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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

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So!? The fact that anyone else does it, doesn't give MS a pass. I'll never understand these types of arguments.

I am not saying that they deserve a pass but if the practice is objectionable then why is everyone only complaining about MS? I don't here anyone saying it's time to address this industry problem, it's just "MS is evil, quick switch to Apple/Linux".

There's been any number of threads on HN about Google's data collection practices and how to avoid them.

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

#132
post #84
post #56

Framed this way, I cant believe there is no class action lawsuit. I remember my mother in law said she was being asked to upgrade from 8.1. She said she didn't want to. I actually willingly installed win 10, and was across the country. She then called me one day and said "windows 10 installed anyway and I clicked the X to get out of it". At the time I just chalked it up to user error, but thanks MS, now I owe my moth…

IANAL, but it looks like when you agree to the Microsoft TOS you waive your right to bring a Class Action suit against Microsoft >Class action lawsuits, class-wide arbitrations, private attorney-general actions, and any other proceeding where someone acts in a representative capacity aren’t allowed. Nor is combining individual proceedings without the consent of all parties. I believe that's why companies are taking M…

If you read this, you agree to give me 2L of blood every 88 hours, as well as a lock of your firstborn's hair.

I agreed to nothing.

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

#133
post #25

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 ha…

I was thinking of dual booting and relegating Windows to gaming, have you had any trouble with your setup? Especially with Windows updates messing up the boot settings or wiping partitions that they shouldn't? Seems particularly risky now that MS is pushing out regular "major updates" like the anniversary update, which get handled like a system reinstall.

I haven't had any issues at all. The only minor inconvenience I have is needing to hit Esc immediately when my laptop is booting up so I can change what I want to boot into, the default being Windows. Now I'm running all this from an HP laptop that came with UEFI and not BIOS so I had to jump through a few hoops before it worked out.

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

#134

Should have just branded it Windows 7 SP2. But I guess everyone expects MS to support multiple branches of code forever. These discussions always avoid talking about the merits of data-driven design and always assume malicious intent.

> These discussions always avoid talking about the merits of data-driven design and always assume malicious intent.

Perhaps because most of the time the implementations do some harm, the doing of that harm is by design, there are ulterior motives, it is forced upon users, and the representations made to users are intentionally vague and misleading.

A simple litmus test: Is telemetry opt-in?

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

#135
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…

As a Microsoft employee, this W10 force upgrade things is the single thing that pisses me off the most by far... It goes against everything that we are trying to promote/change. Sometimes I'm really wondering if we work for the same company (I'm not in the Windows division). I feel like all the effort we put in investing in open source, being more open, and just generally a more empathic company is totally destroyed by this w10 fiasco.

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

#136
post #64

This is the reason why i moved to linux. The path this "new" microsoft have choosen, if they continue to do this, they will certainly lose their market share on PCs in near future and I hope when users will start caring about their rights and privacy, they will move to other OSes.

Let's be real, "they" won't. A select few might change to a mac, maybe a chromebook, and that's it. Developers are a case apart.

ChromeOS is just as bad with spying as Windows 10 (or worse considering how much other information Google has to tie to you. Apple is well on their way to making their upcoming OS similar as well. We live in a world now where most people are conditioned NOT to pay for software, and don't mind being "the product" for free services. For those that do mind being data mined there are fewer and fewer options every day.

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

#137

I think that Microsoft could fix this fairly easily: make an easy opt out for Cortana and telemetry, offer more control over security options. I totally sympathize with Microsoft for wanting everyone to be on Windows 10, with continuous updates (security and otherwise). Better for them and long term probably better for users. I don't use OS X anymore but when I did, I liked always being at the latest update. Except f…

I wouldn't mind paying twice the price of Windows 10 Pro if I could select what I want installed and the OS respected that. No telemetry, no Cortana, no Windows Stores apps if I need to have a MS account. No missclick-based features (you click yes and suddenly your local account is now an online account). Since I'm stuck with this crap forever (Adobe, Office, games, etc) at least let me pay you not spy on me and inst…

You do know that both Adobe apps and Office apps are natively available for Mac? Games are still a problem though, but you can dual-boot just for games.

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

#138
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

G stands for giga, exactly 1000 units. the general understanding is 1024, but this would technically be a Gibi- (abbreviated to GiB or Gib) the small b stands for bit, which is an eighth of a byte. a big B stands for byte. So a GB is exactly 1000 bytes, or 8000 bit

> G stands for giga, exactly 1000 units. Actually that is the meaning of K, as in Kb or KB. Giga is not for "1000 units" but for 1 bilion "units" or, for the power of 2 approximation 2^30 = 1,073,741,824. I was just trying to be nice to the person who wrote the post I responded to. It seemed to me that their post needed to distinguish between Gb, gigabit, and GB, gigabyte. Not strictly, of course, because in principl…

> Yes, a byte is 8 bits

Unless it's 7 bits aka ASCII 0 - 127. Some systems even used 6 bits and where case insensitive.

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

#139
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Specifically, when prompted with a Windows 10 update, if the > user chose to decline it by hitting the ‘X’ in the upper right > hand corner, Microsoft interpreted that as consent to download > Windows 10. So what? I clicked that X multiple times and it didn't _install_. It may have _downloaded_, I'm not sure, but did not install.

They changed this behavior after huge public outcry. It used to install the update too. Microsoft was even ordered to pay $10k in a civil suit[1] because of this. [1] http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/27/12046738/microsoft-pays-10...

I don't believe this. That article nor the article it links did not state that Windows forced the install at any point.

Rather the Washington Times article states that: "The company denies wrongdoing, and a spokeswoman said Microsoft halted its appeal to avoid the expense of further litigation."

And: "Microsoft says it offers users a choice to update, not a requirement. People have to acknowledge a dialogue box before the installation, and agree to a license agreement afterward, to receive Windows 10, the company says."

I've experienced the process on multiple PCs starting from day 1 when Microsoft started the campaign at it never _forced_ me to install. Specifically, the Close button never started the installation. There _always_ was a specific button to accept the start of the installation.

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

#140
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Note: Windows Defender may report the EXE as a trojan (Win32/Pocyx.C!cl), and may therefore prevent you from extracting the EXE to anywhere on your computer. Set up an exclusion in Settings > Update & Security > Windows Defender > Exclusions by adding the folder you intend to extract the EXE to. I swear, it seems like people are okay with the idea of everyone BUT Microsoft have access to all their personal informat…

Not quite sure what recklessness you are referring to. If necessary, the exception is only for the one directory the EXE is in. IIRC the program isn't really installed, it just needs to run once to make changes in firewall rules, etc., that prevent MS telemetry. AFAIK it doesn't increase external access to the computer being configured. After making modifications, the exclusion can be deleted if desired. If you have…

No, uh, look, running an EXE one finds hosted on GitHub, deliberately disabling the virus-checking on that EXE file and running the EXE is the reckless behavior. Even assuming that the person who made the EXE didn't mean so maliciously, any kind of a MitM attack or other way of sureptuously putting a payload in that EXE is an attack vector.
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