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Reclaim Windows10

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Re: Reclaim Windows10

#51

Post by hnlmorg »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #46
e3bc54b2 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the "Smart" screen says that WinMerge and KDiff3 are malwares. Naturally I trust both of them more than so called SmartScreen because unlike Smartscreen, I can inspect their code. Yes, the binaries can contain malware, but the first principles tell me that trustability score is inverse of what is being reported by MS. Naturally I have disabled Smartscreen and Windows defender and admin rights alerts and bajilio…

It sounds like you, sir or madam, need to get rid of Windows entirely. May I suggest macOS (and Parallels running Ubuntu Linux if you like WSL)?

macOS isn't any better in that regard. Some software takes 30+ seconds of Apple "verifying" before the application is even launched.

Re: Reclaim Windows10

#52

Post by nojito »

tux3 wrote: post #22
anaisbetts wrote: post #5

Nearly all of these "clean up" scripts are a horrendous idea to run on your machine, I see right at the top that this script disables SmartScreen, a service that absolutely should not be disabled unless you want your machine to get owned. It then proceeds to set your current network as Private (aka "open all the ports") regardless of which network you're connected to - hope you're at home! Other changes are completel…

Sadly, this is an expected consequence of the aggressive monetization, telemetry, and other tracking that ships with the OS. When you make it hard to trust the system, people will look at any component that seems unnecessary. They might not know what it is, but they don't trust it anymore. So it might as well get disabled. You know, to be safe. But at the end of the day I suppose it's only a small percent of users, i…

No this is a consequence of horrendous fear mongering in the tech community.

Privacy scripts are a very common attack vector due to their popularity these days.

Not to mention that the benefits of these “tweaks” is negligible at best.

Re: Reclaim Windows10

#53

Post by fsflover »

> This Windows 10 Setup Script turns off a bunch of unnecessary Windows 10 telemetery, bloatware, & privacy things

Aren't people tired of fighting with their own computers? I abandoned Windows, installed Linux and can't be happier now.

Re: Reclaim Windows10

#54

Post by rsynnott »

dawnerd wrote: post #32
as1mov wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't used Windows for a long time but a look at the script makes me think people wouldn't be resorting to such measures if Microsoft wasn't including stupid crap in their operating system. > Disabling Telemetry breaks Windows updates > Automatic web searches in start menu > Application suggestions are silently installed (wat?) > Allow MS to collect activity history > Location tracking > Map updates (who the fuck…

macOS has a lot of this too. It’s weird Apple seems to get a pass but Microsoft gets attacked. (Ads in start is a huge problem though).

... I don't think MacOS has _any_ of this? Besides Siri and telemetry, but it asks you on installation if you want to enable those.

Re: Reclaim Windows10

#55

Post by marcodiego »

userbinator wrote: post #3

I started using Windows in the 3.x days, and the amount of crap I have to "fix" every time I make a new install increases with each successive version... and to think I used to be mildly annoyed at having to enable file extensions and showing full paths back in the 9x/2k days.

It is interesting to think how the incentives grew to make developers create applications which are more attention grabbing with time.

In the msdos days, an app was installed to a directory.

In the win 3.x days, an app was installed to a directory, created a program group OR shortcut on the desktop.

In the win95 days, an app was installed to a directory, created a program group AND shortcut on the desktop.

In the win98 days, an app was installed to a directory, created a program group, shortcut on the desktop and quicklaunch bar.

In the win98se days, an app was installed to a directory, created a program group, shortcut on the desktop, quicklaunch bar and systemtray when run.

In the winme days, an app was installed to a directory, created a program group, shortcut on the desktop, quicklaunch bar and systemtray when the system started.

In the winxp days, an app was installed to a directory, created a program group, shortcut on the desktop, quicklaunch bar, systemtray when the system started and changed your default homepage.

In the winvista days, an app was installed to a directory, created a program group, shortcut on the desktop, quicklaunch bar, systemtray when the system started, changed your default homepage and added toolbars on ie.

In the win7 days, an app was installed to a directory, created a program group, shortcut on the desktop, quicklaunch bar, systemtray when the system started, changed your default homepage, added toolbars on ie and showed ads when run.

In the win8 days, an app was installed to a directory, created a program group, shortcut on the desktop, quicklaunch bar, systemtray when the system started, changed your default homepage, added toolbars on ie and showed ads when the system starts.

In the win10 days, an app is installed to a directory, creates a program group, shortcut on the desktop, quicklaunch bar, systemtray when the system started, changes your default homepage, adds toolbars on ie/edge, shows ads when the system starts and constantly tries to convince you to use this program or install others.

I actually don't know if ie/edge still have default homepage or toolbars, but you get the idea.

Re: Reclaim Windows10

#57

Post by JacobiX »

e3bc54b2 wrote: post #37
anaisbetts wrote: post #5

Nearly all of these "clean up" scripts are a horrendous idea to run on your machine, I see right at the top that this script disables SmartScreen, a service that absolutely should not be disabled unless you want your machine to get owned. It then proceeds to set your current network as Private (aka "open all the ports") regardless of which network you're connected to - hope you're at home! Other changes are completel…

Well, the "Smart" screen says that WinMerge and KDiff3 are malwares. Naturally I trust both of them more than so called SmartScreen because unlike Smartscreen, I can inspect their code. Yes, the binaries can contain malware, but the first principles tell me that trustability score is inverse of what is being reported by MS. Naturally I have disabled Smartscreen and Windows defender and admin rights alerts and bajilio…

For WinMerge it should be noted that some web-sites out-there offer winmerge binaries for download and I bet that some of them are bundled with spyware (they are not affiliated with the official version, but even my tech-savvy friend was about to download winmerge the other day from a non official source, I noticed him that he should use winmerge.org).

Re: Reclaim Windows10

#58

Post by swiley »

tux3 wrote: post #22
anaisbetts wrote: post #5

Nearly all of these "clean up" scripts are a horrendous idea to run on your machine, I see right at the top that this script disables SmartScreen, a service that absolutely should not be disabled unless you want your machine to get owned. It then proceeds to set your current network as Private (aka "open all the ports") regardless of which network you're connected to - hope you're at home! Other changes are completel…

Sadly, this is an expected consequence of the aggressive monetization, telemetry, and other tracking that ships with the OS. When you make it hard to trust the system, people will look at any component that seems unnecessary. They might not know what it is, but they don't trust it anymore. So it might as well get disabled. You know, to be safe. But at the end of the day I suppose it's only a small percent of users, i…

I've noticed this on iOS too. There are scams out there that encourage users to install root CA certs in order to jailbreak or get access to non-AppStore apps (this used to be required by one method.)

I don't know what happened to the idea of user friendly software respecting the intentions of a user. Modern OSes really are effectively just well funded socially acceptable malware.

Re: Reclaim Windows10

#59

Post by slver »

tux3 wrote: post #22
anaisbetts wrote: post #5

Nearly all of these "clean up" scripts are a horrendous idea to run on your machine, I see right at the top that this script disables SmartScreen, a service that absolutely should not be disabled unless you want your machine to get owned. It then proceeds to set your current network as Private (aka "open all the ports") regardless of which network you're connected to - hope you're at home! Other changes are completel…

Sadly, this is an expected consequence of the aggressive monetization, telemetry, and other tracking that ships with the OS. When you make it hard to trust the system, people will look at any component that seems unnecessary. They might not know what it is, but they don't trust it anymore. So it might as well get disabled. You know, to be safe. But at the end of the day I suppose it's only a small percent of users, i…

Look Windows has couple of odd settings, but the defaults are just fine. Some people will find reasons to tweak even if there's nothing to tweak. Been there in my teen years, but I grew up.

Re: Reclaim Windows10

#60

Post by Arainach »

tux3 wrote: post #22
anaisbetts wrote: post #5

Nearly all of these "clean up" scripts are a horrendous idea to run on your machine, I see right at the top that this script disables SmartScreen, a service that absolutely should not be disabled unless you want your machine to get owned. It then proceeds to set your current network as Private (aka "open all the ports") regardless of which network you're connected to - hope you're at home! Other changes are completel…

Sadly, this is an expected consequence of the aggressive monetization, telemetry, and other tracking that ships with the OS. When you make it hard to trust the system, people will look at any component that seems unnecessary. They might not know what it is, but they don't trust it anymore. So it might as well get disabled. You know, to be safe. But at the end of the day I suppose it's only a small percent of users, i…

This class of user has always been doing such silly things long before "monetization". There were plenty of guides for Windows XP and Vista claiming to "increase performance" by disabling things like the indexer (fun fact, that will TANK your performance in a variety of areas), the Cryptographic services, and more. They never had any trust to violate, only a strange (and completely incorrect) sense that they knew more than the engineers who built the OS in the first place.
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