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Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

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Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#261

Post by AnthonyMouse »

nuker wrote: post #234
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's Windows doing that, which they've just compromised and then configured to display only the normal login prompt but send your credentials to the attacker.

They can also decrypt your hard drive by doing the same thing without modifying the original machine by just stealing it and leaving you a compromised one of the same model to also steal your password.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#262

Post by encom »

gerdesj wrote: post #43
trinsic2 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea I need to think of a good way to automate updates..

"automate updates" A device can be woken up at silly o'clock and "apt update && apt upgrade && apt autoremove && shutdown -r now" can be run via cron. apt as deployed by Debian itself has options for automatic updates (via cron), which is the better option. Have a look under /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/

upgrade and autoremove can be combined in one command. My usual line is:

  apt full-upgrade -V --auto-remove --purge
-V is just for verbose old/new version info.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#263

Post by encom »

tombert wrote: post #115
d3Xt3r wrote: post #75

Earlier 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.

I just checked and Draw.io is just Electron slop. Disappointing.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#264

Post by gethly »

I have been using windows since version 95. I even liked the Millennium version, that was most hated before Vista. I tried Linux several times, but Windows just always worked and Linux usually had always some issues(mostly drivers, lack of good programs and no gaming).

But now, after more than two decades, I am certain Windows 10 is my last Windows.

Nothing lasts for ever, not even Microsoft's domination on personal computers. It took them decades, but now they finally f'd up so bad that there is just no going back.

I think, like many people, it will take me few years to need to reinstall my computer(or get a new one). So I will still be a Windows user and that will skew the numbers for upcoming years. But I think that also means that in 1-5 years, Microsoft will see a massive double digit percentage drop of users, almost over night, and nobody will have a clue what is going on.

By then, I bet the distributions will be even better. The gaming will be event better. The drivers will be even better. The saturation will be even better. So the transition will be even more seamless than it is today.

I am looking forward to it. I think Linux, or open source and free OS, should have been the norm. But we took a bad turn in the past and got hijacked by few smart people. That will come to a natural end, finally.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#265

Post by jbstack »

zrobotics wrote: post #37

IT & software dev for a small-midsize company. I wasn't able to finish migrating last month due to a pressing project, but we're migrating almost all of our systems at work to Linux. 90% of our user's work is done in a browser, and the other 10% is in an in-house application I wrote. That app works on Linux, since my work machine has been on Linux for years. We'll have a few macs and 2 win11 machines, but the rest ar…

Next step: escape the Google ecosystem. LibreOffice for docs (its far superior to Google Docs anyway). Syncthing for drive.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#266

Post by pjmlp »

Another "everyone will migrate in droves to Linux" article that keeps poping up a Windows version ends, since Windows XP days, yet even Valve was forced to translate Win32 APIs to actually have games for the Steam Deck, after how Steam Machines went down.

General public won't care until they can buy laptops with GNU/Linux on their favourite shopping mall PC store.

As it stands today they are more likely to buy an iPad or Android tablet than such alternative, which aren't much better than Microsoft in user tracking, and much worse in user freedom allowed by the OS.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#267

Post by dcanelhas »

I wish there was an active dev community that could patch win10 going forward, but without access to source code for the kernel, perhaps that isn't really viable.

Ideally I would want to use Linux but I also want to play games that are only supported on windows.

Does using WSL help or is an outdated windows base still going to be the weakest link in the security onion?

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#268

Post by baobun »

noisy_boy wrote: post #243
pizlonator wrote: post #35

I've been living on an Unbuntu variant (Pop_OS) for over a year now and it's surprisingly good. Note that I had been a Mac-and-some-Windows user as far as desktops go for about 10 years prior to that, and had lots of Linux experience before that - so I'm experiencing a 10 year before-and-after. Things that intrigue me: - For photos, darktable is surprisingly good. I think this was my biggest single surprise, being a…

> GIMP was always great and now it's even better. For adding shapes/colours/annotations etc to photos, I found krita to be more accessible than gimp. E.g. I wanted to do changes to my contractor's realistic concept drawings and I could learn krita (guided by Claude Sonnet) and make the changes in a span of couple of hours.

Adding shoutout to Inkscape, also a very good piece of software for editing graphics.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#269

Post by darkwater »

foxandmouse wrote: post #81
Aurornis wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Make sure libreoffice is included Probably an unpopular thing to say here, but in my experience pushing non-tech people to use libreoffice as part of a Linux transition is a fast track to getting them to hate Linux. Using Google Docs has been much more welcoming in my experience. Something about libreoffice doesn’t resonate with a lot of non-tech people.

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.

You have a ribbon-like UI nowadays, if you prefer that.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#270

Post by chromehearts »

gruez wrote: post #98
cam_l wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly have only come across one company that is app only. That was because I was with them when they changed over, otherwise I would never have signed up. This was my local gym which sacked their front desk staff and moved to app access only, and with an app infested with trackers at that. Needless to say I don't go to that gym anymore.

It's popular with fintechs, especially new ones. Robinhood for instance was app-only for a few years before they got their web version. Revolut theoretically has a web version but it has far less features than the mobile app. Restaurant "apps" (for ordering and offers) are often app-only as well.

Honest question: What does TPM have to do with this? I mean, Revolut developers don't need to check for TPM or similar to serve other functionalities just because you're on browser or mobile app. Am I getting something wrong?
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