Fix Windows 10

Don't install. Gladly, WU is broken beyond repair in those.

More of a reason to say no to Microsoft completely, then.

Shutting off smartscreen is short sighted and wrong. Its no different than the lists Chrome and FF use to block malicious sites. These lists are shared via a shared security initiative between the major browser makers. Disabling this is a good way to make sure you get cryptolocker.

Shutting off cloud-based protection in Defender is equally stupid. Now you're not getting instant and up to date virus definitions from the cloud-based system of honey pots, third party hashes, etc. All you have then is day or days old virus defs that are pretty much useless against modern polymorphic threats.

I really hate it when people purposely conflate security and privacy to win political points. None of the above is controversial and if you run any AV or use any browser, you're already doing this and you didn't have a problem with it before. I think its pretty clear that the person who made this list just found all the sliders for 'no' and doesn't realize what he's doing from a security perspective. If you use Windows, you should be using all the security features you possibly can (on top of running behind a router doing IPS/IDS and making sure to use a standard non-admin account - the UAC fails in many places limited standard users don't). Signed, a Windows sysadmin.

edit: really downvotes? Telling people to disable security features in an OS shouldnt be applauded, especially on a tech forum. This is "grandpa" level IT advice here.

This is just a FUD article.

If you're using your laptop to look for directions to locations on their map app then it's useful. Otherwise, it's useless since it uses geo-ip to find your location.