Did you use Windows recently? https://uk.pcmag.com/migrated-3765-windows-10/132748/how-to-...

Was about to post the same thing. Windows is infuriating for me not because I dislike ads per se, but it triggers all sorts of ADD behavior in my brain -- try to open an application, and "ohh, what's Tom Cruise up to today?!".

Windows is already crapped up with flashy ads; it's a pretty damn low bar.

Having deployed Chromebooks into corporate and education, there's less ad content there than on a Windows machine... by oodles. In fact, the only place a stock Chromebook has ads is on websites, in the browser and I believe on a personal install it tries to sell you a subscription to Google's cloud service for extra storage. Once you start installing apps, well, your mileage will vary.

Having used Android as my daily driver since Android 1.3, again, the default experience is pretty much ad-free. I've even used Android in "desktop mode" where you connect a display, keyboard and mouse and used windowed Android apps. When you start installing apps, or if you buy a device with non-default apps installed (i.e. the mobile carrier install as infested crap). In that case you can disable or uninstall that app and move on.

> The worst company for anything business critical. Ads - yes, email - ok, anything else - never.

While Google does have a history of cancelling some well-loved products (like Reader), Google Apps (Word Processing, Spreadsheet, Presentations, etc...) has been solid for a decade. The live, multiuser, real-time editing and versioning is a wonderful feature for collaboration. Also, Google has been very reasonable on pricing, and after six years of running three companies on Google Worplace/Apps, I'm very impressed with the reliability of Google Workplace (what they are now calling Apps).

Have you actually used Chrome OS? It's not like this at all. I would imagine the same approach would be taken on a fully featured OS.

Ironically Windows is the OS that is full of shit ads these days, not Google's OS.