Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft Is Downloading 6GB of Windows 10 Updates Without User’s Consent

nextbigwhat.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 99 posts

Re: Microsoft Is Downloading 6GB of Windows 10 Updates Without User’s Consent

#81

Post by pdkl95 »

Karunamon wrote: post #53
belorn wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What consent is that if people don't understands the facts, implications, and future consequences of the action. Worse, updates has an common perception to be small security fixes. Should we call it uninformed consent? tricked consent? non-binding consent? If we want to use legal terms, is 6G download ordinarily and reasonably to be contemplated by the user?

Well take your pick, then. You can have automatic updates and get security/functionality updates, or you can not and not, and an OS upgrade can be reasonably considered under the aegis of system updates. Y'all have been campaigning for users to be automatically updated, often whether they want to or not (c.f. Windows rebooting overnight causing the loss of any open documents) because having them not be makes everyone…

You and a lot of other people in this thread seem to be going out of your way to conflate automatic updates (such as security patches), and upgrading to another product (such as Win [78] -> Win 10).

You're trying to tie the concepts together to create false dichotomy, which you use as a rhetorical tactic. This usually involves specifically ignoring the people you're replying to and many other posts in the thread that already answered this subject.

Re: Microsoft Is Downloading 6GB of Windows 10 Updates Without User’s Consent

#82

Post by 9872 »

function_seven wrote: post #66
Karunamon wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows Update downloads more than "patches". It has been used in the past to distribute standalone tools and service packs.

It has never wholesale upgraded the OS to a new major version. Nobody expects it to.

And that's a large part of why Windows security has always been terrible. While we may not have expected it, that just means we were pleasantly surprised.

Re: Microsoft Is Downloading 6GB of Windows 10 Updates Without User’s Consent

#84

Post by pdkl95 »

vblord wrote: post #60
pdkl95 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as MS gets paid, they will do what they want, so stop paying them. Stop giving them revenue directly, and stop giving them market share that that they profit from indirectly. Anybody that continues to use their products is asking for more of this crap. Some may complain that their business depends on Windows; that's unfortunate, but why didn't they have a second source for all mission critical dependencies?

I don't know if it's a matter of our business depending on Windows more than our business wanting to depend on Windows. We like using Windows because they have such an awesome product. Same thing with Apple. I got the new OS and all of a sudden my iphone 3g started going unbearably slow... so I had to get a new iphone. My stance is... if they use 6gb of my internet to download updates... okay, whatever... i get unlim…

> I didn't pay for Win10. They gave me the upgrade for free.

Oh, you paid for it; the price tag simply wasn't in dollars. You should probably see Aral Balkan's explanation[1] of the concept.

[1] https://projectbullrun.org/surveillance/2015/video-2015.html...

Re: Microsoft Is Downloading 6GB of Windows 10 Updates Without User’s Consent

#85

Post by pdabbadabba »

johnward wrote: post #36

I don't get the "without consent" part. If you have automatic updates on you consent to them automatically downloading things.

I'm not sure all the outrage against MS is justified since we're just talking about a large download, not any change to the user's system, or sharing of information, etc. (Though I might feel differently if my bandwidth were metered.)

But I also can't fathom how so many on this thread are willing to conclude that users consented to this by enabling automatic updates. Because, of course, you don't just consent to have Windows download any old "thing" when you enable automatic updates. You only consent to have it download updates!

While the definition of "update" is surely ambiguous and not set in stone, it should surely be guided (I would think) by the sorts of things Microsoft has called "Windows Updates" in the past. And I don't think there is a good argument that this would include a 6 GB download of an entirely new version of the OS.

Re: Microsoft Is Downloading 6GB of Windows 10 Updates Without User’s Consent

#86

Post by pdkl95 »

pdabbadabba wrote: post #85
johnward wrote: post #36

I don't get the "without consent" part. If you have automatic updates on you consent to them automatically downloading things.

I'm not sure all the outrage against MS is justified since we're just talking about a large download, not any change to the user's system, or sharing of information, etc. (Though I might feel differently if my bandwidth were metered.) But I also can't fathom how so many on this thread are willing to conclude that users consented to this by enabling automatic updates. Because, of course, you don't just consent to have…

That download is costing people money, and if there is any justice left in the US, it will result in a class action lawsuit.

People in Redmond or Silicon Valley with good internet connections need to remember that a lot of people don't have that luxury. Extremely low bandwidth connections are still very common in the US, and metered connections are an unfortunate reality for many people around the world.

Re: Microsoft Is Downloading 6GB of Windows 10 Updates Without User’s Consent

#87

Post by DougMerritt »

pdabbadabba wrote: post #85
johnward wrote: post #36

I don't get the "without consent" part. If you have automatic updates on you consent to them automatically downloading things.

I'm not sure all the outrage against MS is justified since we're just talking about a large download, not any change to the user's system, or sharing of information, etc. (Though I might feel differently if my bandwidth were metered.) But I also can't fathom how so many on this thread are willing to conclude that users consented to this by enabling automatic updates. Because, of course, you don't just consent to have…

> since we're just talking about a large download

Even just that can be a problem, since it is quite common these days for people to have a small SSD boot drive, and put everything else in a secondary hard drive.

The download could use all remaining space on the SSD, which could cause a variety of problems unless/until the user figured out the problem and deleted the 6 GB download.

Re: Microsoft Is Downloading 6GB of Windows 10 Updates Without User’s Consent

#88

Post by pdabbadabba »

9872 wrote: post #47
pdkl95 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, default settings are never "consent". Second, even if they did consent to automatic updates, that obviously applies to updating the current product they purchased. Upgrading to a different model is obviously not what people expect. Most people expect that their car will receive necessary updates (recall notices), which obviously doesn't include exchanging the car for next years model without some sort of addit…

Every update is a different model. Whether they call it 8.1 with KB 1498028 or Windows 10 is simply marketing.

That is true in a sense. But I think this is very from from how the average user sees things, and the way the average user sees things is crucial here since we are talking about user consent. In the mind of the average user, there is a very large difference between KB 1498028 and Windows 10.

This also glosses over the rather enormous difference in sheer size between this "update" and others, which is, as far as I understand it, the focus of people's concern here.

Re: Microsoft Is Downloading 6GB of Windows 10 Updates Without User’s Consent

#89

Post by pdabbadabba »

9872 wrote: post #48
malux85 wrote: post #13

Holy smoke - this isn't very good. My parents in NZ only get 1 or 2 GB a month ... this would have cost them a fortune. Fortunately I switched them to mac last year. Microsoft : You suck.

I think you will find that it is your parents' ISP who sucks.

Why not both?

(Also bear in mind the realities for a New Zealand ISP. I suspect that a large portion of their traffic comes from overseas, and capacity ain't free on whatever undersea cables happen to land in NZ...)

Re: Microsoft Is Downloading 6GB of Windows 10 Updates Without User’s Consent

#90

Post by Karunamon »

pdkl95 wrote: post #81
Karunamon wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well take your pick, then. You can have automatic updates and get security/functionality updates, or you can not and not, and an OS upgrade can be reasonably considered under the aegis of system updates. Y'all have been campaigning for users to be automatically updated, often whether they want to or not (c.f. Windows rebooting overnight causing the loss of any open documents) because having them not be makes everyone…

You and a lot of other people in this thread seem to be going out of your way to conflate automatic updates (such as security patches), and upgrading to another product (such as Win [78] -> Win 10). You're trying to tie the concepts together to create false dichotomy, which you use as a rhetorical tactic. This usually involves specifically ignoring the people you're replying to and many other posts in the thread that…

The "different product" differentiation is more a marketing one than an objective one. The notable changes between 8/10 are a lot less than, say. 3.1/95.
Post reply on HN