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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

#331
post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While not defending Microsoft (my first advice would be: don't use Windows), there's a free app called "ShutUp10" that allows you to fix almost everything in your list above.

Jury is still out: http://superuser.com/questions/1038050/does-oo-shutup-10-eff...

Jury is not out, shutup10 turns off "official' telemetry services. Problem is MS build in telemetry into everything now, explorer, cortana, edge, crypto service or dnscache, _everything_ calls home regularly ~once per hour during ordinary use.

Only way to 99.9% block telemetry is to switch blocking all outgoing by default in firewall and whitelist what you use. This still leaves DNS exfiltration route :(

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

#332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Universal Windows Platform [1], which has been derided by some prominent game developers [2]. [1]: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/get-started/wha... [2]: http://www.pcgamer.com/epic-ceo-tim-sweeney-pummels-microsof...

Derided for no good reason. Why would an app developer NOT embrace a technology that would allow them to write once and run anyware from phone to tablet to desktop to tv and hololens? Most of these people are projecting their perceived issues with the platform, not the reality thereof. Steam still runs great on Windows 10 and Windows 10 is steams largest OS base already. UWP solves a lot of problems with win32.. a lo…

>write once and run anywhere

so you would expect your apps to _play for sure_? Gee I wonder why developers are worried about it.

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

#333
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is UWP?

The logical continuation of WinRT. "Store" apps that run identically on Windows 10 Desktop, Phone, IoT, etc. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/get-started/uni...

and hopefully as successful.

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

#334

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…

> 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.

That may sadly be true. Microsoft is following Google and Apple here but you hear surprisingly few complaints about them.

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

#335

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…

There are ways to disable/block or outright remove a lot of the things you list.

Only with Pro or Enterprise though and only by performing a series of registry/policy edits, third party tool use and blocking of IP ranges.

You should never have to jump through these kind of hoops just to get your own system under control.

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

#336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe this famous comic said it best: http://www.bonkersworld.net/organizational-charts/ For all Satya's promises, nothing _really_ changed.

In other words, AD is built around MS's corporate structure?

That'd be in line with Conway's law ("organizations which design systems ... are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations").

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

#337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..

>>Unless your telling me your buying a smart phone and never installing an app.

I have a smartphone that does not send info to google or apple.

Runs Andriod with no google account, no Google Services, and my app store is FDriod not the play store.

You assumption that everyone that owns a smart phone is a icloud user or uses the apple store is ridiculous

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

#338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It comes with Office365 too! I'd totally buy this for the added control over home edition, but it looks like Microsoft only sells this license in bulk to big businesses in my region. Then again...it turns out that you can upgrade to enterprise without a valid key [1] and that there are no real penalties for doing this [2]. So, shrug, I guess they don't want my money - and I'm not going to use an OS that turns me into…

Would you happen to have an up-to-date guide? The one you linked doesn't work in a fresh Win10 Home VM.

I don't unfortunately and I haven't got around to trying it yet. If you (or anyone else on HN) finds something that works, could you post the link here?

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

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as a veteran Microsoft administrator, in total seriousness: buy a Mac. If you have a corporate network complete with good administrators, Windows can be made to work well enough. If you are a lone professional, Macs are secure, low-maintenance and have an OS designed by people that care about your privacy. Windows is probably not worth your time or energy right now unless there a specific piece of Windows-on…

Thanks. Okay, and when my Web site software, with several special back end servers, is all working well, what platform do I use to keep, say, an 8 core AMD processor at 4.0 GHz busy? On Windows, I'm aiming at Windows Server (WS). My initial usage of WS will be just dirt simple. As I get revenue, for more I will pick up a phone, call an expert, maybe you, pay for an hour to walk me through the most recent issue, take…

Your original post just specified "Web site", so I assumed that you'd be using an Open Source stack - mea culpa.

Without writing a long reply - I sympathize with where you are coming from. I spent 5 years as a .NET developer between admin jobs, and the apparently all-encompassing, answer-for-everything nature of the Microsoft stack was attractive. If we could have stayed inside the lines of what Microsoft wanted to provide at the time, it would have been pleasant.

One of the advantages of switching to an Open Source platform was being able to access a much wider range of options for things, including hosting. One of these is the full-service Heroku platform - there are Web developers that only deploy to Heroku, and never set up servers.

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

#340
post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet the game Overwatch doesn't have an OSX port so I have windows 10 setup as a dual-boot option. It seems that Microsoft has correctly deduced that users don't really give a fuck. They'll throw a hissy fit, they'll make all sorts of blog posts, but at the end of the day the majority are still staring at a windows 10 installation screen and dealing with it.

Once you stop playing games (it happens eventually for many of us), your need to have Windows around will drop considerably. Are there any killer apps other than games to have Windows around @home?

Office. For any "real" word processing in the "real" world, there are no open source equivalents.
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