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Windows 10 “steals” your bandwidth

lauren.vortex.com

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Re: Windows 10 “steals” your bandwidth

#41

Post by rhino369 »

cma wrote: post #32
Silhouette wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a word in English that captures how massively disappointed I am with this being on every Win10 computer and by default? "Illegal" would seem to be a good start in many jurisdictions. For example, as described in the article, I can't see how this behaviour doesn't fall foul of computer misuse and fraud laws in the UK. The best defence might be that somewhere buried in the terms and conditions it's allowed, bu…

Blizzard have done this for WoW updates forever. MS may run into some liability for inducing data overages depending on how up front they are about it and how badly it bites people.

Iirc windows 10 install asks if you have metered Internet. I bet they turn this off if you click no. But that's speculation.

I remember when people thought BitTorrent would revolutionize file hosting. Now people think it's stealing bandwidth.

Re: Windows 10 “steals” your bandwidth

#42

Post by Silhouette »

cma wrote: post #32
Silhouette wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a word in English that captures how massively disappointed I am with this being on every Win10 computer and by default? "Illegal" would seem to be a good start in many jurisdictions. For example, as described in the article, I can't see how this behaviour doesn't fall foul of computer misuse and fraud laws in the UK. The best defence might be that somewhere buried in the terms and conditions it's allowed, bu…

Blizzard have done this for WoW updates forever. MS may run into some liability for inducing data overages depending on how up front they are about it and how badly it bites people.

Blizzard have done this for WoW updates forever.

Are Blizzard up-front with their users about what is happening? The covert nature (or otherwise) of the uploads is a significant concern here. The average geek playing with Linux doesn't complain about BitTorrent also uploading the distro image they're downloading, but the average geek playing with Linux knows the deal and decided voluntarily to participate.

MS may run into some liability for inducing data overages depending on how up front they are about it and how badly it bites people.

I would expect that if the report is accurate and if this behaviour was activated without the user's knowledge or consent then Microsoft would be on the hook for any and all damage caused as a result. That could mean a small extra charge from an ISP for bandwidth over a cap. However, if the behaviour means someone's Internet connection didn't have enough capacity left to do something important that it otherwise would have, whether because the uploads themselves limited the spare bandwidth at the same time or perhaps because it triggered some sort of degraded service from the ISP after going over a cap, that could also mean compensation for any consequences of that degraded capacity.

Re: Windows 10 “steals” your bandwidth

#43

Post by pbreit »

eli wrote: post #9
striking wrote: post #3

Now, at first I was thinking this was a relatively sane feature like Apple's Software Update Server (which caches and re-serves updates for your local network)[1]. It's a very useful tool, considering the fact that when iOS 7 came out, it took out my entire high school's network because everyone was downloading it. This isn't transparently helping serve updates to computers on a local network to save bandwidth. It tr…

It seemed to work out fine for Spotify

Spotify's P2P usage enabled the amazingly fast response times which made every user's life better on an ongoing basis. That's a pretty fair tradeoff.

Re: Windows 10 “steals” your bandwidth

#44

Post by bitmapbrother »

alayne wrote: post #2

If people weren't so nutty about distributing file transfers, we could have a much more robust Internet.

This "feature" is turned on automatically. You need to proactively turn it off. Who gave Microsoft the right to decide how I use my bandwidth? And in those cases where I decided to share it I explicitly did so. I wonder how many unsuspecting people know that this is happening.

This OS is slowly turning into a clusterfuck.

Re: Windows 10 “steals” your bandwidth

#46

Post by dev-da0 »

cma wrote: post #32
Silhouette wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a word in English that captures how massively disappointed I am with this being on every Win10 computer and by default? "Illegal" would seem to be a good start in many jurisdictions. For example, as described in the article, I can't see how this behaviour doesn't fall foul of computer misuse and fraud laws in the UK. The best defence might be that somewhere buried in the terms and conditions it's allowed, bu…

Blizzard have done this for WoW updates forever. MS may run into some liability for inducing data overages depending on how up front they are about it and how badly it bites people.

The difference being WoW requires massive bandwidth to both download its updates and play. Not all Win10 users are gamers with Google Fiber.

Re: Windows 10 “steals” your bandwidth

#47

Post by [deleted] »

rhino369 wrote: post #41
cma wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blizzard have done this for WoW updates forever. MS may run into some liability for inducing data overages depending on how up front they are about it and how badly it bites people.

Iirc windows 10 install asks if you have metered Internet. I bet they turn this off if you click no. But that's speculation. I remember when people thought BitTorrent would revolutionize file hosting. Now people think it's stealing bandwidth.

[deleted]

Re: Windows 10 “steals” your bandwidth

#49

Post by choudanu4 »

analog31 wrote: post #20

Regarding all of the issues surrounding Windows 10, could somebody create a little app that lets us turn off the objectionable features? I realize it can all be done in the settings, but an app could include some explanatory info, and also serve as a way of documenting all of the issues in one place.

Or an alternative option that requires less work: A list of the objectionable features and how to turn them off in one place? An app would be quite a lot of work, but a reputable, single bulletin with the info would help greatly. That way I (and others) could rest assured that we didn't miss one or two settings whilst blindly searching.

Re: Windows 10 “steals” your bandwidth

#50

Post by RexRollman »

I have come to the conclusion that commercial operating system vendors can no longer be trusted.

They are destroying computing autonomy of users by tying online accounts into their products. They include built in search tools that leak information to the vendor and, in some cases, "trusted" third parties. And they try to steer users to their own cloud solutions, which store user data unencrypted.

Apple, Google, and Microsoft all do this. Even Canonical has. But worse to me are those who make weak excuses for all of it; saying that people can use settings to turn it off, even though they know damn well that everyday users will stick to the defaults.

Personally, I am disgusted with the entire situation.

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