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Today I realized I now trust Microsoft more than Google. What is happening?

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Re: Today I realized I now trust Microsoft more than Google. What is happening?

#111

Post by bemusedthrow75 »

duxup wrote: post #96
bemusedthrow75 wrote: post #67

I love VSCode, I use Google Workspace for my domain, run a Mac and an iPhone (and use iCloud), a Surface Go 2 with Linux (quite workable), I host on all sorts of stuff. Uncritically associating "trust" with a brand is a mistake. Microsoft are no more on the side of the angels than anyone else (and are very clearly on the other side in some of the legal positions they stake out, such as their amicus brief in support o…

> Uncritically Blindly pick one to trust sure that’s a poor choice. But we make choices based on our experience and what information we have. I won’t trust anyone forever blindly, but I will pick some for now over others who I find untrustworthy.

Right -- I mean if I was compelled by some weird fascist law to pick one brand to trust, I'd probably pick Apple. The fascists with the nicest things, for one thing, but they have also made commitments to privacy against which they can be measured.

But I find it uncomfortable how much brain time we allow for making value judgements about brands -- it's a purely one-way emotional judgement, because as a general rule, not a single one of the people who run them would so much as piss on you if you were on fire in return.

[ Edit: This is not particularly to be taken as an argument for open source; I don't think people in the open source space are inherently more trustworthy; they have just built mechanisms where I don't have to trust them individually or severally.

We have to stop supporting "teams" in the tech world -- even at the level of employee loyalty. It's damaging, and not just to open source, but to human progress more generally. ]

Re: Today I realized I now trust Microsoft more than Google. What is happening?

#112

Post by robertlagrant »

zztop44 wrote: post #106
rectang wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I like having an LLM for GitHub That LLM was trained on FOSS software that others like myself wrote and did not consent to have used in such a manner. Even if you're also a FOSS contributor and you're fine with it, I'm not. So you like it, but you're not the party whose consent matters. You're the customer consuming the laundered goods from the fence.

If you release source code under a FOSS license doesn’t that specifically mean that you explicitly consent to it being used in ways you might not be fine with?

No, the licence is the thing that defines what they'd be fine with. I don't think it's possible to write a licence that allows you to do things with the software that the licence forbids.

Re: Today I realized I now trust Microsoft more than Google. What is happening?

#113

Post by stevehawk »

RajT88 wrote: post #91
huhtenberg wrote: post #36

The best part is that Microsoft and Google are working together towards the end goal of locking users out of their own machines. Microsoft is really pushing for its trusted OS platform, with a completely locked down kernel, that will grant them full control over what can and cannot be done on the computer. Google is pushing for the same, but in the browser space. Except their Web Integrity effort has no chance of suc…

I am the last guy to play apologist to Microsoft and Google. While the potential for abuse is there, these are the same sorts of concerns raised over UEFI secure boot, and the sky failed to fall over that. You can still run Linux if you want, it's fine. Things will likely be OK. Maybe more annoying than before.

"can run linux if you want" - but it's difficult enough that most of us just give up and run one or the other and it's definitely not user friendly enough to ever teach a relative. I've been a casual Linux user for 25 years now. I've officially given up dualbooting. One software update by Microsoft or accidental EFI change the house of cards seems to fall apart.

Re: Today I realized I now trust Microsoft more than Google. What is happening?

#114

Post by nobody9999 »

Retric wrote: post #35
jrm4 wrote: post #10

Interesting, I still don't, though I acknowledge perhaps Google has the greater capacity for harm; here's why. Over time, Google absolutely has been in a position to abuse data, and to some extent it has done so -- but honestly, if you compare what they COULD do to what they END UP DOING, they're not doing so bad at all. They mostly self-correct relatively nicely. Microsoft, on the other hand, clearly does the bare m…

What could do with your data to make more money that they aren’t? Sure in theory they could be selling access to anyone’s Gmail account to the highest bidder, but that’s going to lose them money by actively driving their customers away. Google may be actively harmful/evil, but they aren’t stupid.

>Sure in theory they could be selling access to anyone’s Gmail account to the highest bidder, but that’s going to lose them money by actively driving their customers away.

I'd say that doing so might drive some of their users (i.e., product) away, but would be a boon for their customers (i.e., advertisers).

And IIUC, they are already selling access to the information they glean from reading the contents of gmail accounts by using that data to "target" ads at gmail users. No, Google isn't literally selling the contents of email messages, but they are selling access to user information based on the content of those email messages.

Based on their behavior to this point, one can be pretty confident that Google/Alhpabet will do whatever they think will maximize revenue and profit, regardless of the impact that might have on their product (i.e., you)>

Re: Today I realized I now trust Microsoft more than Google. What is happening?

#115

Post by baq »

dwaltrip wrote: post #71
lillecarl wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world disagrees with you [0] 0: https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2023/#section-worked-with-vs...

It’s amazing to me what percentage replied with “Notepad++”. To be fair, I haven’t tried it in like 15 years…

It’s actually an amazing editor. Zero setup, does a lot of useful things out of the box, starts instantly.

If that sounds like 15 years ago, it’s still true (high praise!) except it is more capable.

Re: Today I realized I now trust Microsoft more than Google. What is happening?

#116

Post by CursedUrn »

RajT88 wrote: post #91
huhtenberg wrote: post #36

The best part is that Microsoft and Google are working together towards the end goal of locking users out of their own machines. Microsoft is really pushing for its trusted OS platform, with a completely locked down kernel, that will grant them full control over what can and cannot be done on the computer. Google is pushing for the same, but in the browser space. Except their Web Integrity effort has no chance of suc…

I am the last guy to play apologist to Microsoft and Google. While the potential for abuse is there, these are the same sorts of concerns raised over UEFI secure boot, and the sky failed to fall over that. You can still run Linux if you want, it's fine. Things will likely be OK. Maybe more annoying than before.

Didn't secure boot fail because someone at Microsoft leaked the encryption keys?

Re: Today I realized I now trust Microsoft more than Google. What is happening?

#117

Post by Xeamek »

dwaltrip wrote: post #71
lillecarl wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world disagrees with you [0] 0: https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2023/#section-worked-with-vs...

It’s amazing to me what percentage replied with “Notepad++”. To be fair, I haven’t tried it in like 15 years…

To be fair, it was 'select all that apply'.

Personally I find it hard to believe that people use it as their default ides and write a lot of code in it.

but dunno

Re: Today I realized I now trust Microsoft more than Google. What is happening?

#118

Post by bdcravens »

candiddevmike wrote: post #8

This is a dumb take. They're both equally untrustworthy. VSCode has an insane amount of telemetry turned on, ChatGPT is monitoring everything you type, and GitHub was abused to train a LLM. Microsoft and Google have both shown they would sell your data in a heartbeat to make a quick buck.

Meanwhile the development world has more or less shrugged its shoulders. The mass exodus of Github never happened, and aside from the dogmatic, VS Code seems to have a firm grasp on mindshare.

Re: Today I realized I now trust Microsoft more than Google. What is happening?

#119

Post by bippihippi1 »

zztop44 wrote: post #106
rectang wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I like having an LLM for GitHub That LLM was trained on FOSS software that others like myself wrote and did not consent to have used in such a manner. Even if you're also a FOSS contributor and you're fine with it, I'm not. So you like it, but you're not the party whose consent matters. You're the customer consuming the laundered goods from the fence.

If you release source code under a FOSS license doesn’t that specifically mean that you explicitly consent to it being used in ways you might not be fine with?

no, foss means free and open source. you're still able to use a license that dictates how it can be used

Re: Today I realized I now trust Microsoft more than Google. What is happening?

#120

Post by CursedUrn »

derefr wrote: post #77
CoastalCoder wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Turn off telemetry I may be working from old information, but doesn't Windows 10 still have unstoppable, and unauditable, telemetry?

> Unstoppable Use a PiHole?

This is trivial for Microsoft to bypass. They've already been consolidating and moving server addresses. Unless you block all internet traffic, you have no idea what's getting through. They can update the opaque code at any time. This is not a solution.
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