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The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge

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Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge

#371

Post by deafpolygon »

justinclift wrote: post #362
deafpolygon wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, here is what Microsoft says on the privacy for this service: > By default, Microsoft Edge provides spelling and grammar checking using Microsoft Editor. When using Microsoft Editor, Microsoft Edge sends your typed text and a service token to a Microsoft cloud service over a secure HTTPS connection. The service token doesn't contain any user-identifiable information. A Microsoft cloud service then processes the…

> A Microsoft cloud service then processes the text to detect spelling and grammar errors in your text. All your typed text that's sent to Microsoft is deleted immediately after processing occurs. No data is stored for any period of time. Interestingly, if they also share the text with third parties, then every one of those statements could still be completely true.

Do you think they are being deceptive?

Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge

#372

Post by ymolodtsov »

skrebbel wrote: post #3

I’m a longtime Windows fan, and initially I was quite enamored by Edge as well. Base UX is excellent, lots of settings and they’re easy to find. Vertical tab bar, profiles, and it all Just Works. I flat out love its “turn this website into a desktop app” feature. But by now they've shoved their core consumer products so chock full of crap that even I am starting to look for a way out. I got my son a new laptop recent…

Here's the truly weird part. I've been using Edge on MacOS for over a year. With each major update it shows me the same basic onboarding like I'm a new user who has just installed it.

Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge

#373

Post by SpaghettiCthulu »

gigel82 wrote: post #272
permo-w wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

will there not be some registry entry you can change?

No, there is no way to disable it via registry or group policy that I know of.

These "powershell incantations" usually modify the registry or group policy, or delete or replace system files behind the scenes. And from my experience the ones that modify system files often don't persist across system updates.

Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge

#374

Post by SpaghettiCthulu »

ccouzens wrote: post #291
Dalewyn wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why do they allow the Crap And Turds department to piss all over their work? Because Windows is a free-in-practice product and it needs/wants a revenue stream. Remember that Windows 11 can be activated with Windows 7, 8, 8.1, and 10 keys; as if that wasn't crazy enough you can straight up not activate it and you won't lose out on anything important. As for install media? You can download those for free any time. No…

I still have Windows for multiplayer games (everything else is done on Linux). When I built this desktop, I had to buy a Windows 11 license. It wasn't free. My laptop's old license did not transfer. OEMs have to pay Microsoft for Windows licenses on prebuilt Windows computers. --- >>Why do they allow the Crap And Turds department to piss all over their work? >Because Windows is a free-in-practice product and it needs…

It is absolutely a free-in-practice product. You can use Windows 10 & 11 indefinitely without activation.

Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge

#375

Post by benhurmarcel »

gigel82 wrote: post #252
Kwpolska wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only way to get rid of it is a Powershell incantation that removes the entire Widgets feature. Better than terrible news, but still nuts. You don’t need PowerShell to get rid of Widgets. You can disable it with three clicks: right click on the Taskbar, go to Taskbar settings, and toggle the switch next to Widgets at the top of the window.

That hides the UI entry point, but widgets.exe continues running, along with 5-6 edgewebview2.exe processes, taking up valuable resources. If you try to kill widgets.exe, a system service restarts it :( Unfortunately, the powershell incantation is the only way to get rid of it...

I just checked, and yes you're right. But it uses 1.2 MB of RAM, and no CPU.

Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge

#376

Post by Dalewyn »

justinclift wrote: post #365
Dalewyn wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If my sole interest was to just get shit done on Windows, I can just go and do it. Immediately. No setup time required. Yes, I could spend time tuning Windows to my liking (and I do as a power user), but it's optional. On Linux, I have to tinker with it before I can get shit done with it. It's not optional. $100~200 USD spent on a Windows license, or $0 by either not activating or using an old 7/8/8.1/10 license, is…

> If my sole interest was to just get shit done on Windows, I can just go and do it. That works, unless Windows decides it needs to do a Windows Update before it'll finish booting. Sometimes, which can last several hours . :( Saying that because one of my close friends was beside himself after staying up all night to get some paper written, ready for submission... only to be screwed over by Windows Update then pullin…

Fair point, it takes a bit of power user sorcery (and maybe a Pro license for Group Policy) to make Windows behave in that regard.

It's still far less time (read: money) wasted than needing to tinker with Linux, though. Gods know how much of my life I've wasted there...

Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge

#377

Post by justinclift »

Dalewyn wrote: post #376
justinclift wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If my sole interest was to just get shit done on Windows, I can just go and do it. That works, unless Windows decides it needs to do a Windows Update before it'll finish booting. Sometimes, which can last several hours . :( Saying that because one of my close friends was beside himself after staying up all night to get some paper written, ready for submission... only to be screwed over by Windows Update then pullin…

Fair point, it takes a bit of power user sorcery (and maybe a Pro license for Group Policy) to make Windows behave in that regard. It's still far less time (read: money) wasted than needing to tinker with Linux, though. Gods know how much of my life I've wasted there...

Ahhh. Personally I tend to use the long-term/stable Linux distros eg CentOS (before Red Hat killed it), Ubuntu LTS, and similar.

Mainly due to my having better things to do in a day than screw with OS settings. With these stable distro's, it tends to be a case of "set the thing once, don't need to touch it again for years". Works for me anyway. :)

Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge

#378

Post by gigel82 »

SpaghettiCthulu wrote: post #373
gigel82 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, there is no way to disable it via registry or group policy that I know of.

These "powershell incantations" usually modify the registry or group policy, or delete or replace system files behind the scenes. And from my experience the ones that modify system files often don't persist across system updates.

winget uninstall "Windows web experience Pack"

Get-AppxPackage *WebExperience* | Remove-AppxPackage

Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge

#379

Post by justinclift »

deafpolygon wrote: post #371
justinclift wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A Microsoft cloud service then processes the text to detect spelling and grammar errors in your text. All your typed text that's sent to Microsoft is deleted immediately after processing occurs. No data is stored for any period of time. Interestingly, if they also share the text with third parties, then every one of those statements could still be completely true.

Do you think they are being deceptive?

Who knows for sure as to the current state of things, and what they may do in future.

But, it's the kind of hole in their wording they could drive a truck though. ;)

Personally, I'd be very surprised if they're not using people's written text as training data for various "AI" efforts. Let alone sharing the data with other parties.

Watching MS operate for a couple of decades has shown that if they see an opportunity to do something shitty, they'll probably take it. o_O

Re: The dark defaults of Microsoft Edge

#380

Post by greycol »

sph wrote: post #351
2fast4you wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPU passthrough has been a game changer for me. I stream all my games from a computer in a closet running Proxmox. Windows is still there in the background, but I almost never have to interact with it

GPU passthrough is not streaming a game. The game output is pushed out of the GPU exactly as if you were playing on bare metal. Streaming assumes some form of processing and pushing bits down a pipe.

The GPU passthrough is relevant because it means that you don't need to build out a whole machine for just windows to isolate it. Instead you put a GPU in either your server (or your main machine) pass it through to a windows VM and then stream from it (through something like steam big picture, nvdia streaming, sunlight/moonlight, etc) knowing that the only info Microsoft slurps up is gaming related. You can even isolate windows from the internet if your gaming habits don't require it.
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