#microsoft boycott

reach out to your tech friends about replacing windows with an alternative operating system, such as linux or a *BSD OS. if you decide to do this on your own, make sure to back up your hard drive first. windows profits off your usage data (even if you never paid for it) and can use it to train their AI, which is arming israel.

if your work or school requires you to acquire windows, look up massgrave (it's very simple to activate windows).

duckduckgo is just microsoft's bing in a trench coat. they have made a secret exception for microsoft's tracking services in the past. check out Searx instances, or try alternative indie web search engines such as Marginalia or Wiby.

if you're using microsoft's outlook for email, consider Tuta or Disroot (avoid proton; it's all privacy theatre that's only somewhat better than other email providers, and the CEO has voiced support for trump).

don't pay to watch the minecraft movie that's coming out. i've heard it's incredibly underwhelming anyway.

insist on playing minecraft but don't want to give microsoft money? avoid bedrock edition. check out UltimMC if you need a way to acquire java edition and you don't own it. if you're a server operator, you can set your server to offline mode in server.properties which allows people who acquire minecraft the cool way to connect, but this should be paired with a server-side authentication plugin/mod for safety reasons (in offline mode, anyone can log in with any username, including a whitelisted or operator username, and there are bots scanning for servers to grief). don't use realms. disable telemetry with mods if you can.

get a vpn (i recommend airvpn for p2p connections) and download qBittorrent. in case you're interested in media published by microsoft. or just in general. learn to torrent, and make sure all your torrent traffic goes through your vpn service.

if you're using microsoft edge, consider switching to an alternative browser such as LibreWolf (basically firefox with better privacy and security out of the box; mozilla is not the innocent robin hood figure they're made out to be) or Ungoogled-Chromium (chromium without the google spyware; unfortunately lacks auto-update in most cases).

There's currently a boycott going on against Xbox for Microsoft's contribution to the Palestenian Genocide (more details in the video)

If you want some other alternatives for Microsoft products in general, try:

Linux OS: A free, open-source alternative to Windows, with many different distros to choose from. Some common recommendations I've seen for beginners are Linux Mint, Arch Linux and Ubuntu

Proton Mail: A free, end-to-end encrypted email service. Also includes Proton VPN, Proton Sheets (Excel alternative), Proton Pass (password manager) and Proton Drive (cloud storage) as part of a Proton bundle, all of which are dedicated to user privacy, so they won't steal your data unlike most tech giants

Libre Office: A free, open-source and private office suite (like Microsoft 365) that's compatible with Microsoft 365 files. Includes Writer (word processor), Calc (spreadsheets), Impress (presentations), Draw (diagrams), Base (database) and Maths (formula editor)

are you looking for an alternative to MS Office? do you like open-source software? do you want an easy way to support the BDS boycott on Microsoft products?

do i have the solution for you! it's called downloading LibreOffice!

I'm currently on a Windows system and can't hop immediately to another OS as some of my programs are still windows exclusive. Almost all Windows Telemetry is disabled on my computer. My plan is to later on switch to Linux after finding alternatives or at least find some compatibility with Linux for these programs. Not to mention backup alternatives.

No Edge, switched to Firefox and Vivaldi. Fuck Copilot.

And while BDS did ask for people to stop buying Microsoft games, there is some small leeway for those who have already bought them before the boycott: you can keep playing as long as you don't buy future Microsoft products or games (source). This includes micro-transactions, don't buy them. Minecraft Realms and Minecoins, too.

Since I own Minecraft (bought back in 2012), this one hurts a bit since I started back playing it as an escape. Have been avoiding Realms and Minecoins, but I'm still concerned about Telemetry. I can avoid Minecraft's two official desktop launchers - one from the Microsoft store and the other as direct download from Mojang's site. There are alternative launchers (including cracked versions) that allow you to continue playing Minecraft without Microsoft "seeing" you playing it, even without an account. Look for no account registration launchers or offline launchers like UltimMC or Prism Launcher. Avoid TLauncher because it may contain malware. You will miss out on servers, though.

There's also the No-Telemetry mod if you still want to play on either of the official launchers or if you are using a launcher that still requires an account.

Vintage Story, Luanti, VoxeLibre (mod for Luanti) are good alternatives if you want something Minecraft-like but completely disconnected from Microsoft. Mods for Luanti can be found here. Mods for Vintage Story can be found here.

Here's a post on what you can do if you are looking for alternatives to Microsoft's software and tools.

when you record or stream yourself playing games under the boycott, you encourage other people to play those games, which can easily lead to people purchasing those games, purchasing games from the same company, or purchasing microtransactions within those games

that results in money being sent to microsoft, who are actively engaged in the genocide in gaza

do not put your fucking entertainment before human lives

i unsubscribed from the spiffing brit because he decided to make a video on the new bethesda oblivion game, which immediately told me that even if in the unlikely scenario he was gifted the game (and he very likely bought it himself), he does not care enough about palestine to track the movements of the bds boycott

god help me i will not be giving revenue to people who violate the boycott and i sure as fuck won't be funding microsoft

It's not.

The part of Microsoft that has contracts with the Israeli government and is involved in the acts of genocide committed in Gaza isn't really impacted by this. Yes, their Games Division uses their cloud computing services, but that's not where that division's revenue really came from.

Not to mention that Xbox, well before the boycott, was at 3rd place in the console race, possibly falling even further behind after PC, the Steam Deck, or Mobile Devices.

When/If Microsoft shuts down Xbox, they will continue supplying computing services to the Israeli government with nary a hiccup.

This is not to say the boycott was futile. It's that it was mistargeted.

You want to know a customer facing thing at Microsoft that the BDS boycott could have hit that would have actually had a major impact on Microsoft? Look at what they rebranded the Microsoft Office 365 suite to. It's now Microsoft Copilot 365. It uses, actively, a lot of the cloud services that the Enterprise division is using, and includes Microsoft trying to push Cohost down the throats of Windows users.

And that's without Documents, Music, and Pictures automatically backing up to OneDrive by default, in turn hard selling users into subscriptions to Copilot 365 so they don't lose their data.

So, the better target is going after Microsoft Office/Copilot 365, and Cohost on Windows. Encouraging people to install LibreOffice. Pointing out other Cloud Backup solutions, whether they're Dropbox or something else. Showing how to separate your Documents and Music libraries on your computer from Microsoft.

Microsoft has taken tremendous pains to shove their Cloud Computing services into as much of your computing experience as they can, to get you to eventually use them out of curiosity, or by accident, and there is plenty of documentation on how to cut that all away.

Hitting that more directly hits the bottom line of the division that the Israeli government is working with.

The reason for the boycott of Xbox Games was because it'd be "Easier" - boycotting is never about what's easy. If it was, it would have an impact. Well, if)when Xbox Games folds, if the BDS movement is actually about doing what's effective, not performative, they'll need to shift to Microsoft Office/Copilot 365 anyway.