# Microsoft Paint

10 Hacker News commenters recommended Microsoft Paint and 23 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 8 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Fast and simple for quick diagrams, screenshot edits and drawing; critics object to the new version's hidden identifier watermark and AI feature.

## Why people recommend it

- Faster than alternatives (2 comments): "Still feels faster than watching my screen fade in and out for the snipping tool." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45940574)) "it's so much better and faster than the stock image viewer" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47199467))
- Simple, uncluttered, does its job (2 comments): "does everything I'd expect from a paint program, and gets out of the way when I don't need it anymore" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49842544)) "Paint, Notepad, Calculator are all fantastic." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46664628))

## What people warn about

- Hidden tracking identifier in output (7 comments): "Inserting a tracker that can personally identify me without my explicit opt-in consent is a GDPR breach." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49430418)) "I don't think adding an identifier which can most likely be mapped back to user is "standard mark"." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49428742)) "the invisible watermark is embedded in both the image pixels and the image metadata" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49421192))
- Telemetry and spyware phoning home (2 comments): "crippling it with additional spyware that phones home to tell Microsoft what you're doing" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49427738)) "If you break telemetry globally, notepad will crash, along with calc and paint." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46781086))
- Bugs in saving, fill and stability (3 comments): "cropping a screenshot in paint and leaving it in the background has partially stopped my PC from rebooting" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46803135)) "sometimes I save images using Paint and then the default canvas size will be something else!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49244627)) "because the fill tool didn't recognise the background properly" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47154929))
- Ribbon redesign disrupts habits (2 comments): "The new mspaint fucked, then unfucked, then refucked my decades-old muscle memory" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49216084)) "I never liked the new ribbon-based design from later version of Windows." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47157395))

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Microsoft Paint", https://hackerapproved.com/p/microsoft-paint/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).