Ubuntu in comparison: https://fixubuntu.com/
Fix Windows 10
91–100 of 201 posts
Re: Fix Windows 10
#92I think Microsoft messed up the messaging and wording of their features, bigtime. Many products these days are integrating analytics to see how their users use their products. Personally, I prefer to disable such tracking, but I don't view it as malicious. MS should have realized by now that people don't quite trust them with this stuff, and they should have make it clear at the outset that they are never going to us…
> They used legal language that allows them much more latitude than what they require.
It's the same trap that people fall in to when site terms of use ask for worldwide, royalty-free, irrevocable license to content that you post. Yeah, that sounds like it's a horrible nastyness, but from a legal point of view that wording is a safety net for the company, not an attempt to claim actual rights over contributed content.
MS has completely failed to control the message here, and everyone's working themselves into a groupthink riot, just like they did over the Ok Google binary blob nonsense.
Re: Fix Windows 10
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
This is absolutely fear mongering. The solitaire that used to ship with every version of windows is still absolutely 100% free in Windows 10. Some extra social based features are the only things that are unlocked by paying the subscription fee. Nothing about the core solitaire experience has changed, and it isn't a canary dying.
Re: Fix Windows 10
#94I wish the steps were this straightforward for my android phone.
Step 1: Uninstall everything related to Google.
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit
Re: Fix Windows 10
#95In my opinion, if those privacy issues bother you, the first step should be an overview of non-Microsoft operating systems.
and the alternatives are? osX invented all this. MS is just catching up. and apple don't even allow you to disable things. android? chrome alone sends more info than whole windows 10+edge. now, you could say Linux. but sadly your grand mother has no publicly available product she can buy with that OS.
> no publicly available product
Yes. Sometimes doing the right thing to protect your rights and the rights of others requires sacrifice. Freedom is not always free (as in beer).
As long as you insist that any potential alternative have the same features, you might as well give up. The incumbent can always create and market a new "feature" guaranteeing any alternative is always playing catch-up.
As time goes on, the lock-in increases and the cost of change becomes more expensive. Do you want to pay this cost now. or do you want to pay an even higher cost in the future after Microsoft - emboldened by the profits from selling user data to their "partners" - decides to make the spying even more invasive?
Do you even want to own a General Purpose Computer? You better make a decision quickly; when Intel's SGX instructions become widespread, it will be next to impossible to disable these "important security features".
Re: Fix Windows 10
#96I wish the steps were this straightforward for my android phone.
They are: 1. Install an AOSP ROM without the proprietary Google Apps or Google Play Services. 2. Install the F-Droid market to download whatever programs you like. 3. Enjoy using an Android phone without the anti-privacy Google tracking.
Your point 1. is like saying
1. Turn off every Windows feature mentioned in this article.
Installing an AOSP ROM is an order of magnitude harder than disabling the privacy-concerning settings in Windows considering that you probably would need to extract (or write your own) drivers from the vendor-customized ROM.
Re: Fix Windows 10
#97I 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…
I wonder if instead of fixing the OS directly, it'd be better to make the firewall changes in an Internet router and just send them the new one. You'd probably want to keep the existing router as well to avoid the need to login to find ISP settings (or avoid calling the ISP), but as long as the new router can be setup as a bridge to the existing one I see no reason why it couldn't work.
The added advantage of doing this is that you can block all traffic associated with Microsoft's user tracking servers, which should work (as long as Microsoft don't switch the server name in use).
Either that or recommend avoiding the Windows 10 upgrade. Windows 7 in particular should be sticking around for quite a while yet.
Re: Fix Windows 10
#98Or just use a Mac. Or Ubuntu. ...sorry, it had to be said :)
>Mac Which sends search queries via “Spotlight Suggestions” and “Bing Web Searches” by default? >Or Ubuntu Which sends all your search queries to Canonical by default (via the shopping lens)?
I've been using a Mac for over a year now and I can count on one hand the number of times I've used Spotlight. (And when I did use it, it was useless at solving my problems.)
However, on Windows the start menu search is actually useful to me, and I use it regularly.
Re: Fix Windows 10
#99I 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,…
>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.
Have you ever had a grandma? My grandma literally plays solitaire and checks her email, that's it. She wants nothing to do with cortana.
I set my grandma up with Ubuntu and set the homepage of firefox to her email. I've never had a problem.
Re: Fix Windows 10
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
This is absolutely fear mongering. The solitaire that used to ship with every version of windows is still absolutely 100% free in Windows 10. Some extra social based features are the only things that are unlocked by paying the subscription fee. Nothing about the core solitaire experience has changed, and it isn't a canary dying.
Is it not true, then, that if you don't pay for the upgrades the base solitaire app contains ads? If it does not, then I and presumably also the people making a fuss about this have been misinformed.