With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy • Hacker News Board

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

#261

Post by 205guy » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 10:21 PM UTC

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…

I'm in a similar boat. I bought my child a cheap PC, it came with Windows 10, and it took a lot of careful configuration to turn off all the tracking and advertising. Then it kept nagging to update Windows 10 (what we used to call a service pack), never mind that it kept scheduling to do it overnight, would reboot and fail. Finally, I got it to download and install the latest win10, and as noted by others, it was essentially an entire re-install of the OS.

But here's where it got nasty: the user data was kept, but all of the privacy settings and default apps were reset. Actually not reset, it made you go through the OS configuration screens where it always suggests the default (share all user and browsing information with MS). The configuration was so full of dark patterns: the default is a single button on the screen, but the non default settings are accessed through an underlined link that is not very descriptive. Or turning off tracking is labeled advanced and opens another window.

This was the real scary part to me: if you are not a savvy user and know to turn off these things, Win 10 defaults will track everything you do, including your browsing activity ("to provide suggestions"). These basic privacy settings should not be hiding behind dark patterns.

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

#262

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 10:26 PM UTC

fdgdasfadsf wrote: post #166

tracker1 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the flip side, I run Ubuntu on my htpc, and have for several years now... there have been a couple times where the updates broke audio, and the fix took on average 2 days, though I can imagine some people having worse experiences... Getting an MCE remote (arguably the most common PC remote type) working with Kodi (formerly xbmc and very popular full screen media player) took some cumbersome steps. On average one a…

Both are subpar (and osx or whatever Apple call their offering is no better). I've been stuck in an update hell with windows where security updates simply would not install the only solution I could find was a full re-install. I've been in a similar situation with Ubuntu and was able to fix it - but only because I understood it - otherwise I would have had to do a re-install. The key with Ubuntu updates is to stick t…

OS X 10.11 broke USB support on Macs.

USB used to just work. Now it stops working after you connect ten or so devices - which is not a common thing, but not unusual in music studios. And external USB hubs only work if they have a specific generic name in the firmware ID.

Apparently if you hack your own kexts you can get it working again, kind of.

>At this point I'm disappointed by every system I use.

This. The Win 10 situation is beyond horrific. I would never have imagined that MS would set itself up for a class action suit like this. I know people who have had their PCs trashed by this forced upgrade, and they're really not happy about it.

But the alternatives are not great. Linux and OS X are both in similar "kind of works, mostly, except when not" states.

Consumer OS reliability and design has become an embarrassment for the entire industry.

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

#263

Post by AnimalMuppet » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 10:35 PM UTC

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…

> 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.

Ah, that brings back memories. Back in the DOS days, when you ran "format", it replied something like "Ready to format disk X. Press any key to continue:" (with X being the drive letter). And it really meant press any key to continue. Escape would continue. Control-C would continue. Even control-alt-delete would continue. The only way to not continue was to turn power off.

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

#264

Post by CaptSpify » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 10:37 PM UTC

randiantech wrote: post #158

Honest question here: Why tech community is so hard with Windows mandatory updates, and kind of flexible with other companies? Maybe its just me, but the ratio of posts and articles blaming Microsoft for this practice seems to be disproportional. I mean, my Mac asked me 875 times about accepting something about iTunes. No matter how many times i click on decline, it keeps appearing there all the time. Same thing with…

I have no idea, but your right. This outrages me on any platform. I don't allow my phone to auto-update, not any of my PCs, nor any of my apps.

If they did, I'd stop using that product.

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

#265

Post by ksk » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 10:45 PM UTC

hendersoon wrote: post #212

cptskippy wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why aren't we complaining about this industry practice? It's purely focused on MS.

Put simply, Apple and Google allow users to opt-out. You can run Android and not send Google a single byte of information. You can't run google's _apps_ and do that-- gmail, google calendar, the google play store, and so on. But it isn't mandatory. Telemetry is in the apps, not the OS. Even if I set telemetry to "basic" (the lowest it will go), turn off Cortana, and don't use IE or Edge (or any other MS app), Windows…

>Even if I set telemetry to "basic" (the lowest it will go), turn off Cortana, and don't use IE or Edge (or any other MS app), Windows 10 sends telemetry to Microsoft. That's not OK.

It doesn't on my setup. I have neutered that shit completely.

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

#266

Post by ryuuchin » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 10:46 PM UTC

Just for the record if you disabled the Windows 10 update properly[1] I'm pretty sure it would never bother you and you could never accidentally install it.

I'm not saying I approve of what Microsoft did with the W10 upgrade but if you were technically competent to change a few registry/group policy options it was never a problem for you.

[1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3080351

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

#267

Post by thomasjudge » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 10:48 PM UTC

hendersoon wrote: post #173

plantocorp wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I believe this famous comic said it best: http://www.bonkersworld.net/organizational-charts/ For all Satya's promises, nothing _really_ changed.

off topic, but on the Oracle one, "legal" should be "sales"

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

#268

Post by topranks » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 10:48 PM UTC

joonoro wrote: post #105

The saddest part about it for me is that Windows 10 made some of my friends cynical regarding privacy. If you asked them before they would have at least acknowledged the value of privacy, but now it's just "Why not upgrade to Windows 10? Everything you use is already data-mining you." They see all the bad news about privacy in Windows 10 and I guess that's the only way you can rationalize using it.

You make me feel bad about it but I find myself saying this kind of thing now. It didn't start with Windows 10 tbh.

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

#269

Post by Silhouette » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 10:51 PM UTC

plantocorp wrote: post #135

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…

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…

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.

I'd like to sympathise, but I'm afraid this is looking like a general trend for modern Microsoft, and if your group isn't doing similar shady things then it's the exception.

Some other examples:

I was going to try a bit of C++ programming on Windows for the first time on a new PC a little while back, so I looked into what is now called Visual Studio Community. Whereas Microsoft used to make the basic Express tools to develop on its platform free and readily available, I now have to sign in with a Microsoft account to use Community. I don't know exactly what that does, but after probably half an hour of reading on Microsoft's site, I do know that it seems to involve uploading data to Microsoft, multiple very long privacy policies, and no guarantee that I could find that potentially sensitive things like the actual code I'm working on wouldn't be included.

We were looking at getting some office software for that PC as well. I thought MS Office still came as a standalone desktop application as well as the online service-y thing, but I couldn't find anything in more than 20 minutes of looking around Microsoft's site that even mentioned the former any more. Again, it's all online-this and subscription-service-that now, and I have no interest in renting important software or sharing whatever I do with it with Microsoft.

Obviously the new PC itself, which we specifically ordered with Windows 7 because we didn't want any of the more recent versions, also needed lots of updates immediately uninstalling just to clean out all the spyware, adware, and so on.

There have been related concerns with other MS products, such as the gaming and console line, in the more recent generations as well.

For many years, I have generally been positive about Microsoft, and considered Windows, Office and Visual Studio the gold standards for useful software. I'm sorry to say that none of that is true any more, and I'm now actively hostile toward and distrustful of anything associated with Microsoft. It's a great pity.

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

#270

Post by ryuuchin » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 10:54 PM UTC

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…

> 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.

I don't really see this as a negative but to each his own. You're probably better off just using Windows Defender than some third-party A/V solution anyway since they're all pretty useless.

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

While this is true prior to the AU where you could at least change it to not automatically check for updates. You would then have to explicitly check for updates but yes it would then automatically download and install them when you did.

I believe since the group policy no longer works in RS1 it will wind up always checking for updates now. You can thankfully still disable getting driver updates through Windows Update using registry tweaks.

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

No but you can disable/not use them. You can disable OneDrive in the Startup tab of the task manager.

> They are continuing to try to weasel the Windows Store into my life by buying up or forcing exclusives (games), with all the drawbacks of UWP.

I think they pushed games on UWP too early. After the AU (RS1) I'm not sure if there are any game breaking issues for UWP games anymore other than the fact that they're on the Windows Store if you consider that to be a negative.

But there's an obvious solution to this and it's simply to vote with your wallet. Don't like games using the Windows Store? Don't buy them. It's that simple.