The start menu cluster, incessant pushing of Edge and OneDrive are the reasons I installed Linux after about a decade of not using desktop Linux outside of work. I am genuinely shocked and impressed how clean and snappy the experience is (Arch + KDE Plasma). Thanks to Valve, Windows games run just fine, too. Not going back...

I’m on Linux too, but I still have a Windows 11 box…the reasons I still have it are just about gone but I’ve been too lazy to change it.

I never see nags about Edge. Basically you can avoid those by never opening Edge.

OneDrive can be fully uninstalled (this wasn’t always the case). It legit doesn’t even show up when I search for it anymore.

The start menu cluster, I mean, it’s not the best interface on the planet, but the annoying recommendations can be easily removed…or you can just replace it entirely.

I know this is a user choice and therefore way less egregious than being forced to endure it on the Microsoft side, but perhaps it’s even worth pointing out that running Steam on Linux as a respite from commercialization and ads of Windows is…not really accomplishing that goal. And you don’t really avoid the browser wars by switching to Linux either, as many of the top distributions have Firefox+Google Search as their default configuration.