Or maybe swap to a different OS. I dont think MS is gonna care people are switching their profile pictures to clippy. This just feels like more slacktivism.
You have to hit them where it hurts. In the wallet.
this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2025
102 points (85.4% liked)
Technology
74180 readers
3785 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Activism like this isn't for people on Lemmy, who have already been exposed to the likes of decentralisation, open source Vs closed source etc.. its predominantly for those that still think brand name = quality.
I don't use social media these days, but i do have inactive accounts; I'm considering logging in and changing the pictures to clippy. It may have absolutely no effect, or it may be the 16th clippy PFP that someone sees, which may then prompt them to ask why everyone is changing their photo to clippy.
So whilst it won't change anything in a large way, it can act as the catalyst for those who are still unaware to try and educate themselves on the subject, and hopefully lead to them leaving Microsoft products altogether like you've alluded to.
For example; I'm already not using any Microsoft products, so continuing to not use their products is less impactful than by changing my mainstream photos to clippy, even if it has no effect.
We can try to tell people about the evils of microsoft until we're blue in the face... But if they "research" it themselves, it's far more likely to stick.
I just replaced my dying Windows machines (a laptop and later, a desktop) with Macs. Still closed source, but they're UNIX certified. I know FOSS folks love to hate on macOS, but even being smart enough to use Linux, and having used it off and on for 20-25 years, I just didn't want to. I did get away from Microsoft stuff, at least at home, except for Xbox. That was my wife's choice and we have a bunch of games for it. I'm more of a PlayStation guy, but I kinda got outvoted on that one. These days I mostly just game on the Switch anyway. And the cool thing about new Macs? They can basically run Switch games, with a bit of help (but same-ish architecture). And a lot of games going to Switch(/2) can also go to Mac (e.g. Cyberpunk).
It's a great time to get away from Microsoft. Their browser hasn't been good enough in decades. Their office suite is probably their biggest strength, followed by Xbox. Their cloud would be third, I'd say — OneDrive is underrated. I use iWork on my Macs and it's fine. And it can read/write the docx formats. For cloud I guess iCloud is fine on the Mac side, I just wish the pricing were more competitive. Don't really have a good answer for cloud. And for gaming... if you were starting from zero, I'd say look at the Steam Deck, Steam sales are unbeatable, the thing runs Linux, it emulates PC games pretty well (there's a whole certification thing), and you can do GeForce Now as well if you're near their CDN. Microsoft is arguably the easiest of the big three (vs Apple and Google) to drop.
I don't even need to know why people are going against Microsoft all of a sudden. I have my reasons. I don't hate them, and I would have stuck with Office + OneDrive (MS 365) if they didn't double the price to add AI to Office with no way to stick with the old product. They were getting $60 a year from me, now they're not getting anything.
or winamp
Funny, but branding aside coming together in a public way in support of more privacy and a right to repair is worth it. It is a great way to develop solidarity and create more conversation on the topic.
Change my pfp? I changed my OS.
8min video and I gave up after 2:30 of rambling. Anybody have a tl;dw?
I really don’t like this guy. Something really doesn’t sit right. I agree with his (generally popular opinion) takes, but ugh. Something is off.
Man, I love Louis but your complaint about rambling is so valid. It only caters to the people who already agree with him and scares away people who would otherwise be convinced by the same points delivered in a better manner
Edit: since the other summaries aren’t really helpful imo, Louis is saying that Clippy is representative of a time when Microsoft software worked perfectly fine without an internet connection and served to simply help you get work done instead of use you as a revenue source
clippy is better than all the awful ai junk we have now, change your pfp to clippy to protest.
Make your pfp clippy to show that you're not going to follow orders
How about you just don't follow orders? In my opinion, that should be much more effective.
It's to see that there are other people doing the same. The whole point is to show that there are people out there with the same mindset. The point is not to celebrate clippy, it's just means to show the commitment.
Wait... You all have profile pictures?
Lemmy and Piefed support profile pictures. They show up in the web view. It's just that the mobile apps don't bother with them. (At least the good one doesn't. I'm talking about Voyager)
Yeah, don't you?
Done. Had to figure out where to go to change my profile pic – didn’t take as long as the video, lol.