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Fix Windows 10

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Re: Fix Windows 10

#51
post #5

I look at this list and I think of my grandmother, who would never do this, never even think to do it. "The windows" is her friend, and she's relatively tech savvy for a person of her generation. Heck, people my mothers generation would not think to do this. Heck, even my brother would not think to do this, or to look for this. If it's not a single place, if you have to open the command line (on windows) then the abi…

Frankly your "grandmother" is better off not doing this anyway.

She needs the anti-phishing filter, the anti-malicious app & URL filter, and will want useful features like Cortana, predictive search, page compatibility modes, allowing websites/apps to ask for her location (e.g. Google Maps), and her files to be backed up when her computer fails.

You can argue if certain things help your "grandmother" (e.g. telemetry, advertiser IDs, etc) but this seems like to throws the baby out with the bathwater.

PS - Windows 10's defaults could be better. But this takes it to the other extreme, disabling legitimately useful functionality (in particular security focused functionality).

Re: Fix Windows 10

#52
post #21
post #18

> 7. To disable telemetry (...) Why should I disable that? What does it do? My understanding is that it's only statistics on data usage, which I find useful?

Nearly all of the windows privacy issues come from useful features. If cortana wants to automatically recommend appointments from emails? Guess what? She has to read your emails. If you want to be blocked from downloading malware? Guess what? You have to check with a central db first. etc Apple, Google devices etc have had this stuff on for ages.

Cortana is not an essential part of the OS. Malware databases can exist locally. You're just making excuses for MS's anti-privacy architecture.

Re: Fix Windows 10

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes besides your privacy, it's "great". Buy Solaitaire for 10$ a month?

When did Solitaire become a vital component to using an operating system?

When a canary dies in a coal mine, it's not the canary the miners worry about.

The fact that the OS ships with a subscription-based freemium app with ads [EDIT: that used to be free] is, for many people, that canary.

Re: Fix Windows 10

#54

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 t…

Let's clarify: disabling smartscreen for privacy reasons is different that keeping it enabled for security reasons. Smartscreen sends urls you visit to Msoft, and since Win8, it sends filenames of downloaded files to Msoft too. As for the security argument, smartscreen only works in IE, so for those of use who don't want any of that turned on, and use FF (instead of chrome), where we download the blacklist instead of…

>The same for cloud based Defender. There is no reason I shouldn't be able to turn it off if I have an approriate replacement that protects my privacy.

Your AV is doing exactly what Smartscreen does and so do many security products. Its a common feature, where are the privacy guides for that? Oh right, there's a double standard for MS.

Also, the author didn't disable Defender because he is using a different AV. He left it on and just disabled the cloud definitions feature, meaning he's not going to be up-to-date on definitions. Cloud defs are a bit different than what you get via WU. Its a dynamic list of suspicious hashes that's constantly being updated via honeypots and such. The author clearly does not understand what he is recommending.

Re: Fix Windows 10

#55
post #52
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nearly all of the windows privacy issues come from useful features. If cortana wants to automatically recommend appointments from emails? Guess what? She has to read your emails. If you want to be blocked from downloading malware? Guess what? You have to check with a central db first. etc Apple, Google devices etc have had this stuff on for ages.

Cortana is not an essential part of the OS. Malware databases can exist locally. You're just making excuses for MS's anti-privacy architecture.

Lots of apple, and google features are not essential part of the system.

Shall we turn siri off by default?

"Malware databases can exist locally" - You still have to download, and upload definitions. This is what windows defender does. People still complain about that.

It's not that I'm not concerned about privacy. It's the hypocritical nature of people. It only becomes a big issue when Microsoft does it. Anyone else, very little complaints.

Re: Fix Windows 10

#57
post #21
post #18

> 7. To disable telemetry (...) Why should I disable that? What does it do? My understanding is that it's only statistics on data usage, which I find useful?

Nearly all of the windows privacy issues come from useful features. If cortana wants to automatically recommend appointments from emails? Guess what? She has to read your emails. If you want to be blocked from downloading malware? Guess what? You have to check with a central db first. etc Apple, Google devices etc have had this stuff on for ages.

"She has to read your emails."

cough, she = it, read = process

Re: Fix Windows 10

#59
post #35
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nearly all of the windows privacy issues come from useful features. If cortana wants to automatically recommend appointments from emails? Guess what? She has to read your emails. If you want to be blocked from downloading malware? Guess what? You have to check with a central db first. etc Apple, Google devices etc have had this stuff on for ages.

> If you want to be blocked from downloading malware? Guess what? You have to check with a central db first. Or it could download the db and do the checks locally. There wouldn't be privacy concerns about MS knowing which sites one's browsing.

You realise Chrome, Firefox, and Microsoft all use Google's database[0] for this and have for at least seven year. Why is this anti-phishing blacklist all of a sudden an issue in 2015?

[0] https://developers.google.com/safe-browsing/developers_guide...

Re: Fix Windows 10

#60
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without an explanation which part of the article sows FUD, it makes me think you just don't even know what that acronym means.

Having to explain simple concepts to you makes me think you're an idiot.

I'm always surprised when 1,000 day accounts break the guidelines so blatantly.
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