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Is Windows 10 still telling what you're doing even if you don't want it to?

zdnet.com

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Re: Is Windows 10 still telling what you're doing even if you don't want it to?

#71

Post by nickjj »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #69
nickjj wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the links. You could also try installing O&O ShutUp10. I've been running it since I installed Windows 10. You can download it (it's a free app) at https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 . It nulls out a bunch of telemetry related addresses in your /etc/hosts file, and allows you to configure over a 100 different privacy settings from 1 place.

You conveniently left this out of your original comment, where you called people silly for not having things configured correctly. This is a bit like saying that you've never had a problem with your car guzzling gas, or falsifying emissions, and then later casually mentioning that you actually own an electric motorcycle.

> You conveniently left this out of your original comment, where you called people silly for not having things configured correctly.

To prevent the issue the article spoke of only requires setting (2) options in the standard Microsoft settings, and also not signing in with a Live account.

You don't need additional tools for that.

Re: Is Windows 10 still telling what you're doing even if you don't want it to?

#72

Post by tor_user »

setquk wrote: post #44
miaklesp wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't like, just don't use.

I just did this. My options were: 1. Buy a new Lenovo laptop. 2. Buy a new Apple laptop. I went for 2 and paid for Little Snitch and it is literally dead and works flawlessly. Once my family’s windows 10 laptops are off (even if they’re doing nothing but charging them with lid open), my home network is silent.

quiet except for a few microsoft addresses when you run a spotlight command searching your own apple brand hard disk.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotlight_(software)#Privacy_c...

Re: Is Windows 10 still telling what you're doing even if you don't want it to?

#73

Post by kowdermeister »

saltyshake wrote: post #62
kowdermeister wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> reopens all the applications I had running, and sometimes even has them all in the same positions I left them in That's a really great feature. I'd love to see even better window management in 10.

Its super annoying with YouTube. Even a full Shutdown/Restart, I open the machine and boom, Chrome opens and the speakers are blasting whatever I had playing on YouTube the day before. Shutdowns should be respected. What if I had something inappropriate open before doing the shutdown ?

Then you know that and quit Chrome first. I made similar mistakes by simply closing the lid and going to work, but it's always my fault and not the OS's.

I won't restart my chrome now, but i'm pretty sure a YouTube tab will only keep playing if it's in focus.

Re: Is Windows 10 still telling what you're doing even if you don't want it to?

#74

Post by tor_user »

nickjj wrote: post #68
tor_user wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft have a long history of overriding and ignoring hosts configurations to their own addresses so I am skeptical on the utility of this. I think you might be a little too trusting. I do not have time to repeat the efforts outlined by government contractors in the above links with this add on applied, I doubt you do either. Better for me to avoid the OS altogether.

I don't think it's a matter of being too trusting. I know what I'm getting into by using Windows. I don't sweat it because I know I did everything I could on my end to minimize being spied on without it really affecting me in a negative way. Like you said, I don't have time to match the efforts of full time govt employees. I spent a grand total of 30 minutes researching and tinkering with privacy related settings sin…

> I know what I'm getting into by using Windows.

the problem is rather that you think you do - but you don't and can't.

Re: Is Windows 10 still telling what you're doing even if you don't want it to?

#75

Post by AnthonyMouse »

setquk wrote: post #19
fusl wrote: post #2

As far as everything on the internet tells me, GDPR was made for exactly this reason, to prevent this kind of data collecting without the users consent. But what is happening instead is that small companies, starrups, etc. are getting fucked over by the sheer amount of "rules" they have to follow and implement while large companies can get away with collecting everything and anything, leaking personal user data all o…

So it's ok for small companies to leak personal data? Doctors' surgeries are small companies here in the UK. The issue here is that literally every company across the world doesn't give a crap past the end of their nose and has abysmal data protection policies in place because it affects the bottom line. They introduced local legislation to help this and a few large fish got fined and that was it. Ultimately it wasn'…

> So it's ok for small companies to leak personal data?

The GDPR doesn't just require companies not to leak personal data, it's a huge complex regulatory framework designed to handle the megacorps it was passed to target and imposes unnecessarily high compliance costs, and those costs disproportionately affect smaller entities.

In particular, it is possible to have perfectly sound data protection practices that would never lead to leaking personal data, while still not being in compliance because they're not the specific ones required.

These specific unnecessarily complex rules or total anarchy is a false dichotomy.

Re: Is Windows 10 still telling what you're doing even if you don't want it to?

#76

Post by nickjj »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #65
nickjj wrote: post #30

I don't get it. This article and Reddit post is very misguided. Why are people upset that you're sending data to Microsoft if you enable the settings in Windows that specifically allow Microsoft to collect this data? Maybe I'm biased since I run Windows 10 Pro but you can simply turn off activity history and set your diagnostic settings to basic. Now your non-anonymous data won't be sent to MS (unless they are secret…

> If you're concerned about privacy, why would you login to your OS using a Microsoft Live account? Why would I expect there to be a difference in my level of privacy between the two? This is frankly a ludicrous thing to expect users to understand. I would certainly not expect this.

> Why would I expect there to be a difference in my level of privacy between the two? This is frankly a ludicrous thing to expect users to understand. I would certainly not expect this.

I don't know. Maybe I'm just old and paranoid.

As soon as the Windows installation menu requested to link a MS Live account to my Windows login, I thought "wtf, when did MS require having an online account to install Windows?", then I clicked whatever sub-link was there to create an offline user account instead.

It seems natural to me that they would try to log additional information about you and then store it "in the cloud" if you used an online account to login to Windows. Not only that but now they have a direct way to convert anonymous data into non-anonymous data through your MS Live details.

Re: Is Windows 10 still telling what you're doing even if you don't want it to?

#77

Post by linuxftw »

sls wrote: post #70
linuxftw wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agile software development practices. Nobody created a user story for 'respect user's settings during upgrades'. If I had to guess, the settings were renamed/refactored and default values were enabled by default. Or perhaps the 'system upgrade service' doesn't talk to the 'system user setting services' and has no way to discover those settings. There's so many innovative ways to write terrible software, Microsoft is…

.

Come'on I was taking a shot at dogmatic agile beliefs and Microsoft in one swing!

I mean to say that strict adherence to 'agile' without qualified engineers and management results in obvious features missing because the left hand isn't talking to the right hand. The jab at Microsoft is to imply they employ such a detrimental process because it's the only conceivable way to arrive at such a poor quality product.

I don't think Microsoft is engaging in what it believes is predatory behavior, I'm confident that someone in a suit somewhere is cooking up all these 'good ideas' about collecting 'metrics' and their underlings faithfully implement these 'good ideas.'

Their behavior is bad, I don't condone it. I also don't use Microsoft products (see username).

Re: Is Windows 10 still telling what you're doing even if you don't want it to?

#78

Post by linuxftw »

131012 wrote: post #52
guelo wrote: post #37

As a longtime Windows 7 fan that refused to upgrade until I finally bought a new laptop with it I have been absolutely shocked by Windows 10's aggressive user-hostility. The way they reset settings after forced upgrades should be criminal. The way the user has no control over certain Microsoft processes unless they have been lucky enough to be allowed to pay for a Group Policy Editor license should also be criminal.…

What enrages me most is the fact that they ask us to f * pay for it! The implicit deal with Facebook, Google and other free services is that you pay them with their data. Fine. But paying for being spied on? This is scam pure and simple.

There's a (more than one, really) wonderful free operating system alternative that you can install on almost any PC. At the very least, you can dual boot.

Critical mass starts with you.

Re: Is Windows 10 still telling what you're doing even if you don't want it to?

#79

Post by monetus »

linuxftw wrote: post #78
131012 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What enrages me most is the fact that they ask us to f * pay for it! The implicit deal with Facebook, Google and other free services is that you pay them with their data. Fine. But paying for being spied on? This is scam pure and simple.

There's a (more than one, really) wonderful free operating system alternative that you can install on almost any PC. At the very least, you can dual boot. Critical mass starts with you.

How do you feel about critical mass for average users though? Debian updating its repositories every two years is kind of antithetical to the android and mac idea of software repositories. I've not tried elementaryOS, but I thought it was similar.

Re: Is Windows 10 still telling what you're doing even if you don't want it to?

#80

Post by jstimpfle »

shawnz wrote: post #53
jstimpfle wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Win10 PC sometimes wakes up in the night to complete an update and reboot. My working sessions are lost as a consequence. And since my PC reboots to Linux it stays up until I wake up due to the humming. Quite annoying. This morning I researched a way to turn off these forced updates but Win10 wouldn't let me apply the option without entering some obscure credentials that I don't know.

But wouldn't it be better if your apps supported hot exit, so you could wake up the next morning with updates already installed AND all your work still there?

Well, they don't. And more generally, restoring the original session state, whether after a "hot exit" or not, is not really possible. Processes are bound to a running OS. Shutting down causes closed file descriptors, broken TCP connections, and what not. No matter how much effort you are willing to put into restoring a session, it will be unreliable at best.
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