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With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy

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Re: With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy

#21

Post by givinguflac »

cptskippy wrote: post #12

By default, Windows 10 sends an unprecedented amount of usage data back to Microsoft... location data, text input, voice input, touch input, webpages you visit, and telemetry data regarding your general usage of your computer, including which programs you run and for how long. Unprecedented for Microsoft or everyone? This is inline with what Google collects on Android. ...the fact remains that many users would much p…

This comment makes you sound like a very biased MS fan. Saying this is ok bwcause some mobile OS providers do similar things is absurd. This is an entirely separate class of device and should be treated as such. Apple absolutely collects nowhere near this much data on their desktop OS, so that is also misleading.

Re: With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy

#22

Post by dimino »

jakebasile wrote: post #17

I upgraded willingly so the deceptive upgrade practices, while deplorable, didn't really affect me. What does affect me is that Microsoft refuses to let me control my computer. - If you turn off Windows Defender Real Time Protection it explicitly tells you "You can turn this off, but if it's off for a while we'll turn it back on". It turns itself on upon next reboot, it seems. - You can't turn off Windows Update. It…

Your last few points are annoying for sure, but the first 3 are the result of 20+ years of Microsoft's poor reputation for security due to its prominence and numerous flaws.

I completely sympathize with Microsoft's plight here, and while you might not be among those who are constantly infected, the number of people who do end up having problems is so high that they're willing to lose you as a cost of keeping the other folks safe.

We're all safer for this, too, because fewer infected computers on the Internet means fewer proxies for spam and other malignant behavior.

Re: With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy

#23

Post by jakebasile »

dimino wrote: post #22
jakebasile wrote: post #17

I upgraded willingly so the deceptive upgrade practices, while deplorable, didn't really affect me. What does affect me is that Microsoft refuses to let me control my computer. - If you turn off Windows Defender Real Time Protection it explicitly tells you "You can turn this off, but if it's off for a while we'll turn it back on". It turns itself on upon next reboot, it seems. - You can't turn off Windows Update. It…

Your last few points are annoying for sure, but the first 3 are the result of 20+ years of Microsoft's poor reputation for security due to its prominence and numerous flaws. I completely sympathize with Microsoft's plight here, and while you might not be among those who are constantly infected, the number of people who do end up having problems is so high that they're willing to lose you as a cost of keeping the othe…

I completely understand why this is the default behavior, but there should be an "I'm not a normie" switch somewhere that allows me to control my experience. The Pro edition was originally that way, but as I understand it this is no longer the case and is similarly controlling.

Re: With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy

#24

Post by wvenable »

jakebasile wrote: post #17

I upgraded willingly so the deceptive upgrade practices, while deplorable, didn't really affect me. What does affect me is that Microsoft refuses to let me control my computer. - If you turn off Windows Defender Real Time Protection it explicitly tells you "You can turn this off, but if it's off for a while we'll turn it back on". It turns itself on upon next reboot, it seems. - You can't turn off Windows Update. It…

> You can't remove worthless apps like Microsoft Groove and OneDrive integration.

You can, it's just not super-easy. I've done both. Groove was pretty easy but OneDrive took a few steps.

I almost have file explorer configured in a good way for me -- it actually seems much more flexible than previous versions even if half that flexibility is only available in regedit.

Re: With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy

#25

Post by native »

Not shocking. I'm writing this out of my Ubuntu partition and I'm running Windows 10, forced down my throat to begin with, and it just does what it wants when it wants to. I've had times when I've gone for a break and my laptop has rebooted and installing some updates I wasn't even aware of. And I'm running Windows out of sheer necessity for the time being because I need Illustrator, Photoshop, etc.. But Microsoft has really never cared for the user, more like you'll get what we give you and like it.

Re: With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy

#26

Post by schoen »

cptskippy wrote: post #12

By default, Windows 10 sends an unprecedented amount of usage data back to Microsoft... location data, text input, voice input, touch input, webpages you visit, and telemetry data regarding your general usage of your computer, including which programs you run and for how long. Unprecedented for Microsoft or everyone? This is inline with what Google collects on Android. ...the fact remains that many users would much p…

> But most people probably want updates and the data necessary to determine which updates you've got installed on your computer are considered telemetry data by Microsoft and that information is essential in order to determine which updates are applicable or available.

Unix systems download a list of all available upgrades and then calculate on the client which upgrades to apply. This is compatible with performing automatic and unattended upgrades. (It's probably also useful as part of current and future software transparency efforts to make sure that different users aren't deliberately given different updates, some of which contain malware.)

Re: With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy

#27

Post by usrusr »

jakebasile wrote: post #17

I upgraded willingly so the deceptive upgrade practices, while deplorable, didn't really affect me. What does affect me is that Microsoft refuses to let me control my computer. - If you turn off Windows Defender Real Time Protection it explicitly tells you "You can turn this off, but if it's off for a while we'll turn it back on". It turns itself on upon next reboot, it seems. - You can't turn off Windows Update. It…

> You can't turn off Windows Update. It will always end up downloading new updates.

Just an idea, I don't know if it would work: there's a setting where you can tell Windows that you are on a "metered connection", which supposedly makes Windows postpone various background tasks until you tell it that you are ready for bandwidth abuse (which never happens). I doubt that this would influence any connections by third party applications, so it should do little or no harm. The question is, would Windows let itself get fooled so easily?

Re: With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy

#28

Post by EasyTiger_ »

sotojuan wrote: post #16
0xmohit wrote: post #2

Some highlights: Microsoft installed an app in users’ system trays advertising the free upgrade to Windows 10. Not satisfied, the company eventually made Windows 10 a recommended update so users receiving critical security updates were now also downloading an entirely new operating system onto their machines without their knowledge. This is essentially equivalent to saying: You've been running whatever version of Win…

So all the talk about the "new" Microsoft has been for nothing.

Satya Nadella recently said "We want to move from people needing Windows, to choosing Windows, to loving Windows"

He sure is going a strange way about it

Re: With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy

#29

Post by oz »

jakebasile wrote: post #23
dimino wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your last few points are annoying for sure, but the first 3 are the result of 20+ years of Microsoft's poor reputation for security due to its prominence and numerous flaws. I completely sympathize with Microsoft's plight here, and while you might not be among those who are constantly infected, the number of people who do end up having problems is so high that they're willing to lose you as a cost of keeping the othe…

I completely understand why this is the default behavior, but there should be an "I'm not a normie" switch somewhere that allows me to control my experience. The Pro edition was originally that way, but as I understand it this is no longer the case and is similarly controlling.

>but there should be an "I'm not a normie" switch somewhere...

Which will then summarily be used by malware authors and we're back we started.

Re: With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy

#30

Post by xjay »

0xmohit wrote: post #2

Some highlights: Microsoft installed an app in users’ system trays advertising the free upgrade to Windows 10. Not satisfied, the company eventually made Windows 10 a recommended update so users receiving critical security updates were now also downloading an entirely new operating system onto their machines without their knowledge. This is essentially equivalent to saying: You've been running whatever version of Win…

Microsoft announced a free upgrade to Windows 10, saying users can opt-in now to prepare their systems for the upgrade.

IT professionals wanted control over this upgrade.

Microsoft responds by providing registry settings to block the upgrade process, which Microsoft later chose to ignore.

As I observed on my system, Microsoft had also pushed out some preparation updates that reset some telemetry settings I had opted out of at one time, like the customer improvement program.

Microsoft obviously has their head in the clouds now.

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