up front they are generally more expensive.
However the loss / reduction in productivity changes that equation. For me it use which ever OS you are more productive on.
If its Windows, use it
if its OSX, use it
if its Linux, use it.
I use OSX because it works in a way that is logical for me, so I am more productive.
If I save 1 hour a week, over a year at my charge out rate of $100, that's a neat $5000 each year, the laptop paid for its self in the 1st year and every
Re:Enterprise (Score:4, Interesting)
Did the article mention home edition? I have Pro at home (gaming) with an Ubuntu VM for work. I spend a couple of minutes disabling Copilot along with whatever other nonsense the latest patch pushes, but other than that, I don't get the malware experience the author was talking about. Teams is still garbage, though, and I'm pissed that they got rid of Skype.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
I think the concern is you won't be able to disable co-pilot and recall for much longer.
The ability to monitor your computer use and train AIs with it is worth billions if not trillions. They're simply not going to let you opt out.
They will lose a handful of people to Linux but it's only going to be a handful. Microsoft has the 80/20 rule. 80% of their users only need 20% of the functionality but it's a different 20% for everybody so they have complete lock in.
If we enforced antitrust law this
Re: Enterprise (Score:2)
I run the IoT version. Even less of the crap.
Re: You are blind not to see we need more and more (Score:2)
If TDS were a person, you'd be in the running.
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In one of my daughters high-school classes, over 70% of the girls claimed to be non-binary. To be fair, it was a very small sample size, something like 12 out of 18 girls, and we live in the conformist capital of the world; Seattle; but still, I think that is probably historically unprecedented.
She said it is decidedly unfashionable to be cis or whatever they call breeders these days.
What is bizarre is that these are otherwise smart kids. Moral panics used to be the domain of the religious right, but they c
Re: Enterprise (Score:2)
You want laws that somehow force diversification of operating systems? How on earth is that supposed to work?
Truth is, most normal people largely benefit from the OS monopoly just as it is, becsuse it's allowed the proliferation of technology that was beyond imagination just one generation past.
I also don't get the apparent deluge of advertising the article is bemoaning, I bought the professional edition because I needed some of the extra features.
Frequently not an option Re:Enterprise (Score:5, Insightful)
> just install enterprise win11
For most home users and some small organizations, this is either outright not an option or way too expensive to do legally.
> everything else in techworld has the same problem. [emphasis added]
There are more counter-examples than I can count in any reasonable period of time. That said, there are also far too many examples of "ads and intrusive shit" in the techworld. Sometimes I miss the 20th century.
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Windows 11 (or 10) Pro is about a hundred bucks, perpetual, and equally free of the crap.
I've been using the same Pro key since Windows 8.
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>> just install enterprise win11
> For most home users and some small organizations, this is either outright not an option or way too expensive to do legally.
>> everything else in techworld has the same problem. [emphasis added]
> There are more counter-examples than I can count in any reasonable period of time. That said, there are also far too many examples of "ads and intrusive shit" in the techworld. Sometimes I miss the 20th century.
I use Windows, MacOS and Linux. The only OS that serves up that crap is Windows. Neither Mac nor Linux users would put up with it.
Re:Enterprise (Score:4, Interesting)
OK thanks for this. I was incredibly confused by this article and summary; so he's talking about the Free version of Win11? Because this is not my experience either. Win11 is just fine for me on both my work and home computer, but then again I am using enterprise version.
Notably, I also disable many "features" of Win11. This new Recall thing? I get what they're trying to do, but just no. No thank you. Others are just odd, but it's not that hard to disable them and I'm not even an expert user.
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Since when is Windows 11 free?
Isn't it something that you pay for when you buy a new computer with it installed? You pay for the hard drive and the keyboard and the other parts that make up the computer, so isn't Windows 11 part of that as well?
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You need to pay more.
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You can install Windows 11 for free. The only thing that's disabled is customization (as in desktop background and stuff like that).
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> Since when is Windows 11 free?
> Isn't it something that you pay for when you buy a new computer with it installed? You pay for the hard drive and the keyboard and the other parts that make up the computer, so isn't Windows 11 part of that as well?
Exactly, Microsoft gets their cut from every computer sold with their OS on it.
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Both of my work and personal computers were Win10, they got a free upgrade to Win11. There are versions with ads to them, stripped down subscriptions and such. My versions of Win11 do not have that but they do recommend Microsoft products and features, particularly Copilot these days. However they're very easy to disable, and to respond to a reply below, my elderly parents have no problem telling it to disable those recommendations without my IT help, so it's not a big deal. Again, I get what they're do
Re: Enterprise (Score:2)
The problem is that the reenable them with updates and grandma isn't going to be able to turn it off again
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> OK thanks for this. I was incredibly confused by this article and summary; so he's talking about the Free version of Win11? Because this is not my experience either. Win11 is just fine for me on both my work and home computer, but then again I am using enterprise version.
> Notably, I also disable many "features" of Win11. This new Recall thing? I get what they're trying to do, but just no. No thank you. Others are just odd, but it's not that hard to disable them and I'm not even an expert user.
I'm using Windows 11 Home and I can't corroborate TFS either. Yeah there are popups usually selling Office or pushing Edge, but they come up only with feature release updates. That's once or twice a year, far from an ADHD nightmare. The windows lock-screen has silly text on it but that disappears if you disable the stupid constant changing picture feature. As for "AI features" there's literally zero until you explicitly press the CoPilot icon. Also the new Recall thing? You not getting that. It's locked to
Did you see what she was wearing? (Score:2)
Your take is terrible and you should feel bad too.
Re: (Score:2)
I understand the value proposition you are making, but just how exactly are the great unwashed masses supposed to:
> just install enterprise win11?
You offering to pay the hefty licensing fee for everyone?
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Windows is not free regardless of the marketing. You paid for a license.
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I don't believe that is correct. You can install Windows 11 for free on any device, with some features disabled (customization and personalization - like desktop background). It's called an inactivated installation.
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I have not had any issues with Pro version
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Same for Windows Pro.
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> please, just install enterprise win11. why do you expect the free home edition to not have ads and intrusive shit? everything else in techworld has the same problem. If you want control over your machines, you need to do a little research at least.
Are you a failed troll? You do know that Microsoft gets paid money for each computer sold with their product on it.
And you made me snort. You demand people do a little research at least, while not even knowing enough about the subject.
Sorry lame-o , you should like the person that excuses sexual assault because the woman was pretty. You can't fix that level of stupidity[pidity, I don't want to go off on you, but you deserve e every bit of it.
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As I understand it, computer vendors do pay a license fee to Microsoft but they get more money from the peddlers of bloatware to load up their products with crap. So, the bloatware more than pays for the Windows license. That's why vendors resist giving a "refund" for the Windows license, as it actually loses the computer vendor the bloatware money.
I've never had a problem just buying a laptop or PC and wiping the system so I can install Linux: I figure the money I would get from a Windows "refund" would no
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"Professional" edition of Windows 11 isn't much better. It's always trying to cram OneDrive, Edge, Microsoft 365, and CoPilot down my throat after it updates itself.
It doesn't really matter if you disable these notifications, either, because they seem to have a way of reenabling themselves after a feature release.
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I'm on Windows 10 Pro in an enterprise and I still get xbox ads every other day. I can't imagine it's any better on 11.
is it free? (Score:3)
Windows 11 Home is $139.00
Maybe your hardware vendor bundled an unactivated copy with your PC. But Microsoft gets paid for the license, then wastes the end-user's precious time with embedded promotions and advertisements.
Add on top that 24H2 is going to be the only supported version, and will be forcing Microsoft Copilot features onto end-users that never asked for it. It turns out your OS isn't free, but your AI is free. If AI were worth a damn, people would be charging you for it.
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None of MacOS, Linux, or *BSD have that problem. Just Windows.
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The home edition of Win11 is not free. The "update" (pathetic as it is) from Win10 is free.