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Microsoft reveals details of Windows 10 usage tracking

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Microsoft reveals details of Windows 10 usage tracking

#201

Post by dang »

caskance wrote: post #142
talmand wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please share what these options are and how to implement them. All I've seen so far are lists of hoops you have to go through that may eventually be changed back with a future update.

Your description is vaguely worded enough to cover every method of configuring software. If you want specific info, I think Microsoft's documentation is quite clear and comprehensive: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt577208(v=vs.85... Not sure why you need me to share that instead of taking five seconds to look it up on google. Guess you don't care as much about privacy as you like to pretend.

Please don't be personally abrasive on HN. This comment would be fine without the last two sentences.

Re: Microsoft reveals details of Windows 10 usage tracking

#202

Post by gradschool »

tomswartz07 wrote: post #6

Here's a 100% serious question: If you 'absolutely must' use Windows 10, would it be possible to firewall off every outbound port from this machine to prevent this sort of tracking? Or does it just use Port 80, piggybacking on the normal http traffic? Has anyone done a comprehensive analysis of exactly how this info is being sent?

The lazy way to firewall it without doing all that analysis would be to run it in Virtualbox with network access disabled. Do your networking on the host outside of the VM and exchange files between the host and the VM through a shared folder. If you need sharing between multiple windows machines, you can run Syncthing or similar on the hosts to synchronize the directories backing the shared folders across them. I run a setup like this at home for my other half, who needs to use windows for some things but balks at signing up for their cloud service.

Re: Microsoft reveals details of Windows 10 usage tracking

#203

Post by ymm102p4 »

agentultra wrote: post #72
dantillberg wrote: post #60

I spent my holiday break shifting my alignment 2 or 3 points towards Stallmanism. The existence/collection of statistics like this increase my confidence in that choice. Between Windows privacy craziness and Apple's continuing lockdown of OSX (I think that System Integrity Protection augurs an iOS-like walled-garden future for OSX), I recently switched all of my OSX/Windows/Ubuntu systems to Arch Linux; it takes some…

I went the other way around. I started with your conclusions and have been migrating to the Apple ecosystem and am tempted to move to Windows. I had become tired of the dearth of issues that crop up to maintain an Arch desktop distribution. While the privacy collection issues should be addressed and be transparent to end-users I think open source is not the way to go for these devices. I'm tired of each device being…

Free software isn't in competition with non-free software. Free software is 100% up-side. It's not either-or, unless you see a reason for it to be.

I need to support Windows for a paycheque, but I use Linux and free options wherever I realistically can, and it has improved my quality of life drastically. Even before I cared about privacy, I grew sick of the constant licensing treadmill. The privacy concerns, however, have long-since passed my tolerance, and I now consider proprietary software itself to be a backdoor. If I must run proprietary software for some practical reason, I will use tools like firewalls, virtualization, and proxies, to limit its potential.

Re: Microsoft reveals details of Windows 10 usage tracking

#204

Post by scrollaway »

EdSharkey wrote: post #151

Windows 7 is the last version of Windows I'll run, Microsoft! The moment Ballmer switched from "Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers!" to "Advertisers, Advertisers, Advertisers, Advertisers!", I knew it was time to start migrating myself to Linux and Mac.

MS was never about "Developers developers developers". They're more about that today than they have ever been before, in fact.

What ballmer actually meant in his demented rage was "Developer lock in, Developer lock in, Developer lock in!". Linux is a million times friendlier to developers.

The new MS is getting there, but the new MS also has its glaring flaws, like the ones being discussed here.

Re: Microsoft reveals details of Windows 10 usage tracking

#205

Post by NetStrikeForce »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #191
KirinDave wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally: no. By default the store app MIGHT show some logos for featured apps, but that's as far as it goes. The live tiles for stores can show pictures of products. You can elect to remove them if you don't like them. Live tiles are one of the most powerful and useful features of the windows start menu. Like any feature, it's conceivable they could be misused. Unlike notifications, the user has complete, simple, a…

> Generally: no That's very misleading. The option is called "Suggestions" and it's on by default. I'm convinced they called it that because if they called it "Ads", everyone would turn it off. > By default the store app MIGHT show some logos for featured apps That is far from only problem. Here is a screenshot of a Win10 start menu, out of the box, at default settings. Count the ads: http://cdn5.howtogeek.com/wp-con…

One ad (Get Skype), and a live tile that could be considered an ad (Store live tile).

Re: Microsoft reveals details of Windows 10 usage tracking

#206

Post by stonemetal »

rms_returns wrote: post #88
agentultra wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went the other way around. I started with your conclusions and have been migrating to the Apple ecosystem and am tempted to move to Windows. I had become tired of the dearth of issues that crop up to maintain an Arch desktop distribution. While the privacy collection issues should be addressed and be transparent to end-users I think open source is not the way to go for these devices. I'm tired of each device being…

> Open-source, meanwhile, has struggled to provide a basic desktop environment to rival the best from five years ago. Open-source is pretty young on the desktop arena. Consider that Microsoft ruled the entire nineties and tried all tricks in the book to sabotage linux. Despite this, the fact that linux desktops are even available today is nothing short of a miracle! IMHO, the GNOME and Unity desktops are mature enoug…

>Linux, an open-source project where payment isn't a top-priority for developers, but merit is!

That makes nice PR to bad it isn't all that true. According to the linux foundation more than 80% of kernel development is done by people being paid for their work.

Re: Microsoft reveals details of Windows 10 usage tracking

#207

Post by stonemetal »

rms_returns wrote: post #88
agentultra wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went the other way around. I started with your conclusions and have been migrating to the Apple ecosystem and am tempted to move to Windows. I had become tired of the dearth of issues that crop up to maintain an Arch desktop distribution. While the privacy collection issues should be addressed and be transparent to end-users I think open source is not the way to go for these devices. I'm tired of each device being…

> Open-source, meanwhile, has struggled to provide a basic desktop environment to rival the best from five years ago. Open-source is pretty young on the desktop arena. Consider that Microsoft ruled the entire nineties and tried all tricks in the book to sabotage linux. Despite this, the fact that linux desktops are even available today is nothing short of a miracle! IMHO, the GNOME and Unity desktops are mature enoug…

>Linux, an open-source project where payment isn't a top-priority for developers, but merit is!

That makes nice PR to bad it isn't all that true. According to the linux foundation more than 80% of kernel development is done by people being paid for their work.

Re: Microsoft reveals details of Windows 10 usage tracking

#208

Post by FlyingLawnmower »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #191
KirinDave wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally: no. By default the store app MIGHT show some logos for featured apps, but that's as far as it goes. The live tiles for stores can show pictures of products. You can elect to remove them if you don't like them. Live tiles are one of the most powerful and useful features of the windows start menu. Like any feature, it's conceivable they could be misused. Unlike notifications, the user has complete, simple, a…

> Generally: no That's very misleading. The option is called "Suggestions" and it's on by default. I'm convinced they called it that because if they called it "Ads", everyone would turn it off. > By default the store app MIGHT show some logos for featured apps That is far from only problem. Here is a screenshot of a Win10 start menu, out of the box, at default settings. Count the ads: http://cdn5.howtogeek.com/wp-con…

It's a single right click to unpin them. I personally found it useful to have a link to the store to download Netflix, etc.

Should they have displayed a totally empty start menu to start? I think people are getting way too upset about the smallest things.

Re: Microsoft reveals details of Windows 10 usage tracking

#209

Post by euske »

lewisl9029 wrote: post #64

I still can't imagine why Microsoft would think it's worth the bad publicity to not offer the option to disable telemetry, considering how few people tend to deviate from defaults in general, and how tiny a percentage of their users even care about privacy to begin with (evident from the commercial success of Windows 10). They've been getting so much goodwill for all the other great things they've been doing lately.…

Remember that a large corporation often acts schizophrenicly, because there are so many decision making bodies that have conflicting interests within the company. (I took this comment from someone else on HN a while ago)

Re: Microsoft reveals details of Windows 10 usage tracking

#210

Post by gcb0 »

dantillberg wrote: post #60

I spent my holiday break shifting my alignment 2 or 3 points towards Stallmanism. The existence/collection of statistics like this increase my confidence in that choice. Between Windows privacy craziness and Apple's continuing lockdown of OSX (I think that System Integrity Protection augurs an iOS-like walled-garden future for OSX), I recently switched all of my OSX/Windows/Ubuntu systems to Arch Linux; it takes some…

yeah, Ubuntu is getting out of hand. but Debian continues to be awesome. though i love Arch's documentation effort, it's just perfect.

on another note, i just helped my mom set up an iPhone. try it once with no previous accounts for anything. it's maddening! dozen of EULAs, several different accounts needed for every menial thing, dumb and dumber password restrictions, options to skip useless accounts hidden in the UI...

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