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Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

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Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#261

Post by JupiterMoon »

Amezarak wrote: post #121
cookiecaper wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that there are legal barriers around it per the privacy policy but the fact that someone at Microsoft can just decide that they need file X off my laptop and then fetch it is way beyond the pale. If someone wants the files off my laptop, they can get a search warrant and successfully convince my lawyer that I am legally obliged to decrypt.

There is no evidence that Microsoft currently has the ability to arbitrarily fetch files from your computer. If your argument is that they could implement such a capability, that's always been true for any OS, including free operating systems, unless you audit the code and compile it yourself.

> has the ability to arbitrarily fetch files

Haven't they in the past done exactly this in order to do people a favour by removing certain malware via windows update?

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#262

Post by ohitsdom »

JimmaDaRustla wrote: post #189
ohitsdom wrote: post #38

Has there been any response or explanation from Microsoft yet with this situation?

The situation that illegal torrent sites are ambiguously banning Windows 10 users? What kind of response do you expect from them?

I mean a response now that there has been a sizable backlash (especially from the tech community) on the privacy settings on Windows 10. The consistent "phoning home" no matter what privacy settings are used.

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#263

Post by pmelendez »

JupiterMoon wrote: post #257
pmelendez wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we're stuck with a proprietary system that is totally unnecessary I think you are being a bit biased on this one. There are a lot of applications that the "free" alternative is just not good enough in comparison with the propetary one. Just to name a few: Gimp and Photoshop Inkscape and Illustrator Maya/3DStudio and Blender I would even add Office and LibreOffice but the later is actually good enough for a good chu…

Inkscape and Illustrator is unfair. My work has stopped buying Illustrator licenses and no one even noticed because Inkscape does what we need.

Inkscape is nice and I use it all the time, but I am not a designer so it works for me just fine (I suspect is the same case in your office).

On the other hand, my sister is a designer, and there are so many missing features on Inkscape that prevent her to use it in her profession life. The comparison seems unfair, but it is the closest thing to an alternative for Illustrator in the software free world.

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#264

Post by progman »

scholia wrote: post #231
outworlder wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing the point. "Proprietary system" here means Windows. All these applications could run under Linux just fine if the vendors cared.

Any good examples of closed source applications being financially successful on Linux? How do the opportunities on Linux compare with investing in applications for other platforms? It's not so much about "caring" as about the ability to pay programmers to create profitable software.

I think TurboPrint is pretty successful. It is a good printing system. I purchased it many years ago and it is still available to this day.

http://www.turboprint.de

More commercial applications:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Proprietary_commercia...

http://lin-app.com

http://www.techdrivein.com/2011/05/10-commercial-apps-for-li...

http://www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/LinuxCommercialApplications...

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#265

Post by joesmo »

ionised wrote: post #210
joesmo wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, I still only have the option of accepting or denying apps' permission on CyanogenMod. Also, I can hide my contacts and location from apps, if I'm really persistent about clicking the deny box a million times. But I still can't approve only the app permissions I want and not approve the ones I don't (which coincidentally are not essential to app functioning).

> But I still can't approve only the app permissions I want and not approve the ones I don't (which coincidentally are not essential to app functioning). Hmm? I can do exactly this in the Privacy Guard settings. You can choose which permissions you want an app to have and which you don't. You can also set to Ask every time as well as just blanket blocking/.allowing permanently.

Oh wow. You're right. The option does exist. It's just hidden behind a stupid, non-sensical UI. Apparently if I long tap the app name, I get a lot of options. This is great. I don't understand why they hide it behind such a stupid, non-obvious UI. Do I need to long tap every single other UI element to get some functionality that should be obvious? Until they make a proper UI for it, it might as well not exist.

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#266

Post by JimmaDaRustla »

ohitsdom wrote: post #262
JimmaDaRustla wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The situation that illegal torrent sites are ambiguously banning Windows 10 users? What kind of response do you expect from them?

I mean a response now that there has been a sizable backlash (especially from the tech community) on the privacy settings on Windows 10. The consistent "phoning home" no matter what privacy settings are used.

The backlash is a bit of an overreaction, although justified due to the lack of total transparency of what's being sent. This is no different than any other cloud oriented services offered by Google/Apple, etc. Edit: blog.laptopmag.com/windows-10-privacy-issues-exaggerated

The phoning home isn't new, is it? Licensing validation was done every few months on Windows 7.

The only thing Microsoft is guilty of SO FAR that I'm aware of, is providing slightly better transparency over the data it sends to its' and third parties' servers, and now they're getting called out for it.

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#267

Post by cm2187 »

KaterKarlo123 wrote: post #62
x5n1 wrote: post #13

Basically M$ adoption of this strategy is the death knell for any semblance of privacy on the PC. It's amazing how far we have come to accepting such draconian measures in order to further marketing. There is still time people, come on over to Linux, the privacy here is still fine and will continue to be fine. And if you come over, then all the desktop software makers will port their software to Linux and all the col…

I've deactivated all reporting and services that call back home (at least which I was aware of). In addition I've installed glasswire to check the network activities. So far I can assure you: Compared to my Android phone Windows 10 is absolutely mute. There're no noticeable differences compared to Windows 7. You seem to be more driven by your hatred towards Microsoft than by real privacy concerns.

I must say that privacy is a matter of trust. We rely on code that we haven't inspected. Even open source software doesn't get that much scrutiny as the various major recent vulnerabilities have shown.

So getting worried because Microsoft is turning against their users by exploiting their data is a legitimate concern. I have disabled all these settings too but I must say that Microsoft damaged the trust I had in them. I always used windows and I am a big fan of the .net framework and of visual studio. But I am now considering learning Linux. I have zero interest in an OS that leaks my personal data.

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#268

Post by rkrzr »

pjc50 wrote: post #144
fla wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been working 4 years on Ubuntu Linux now and I'm very happy about it. My life is much easier and I don't loose time fighting with my system. I have a Win7 partition that I boot now and then when I must use software that can't be virtualized well enough. In 4 years I've never lost work and I had only two crashes after messing with my GPU settings. If only the biggest proprietary software we available on linux (Lo…

How is Steam on Linux (+Wine) these days?

Steam works great for me. There is no discernible difference to the Windows version. There are 1400+ games available now for Linux, including some (older) AAA games like Bioshock Infinite.

Just make sure to buy a Nvidia graphics card (and use their proprietary driver). The (proprietary) AMD drivers work, but their performance is much worse than on Windows.

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#269

Post by vetinari »

wlesieutre wrote: post #119
progman wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing about Linux on the desktop "works fine". It's horrible. This claim is usually made by Windows users who don't want to invest any effort and time to learn another desktop -- which they had to do in Win8 anyway. Linux offers several nice desktops (KDE, Gnome, XFCE, E17, etc.) which we can freely choose from. I am a Linux user since the 90's and I have always used it as my primary desktop. It works perfectly w…

One of my gripes with Linux is that software all tends to feel like it was designed to look nice on the developer's particular flavor of window manager. The system as whole comes across as an inconsistent pile of different UIs. OS X has benefited a lot from interfaces all being put together in Xcode with elements snapping to the HIG standardized margins. And when something doesn't match (looking at you, cross platfor…

Well, I don't think that Microsoft Office and Microsoft Visual Studio are that similar. Both of them are using style different than the system default. Throw apps from other vendors into the mix, see Photoshop or Lightroom for example and it gets very difficult to argue, that the Windows desktop has unified style. Let's not go into the whole 'with WPF you can style your app any way you want' topic, because that's when the whole differentiation thing exploded.

Not that OSX is any better - Apple's own Pro apps always had different look that the rest of the system. iTunes was always experimenting with looking odd. Also, third party apps look different - Office, Adobe apps, etc.

So, it nothing wrong with Linux, all systems are like this.

Re: Windows 10 users are being banned from torrent sites

#270

Post by fla »

pjc50 wrote: post #144
fla wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been working 4 years on Ubuntu Linux now and I'm very happy about it. My life is much easier and I don't loose time fighting with my system. I have a Win7 partition that I boot now and then when I must use software that can't be virtualized well enough. In 4 years I've never lost work and I had only two crashes after messing with my GPU settings. If only the biggest proprietary software we available on linux (Lo…

How is Steam on Linux (+Wine) these days?

Native Linux Valve games are a real pleasure.

I don't have a large experience with wine gaming but Hearthstone runs pretty well (too well, even) on Wine.

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