You know what, Microsoft? Fuck you. That's what.

My primary email address has been an msn.com address I’ve had for about 15 years.

Today I haven’t been able to check email. Would you like to know why? Because as soon as I get to the email, an ad for Skype pops up covering everything!

“So what, Frank?” you ask. “Just close it and move on.”

There is no close. No X. No way to get rid of it at all except to click Continue. (Unless you’re already using Skype, then they have something to click to sign in.) I don’t want to continue. I don’t want anything to do with Skype at all, thank you so much. All I want is my email.

I guess this is where I start migrating my email to a new address, perhaps something like frank@eatshitmicrosoft, or maybe frank@microsoftmarketingdiediedie, or possibly frank@fuckyoumicrosoft. Something like that.

It did that to me yesterday. And I agree with everything you said. I don’t know what the dumbasses at Microsoft were thinking.

My tablet has Skype on it and I can’t seem to find a way to get rid off it of there.

It is sorry-ass design.

I have to keep refreshing the page so that I can navigate in that fraction of second before the pop-up returns.

It fosters resentment.
It hardens my heart against using Skype when previously I was neutral out the subject.

Those utter bastards, providing a free service to you that you’re not 100% happy with. Fuck them.

You’re such a moron that I’m inclined not to reply at all, but nevertheless, just this once:

Actually, at the moment, they’re not providing me any kind of service. I can’t read my email; I can’t write new emails. My only option is to click continue. “By continuing, you agree to Skype’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.”

This is a service I don’t want. So, yes, they are utter bastards by doing this.

If you don’t want to lose your address, but don’t want to deal with Microsoft’s advertising, try using gmail to pull in your MSN account. (This assumes you don’t hate Google and/or gmail)

I know it works easily for my old hotmail account, and I don’t get the obnoxious advertising.

Yeah. As a rule, I don’t mind the advertising. It is a free service, and so it needs the ads. What I mind is the advertising that stops me from using the service at all.

That said, I might try your suggestion. I do have a gmail account, if I can only remember what it is.

If you want to use the service, agree to their terms. If you don’t, don’t. You’re the one being a moron here. If you never intend to use Skype, agreeing to their terms will not hurt or diminish you in any way.

Or, go back to whinging that they’re not providing you the exact service you want in the exact way you want, at no cost to you. Because that makes them the bastards. You clueless, entitled twat.

Don’t remember it? Set up a new one. Takes 2 minutes.

You’re on the right lines with your ideas: the thing to do is have your own domain, and have that domain redirect all email to the email address your ISP gives you or GMail or whatever. That way you maintain a consistent external email address but can change your actual email address with a minimum of fuss.

Based on my experience, if you click continue, all that happens is that you have a Skype icon in the upper right hand corner of your browser window, which you can kill with Adblock.

The program is not responding. Please wait while I look for a solution…

Just use any other email client. Webmail interfaces suck, anyway.

Call the NSA. They’ve got it.

Until they start installing a bunch of useless crap and spyware on your machine because somewhere in the 50 screens of legalese you agreed to it.

Also I don’t think that anyone is saying that they shouldn’t be allowed to do it they are just saying that it is incredibly annoying, above and beyond what is usually expected, and that Microsoft is likely to lose their business because of it. Welcome to the pit, a place for people to complain about things they don’t like.

Should someone who uses filesharing programs to steal movies, TV shows and music, carelessly toss around words like entitled?

You certainly shouldn’t be carelessly tossing around words like “steal” without understanding what they mean.

Why are you complaining about what Frank says? He’s providing that service for you for free. If you don’t like it, you can just not use the service.

People who can’t understand that free doesn’t mean “not allowed to complain” are too stupid to be on this message board. And, considering I post here, that’s saying a lot.

Actually, Gmail probably remembers what it is. Just fill in a new one similar to the old one with your infos. A guy who still uses msn.com mail probably still has the same ID info.

You might also try opening an Outlook address. I have one, and msn.com ties into it perfectly. It opens outlook.com email without a single ad; I just checked (I don’t actually use that address for anything). I would guess that MS actually really does hope that you stop using your msn.com address. It’s a relic from a whole different internet.

While you’re sorting that out, take a minute to install Adblock … wait, hang on - you’re not still using IE, are you?

We could play semantic games and come up with a gentler term than stealing, but why bother. It so perfectly describes your stealing.