Why Windows 8 failed

Heya! I know I haven’t made a post in a while, that’s my own fault. Anyways, remember that failed Windows version that Microsoft made in an attempt to be with the times? Yeah, me too. Here, I’ll discuss a few reasons why Windows 8 was arguably one of Microsoft’s biggest flops ever, and what they could’ve done to fix it.

Start screen

Everyone knows about this. Windows 8, the version that ditched the traditional Windows 7 shell and start menu in place of a start screen. This was.. okay for tablets and phones (Windows Phone was a big hit, even if it didn’t have much market share. Microsoft still regrets shutting it down to this day), but for a traditional monitor and keyboard/mouse system? Absolutely not. It is one of the biggest stringencies that people who used Windows 8 would constantly repeat, because it was a big problem.

How could they have fixed this? It’s incredibly easy: a toggle to switch between the start screen and the start menu, kind of like what StartIsBack does and like how you could switch between the classic start menu and updated start menu in versions prior to Windows 7, which proves that Microsoft does know how to do this and has had the technology in place before. An example using StartIsBack:

Not only does this still fit in decently with Windows 8’s design language, but it would completely eliminate what is the biggest complaint about Windows 8. Remove the Aero remnants still seen in this screenshot, which Microsoft could easily do if they wanted, and it would fit in perfectly. Speaking of Aero…

Removal of the Aero interface

Another huge complaint about Windows 8 was the Metro design language. Everyone hated it and few got used to it until 10 came along, which is when people stopped complaining because they knew it wasn’t going to leave, although Metro (especially 10’s version) is generally worse than Aero was for many reasons.

This was the common opinion when it released, too. A post from an anonymous user on a Microsoft forum, dated November 29, 2012:

No Aero Glass is an absolute deal breaker for me.  There is no way I'm installing those ugly flat windows on my desktop.  The transparency that is there which lacks blurring is an ugly joke.  On a scale from one to ten of how upset I am over this... I'm like 1000000000 seriously considering buying a Mac out of pure out-of-my-mind crazy spite.  I cannot even express in words how upset I am over this.  There is absolutely zero chance that I will ever install Windows 8 or Blue or any another Windows operating system onto my computer until Aero Glass is returned or something more beautiful is included.

People hated Metro. It just.. wasn’t popular, it didn’t feel natural, and it looked low effort. How could Microsoft have fixed this, you may be asking? Gee, I sure do wonder. Seriously though, the fix was quite simple: keep the Aero theme. It doesn’t matter if it was the default or just another one of the available themes. It just needed to exist and be available. Now, this would be much more difficult compared to the previous issue, where changing start menu styles wasn’t that difficult and was already something that had existed in Windows prior.

But once again, the technology was already kind of there: the High Contrast themes, in a way, were a lot like Metro, and you could also easily switch between Windows Basic and Aero at any time you wished in 7 and Vista. While it would require more work on DWM and making it more modular to make support for this type of stuff, it is totally possible. Maybe Microsoft would just need more time… speaking of,

The software support was super premature

Microsoft had its first party apps sorted out, kinda. But you wanna know who didn’t? Literally EVERYONE ELSE! If you exclusively stuck to Microsoft’s ecosystem, you would probably make do fine on 8, if we ignore all of the other glaring issues it has. But if you relied on any other app and expected it to use Metro, you’d probably have to wait a few years. Or wait forever. Tons of apps had no support. Just a little prior to the release of Windows 8 RTM, McAtkins Online reported 1,004 apps available on the Windows Store, many of which weren’t even “Modern” apps. That’s basically nothing, as far as app support goes.

Say you wanted to use Rhapsody, a huge player in the subscription music scene, natively on your Windows 8 machine. You got this machine on the first day Windows 8 released. You’d have to wait a full 10 months just to get a release on the Windows Store. That’s right, 10 full months. With, say, Windows 7, you didn’t have these types of concerns. Windows 7 stuck to the tried and true, as well as massively matured, Win32 subsystem. But with Windows 8, you’d have to wait a while just to get the major tools and applications that you were already using to release natively. You COULD use the standard Win32 version, if it existed, but this also introduces another problem:

The software ecosystem was also split straight down the middle. The Modern app subsystem and Win32 subsystem coexisted at the same time, creating major consistency problems. Microsoft couldn’t just dedicate exclusively to Modern apps, because then they would lose decades of pre-existing Windows apps and also have to rework a huge portion of the operating system, likely angering many users and potentially causing the jump-ship that we are seeing happening now to happen a decade early. However, they couldn’t just abandon Modern apps either, because basically the entire operating system is focused on them and they bet too much on them to quit now (that’s why they waited to slowly shift the focus away from them with Windows 10).

This creates a fundamental flaw that they couldn’t really fix without just stripping out the Modern app subsystem or the Win32 subsystem entirely, which as previously stated, doesn’t really work. Take Internet Explorer, basically the poster child of this issue. Say you’re new to Windows 8, and you’re still trying to figure this whole thing out. Hey, at least you recognize Internet Explorer, though! You click into it on the desktop and do some research, install Firefox, do whatever you were doing. Later, you’re in the start screen, and you’re fiddling around with the Metro apps, or Modern apps, or whatever these things are called. You click in to Internet Explorer, expecting what you saw earlier, and– WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT??? It looks nothing like what you saw earlier. That’s right, it’s a totally different app! Both use the same Trident engine at the core, but UI and UX wise? Completely different. Don’t worry, it’s the worst of both worlds. With the Metro version, you get the bugs and slow performance of Trident while getting the premature and upsized UI of Modern apps. Yippee!

Here’s an example of it with an older version of the Windows EightForums loaded. Windows Metro does have genuinely good and nice looking apps and use cases, but this is not one of them. It’s like they took a Metro-themed browser for small phones, stretched it out to a tablet size, and then made it mostly desktop compatible. No thanks, Mister Microsoft!

Conclusion

Yeah, that’s a doozy. With Windows 7, one of the most popular versions of Windows (which I am using right now as I write this), it sold 300 million in the first 15 months. What numbers do 8 have to boast? 200 million in the first 15. A whole 100 million less. It even took until early 2013 for it to surpass Windows Vista’s marketshare, which is embarrassingly slow for a Windows version. Anyways, for more failing OS versions and secrets to the tech treasure chest, don’t forget to tune in to the CheeseBlog for more posts. Cya!

How to remove AI from your devices

Nowadays, nearly every single site has an AI chatbot or AI automated feature, similarly to how there are tens of thousands of AI startups that everyone tells you to use. That all really stinks. But why should we be forced to oblige to these tech bros and disconnected trillionaires?

For that nonexistent reason, I’ve made a guide that’ll make you to go cold turkey on AI (and also just enhances your privacy), no matter if you’ve already quit or are trying your hardest to. Anyways, lets quit the blabber and get straight into what we’ll need as

Prerequisites

This guide assumes a few things, so if you don’t have them or can’t set them up, you’re cold outta luck. Oh well. To follow this guide, you’ll need:

• An internet-connected device, preferably a Windows, Linux, macOS, iOS, or Android device
• A configurable DNS instance, such as a pi-hole (this of course means you need to have a pi) or a NextDNS profile

If you don’t at least have the first one, what the hell have you been doing for the past 31 years? Unless you use typewriters and only read books and stuff.

Setup

Obviously, we need to configure all of this stuff, since it isn’t going to anti-AI itself on its own.

Pi-hole

Since I am a big idiot dunce and have never used a pi-hole, I highly recommend natalie.dev’s pi-hole guide, with hagezi's blocklists, either multi ultimate mini or multi ultimate, if your device can handle it, and then also obviously my AI blocklist. Otherwise, just stick to the guide normally.

NextDNS

This is something I have much better expertise in, as I’ve been using it for about 2 years at this point.

Anyways, pop on over to https://my.nextdns.io, and log in or sign up (if you’re already logged in, ignore this part). Then, go to the Security tab and enable Threat Intelligence Feeds, Google Safe Browsing, Cryptojacking Protection, DNS Rebinding Protection, IDN Homograph Attacks Protection, Typosquatting Protection, Domain Generation Algorithms (DGAs) Protection, Block Dynamic DNS Hostnames, Block Parked Domains, and Block CSAM. For the paranoid, you can add .ai under Block Top-Level Domains, to completely avoid any AI startups, although it may block some regional websites. I highly recommend avoiding the AI-Driven Threat Detection option, as in my experience it has only blocked innocent domains, and also for the obvious reason of avoiding AI.

After that, head to the Privacy tab, and enable whatever blocklists you need, I personally have all of them enabled except for No Google and Anti Facebook, for familial reasons. Scroll down to Native Tracking Protection and enable all of them. Doesn’t matter if you use the products listed or not, it’s good practice. Once again, scroll down and toggle Block Disguised Third Party Trackers.

Then, go to Parental Control, and add ChatGPT under the list of Blocked Websites, Apps & Games. It doesn’t actually work for me, but whatever, a block is a block.

Now, we get to have our fun. We’re done with the basic configurations, so guess what? Blocking spree! Remember when I mentioned my AI blocklist earlier? I do. Now, we can use that blocklist. Unfortunately, because NextDNS is a big fat stinky and doesn’t allow you to import lists, we will have to do this manually.

If you blocked the entire .ai TLD like me, you can get to be just a tad bit more lazy with this list. Not too lazy though, you still have to manually block all of the other domains. Once you add the entire huge ~800 domain blocklist (because NextDNS automatically does wildcards for the blocklist, you don’t have to do the WWW part!), there are still some more domains to ensure complete death for those sites with , which can be found here or here (mirror).

Actual Stuff

There’s still more to do, that was just configuring the DNS. Thankfully, none of it is as painstaking as manually adding 800 domains to a blocklist.

Android

This part assumes Android 4.4.2+, but if you aren’t on that, it’s not like Google released the Gemini update to Android 2.2.3, so you should be fine, and thus, can skip this step. 

If you’re on Android 9, you have the leisure of having secure DNS as an OS feature. Go to the Settings app, then to Connections ==> More connection Settings. From there, you’ll find the Private DNS setting. Reopen the NextDNS Setup page, and find the DoT (DNS over TLS) string. You can add an identifier if you want. For me, it looks like “Phone-******.dns.nextdns.io” (profile id obscured). Add the string your page gives you into the input, under “Private DNS provider hostname”. Lucky you, you now have almost all of that AI gunk blocked.

If you’re on anything older than Android 9, however, the process is a bit more difficult. To bypass the lack of the Private DNS setting, you can get Intra from the play store or apkmirror. For Intra, though, you actually need a DoH (DNS over HTTPS) string. It’s virtually the same process though, pop on over to the NextDNS setup page, and grab the DoH string. It’ll look something like this: https://dns.nextdns.io/******/Intra%20DNS (profile string obscured). Open the sidebar in Intra, then go to the Settings, and add your DoH string. Grant Intra its priviledges, and enable it. Should work fine.

Still not done! Make sure you have a mobile browser capable of uBlock Origin, such as Firefox, or a browser with uBlock Origin-style functionality that takes the Adblock blocklist format, such as Brave. If you’re on Firefox for Android, open https://addons.mozilla.org and search up uBlock Origin. Install it, and enable it on private windows if prompted. Then, open up the extensions menu, tap on uBlock Origin, and go to the dashboard (thru settings icon). Go to the Filter lists tab, and scroll all the way down until you find a hidden menu called Import. Reopen it, and paste this URL: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CallenDV/uBlockOrigin-HUGE-AI-Blocklist/refs/heads/main/list.txt, then on a new line, paste https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CallenDV/uBlockOrigin-HUGE-AI-Blocklist/refs/heads/main/additional_list_nuclear.txt. Once you’re done, apply the changes and wait for the two lists to appear under “Custom”. Done there. If you’re on Brave, beforehand, make sure that Shields is set to be Aggressive for trackers and fingerprinting. Now, open the settings, then go to Brave Shields & privacy. From there, open “Content Filtering” and click on the “Add custom list” setting near the top of the screen. Pasting in the same links should be straightforward from there, with the only difference being that you need to do it one at a time.

Now, we get a bit greasy. Get Shizuku if not already installed from https://shizuku.rikka.app/, and install it. Go through the standard pairing process, but do not start it. Then, get Canta from https://github.com/samolego/Canta/releases/latest, and grant its permissions in the Shizuku app. Get my blocklist from https://files.catbox.moe/xhqo8p, and add it to Canta. Now, start Shizuku. Return to Canta, and apply the preset. This removes some bloatware, most (Samsung and some Google) AI gunk, and some carrier garbage (specifically AT&T’s). Unfortunately, I don’t have the devices to test this preset on anything that isn’t my AT&T S25, so I can’t guarantee that it’ll work elsewhere. Through Canta, you can also uninstall Google (only do this if your Google version is newer than 2023, since that’s when all the AI Overview and AI Mode slop started being added).

Once you do that, return to your browser. To test and make sure that the AI blocklists are working correctly, go to google, bing, or duckduckgo and see if AI Mode, AI Overview, or AI results appear. If they do not show up, that means that the blocklists are properly working. Now, return to the homepage of one of those search engines, go to the browser menu, and click “Add to home page”, or a similar option. You can now access that search engine freely, without AI.

As far as Android goes, that’s it. From me. Regarding Canta, if you find more AI-related system packages, go for it. I’m not forcing you to only use what is within my preset list. Same deal for the DNS section prior, if you find any other AI related domains or servers, be my guest and block em. Do whatever it takes to NOT use AI.

Windows

This guide may be less thorough or detailed because I use Windows 7 which by default has no AI preinstalled, and I don’t regularly use 10 or 11 in any substantial form to warrant something truly detailed like my Android guide from a paragraph ago. Anyways, I’ll do my best, but at least this will be better than my Linux guide. If you’re on Windows 7 or older, you can skip the following paragraph.

Anyways, there’s a very useful project on GitHub, which is https://github.com/zoicware/RemoveWindowsAI. It will remove most of the AI features, given that you toggle on every single removal, don’t even spare it one bit. Just for some extra reassurance, though, I’d also recommend installing a portable version of https://winaerotweaker.com/, since it’ll allow you to completely disable telemetry (aka spyware), give you more granular control over windows, and most importantly for this guide, help you scrape off the remainders of the parasitic AI garbage from Windows.

Make sure you have a browser capable of uBlock Origin, or uBlock Origin’s form of blocklists. For example, you can use Brave, any form of Chromium which still supports MV2, Supermium, or any form of Firefox, which should work fine. If on Firefox or Supermium (or an MV2 supporting browser), grab uBlock Origin from the respective extension store. Once obtained, the steps are identical to Android: open up the extensions menu, tap on uBlock Origin, and go to the dashboard (thru settings icon). Go to the Filter lists tab, and scroll all the way down until you find a hidden menu called Import. Reopen it, and paste this URL: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CallenDV/uBlockOrigin-HUGE-AI-Blocklist/refs/heads/main/list.txt, then on a new line, paste https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CallenDV/uBlockOrigin-HUGE-AI-Blocklist/refs/heads/main/additional_list_nuclear.txt. Once you’re done, apply the changes and wait for the two lists to appear under “Custom”. (direct copy paste). If on Brave, the instructions are yet again nearly identical: beforehand, make sure that Shields is set to be Aggressive for trackers and fingerprinting. Now, open the settings, then go to Shields. From there, open “Content Filtering” and click on the “Add custom list” setting near the top of the screen. Pasting in the same links should be straightforward from there, with the only difference being that you need to do it one at a time. That one was kind of a copy paste, but not really. Anyways, it’s done.

Oh, wait, didn’t I set up a whole DNS thing for you to use earlier? Right, I forgot about that. Fuck. But not to worry, because I remembered it! Great! Anyways, download https://nextdns.io/download/windows/stable (NextDNS for Windows). Works on 7 and newer, as far as I’m aware. It even logs your device name to prevent confusion! Now, install NextDNS for Windows, and once the icon appears in your tray, right click it and go to Settings. Return to your NextDNS profile’s setup page, grab your profile ID (reminder: 6 character hexadecimal code), and shove it into the input asking for it, and click Save. To ensure it is working, go to your logs on the website (if enabled) and ensure that your device shows up. If it does, amazing. If it doesn’t, retrace your steps and make sure you didn’t fuck anything up.

Linux

I don’t know too much about Linux outside of Android, which is very abstracted to true Linux. I’ll try my hardest, but outside of DNS, there isn’t much I can do.

As far as I’m aware, most Linux distros do not include AI, but for the ones that do, they document it and have options to disable it. Similarly, make sure all tracking and telemetry features are completely disabled, and if you can’t figure out how to disable them, consult documentation. If there are obviously AI features and anti-privacy practices used in the distro, and you cannot disable either, consider a new distro if possible.

However, I can help out with DNS and browsers. To add your NextDNS profile to Linux, open /etc/systemd/resolved.conf and paste the following (insert your configuration id where the stars are):

[Resolve]
DNS=45.90.28.0#******.dns.nextdns.io
DNS=2a07:a8c0::#******.dns.nextdns.io
DNS=45.90.30.0#******.dns.nextdns.io
DNS=2a07:a8c1::#******.dns.nextdns.io
DNSOverTLS=yes

So that handles the DNS, but we still need to deal with the AI in browsers.

Literally gonna directly copy paste the Windows version, asides from Supermium. Anyways, here. Make sure you have a browser capable of uBlock Origin, or uBlock Origin’s form of blocklists. For example, you can use Brave, any form of Chromium which still supports MV2, or any form of Firefox, which should work fine. If on Firefox (or an MV2 supporting browser), grab uBlock Origin from the respective extension store. Once obtained, open up the extensions menu, tap on uBlock Origin, and go to the dashboard (thru settings icon). Go to the Filter lists tab, and scroll all the way down until you find a hidden menu called Import. Reopen it, and paste this URL: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CallenDV/uBlockOrigin-HUGE-AI-Blocklist/refs/heads/main/list.txt, then on a new line, paste https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CallenDV/uBlockOrigin-HUGE-AI-Blocklist/refs/heads/main/additional_list_nuclear.txt. Once you’re done, apply the changes and wait for the two lists to appear under “Custom”. If on Brave, beforehand, make sure that Shields is set to be Aggressive for trackers and fingerprinting. Now, open the settings, then go to Shields. From there, open “Content Filtering” and click on the “Add custom list” setting near the top of the screen. Pasting in the same links should be straightforward from there, with the only difference being that you need to do it one at a time. That one was kind of a copy paste, but not really. Anyways, that’s done.

macOS

Same deal as Linux, and the iOS section after this: never used it. I will, however, combine what I’ve found online into a simple guide.

Head on over to the macOS App Store page for NextDNS (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/nextdns/id1464122853). Install it, and then open it. Ensure it is toggled to start at login. Then, head to the Configuration page, and add your profile id in the input asking for it. Save and enable. Some reviews online are saying that it does not automatically start on login, so ensure that you remember to enable it if not already on every login.

To make sure that this is working, go to your NextDNS logs (if enabled) and check for your device, or go to dnsleaktest.com on a browser and run an Extended test to make sure only NextDNS is your used DNS provider.

Make sure you have a browser capable of uBlock Origin, or uBlock Origin’s form of blocklists. For example, you can use Brave, any form of Chromium which still supports MV2, or any form of Firefox, which should work fine. If on Firefox (or an MV2 supporting browser), grab uBlock Origin from the respective extension store. Once obtained, open up the extensions menu, tap on uBlock Origin, and go to the dashboard (thru settings icon). Go to the Filter lists tab, and scroll all the way down until you find a hidden menu called Import. Reopen it, and paste this URL: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CallenDV/uBlockOrigin-HUGE-AI-Blocklist/refs/heads/main/list.txt, then on a new line, paste https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CallenDV/uBlockOrigin-HUGE-AI-Blocklist/refs/heads/main/additional_list_nuclear.txt. Once you’re done, apply the changes and wait for the two lists to appear under “Custom”. If on Brave, beforehand, make sure that Shields is set to be Aggressive for trackers and fingerprinting. Now, open the settings, then go to Shields. From there, open “Content Filtering” and click on the “Add custom list” setting near the top of the screen. Pasting in the same links should be straightforward from there, with the only difference being that you need to do it one at a time. If on Safari (I am unknowledged here), install AdGuard from https://apps.apple.com/us/app/adguard-ad-blocker-for-safari/id1440147259, and add the blocklists, as well as making sure all of the privacy and blocking settings are on.

iOS

Forgive me

Open your NextDNS profile, and scroll down to the setup guides. Click on the iOS option, and if available, scan the blue circle-ish code, and follow the steps on your iPhone from there. If that is not an option (for reasons such as you viewing the configuration page on your phone), go to https://apple.nextdns.io and create the necessary .mobileconfig file. Steps are provided on page.

Make sure you have a browser capable of uBlock Origin, or uBlock Origin’s form of blocklists. For example, you can use Brave, any form of Chromium which still supports MV2, or any form of Firefox, which should work fine. If on Firefox (or an MV2 supporting browser), grab uBlock Origin from the respective extension store. Once obtained, open up the extensions menu, tap on uBlock Origin, and go to the dashboard (thru settings icon). Go to the Filter lists tab, and scroll all the way down until you find a hidden menu called Import. Reopen it, and paste this URL: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CallenDV/uBlockOrigin-HUGE-AI-Blocklist/refs/heads/main/list.txt, then on a new line, paste https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CallenDV/uBlockOrigin-HUGE-AI-Blocklist/refs/heads/main/additional_list_nuclear.txt. Once you’re done, apply the changes and wait for the two lists to appear under “Custom”. If on Brave, beforehand, make sure that Shields is set to be Aggressive for trackers and fingerprinting. Now, open the settings, then go to Shields. From there, open “Content Filtering” and click on the “Add custom list” setting near the top of the screen. Pasting in the same links should be straightforward from there, with the only difference being that you need to do it one at a time. If on Safari (I am unknowledged here), install AdGuard from https://apps.apple.com/us/app/adguard-ad-blocker-for-safari/id1440147259, click on , then tap Manage Extensions, and open up the AdGuard options. From there, add the blocklists, as well as making sure all of the privacy and blocking settings are on.

Conclusion

I am sick of this shit, both in regards to how low quality AI slop and features is constantly shoved in our faces and the mindless, autonomous typing of this post. Anyways, save yourself from the slop, put your privacy on top, but more importantly, for more buzzing bananas and bubbly tech trivia, don’t forget to tune in to the CheeseBlog for more posts. Cya!

Forced obsolescence is a net negative

We all have one or two devices that you probably can’t use anymore, like an older flip phone or an ancient e-reader. Well, why can’t we use them? They still worked when you bought them. Well, that’s because of forced obsolescence, usually. I’m going to assume you know what that is, and if you don’t, just do a quick search.

Thanks, capitalism

The primary reason for forced obsolescence is capitalism. Even if a truly great product is made, once everyone gets one, you can’t make a profit anymore. So instead, the company starts a subscription service for it (I mean look around in the modern world, how often do you see subscription services) or releases a second rendition with more features. Everyone goes and buys that one, and the company stays afloat. But what happens to the older version?

Well, it gets left in the dust. The general public moves on from it, forgets it. The company may release an update for it, they may not. Tools developed for it drop support, services get shut down. Replacements or replacement parts become more difficult to find, and the company that originally made it turns a blind eye.

Ruh roh spaghettioh

This is where forced obsolescence becomes something problematic and not just something capitalistic and greedy. The device may still work completely fine, mint condition. The battery holds a charge, it doesn’t bootloop, screen still lights up. But because the manufacturer moved on from it, the developers did too, and because those two moved on, the users do, too. A device that functions perfectly meets the weak link in its chain, which wasn’t even its own link.

The biggest problem here is cost. You could be spending thousands upgrading your device, all because big brother decided that you couldn’t use it anymore. People that would normally only get a new device after many years are forced into buying the next one immediately, which puts some obvious wear and tear on the wallets of the consumers, while pouring cash into the wallets of the company, which only promotes this type of behavior.

Can’t forget that this puts pressure on the environment. Relentless purchasing like this is bound to make a hell of a lot of e-waste, which often ends up in landfills or scattered randomly, which poses actual threats to the environment and people. If a single spicy pillow battery gets accidentally popped in a landfill, and it goes up in flames, the rest of the landfill might too. Now, imagine those disgusting fumes that are sinking their way deep into the environment, meanwhile the manufacturer only makes more devices that never needed to be made, accelerating this problem in the first place. Yuck.

Distinction

The issue here isn’t that new devices exist, the issue is how the majority of the modern tech industry treats old devices. Rather than keeping up support while the product naturally wears out, which may cost a small portion of their multi-billion dollar profits, they just choose to discontinue the product, service, tool, whatever it is.

Not every discontinuation is a bad one, let alone forced obsolescence, though. There are genuine reasons why a product may have to lose support or be pulled from the shelves, such as recalls. I’m sure at some point, we all heard of Samsung’s Galaxy Note7 disaster, where they would literally explode, which could be extremely hazardous in environments like an airplane, crowded subway, or flammable place. For that reason, Samsung deployed a software update to the phones that essentially soft bricked it, and then removed them from physical and online storefronts. Another example is the Tesla Cybertruck, which due to shitty engineering (it failed a lot of safety tests), would get the gas pedal jammed under the foot mat, rapidly accelerating the truck and endangering practically everyone inside. Due to this, Tesla fixed this issue somewhat, and slipstreamed the newer version of the Cybertruck into manufacturing.

Fear not, for Homebrew is here

Well, it’s not always called Homebrew, since that’s just a term generally used for consoles. A better umbrella term would be community-maintained software.

When a company abandons its product, the majority of people follow. But not all people. Often, you’ll see other phones, computers, and niche tools still have quite the community, mostly comprised of hobbyists, software developers, and other sorts of enthusiasts. Through them, new life gets shoved into a twitching, dead body, murdered by greed. This often comes in the form of custom ROMs, software revivals, and replacements.

A great example is F-Droid. Rather than dropping support for Android 4.x and prior like Google did in 2023-ish, it kept support, as did the developers on that platform. If you install F-Droid, say, v0.45, on your Android 4 phone, you are bound to still see tons of software for your phone on that platform. To this day, you can still use F-Droid as a replacement app store to Google's Play Store without any restrictions.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this post. For more wacky programming practices and information on raising old tech from the dead, don’t forget to tune in to the CheeseBlog for another post. Cya!

I switched back to Windows 7 from 10—here’s my thoughts so far

It has been exactly a week since I installed Windows 7 Ultimate onto my daily driver laptop. There’s some parts about it I like, some I don’t, but for now, it seems that I’ll be staying on it.

Pros

I like a lot of parts about Windows 7, arguably more than the things I like about Windows 10 or any newer Windows operating system

Speed

Windows 7, at least on my laptop, is able to keep my pace. Windows 10 would continuously drag its feet whenever I tried to do the most basic of tasks.

For example—logging in. On Windows 10, I would have to wait nearly 16 minutes combined just to even begin using my computer. That’s atrocious, especially for a computer that shipped with the operating system. This was already after I had cut out bloat where possible, such as switching to a local account, removing HP bullshit, and killing anything non-essential to the OS. However, even that isn’t enough with the horrendous amount of background processes 10 kickstarts for no reason. Windows 7, on the other hand, only takes a combined 1 minute for me to log in. I don’t have to start it up early like you’d heat up a car in winter before driving. I boot it up, and I get to work (or whatever I am doing on my computer).

Another example is UWP apps. Windows 10 (and lets be honest, most modern apps) expect you to have a fully specced out workstation or gaming computer. That isn’t even a concept when it comes to my laptop. Nada. No no. This means that most apps will pretend they are running on a regular old potato, when they in fact are running on a “fully capable” laptop. The UWP Windows Settings app roleplays as a sloth, and my computer gets hot enough to toast an egg. That’s not a computer issue, that’s an optimization issue. Since UWP doesn’t and literally cannot exist on Windows 7, you get the older native apps that actually run decently. It’s not like these apps are missing much functionality, anyways.

Looks

This definitely isn’t a new point of discussion, I talked about this in my “Why Windows 7 is better than newer Windows versions” blog post. However, it’s just too big of a point to ignore or avoid. Windows Aero is beautiful, and it is a great showcase of the features and functionality Windows 7 has to offer—certainly more than Windows 10 or 11 exhibit, anyways. Even the Windows Basic theme isn’t necessarily bad, just not exactly preferable in comparison to the Aero theme.

Every icon just has this sense of realism to it, and every application just feels right at home on 7. Hell, even just get a modern app like OBS, slap on the light Aero theme to it (yes you can do this by setting the theme to “System”), and it looks relatively decent and fits in well, even if not as well integrated as, say, the Windows Live Essentials pack or the pre-installed applications. With the Aero theme, there’s no app that doesn’t look at least decent.

There’s not much more for me to say that I haven’t said already. Windows 7 simply looks great, that’s that.

Gaming

This may come as a surprise to you, but Windows 7 is actually great for gaming—or rather, retro gaming.

There’s actually some fair reasoning behind this, most of it having to do with the backend of the operating systems, not what the user actually ends up seeing. Windows 10 has mostly killed retro gaming on itself, unless you are under very specific circumstances. This is because likely in an attempt to “streamline” the process of running apps and games, most older DirectX stuff was ripped out, even the parts that weren’t full blown DirectX frameworks. Additionally, a lot of the older .NET things, like .NET framework 2.0 or 3.0, were just completely removed, further battering the corpse of what might have been retro gaming on 10 natively. Some other things, such as a replacement of long-standing tools other games used being launched into orbit, just completely break older games on Windows 10.

Windows 7, on the other hand, honors these games (for the most part). Even if it itself cannot exchange the correct things, it’ll guide the game in the right direction so that it does work and doesn’t completely crumble to pieces. This is what allows somewhat ancient games like Comanche 4 to run natively, even if a little buggy. This is a lifesaver in the case of games such as Half Life (unpatched, not the tampered version on Steam today), The Sims 1, and GTA: Vice City. All of these would be ripped to pieces on 10.

Simplicity

It was part of the original advertising campaigns: Windows 7 is simple. Not too simple to the point where you can’t do anything productive on it (ChromeOS ahem ahem), but not so sophisticated that it alienates half of the userbase that came to it for something that just… works. Balanced. You buy the shiny laptop with 7 preinstalled, you plug it in, set it up, and done. A poweruser? Build your own rig. Get a Windows 7 install disk. Customize it to your heart’s extent. I’m gonna be honest, I genuinely don’t think there will ever be another Windows OS quite like 7.

Cons

Drivers

Do you want to know what isn’t simple? Drivers! Drivers are a pain in the arse nowadays, in terms of Windows 7.  They’re like a necessary evil—your computer is convinced that it is secretly running with an Intel 486 chip and a Big Mac as a GPU without them, but finding them can sometimes feel impossible. Most hardware past like 2019 that had Windows 7 drivers just started dropping like flies. Now, with real gaming rig-level hardware, it’s nearly impossible to make the two be kind to each other without straight up downgrading some parts or hacking together a custom driver that has a 50% chance of working, 50% chance of bricking your install until you enter Safe Mode. Even on older hardware that isn’t necessarily that old, finding drivers that work, let alone bring Aero to the table, is all holy hell. Tools lke DriverIdentifier have made this process a bit quicker, but it is stll so, so annoying.

Compatibility

You probably saw this coming from a mile away, but here it is. Compatibility. It is miserable on Windows 7, when you’re trying to run newer apps and games. Saw that shiny new game on the Steam Store page? Suck it up, Windows 10 support and higher. Java SDKs newer than version 17? Forget it. New-ish apps in your optimized workflow? Sorry, find a Windows 7 alternative. It is pure pain. Most of my workflow already supported Windows 7, but if yours didn’t, you were just out of luck.

My thoughts and a conclusion

I personally think that for the issues, there’s always two benefits to Windows 7, which is why I will be staying on it. Most of the issues are just things you work around, anyways—you get your drivers, you’re done. No more time wasted on the involuntary scavenger hunt. Same deal with the apps. Take from this what you will. If you’re a Linux bro that couldn’t care less about Windows, keep not caring. If you’ve never even heard of me before and are intrigued about my content, read my other posts. If you were contemplating the switch, use this as guidance. I don’t care. I just don’t want this to be a big ol waste of time, there needs to be some value you get from this post. Anyways, if you want more tech related extravaganzas, tune in to the CheeseBlog for another post. Cya!

The pros and the cons of serverless architecture

 Heyo! This was a thought that popped into my mind when I was thinking about apps I could make, and I realized that this would actually be a pretty solid blog post. 

 This isn't usually a decision most developers have to make, as it is almost always clearly cut out. Need to fetch or process stuff from a database? Use a server. Making something simple like a notes app or a calendar? Easy peasy, that goes into serverless. However, there's a few edge cases that force you to make this decision, so I'll help explain what benefits you'd gain from it and the cons you'd gain from it.

For anyone new in the scene of programming, serverless architecture is when you develop an app that does not use a server. Simple, right? All computation needed is done entirely on the client, which can save a TON of money, due to the costs of a dedicated server being super expensive. Whether you're using a server host such as Linode (not sponsored) or even self hosting, costs can rise quickly. Serverless architecture eliminates that extra cost, only leaving you with the cost of hosting the client, which, depending on how much research you do and the type of app you're making, can be free.

 Now, let's start with the pros. I already went over one of them: the cost. If you skipped over that section, I'll do a quick summary: servers cost hella money, no matter what form you choose them in. Serverless architecture doesn't use that money, letting you allocate it to more important things like hosting the client or paying devs for making the app, if you've got a team you pay. Another useful thing that you benefit from it is automatic scaling. If you're a type of person that does minimal feature launches for your projects or products and then slowly expands (think the way Google releases products), this can actually be really useful. The app grows with you, but with a server-based architecture, you'd be forced to periodically upgrade servers which would be really expensive, or get a massive server off the bat, which is insanely risky (what if your product is a total flop?), because then you'd just.. have it. Not much to do with it, unless you decide to split it between projects. Additionally, serverless architecture just frees up your hands and space on the clock. You don't have to spend any extra time dealing with maintenance because a storage unit died, you don't need to investigate why it is returning garbage data with tested-okay code, etc etc. You just deal with the client, and that's it. More time to work on development, more focus on what you need focusing on, so on so forth. Next, the cons.

 A major con about serverless architecture is just how much it relies on the device it is running on, and there isn't exactly any other device to relieve resource usage because all of the code is being ran on the client device. It makes the bold assumption that whatever you're doing and whatever you're using is on the same firmware as the device(s) you test it on, and that the computer is even powerful enough to run it. Please, tell me the last time you saw Minecraft with full shaders running on a Galaxy S2 smartphone (the answer: you probably haven't, let alone at the standard 60fps/120fps of the phone). Instruct me on how to get Firefox 115 running on Windows 98 SE. This is one of the biggest reasons for why servers exist: they do the bulk of the computation. YouTube would NOT be able to run the algorithm everyone tries to manipulate for views without their servers with 10 exabytes of storage for videos with their accompaning metadata and above-the-line processors. And not to mention, serverless applications make exploiting them for personal gain so much easier to do, because exploiters and decompilers will take your program in its full and rip it to shreds just to find a single vulnerability. Better make sure it doesn't connect to the internet!

 Anyways, I had a ton of fun writing this, but that is to be expected when you haven't written any blog posts in over half a year. I really hope you learned at least something decent or useful from this, because that'd make me happy (and maybe attract more viewers to my blog if you REALLY liked it). For more tech related insights and accidental forkbombs, tune into the CheeseBlog for more posts just like this. Cya!

A collection of fun facts not long enough to make an entire post

Some of these are short, some are long, none of them should actually matter to you—but they all are interesting and weird enough when together to make a full blog post. Most of these are just interesting bugs or things that were never patched out in consoles or games.

Minecraft go map, 3DS go crash

This one is fairly well known already, but one of the quickest ways to crash a 3DS and make it force restart is by clicking something once. To prepare, go to a stronghold, and put your bed there. Specifically, put it in the library if possible. If a library didn't generate, redo these steps over and over into one does. Then, after you placed your bed, set it as your respawn point, and save.

Now, you are ready. Reopen Minecraft for New 3DS, open the world, and spam click every chest as fast as possible. You see, Minecraft for New 3DS makes great use of the lower screen. It uses it for inventory management and maps (that you just so happen to get and keep for free without additional inventory space being used)—but this is its downfall, where the error stems. Anyways, there is a high chance that in one of those chests there is a map. Even though the actual map you use isn't an item in the game, Mojang never remembered to remove the possibility of a map generating inside chests in strongholds for this version. Anyways, if you click the map in any chest (or try to use it), kaboom. Successfully crashed your console.

Minecraft for New 3DS never implemented proper error handling for missing item assets and code because they didn't know it would be a problem. It came with available mods on its proprietary addon store, but these were hardcoded into the game, especially if you downloaded Minecraft for New 3DS with DLC.

Anyways, it is one of the coolest but most interesting ways to crash Minecraft New 3DS Edition with a good bit of backstory behind it.

Mii sleep paralysis??

In Tomadachi Life, Miis normally sleep around the same time you would—sometimes going to bed as early as 6 PM (or 18:00) and usually wake up when the sun comes up, whether or not you have the game open. When they go to bed, it is very obvious they go to bed. Their little window on on the screen showing all apartments will have the curtains shut, and when tapping on their apartment, you can usually see them sleeping and sometimes enter if they are dreaming.

However, your Miis will occasionally get sleep paralysis (as a bug, not a feature). Their eyes will remain open even though the game tells you they are in a sleeping state and none of their animations (e.x. tossing and turning) will properly play, resulting in something resembling sleep paralysis for that Mii. It’ll usually fix itself when you go to some other Mii’s apartment and then back to the original Mii’s apartment, ending the sleep paralysis.

Wii time travel everything kaboom

There was an interesting issue with the Wii that was never patched in its lifetime. It was a calendar overflow glitch, involving setting the date to something like 2099. In doing this, the glitch would occur.

This glitch would essentially softlock you in certain parts of the OS or break features. For example, by doing this, trying to do anything on the Wii Message Board would make it infinitely hang while it was “attempting to fetch” mail or whatever. This may or may not have also caused glitches in time-dependent games like Animal Crossing: City Folk, but I’m not entirely sure because I do not have a copy of that Animal Crossing game to test with.

This glitch was never patched out and remains in the latest version, 4.3, as something you can do. If this bricks your Wii and you can’t change the time settings back, don’t blame me.

Miiverse change? it also go kaboom

There was a weird bug with Miiverse (Nintendo’s proprietary social media on the Wii U and 3DS) where changing your profile picture would sometimes cause Miiverse to crash when you opened it. This bug was exclusive to Wii U, as far as I’m aware.

Rebooting wouldn’t fix this either—it was a bug that was semi-permanent. Once you did it, it would stay forever unless you took measures against it. I have absolutely no idea why it is that way. It might have something to do with a conflict between the cache and the data on the server which causes Miiverse to crash? I don’t really know.

Anyways, the only measure you could take against this bug that was likely extremely problematic is straight up wiping your profile from the console. That’s it. You might’ve been able to redownload games after from the eShop but all of your hard earned save data would be gone, just to fix a bug with Miiverse. Was it really worth it?

Streetpass sucks at counting

Streetpass on the 3DS is known to only allow you to streetpass 10 people at a time, which you would then have to greet in app or if you paid for some other thing in the Streetpass Plaza you could send them to a line with a capacity of 100 people total just to streetpass the next 10.

Why does this cap even exist? Well, it’s pretty simple. Out of the already miniscule RAM available on the 3DS (256 megabytes on old 3DS models or 512 megabytes on new 3DS models), Streetpass got even less of it reserved for all of its operations. This ended up with 10 being the optimal number to work with between storing temporary streetpasses, storing your StreetPass profile, and constantly searching for 3DSes to streetpass.

It might’ve been a little hard to notice then if you were in a rural area and really hard to notice nowadays because of how few and far people who actually still use StreetPass are now, but back then it was really easy to notice when you were at a StreetPass Relay spot, because it would not only hit that 10 limit but it would hit it FAST.

mini fact: new leaf villager go poof but no say… why?

There was a chance in Animal Crossing: New Leaf that if you time-jumped a lot to get exclusive items or benefits and didn’t interact with 1 villager in specific, they would leave without even saying a goodbye to you and the others. Just.. gone. So if you play Animal Crossing, maybe stop time jumping if you do and start interacting with your villagers a little more.

Conclusion

That’s it. Not much else to say. I gave some fun facts. If you want more fun facts like this, then don’t forget to tune into the CheeseBlog soon for another post. Cya!

Some software that got worse over time

There’s tons of software that used to actually work as a service or product but now are just.. sucky. Basically, I’m going to be going over some prime examples of those software and OSes in this blog post.

Windows

Windows just really isn’t good now. You already know what I think about Windows 7 if you read my previous blog post, but I can argue that Windows XP and even Vista after driver updates were similar in usability to 7, once everything is fully updated and you’ve got the service packs for both OSes.

Windows 8, the OS that came right after Windows 7 in 2012, was quite the mess and we all know it. Windows 8.1 tried to fix up some of the major issues of 8 but by then the grave was already dug. Windows 10 wasn’t necessarily that terrible but it still had tons of bloat such as Candy Crush Saga, TikTok, and.. Edge. Windows 11 deserves almost all the hate it gets nowadays, with it nearly doubling the bloat, shoving tons of more ads in your face, and adding artificial barriers like a TPM 2.0 requirement just to (officially) install it.

Discord

Discord is still okay, but it has definitely faced some enshittification. Nitro, an overly expensive subscription service just to get slightly more than the bare minimum, is shoved in your face daily. It’s also faced a lot of UI changes that I wouldn’t necessarily label as bad but not good, either.

The Electron (boo!) app on Desktop is also insanely buggy and slow on older hardware, like what I use, which is why I prefer clients like Aerochat instead that were built from the ground up. The mobile app is slightly better with these kinds of things, but still.

Skype

Didn’t this get shut down? Whatever. When it still existed, it faced a major redesign or two that really messed things up. It used to just look like your average calling and chatting app on desktop that basically everyone used before Discord, but Microsoft decided to shoot themselves in the foot and redesign the entire UI, making it look like some sort of ripoff business version of itself.

Later in this thing’s life, Microsoft really just wanted to kill this thing without actually killing it. Classic Microsoft. Eventually they made Microsoft Teams as a replacement (who even uses that?) while it was still alive but basically on life support, and then they killed it. Imagine that you’re a king and then you see your replacement also take the spot as king, and now you’re gonna get executed at a later date. That’s essentially what happened.

Everyone uses Discord instead of Microsoft Teams, now, so really executing it on the spot was just plain pointless…

Hotmail/Outlook/Windows Live Mail

What even happened here? The naming scheme basically had an identity crisis. Anyways, I can fill you in on what happened here.

At first, Outlook was called Hotmail, and it didn’t have a thing to do with Microsoft. I can’t really tell you what it was like to use it because I wasn’t born in the 90s. Anyways, sometime in the later 90s, Microsoft acquired Hotmail for some large sum of money. It was still called Hotmail, just with the Microsoft name slapped on and some changes.

Later, it decided to walk on the fence between being called Outlook and being called Windows Live Mail. There are references to Outlook as far back as Windows 98 (in Outlook Express), but also references to Windows Live Mail in Vista, 7, and the free Windows Live Essentials pack back in 2012 and 2009. For now, I’m gonna refer to it as WLM for 2006-2012, and Outlook for any time past that.

The introduction of WLM was when Microsoft really started changing things, making a whole new client and making major branding changes. The last version of WLM, WLM2012, was my personal favorite but most feature-filled version of WLM. It would integrate with your Windows Live (now yucky Microsoft) account optionally and also any of your email accounts to, well, email. There wasn’t really anything bad about it; it looked clean, had a ton of features, and most things tying to accounts or always-online were optional, asides from adding your email account. The newest version still works to this day, with workarounds, of course.

Outlook, though, was really the downfall of this emailing service/product. It began to have forced Microsoft accounts to even use it, and it was an earlier sign of everything becoming always-online and requiring accounts. They then, of course, killed off the last good Outlook email client officially for Windows 10 and 11 earlier in 2024, that is unless you PAY for the email client to get a slightly better one that still really sucks. The newer email clients are just Electron and a cluttered web page interface that you could literally just go to on your typical web browser if you wanted to. At this point, in 2025, it is one of the worse mainstream email client/providers to use. just use Gmail or Yahoo as an email provider and Thunderbird, or yet again, Gmail as a client if you want to not do any complicated workarounds like you need to do to use WLM2012 as a client.

Conclusion

A lot of software and OSes, especially when free, just.. suck, unless they’re open source. Not to sound like some nostalgic nerd, but sometimes old is genuinely gold, depending on where you go. And also, not to sound like an ending sequence I use in almost every blog post, but tune in to the CheeseBlog for more cool tech stuff and insights on modern software. Cya!

Modded Discord clients are epic

We all know what Discord is, but I want to talk about the modded clients. There’s so many of them. Wait, did you say you don’t know what Discord is? Seriously? Fine, I’ll explain.

What’s Discord?

Most of you probably know what Discord is, so if you do, skip past this section. If you don’t, stay. Discord is a multi-platform rich messaging app. Many of its features include servers (like a group chat but it allows more people and there’s multiple of these things called channels that are usually used for categorizing chats and media), group chats, profile customization, markdown and multimedia support, etc. If you wish to read more on it, just check out its homepage here or read the Wikipedia page here.

Modded clients? What?

Yes, modded clients. This can range from modified desktop clients to modified web clients all the way to modded mobile clients. These modded clients add features to Discord that make it more useful or stylish. In this post is essentially just going over a few and what makes them special.

Okay here’s the list

Vencord/Vesktop

Vencord is one of the most used clients for Discord when it comes non-vanilla ones. It features a large variety of themes, which can be used to style Discord in ways that aren’t the basic dark and light themes and forgotten Nitro themes. It also has a wide range of plugins, which are used to extend functionality past what Discord officially offers and what Vencord adds. There isn’t really much special about Vencord aside from its popularity and large range of plugins and themes to use. Oh, and if you were wondering what Vesktop is, it is just a more optimized version of Discord with Vencord pre-injected, because otherwise you would have to install the normal Discord executable, install it, and then inject Vencord. You can check the GitHub link here.

Aerochat

Aerochat is just normal Discord, but with a twist. It looks nearly identical to Windows Live Messenger 2009 (also known as MSN Messenger). It has support for normal DMs, group chats, and even servers. It is still in development, though, and many features in normal Discord are missing because this client is being built from the ground up and is not based on the official Electron app Discord released. For the code, you can, once again, check the GitHub here.

BetterDiscord

BetterDiscord is one of the older Discord mods. It is very similar to Vencord, except that it is more popular, older, and doesn’t have cats everywhere. It supports both Windows and OS X. Otherwise, it is a very cool project, like all of these. For code, installation, and more, check the GitHub.

Conclusion

All of these clients are great clients, but they aren’t the only options. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this blog post. Don’t forget to tune in to the CheeseBlog for another post. Cya!

Why Windows 7 is better than newer Windows versions

Hi, everyone. I know I’ve slowly been posting less and less, but that’s just because of a bad schedule. But now, I’m back. I’m back and I can give you all a new post. I hope you all enjoy it, and let’s get right in to it.

UI

Windows 7 is known for having a simplistic, yet good UI. People have adored the Aero aesthetic. The Aero aesthetic is even starting to return, just because people love it so much. It has an intuitive Action Bar UI seen all across the operating system (notably Explorer, Windows Media Player 12, Notepad, and the XPS Viewer), making it incredibly simple to navigate, due to the fact that you don't have to memorize multiple different interfaces. It also has the traditional start menu, something Windows 8 and 8.1 cannot say. The UI is quick and snappy, which brings us to the next section.

Speed

Windows 7 is quite fast and snappy. Even on bad hardware of the time of its release, it still manages to pull through and do most tasks fairly quickly. On good hardware, it can pass the test of speed with flying colors. It loads IE, Windows Media Center, Explorer, and most common apps well, which makes sense, as they are mostly simple apps, but for daily use, it’s still good. The speed could be because of a lack of clutter, which I’m going to bring up soon.

Clutter

Windows 7 and clutter should not be in the same sentence. It only has the absolutely necessary apps, such as a calculator, a word pad (a rich note and documents app, kind of like a Lite version of MS Word), a web browser, a widget app, etc. If you ever feel something is missing or needed, just download it online! New web browser? Find it with IE. Want a game or two? Just go and download Steam, or go to itch.io for web games or free download games. An upside of having no clutter is a big bump in speed. However, if you want to declutter on Windows 10, 11, or even 8, you have to forcibly go through a complicated process to get rid of a very small number of bloatware apps.

Overview

Windows 7 may seem to be out of date by many people now, but that does not deny any of the points I have made. In my opinion, it is arguably one of the best Windows operating systems to this day, and many people would agree with me. Most of the points made in this post cannot be applied to Windows 8, 10, or 11, which is honestly such a shame, similarly to how it is sad that not that many apps support Windows 7 anymore without tweaks or modifications to the app itself or Windows. I hope you all enjoyed this blog post, but for more like this, make sure you tune in to the CheeseBlog soon for another post. Cya!

Note: This entire blog post was made with Windows Live Writer, tell me if anything is off about the post’s styling, this way of creating posts is simple and quick, so I prefer it. Anyways, bye

Running Doom on an unmodded WiiU

In this post (and maybe multiple posts after this), I will be attempting to run Doom-without modding. Let's dive in!

Attempt 1: WiiDoom

My first thought when creating this blog post was WiiDoom (wiki page and picture below)

 

 

However, I remembered that there is two issues:

• WiiDoom is for the Wii, and not the WiiU

• It cannot be accessed via the web, and is only available via the Homebrew Browser

After realizing this, I was honestly a bit stumped. I was aware that there was versions of Doom on the web, but they required a keyboard. I also was aware that you could plug one in via the USB port, but what's the fun in that? I want to use the gamepad!

Attempt 2: Custom Website

Now, my second thought was a website. As stated before, I know I could use a keyboard, but that's boring. Plus, I also realized the WiiU probably is too old/too underpowered to run these websites anyways. After a bit of googling, I confirmed that this was indeed true-Browser Doom was a gray screen. The first result, the playclassic.games website, didn't even load. (this happened to most of the DOOM online websites, I guess the browser doom website was just a bit of luck) This gave me practically no choice but to make my own website. I am still aware this entire thing is just for fun, but when I start something, I will do my best to finish it, if possible-and I'm pretty sure this is possible.

I made this site. It is based on js-dos, which seemed to be a bit friendlier to older devices like the WiiU, however, it turned out it still didn't work. I gave up. I apologize if this ending is disappointing (since I didn't get DOOM running nor did I get it to use the gamepad), but I tried my best. I believe there may be a version of DOOM out there for modded WiiUs, but I wasn't able to make a version for unmodded ones. Anyways, tune in to the CheeseBlog tomorrow for a new post. Cya!