So I just started my windows and it seems that I am 'infected' with this anti-privacy stuff. How do I get rid of it? Re-install from the installation disk and disable updates, or can I still remove the updates?
Updates Make Windows 7 and 8 Spy on You Like Windows 10
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Re: Updates Make Windows 7 and 8 Spy on You Like Windows 10
#52What an unbelievable lack of respect and a big FU to Microsoft's own customers. At least using Windows 10 is a choice (I think - do they force it on Windows 7 machines?), but to do this to all existing customers - wow, just wow.
Behold everyone - this is the "new" Microsoft, worse than it ever was.
Re: Updates Make Windows 7 and 8 Spy on You Like Windows 10
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
1) Internet web sites have always been "lit up with speculation". 2) Microsoft's "spying" has been going on since Windows Vista was released, and speculation has gone along with it. 3) Since the 1990's, next year has always been "the year of desktop Linux."
People keep saying that there was spying going on from XP or Vista, but "spying" isn't a binary state. The amount of intended data-slurping has increased incomparably.
You can choose between telemetry levels in Win10 though.
Re: Updates Make Windows 7 and 8 Spy on You Like Windows 10
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
You sort of can, see things like https://github.com/10se1ucgo/DisableWinTracking/ .
It's easy to blackhole those domains and remove reg keys, but I wonder if M$ will add new ones in later updates.
That's okay, they can just use their p2p technology and route their spying through other people's computers.
Re: Updates Make Windows 7 and 8 Spy on You Like Windows 10
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a list of domains that came up in a previous discussion on HN (sorry, I don't recall it right away), and was also trending on pastebin.com, which contained all of the known domains Microsoft was using to report back from the OS. Presumably you could route those to "null" or the equivalent on your router and you'd be good to go. Edit: Here's the pastebin link: http://pastebin.com/RZW74Npk
You could always just do that in Windows' hosts file, too.
You can, and I'm sure most would. There may come a time, however, when a future Windows update rewrites or works around the hosts file for telemetry. Doing it at the router or external firewall avoids that possibility.
Re: Updates Make Windows 7 and 8 Spy on You Like Windows 10
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
The potential big difference here is that it affects people's work computers, where they do things for organizations that have a strong interest in keeping information from leaking out. Such companies probably were never happy with corporate data passing through Android smartphones, and might have forbidden it. Now they know they can't trust Windows workstations either.
And don't some of the same companies store all their company documents, email etc. on Google Apps? Or on Dropbox?
Many do, but many don't. For those that don't, suddenly having the dominant desktop OS turn on them is going to be a big deal.
Re: Updates Make Windows 7 and 8 Spy on You Like Windows 10
#57I wonder how any IT corporation of decent size, with internal data policies will be able to live with something this.
Re: Updates Make Windows 7 and 8 Spy on You Like Windows 10
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
The potential big difference here is that it affects people's work computers, where they do things for organizations that have a strong interest in keeping information from leaking out. Such companies probably were never happy with corporate data passing through Android smartphones, and might have forbidden it. Now they know they can't trust Windows workstations either.
Win10 enterprise has the no telemetry option for a reason.
Because every small business uses Win10 enterprise?
Re: Updates Make Windows 7 and 8 Spy on You Like Windows 10
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could always just do that in Windows' hosts file, too.
You can, and I'm sure most would. There may come a time, however, when a future Windows update rewrites or works around the hosts file for telemetry. Doing it at the router or external firewall avoids that possibility.
Ah, fair point.
Re: Updates Make Windows 7 and 8 Spy on You Like Windows 10
#60Brilliant, 2 options I see Never do updates again (which is what I will be doing this evening) and make system perm insecure Or let MS and the NSA rape me for even more data than they already have Go [insert abusive word] yourself Microsoft and to think just last week I got a 3rd windows 7 license because I was planning to stay on 7 long term and not upgrade to 10. Steam hopefully will push linux gaming that i can fi…
If Steam OS becomes a viable desktop gaming OS that plays most, if not all games, I'll drop Windows in a heartbeat.
I updated to Windows 10 and found it to be so painfully slow that I switched to Ubuntu 14.04 for gaming. I've honestly had a pretty good experience playing everything from low-fi indie titles (like Terraria) to AAA releases (like Shadow of Mordor). Try it out!