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Windows 10 “steals” your bandwidth

lauren.vortex.com

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Re: Windows 10 “steals” your bandwidth

#71

Post by plorkyeran »

Silhouette wrote: post #42
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.

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…

When I last played WoW there was a rather visible checkbox in the updater that said something like "Disable peer-to-peer transfers", and fairly importantly the updater never actually seeded the torrent; you only uploaded while you were actively downloading the patch, which stopped it from using a bunch of bandwidth at unexpected times.

Re: Windows 10 “steals” your bandwidth

#72

Post by dogma1138 »

chrsstrm wrote: post #69

Outside of the outrage over "borrowing" the bandwidth on my WAN connection (which I agree is wrong to have on by default), how much of a help is this feature for distributing updates over the LAN? For example, I installed and fully updated Win 10 on my Surface. Soon I'll be traveling to the bandwidth-deprived middle of nowhere to visit my family and will likely be updating their systems to 10 while I'm there. If I co…

to some extent, not all updates work like this, and the updates live in your cache only for a limited time (mostly dependent on the storage capacity).

Pretty much as long as the update can be uninstalled (usually 30 days or so) the update package will be in your cache.

If the update package is compatible with the SKU of other machines in your network (language, version, bitness etc.) then they might pull it from your machine instead of the internet.

Re: Windows 10 “steals” your bandwidth

#73

Post by plorkyeran »

chrsstrm wrote: post #69

Outside of the outrage over "borrowing" the bandwidth on my WAN connection (which I agree is wrong to have on by default), how much of a help is this feature for distributing updates over the LAN? For example, I installed and fully updated Win 10 on my Surface. Soon I'll be traveling to the bandwidth-deprived middle of nowhere to visit my family and will likely be updating their systems to 10 while I'm there. If I co…

The local network only version (which is the default for Enterprise versions of Windows 10) does seem like pretty unambiguously a good thing. Even if it doesn't completely eliminate duplicated update downloads it should significantly reduce them.

Re: Windows 10 “steals” your bandwidth

#74

Post by dogma1138 »

Oh boy whats the deal? P2P functionality was introduced in various means into Windows since Windows XP with BITS. This means that machines gets update faster especially in scenarios where bandwidth is limited or the connection is spotty. You can opt-out, it doesn't touches your personal data, doesn't work on metered connections, the updates can be pushed out for as long as they are in cache (Updating 3-4 machines on the LAN is much quicker with Windows 10, SOHO machines that aren't routed into the internet or are heavily firewalled can be updated easily, and heck the vulnerability window for machines which weren't connected to the internet is much smaller now since they can grab critical updates without even being exposed to the internet which previously required backporting or having enterprise update software (WSUS and the likes).

The conspiracy theories around it are also quite silly considering that MSFT has complete control over the OS just as any other major OS vendor unless you tinker with it yourself.

Re: Windows 10 “steals” your bandwidth

#75

Post by dogma1138 »

syvolt wrote: post #12
alayne wrote: post #2

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

In a world where data caps are acceptable by ISPs, p2p is definitely not a viable solution yet and to have this be automated rather than opt-in is irresponsible at best. I'm not sure exactly how it works on their side, but to use up a person's data without their explicit permission is pretty bad in my opinion. For example, in my area and a bunch of others Comcast has a 300GB cap, I'm assuming there are other ISPs in…

If you setup the internet connection as metered (available since windows 8) it will not send updates to machines over the internet.

Not sure if MSFT does this for Comcast but my Windows 10 machine detected the internet connection of 4G dongles (even when it was over normal Ethernet) and prompted me to confirm if it's a metered connection or not.

On a metered connection Windows 10 (as 8.1 before it) is extremely bandwidth conservative it doesn't pull non-critical updates, and other online features such as updating cards, cortana, store function etc. went into austerity mode as well.

Re: Windows 10 “steals” your bandwidth

#76

Post by wmf »

dietrichepp wrote: post #35
tacone wrote: post #8

Let me understand this better: they centralized skype and decentralized software updates? Wow.

As I understand it, they centralized Skype because mobile phones couldn't be supernodes. (Not defending it, just explaining it.)

It's not quite that; phones can't even be classic Skype clients because holding a TCP connection open on mobile either doesn't work or drains battery. So they switched to using push messaging for incoming calls/messages, but AFAIK Apple/Google won't let random machines send push messages.

Re: Windows 10 “steals” your bandwidth

#77

Post by opnitro »

drewcrawford wrote: post #37
opnitro wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See the difference is that you explicitly use WebRTC. Distributed systems are great you decide to use them. Someone else turning it on for you is a little dishonest.

No you don't. You visit a website. The author of the website explicitly uses WebRTC, not you.

I suppose, but you're still making the choice to visit the website. I guess you could design a site that secretly used webRTC to waste someone's bandwidth, but: A) I don't think that has ever/will ever happen. B) Even if it did, it would still be wrong.

Re: Windows 10 “steals” your bandwidth

#78

Post by Animats »

bitmapbrother wrote: post #48
marcosdumay wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it looks like Google treats their cattle better.

Google ain't charging you to play Solitaire at least.

There's an app for that. There is a Solitare program with in-game purchases.[1]

[1] http://www.bigfishgames.com/blog/walkthrough/fairway-solitai...

Re: Windows 10 “steals” your bandwidth

#79

Post by Animats »

bitmapbrother wrote: post #48
marcosdumay wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it looks like Google treats their cattle better.

Google ain't charging you to play Solitaire at least.

Oh, I thought that was a joke. In Windows 10, Solitare has ads, and it costs $10/year to turn the ads off.[1]

[1] http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-07/30/windows-10-pa...

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