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With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy

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Re: With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy

#311

Post by supernovae »

hendersoon wrote: post #212
cptskippy wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why aren't we complaining about this industry practice? It's purely focused on MS.

Put simply, Apple and Google allow users to opt-out. You can run Android and not send Google a single byte of information. You can't run google's _apps_ and do that-- gmail, google calendar, the google play store, and so on. But it isn't mandatory. Telemetry is in the apps, not the OS. Even if I set telemetry to "basic" (the lowest it will go), turn off Cortana, and don't use IE or Edge (or any other MS app), Windows…

Even if you opt out, you're still sending telemetry. Unless your telling me your buying a smart phone and never installing an app. It takes telemetry for apple store to check your system and see if your apps need updating. it takes telemetry to check if your icloud is backed up. it takes telemetry to say "it will take you 20 minutes to drive home" notifications that popup..

Re: With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy

#312

Post by brokenmachine »

supernovae wrote: post #305
CommanderData wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeing more negative news about Win 10 on HN interests me. HN, what I regard, a big developer news site - I wonder if Microsoft cares. I am sure and probably stating the obvious here. Developers are a group Microsoft does care about - devs eventually drives some of the cogs in their grand scheme. Making noise here will get their attention, more than making noise on some consumer forum.

Most of it seems completely misguided if you ask me. I'm no fan of all the tracking stuff, but lets be real. Everyone in here with an iPhone or an Android phone has the same experience yet i don't see them complaining that their iphone/android device updates itself, has tracking info and locks them into stores and such. It only seems unfair when MS does it. I remember the day when people used to be enthusiastic about…

>BTW, the upgrade stuff was pretty hoaky

Hoaky? I'd go with deceptive, misleading, shady or dishonest instead of hoaky.

So you really think it's even in the ballpark of ok to force an update on people?

Personally, I don't have a need to update just so my OS is called Win 10 instead of Win 7. Plus I hate the Win 10 interface. I don't need touch enabled interfaces for my desktop OS.

There are many reasons why not to upgrade. Compatibility is a major one, unsupported hardware is another. The forced tracking is another. Need I go on? That's enough reasons for me.

Re: With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy

#313

Post by brokenmachine »

CJefferson wrote: post #257
graycat wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is probably a registry value you can change to do so though. Thanks, but with "probably" I sense that I'm about to get into what I call "mud wrestling" or hours or days of just throwing wild guesses against a wall to see if any appear to stick. I've only got 365 days a year, and I've given away far too many of them to such mud wrestling. GOD knows I do NOT want to do more of that. For physical things, say, an…

Why don't you want security updates? Personally, on all OSes I use I just want security updates to happen. My time is too valuable for me to go reading about every minor security update, when I will just install it anyway.

...until the day MS makes its Tracking pseudo-malware - or whatever they're trying to force on you that week - a "security update".

Re: With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy

#315

Post by brokenmachine »

dredmorbius wrote: post #238
jakebasile wrote: post #17

I upgraded willingly so the deceptive upgrade practices, while deplorable, didn't really affect me. What does affect me is that Microsoft refuses to let me control my computer. - If you turn off Windows Defender Real Time Protection it explicitly tells you "You can turn this off, but if it's off for a while we'll turn it back on". It turns itself on upon next reboot, it seems. - You can't turn off Windows Update. It…

With a few word substitutions I could use this to describe my experience on Android. Background: highly experience Linux user. On a budget, and move, needed something for basic connectivity. Wanted a larger tablet. 9-10" Nexus devices nowhere to be found in brick-and-mortar stores (and hard to come by online as well). Almost always crippled by pathetically small storage. My Samsung Tab A isn't rootable, flashable, ha…

You're trying to root Android to get what you want, and Samsung doesn't want you to do that.

Unfortunately there's no better option out there. If you had an iphone you'd have even less control over your phone.

I'm in the same boat, I have a Samsung at the moment because the hardware is nice, but I'm pretty dissatisfied with the bloatware and IMO Android in general is getting further and further away from satisfying the power users.

The default Gallery app is a UI abomination, and you can't completely replace it with something better (the Camera app will always use the Samsung Gallery App to review photos, there's no way to change it).

Re: With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy

#316

Post by dredmorbius »

brokenmachine wrote: post #315
dredmorbius wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With a few word substitutions I could use this to describe my experience on Android. Background: highly experience Linux user. On a budget, and move, needed something for basic connectivity. Wanted a larger tablet. 9-10" Nexus devices nowhere to be found in brick-and-mortar stores (and hard to come by online as well). Almost always crippled by pathetically small storage. My Samsung Tab A isn't rootable, flashable, ha…

You're trying to root Android to get what you want, and Samsung doesn't want you to do that. Unfortunately there's no better option out there. If you had an iphone you'd have even less control over your phone. I'm in the same boat, I have a Samsung at the moment because the hardware is nice, but I'm pretty dissatisfied with the bloatware and IMO Android in general is getting further and further away from satisfying t…

I'm aware iOS isn't a better option. There's a reason I've not gone that route.

I'm absolutely irate at Samsung and Google/Android. Once again, the latter company is absolutely burning up goodwill it's engendered among technical users.

I'm keeping my eye on alternatives. There's a Spanish-made Ubuntu phone which might be suitable.

Otherwise, a small ultralight notebook could be useful, but from whom? I've run Thinkpads for nearly 20 years, but find current offerings abominable. I don't care for Apple hardware precisely because of keyboards and mouse/trackpad options.

Samsung's iron fist over apps is similarly pathological.

Re: With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy

#317

Post by winteriscoming »

randiantech wrote: post #158

Honest question here: Why tech community is so hard with Windows mandatory updates, and kind of flexible with other companies? Maybe its just me, but the ratio of posts and articles blaming Microsoft for this practice seems to be disproportional. I mean, my Mac asked me 875 times about accepting something about iTunes. No matter how many times i click on decline, it keeps appearing there all the time. Same thing with…

I think it is a combination of both the reputation that Microsoft has in tech community and also the fact that unlike other softwares you noted, Windows OS is used by a lot of people, even those who don't like using it (you'll see lot of posts where people have installed it for their family members because those family members find it easier to use it)

Re: With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy

#318

Post by brokenmachine »

kminehart wrote: post #252
mitm2mitm wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO it does not matter what other people are doing. I'm paying for this software so I want control (over my own hardware). Mobile is a lost cause but I literally can't afford to fight my desktop OS. It must work and be reliable. Maybe I would accept forced security updates if they allowed live updates. Having to restart your computer is awful. But that's not even the worse problem. It reset settings, install things y…

Right? That's something about Windows that I hate; having to restart for an update. Microsoft, with it's endless supply of money, is somehow completely incapable of live OS updates? Hell, Linux has live updates; I don't even have to restart to update my kernel! I would expect Microsoft to somehow take this existing technology, cater it to their system and call it a brand new feature like they did with the resizable c…

>I know nothing of how Windows works. It could be impossible without completely rewriting the entire thing. It's just my ultimate pet peeve about Windows.

I imagine the Windows sourcecode to be a total clusterfuck shitshow, with all the ancient code and exception cases.

I doubt you could make live updates work without a major redesign, which would inevitably break a lot of stuff that people actually use.

Re: With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy

#320

Post by bluesilver07 »

bitmapbrother wrote: post #277
ben_jones wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would add VS to that, and potentially Unity/Unreal? Also I imagine corporate and government environments that use windows might also hamstring their developers into using it.

Unity and Unreal are all cross platform. As for VS - that was never really a consideration to stay on the platform for a lot of developers.

While they support building for Linux, the editors themselves are only alpha quality on Linux.
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