How about this, you don't need Windows. My mum runs Linux and has been for 10 years! No more support phonecalls!
Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state
231–240 of 514 posts
Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state
#232I agree with all of the articles points except for the first one: TPM and Secure Boot do not reduce user choice or promote state or corporate surveillance. If you want to be able to prevent root kits you need secure boot, and if you want to store secrets that don't need a user password to unlock and can't be stolen by taking apart the computer, you need a TPM; or you need substantially similar alternatives. I would s…
I am starting to see the benefits to secure boot and TPM from a gaming perspective. I realize this can still be tampered with but it eliminates so many casual cheaters that the edge case is practically irrelevant. I don't see how my TPM module will prevent me from using the machine the way I want. The offer of a cryptographic assurance to a 3rd party is something I happily provide in order to gain access to a competi…
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Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state
#233I've been using Windows 11 since it came out. Seems fine, no real difference over 10. Maybe a little bit faster. Some of the more annoying stuff like ads in the start menu and the like only really affect americans, as far as I know. I've never seen it. Had a brief battle turning copilot off everywhere when that became a thing - including in notepad! - but thats hardly just a microsoft thing. Don't really understand a…
I ran a few shut-up scripts and installed StartAllBack and my machine is almost indistinguishable from Windows 7 on first glance. And it was certainly no more work than configuring Linux to my liking.
Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Am I missing something? My disk is encrypted. If they take it apart, they need my password to crack the encryption. You’re not protected from an evil maid attack. An attacker with physical access could make your device boot their own payload to capture your encryption key and install a rootkit.
So what happens when they use their physical access to turn off secure boot or just replace the component/device with one that looks the same, prompts for your password and sends it to them?
You get a prompt to enter Bitlocker recovery key if you turn off Secure boot in BIOS.
Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state
#235Luckily, to replace most of the Office applications, their respective online web applications work very well. That wouldn't be a major issue in migrating to Linux.
Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state
#236I have Win10 on a laptop that I use and am thinking of either taking it an offline completely (and keep on win10 forever on it) or upgrade it to Linux but am not sure if it's worth the hassle upgrading a $200 Thinkpad Carbon x1, I may as well get another one and leave this one as is. I still own a laptop with Windows 7 that when I turn on, that is quite rarely, but when I do I am hit by wave of nostalgia. This win10…
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Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
- For diagrams, draw.io is a decent alternative - Similarly for Photoshop users, Photopea might suit them better than GIMP. And there's also Photoshop Express/Online if they really want to stay in the Adobe ecosystem.
Draw.io is my go-to tool on any platform now. I did an entire bachelors and masters using it for all my diagrams. I like OmniGraffle but personally I didn't think it was worth it when draw.io was free anyway. Like I don't feel it was $150-$250 better than draw.io, especially since it's not cross platform.
Draw.io’s development philosophy is just too cool: “doesn’t use artificial scarcity to produce a bloated sales-centric company with matching revenues.”
Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
Couldn’t agree more, if you’re pitching Linux to a non-technical user, you need a gentler off-ramp, not a cliff dive. LibreOffice is a UI time capsule..more archaeology than productivity. Most millennials would think they’d accidentally opened a flight simulator.
I was confused about this because last time I used LibreOffice it wasn't that bad. Turns out, it's really just a normal UI? I guess the biggest difference is it doesn't conform to Microsoft's design but to call it a time capsule is a bit dramatic.
I think by default after fresh install it suggests the "old" layout akin to Office 2000, but you can just select "tabbed ribbon" and then it really isn't half bad.
Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state
#239I agree with all of the articles points except for the first one: TPM and Secure Boot do not reduce user choice or promote state or corporate surveillance. If you want to be able to prevent root kits you need secure boot, and if you want to store secrets that don't need a user password to unlock and can't be stolen by taking apart the computer, you need a TPM; or you need substantially similar alternatives. I would s…
TPM and Secure Boot would be good things if there were no way to prove to third parties that you're using them, or have them configured a certain way (i.e., remote attestation). It's the fact that that is possible that makes them reduce user choice and promote state and corporate surveillance.
> TPM and Secure Boot would be good things if there were no way to prove to third parties that you're using them, or have them configured a certain way (i.e., remote attestation).
This is exactly what a TPM was made for, so your statement is a little bit paradoxical.
Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state
#240I agree with all of the articles points except for the first one: TPM and Secure Boot do not reduce user choice or promote state or corporate surveillance. If you want to be able to prevent root kits you need secure boot, and if you want to store secrets that don't need a user password to unlock and can't be stolen by taking apart the computer, you need a TPM; or you need substantially similar alternatives. I would s…
TPM and Secure Boot would be good things if there were no way to prove to third parties that you're using them, or have them configured a certain way (i.e., remote attestation). It's the fact that that is possible that makes them reduce user choice and promote state and corporate surveillance.
Maybe. This assumes I trust Microsoft to have part of my computer where I have no ability to interrogate it to see what they’re doing in there.
If it’s on my computer, I should be allowed to read and write to it. End of story. I don’t care if that makes it vulnerable. So far as I’m concerned, letting Microsoft keep secrets from me on my own computer is similarly catastrophic to losing my HD to a crypto-locker virus.