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O&O ShutUp10++ – Free anti-spy tool for Windows 10, 11

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Re: O&O ShutUp10++ – Free anti-spy tool for Windows 10, 11

#31

Post by LinuxBender »

marcodiego wrote: post #30
LinuxBender wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've not done any in-depth analysis of this app, but have used it on a machine that required windows 10 at the time. My family and friends have also used it. I can say that after they use it, the DNS activity to the Microsoft tracking endpoints appears to stop and other DNS activity is reduced but I am no windows expert so I can not say for sure if 100% of telemetry is truly nullfied. The real time dependencies on th…

I mean, it doesn't make much sense to replace an abusive feature with a software that has the same abusive potential. If it was open source, then maybe there would be some reason to trust it.

It is sad that things like this are even required in the first place. I would really like to have more trust and confidence in Microsoft. To earn that trust they could provide one page with all PowerShell sub-commands and links from each command to a man/help page with real world examples so I don't have to trawl through technet and google or random github gists.

They could also give people a true option during installation to really for-really-real disable telemetry regardless of what license home, pro, enterprise, ltsc they are using.

Re: O&O ShutUp10++ – Free anti-spy tool for Windows 10, 11

#32

Post by jeroenhd »

marcodiego wrote: post #4

Free as in beer. I wouldn't trust such an intrusive proprietary application on my machine from a vendor who doesn't need to care about its reputation.

I can get behind that mindset, but if you're using Windows you've already given up your ability to introspect your system. The same is true for most of macOS/iOS and large parts of the basic feature set found in Android. Most Windows programs, both freeware and paid, are closed source, that's just the way that ecosystem functions.

These companies can exist the same way Winrar can exist: give people the tool for free, wait for them to want to use it at their business and sell the subscriptions there. Businesses are much more wary if pirated software than consumers so Winrar manages to survive to this day. To me, the amount of telemetry collected from modern crapware indicates a lack of trust in the product from even the developers themselves, which in turn proves to me that the product isn't very good on some level I might not be able to see.

Just because something is free doesn't mean it's not reliable if there are business subscriptions funding the product itself. The way programs stalk their customers these days used to be rare and the O&O team seems to follow the old software shop practices rather than "modernising" and adding the very thing they try to block to their own product.

Re: O&O ShutUp10++ – Free anti-spy tool for Windows 10, 11

#33

Post by vgeek »

marcodiego wrote: post #4

Free as in beer. I wouldn't trust such an intrusive proprietary application on my machine from a vendor who doesn't need to care about its reputation.

The simplest way to test any software you're suspicious of on Windows is Sandboxie (https://sandboxie-plus.com/downloads/). Any files or registry changes are persisted to a separate location in the filesystem, so it is pretty easy to catch misbehaving software. For software like this, it will negate the utility of the software due to being in a sandboxed environment, but it will least give an idea of the registry keys and files that may be modified.

Re: O&O ShutUp10++ – Free anti-spy tool for Windows 10, 11

#34

Post by marcodiego »

jeroenhd wrote: post #32
marcodiego wrote: post #4

Free as in beer. I wouldn't trust such an intrusive proprietary application on my machine from a vendor who doesn't need to care about its reputation.

I can get behind that mindset, but if you're using Windows you've already given up your ability to introspect your system. The same is true for most of macOS/iOS and large parts of the basic feature set found in Android. Most Windows programs, both freeware and paid, are closed source, that's just the way that ecosystem functions. These companies can exist the same way Winrar can exist: give people the tool for free,…

It is possible to use windows as a mere kernel. Much desktop software on a modern linux distro is portable. Even your example, winrar, can be replaced by peazip or 7zip.

I actually saw some people using mostly FLOSS on windows as a step before full migration away from it.

Re: O&O ShutUp10++ – Free anti-spy tool for Windows 10, 11

#35

Post by marcodiego »

vgeek wrote: post #33
marcodiego wrote: post #4

Free as in beer. I wouldn't trust such an intrusive proprietary application on my machine from a vendor who doesn't need to care about its reputation.

The simplest way to test any software you're suspicious of on Windows is Sandboxie ( https://sandboxie-plus.com/downloads/ ). Any files or registry changes are persisted to a separate location in the filesystem, so it is pretty easy to catch misbehaving software. For software like this, it will negate the utility of the software due to being in a sandboxed environment, but it will least give an idea of the registry k…

This is not convenient to do at every update. On a windows system were there is no known concept of built-in package manager it is even more complicated. I've seen windows apps that automatically update themselves.

Also, since it is very intrusive, I don't think running it into a sandbox may give good diagnostics.

Re: O&O ShutUp10++ – Free anti-spy tool for Windows 10, 11

#38

Post by marcodiego »

LinuxBender wrote: post #31
marcodiego wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, it doesn't make much sense to replace an abusive feature with a software that has the same abusive potential. If it was open source, then maybe there would be some reason to trust it.

It is sad that things like this are even required in the first place. I would really like to have more trust and confidence in Microsoft. To earn that trust they could provide one page with all PowerShell sub-commands and links from each command to a man/help page with real world examples so I don't have to trawl through technet and google or random github gists. They could also give people a true option during insta…

Fragmentation is not in ms best interest, but they could actually license just the nt kernel with a bootloader capable of launching it. Then people could build nt based distros with carefully chosen packages. Just like it is done with GNU/Linux.

Maybe some one could write an application to delete as many files as possible from a pristine windows copy to turn it simply into a kernel launched by a bootloader. Is there any project that does that?

Re: O&O ShutUp10++ – Free anti-spy tool for Windows 10, 11

#40

Post by vgeek »

marcodiego wrote: post #35
vgeek wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The simplest way to test any software you're suspicious of on Windows is Sandboxie ( https://sandboxie-plus.com/downloads/ ). Any files or registry changes are persisted to a separate location in the filesystem, so it is pretty easy to catch misbehaving software. For software like this, it will negate the utility of the software due to being in a sandboxed environment, but it will least give an idea of the registry k…

This is not convenient to do at every update. On a windows system were there is no known concept of built-in package manager it is even more complicated. I've seen windows apps that automatically update themselves. Also, since it is very intrusive, I don't think running it into a sandbox may give good diagnostics.

If this program has to be run persistently, then it won't provide much, since a malicious program could wait X days prior to downloading a payload. It is mostly useful for looking for one time changes like registry settings and verifying that the program doesn't place a bunch of random .bat or .exe's in obscure folders.

Windows loves to silently update things, even if it ends up breaking everything, too. Especially drivers where it isn't super obvious that it was updated and something just stops working. Windows 10 is _way_ more aggressive with forcing updates than 7/8 were, automatically re-enabling Windows Update after 30 days of disabling. The easiest solution that I've found is just blocking everything at the DNS level. They can obviously use IP addresses as a workaround if they really want telemetry, but I haven't had issues after blocking a bunch of MS domains in the hosts file.

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