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Reclaim Windows10

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Re: Reclaim Windows10

#161

Post by bserge »

mattowen_uk wrote: post #105
bserge wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SmartScreen is not Windows Defender, the latter is the antivirus with its own regularly updated database, firewall, etc. SmartScreen basically sends your files to Microsoft, for "enhanced security" or something. FWIW I put Defender on notification only mode because Microsoft ever so helpfully removed the actual quarantine directory and now files dumped into quarantine are basically unrecoverable. I just use the firew…

I know what SmartScreen is. It's also useful to keep on as it's a cloud anti-malware service. It does not send your personal files to MS. Stop with the lies, please. No they haven't removed the quarantine restoration option. You can mark any file it quarantines as safe, and it gets restored and never flagged again.

Files or hashes, I don't care. It's a dumb idea when Defender already exists.

Yes, the quarantine is still there. But if Defender can't pull the file out, you can't just open the folder manually and cut-paste anymore. Your file for all intents and purposes is gone.

Granted most people will never have to worry about this.

Re: Reclaim Windows10

#162

Post by gnulinux »

criddell wrote: post #132
fsflover wrote: post #53

> 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.

Who cares about operating systems any more? That seems like a solved problem and frankly all the major ones are fine these days. Computers are chosen based on applications. If you want to play games, you are probably buying a Windows PC. Developing iOS apps? You want a Mac. If you just need a browser, then a Chrome Book or iPad is probably a good choice. I'd bet a lot of people here use three or more operating system…

> frankly all the major ones are fine these days.

No Windows version since XP has been fine. They varied from utterly unusable crap to barely tolerable. I honestly never understood why people use Windows, is there an argument other than "I'm used to it"? I still have a small Win partition installed for rare Win-only things and every single time I interact with Win 10 I remember how utterly broken it is. Like the moment you boot, you're bombarded with crap that has flashy colors, animation some even sound too. It feels like that one Futurama episode about AOL.

Re: Reclaim Windows10

#163

Post by gnulinux »

criddell wrote: post #150
fragileone wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> all the major ones are fine these days. I think the very point of this thread is that is not the case and many users are very unhappy with Windows telemetry.

Many users? I'd be surprised if it's even 1%.

I have never met a single person in my entire life who likes using Windows. Everyone I know claims "yeah it's crap but this CAD/Industry standard software works only in Windows". I would guess they exist but I'd bet money they don't make up 99% of users.

Re: Reclaim Windows10

#164

Post by criddell »

gnulinux wrote: post #163
criddell wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many users? I'd be surprised if it's even 1%.

I have never met a single person in my entire life who likes using Windows. Everyone I know claims "yeah it's crap but this CAD/Industry standard software works only in Windows". I would guess they exist but I'd bet money they don't make up 99% of users.

You're kind of making the same point I was. People don't choose an OS for the sake of the OS, it's for the application support.

I like using Windows as much as macOS or Linux. For different parts of my day I'll be using Windows or Linux or Android or iOS and at on each system the OS is there to support the applications I want to use.

Re: Reclaim Windows10

#165

Post by tomnipotent »

majkinetor wrote: post #154
tomnipotent wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, PC desktops commonly run AV which can impact certain common subsystems in their routine operations. This is true on Windows, Linux, and MacOS. This is perfectly reasonable for the 99% of PC users that are not programmers and power users. > it just has Defender on It's unfortunate Defender would come pre-installed even on Server.

You are hilarious.

It's a good post, but it doesn't substantiate your hyperbole.

Re: Reclaim Windows10

#166

Post by cptskippy »

e3bc54b2 wrote: post #85
lghh wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Naturally I trust both of them more than so called SmartScreen because unlike Smartscreen, I can inspect their code. > I got Winmerge binary directly from GitHub repo. As trusted as it gets, short of compiling myself. So, you don't actually know what code you're running and that binary actually could be malware.

Yes, and original comment addresses that. In theory WinMerge binary can contain malware. But WinMerge authors have a proven track record against that and they are transparent about working of their application enough through their source. MS and Smartscreen do not have that track record, and IMO have an opposite kind of record with all kind of map/adware practices throughout the system and applications. So if an untr…

> So if an untrusted source tells me that a usually varifuably trustable source is not to be trusted, whom do I trust more?

I honestly don't understand how you've made this an adversarial situation. It's almost as if you take offense to Smartscreen telling you it doesn't trust your binary.

The system is pretty straight forward, Smartscreen checks the file source against a list of known bad actors. If there's a hit it's saying "I can't vouch for this".

I checked and WinMerge isn't flagged in Smartscreen. The publisher however does not use a signing certificate which results in a UAC prompt.

In any case neither of these features prevent installation, they're just warnings you can circumvent.

Re: Reclaim Windows10

#167

Post by majkinetor »

tomnipotent wrote: post #165
majkinetor wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are hilarious.

It's a good post, but it doesn't substantiate your hyperbole.

Yeah, because I am not babysitter. You should do your homework :) I am glad when people hint me good info.

I do have ample personal experience - when government web server was randomly dropping from 2k req/s to 2 req/s we disabled defender and from there we had continuous 2k req/s. I have seen this literary hundreds of times. Not sure why people install AV on servers but its common in banks and similar. On home computers its even worst. I witnessed new laptop computer with 2 AVs - defender + something vendor installed like mcafe. It was so slow that while typing letters appeared 1/s.

AVs inject themselves on number of places and do all kind of "funky" stuff. All power users should disable that junk. You have other means to protect yourself. If you are grandma, sure, go for it, but grandma will not run "Reclaim Windows10" from github gist, no ?

Context is everything. It certainly doesn't justify above comment claiming "DO NOT DO THIS!!!" on HN. Its utter nonsense. We are here to talk about hacking things by definition. Power users customize their OS, not the other way around. Its pity that MS doesn't provide minimal OS (like Linux OS's usually do) but the first thing I do is not run single script like Reclaim, but dozen of such scripts and my healthy nervous system thanks me all the time because benefits are huge and minuses are minor and fixable.

If anything, we need more projects like that, more polished, more documented, more maintained. My personal fav so far is [1]

[1]: https://github.com/W4RH4WK/Debloat-Windows-10

Re: Reclaim Windows10

#168

Post by emsy »

natex wrote: post #18
emsy wrote: post #11

I’ve read some criticism towards this script and/or these kind of scripts in the comments. The criticism should instead be directed towards Microsoft, which decided to treat their customers (even alleged „Pro“ customers!) like babies and force useless bloatware, ads, telemetry and the absolute worst update system of any OS ever upon their users, thus making these kind of scripts necessary to begin with.

> The criticism should instead be directed towards Microsoft, Totally agree that MS deserves criticism as you correctly point out. However, criticism towards the script and similar is equally valid (and important).

Yes you’re right of course, I should’ve phrased it differently. I didn’t see any criticism geared towards MS, so it kind of felt like shooting the messenger.

Re: Reclaim Windows10

#169

Post by vetinari »

dawnerd wrote: post #94
rsynnott wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That stuff is all optional and off-by-default, though; you have to either say yes on installation or opt in afterwards.

It's not all optional and off by default... They only ask about sending debug data to app developers, siri, and I believe find-my. Apple is a little worse since they try to force you into entering your credit cards for Apple pay.

> They only ask about sending debug data to app developers

They ask two questions:

* send telemetry to Apple;

* allow sharing telemetry with app developers.

If you don't agree with the first one, the second one is grayed out.

wrt advertiserid, that's iOS/iPadOS only, on macOS it retuns zero-filled UUID.

Re: Reclaim Windows10

#170

Post by vetinari »

sedatk wrote: post #95
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…

Microsoft already asks you to enable/disable these features on first setup.

No, it only pretends to, it doesn't disable them.
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