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Windows 8 Tells Microsoft About Everything You Install
musicon writes "According to Nadim Kobeissi, Windows 8 is configured by default (using a new featured called Windows SmartScreen) to immediately tell Microsoft about every app you download and install. This is a very serious privacy problem, specifically because Microsoft is the central point of authority and data collection/retention here and therefore becomes vulnerable to being served judicial subpoenas or National Security Letters intended to monitor targeted users. This situation is exacerbated when Windows 8 is deployed in countries experiencing political turmoil or repressive political situations."
While SmartScreen is enabled by default, it's possible for users to turn it off. Also, it's worth noting that Microsoft is hardly alone in this regard, given the rise of app stores over the past several year. (Not that it exculpates this behavior.)
At the rate Microsoft is going, they might as well add a "Windows 8 opt-out feature."
Just firewall it off.
You know, I've been resisting Linux all these years, but with the current direction of Windows development and greater Linux game support (Steam, etc.) I may make the switch yet...
Done for performance not privacy, but Chrome ships with bloom filters of URLs that may contain bad stuff. Only hits are sent to Google. There's no reason MSFT can'd do this as well (and probably should, for performance if not privacy).
Really if it does something to stem the flood of security holes in Windows, I'm all for it. I don't use windows but people who do inundate me with spam.
"(Not that it exculpates this behavior.)"
You French have some purty words.
"Oh, you hate your job? There's a support group for that, it's called everyone, they meet at the bar."
No need to get the same information twice and you get to smear your competitor...
Look, I'm just a regular user, albeit more technically capable than the vast majority, but not a developer, sys admin, etc., and it's starting to look more and more like it's time to consider making the move to Linux.
This private company invasiveness seems to be growing in parallel with government invasiveness, and I'm not happy about either, but at least I can choose one, for now.
If you are going to blame Microsoft for what third party software does on your computer, then you can't also blame them when they start to track and address such problems. With things like EAs Origin, Steam, etc, what you do on your computer is no longer just your business. At least Microsoft lets you turn it off.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Don't all app stores do this? Otherwise how would they target ads to you (google) or own your balls (apple), or both (facebook)?
It seems from the MSDN link this can be avoided by simply not using Internet Explorer, as if you needed another reason not to
Dear Microsoft, don't try to be apple, we already have apple and you'd just be playing catch up and alienating your current customer base to try and get a customer base that already despises you more than your current one.
This is actually the expected behavior of the software. You can also disable it. The blog post is rather bizarre scare-mongering (which would have gone completely unnoticed if it weren't for you-know-what) and he is potentially mistaken about it using SSLv2.
... to build an app that fakes the install of programs? In other words, overwhelm MS with hundreds of false install notices to them. As certain programs become 'of interest' to certain parties, we add that program to the list. Eventually, the information would become useless and would be abandoned.
Or am I missing something?
How do you people thing virus scanners work?
Also, it's worth noting that Microsoft is hardly alone in this regard, given the rise of app stores over the past several year. (Not that it exculpates this behavior.)
Can't compare this. If I download something from the Play Store, I know Google knows I install that app. After all I have to log in using my Google account, and use their app to download from their store. Afaik they do not know what I install from third-party sources, like alternative app stores. Nor do they have any right knowing that.
Apparently MS monitors what you install from third-party sources. Without telling you, and without asking explicit permission. That's simply evil. They have no business knowing what I install from third-party sources. The fact that this data is stored in some foreign country (the US is a foreign country to me, and some 95% of the world's overall population) with notoriously poor privacy protection only helps making it a lot worse.
Also, it's worth noting that Microsoft is hardly alone in this regard, given the rise of app stores over the past several year.
Come on. This is just excuse-making - sure in any given app store the store owner knows what you downloaded - by definition they had to for you to download it!
But here aren't we talking about a more general notion that ANY application installed from anywhere is known by Microsoft? When you use the Amazon app store on Android, does Google know what you have? When I use Cydia on a iPhone, Apple doesn't know what applications I install from there... on the Mac I can use the app store but if I get applications from elsewhere Apple doesn't know about those either.
Just because App Stores exist does not give Microsoft the right to track every app installed.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
App stores will know everything you download from them for the same reason any other retailer would, you bought it there so there is a transaction record. This is tracking and sending to Microsoft information about EVERY application you download outside of their eventual marketplace. Apple doesn't know that I downloaded Handbreak from their site but with this Microsoft would, or to put it in a way that could cause an issue, Apple doesn't know that I downloaded LOIC, but Microsoft would. That is why it becomes an issue over and above something like the Mac App Store.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
"While SmartScreen is enabled by default, it's possible for users to turn it off."
And this is what's wrong with this setup. Debian has popcon, which is a survey of what you use and how often you use it, and you can participate by having a cronjob send off the file.
http://popcon.debian.org/README
But it's not a privacy concern because it's opt-in.
If this equivalent of popcon on 8 was opt-in, this thread wouldn't be here.
--
BMO
IE has done something similar for a while now with every program you download. MS is just moving it from IE to Windows so that users of ALL browsers get the same technology. To be fair I don't know if IE sends the same data that Windows does.
Regardless you can turn this off along with the other privacy-imparing features in Windows during the first run setup.
There's no indication that Microsoft themselves keeps track of which individuals downloaded/installed which programs.
The issue this article seems to propose is that somebody could sniff the network traffic between yourself and Microsoft to grab the SmartScreen data and see what you'd installed when Windows contacts MS to see if the file is marked as safe/unsafe/unknown.
If they're in a position to do that, wouldn't they theoretically be in a position to have potentially snooped on the download of the software which is triggering the SmartScreen traffic? (Depending of course, on where in the network their sniffer is at.)
The only valid complaint seems to be that Microsoft is using a known-insecure version of SSL for the website all this data is sent to. If they fix that, I'm not sure what reasonable issue would be there.
I would argue that for the average user, SmartScreen is a useful feature and having it turned on by default (assuming MS is tracking individual user downloads of software for some nefarious purpose) is a good thing.
DOA - the new denial of service.
Cell phones and the like have been doing this for years. I may be wrong but I'm fairly certain Mac OS tells Apple about anything installed through the app store at a minimum. Frankly Microsoft will aggregate this information and use it to find out what causes thinks like crashes and system instability as well as malware and the like. For those kinds of uses I don't see a problem.
Potential abuses come in terms of using it for marketing purposes and if it can be subponead or requested by law enforcement and used to invade your privacy. Microsoft could resolve the privacy issues by abstracting the data with a simple hash of some kind so that your data can't be tracked back to you. In and of itself the concept isn't a bad one.
Microsoft, can you please hash this data to protect peoples privacy and still serve your otherwise legitimate needs?
I'm pretty sure most Linux distributions could easily track everything I have installed as well if they wanted too...
apt-get and yum
Sure you can manually compile some application from its tar.gz, but the vast majority of people use the package managers, which can all easily be tracked if they aren't already.
Um, check the date on that blog post. March 22nd, 2011.
This was a feature added, by default, to Internet Explorer 9.0. It is a part of the browser. If you are running Windows 7 and have updated to Internet Explorer 9.0 then it is already doing this. All Windows 8 does is have Internet Explorer 10 installed by default.
Olds for nerds?
I really want to know if this was changed. What does it mean? Hello?
I'd like to point out that this is the first story in recent memory that points out the problem for US users directly. While having a company monitor your activity is certainly non-optimal, the bigger problem comes in light of recent US cases involving subpena by the US government. How a company will use one's information can be argued. We have direct, documented proof of how the US government has been using this information.
Where genius and insanity become confused true wisdom is found
I know M$ is considered the axis of evil round here, but the would of linux is not entirely free from this kind of thing http://popcon.debian.org/
(although popcon is anonymised)
In order for Microsoft to kill rogue software they have to know something about what you're installing. SmartScreen is Microsoft's attempt to implement this kind of malware prevention, just like the age-old send error report features lets Microsoft know about programs that crash into the operating system's area.
I'm LostCluster but I lost my password to that user. Hey Slashdot, how about helping me get it back!
If a user opts into enabling the SmartScreen Filter, application downloads without established reputation result in a notification (see below) warning them that the file may be a risk to their computer.
when you choose to "opt-out"? What am I prohibited access from for turning it off? Is this like the "Windows Genuine Advantage" malware where you cannot update/patch unless this is turned on? Or is it like the little dialog that pops up when an app crashes asking if it can send details to HQ?
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Does anyone remember the controversy (one of many) about Windows 95 when it would do the same thing? When you went to register it, it would supposedly tell Microsoft what programs you had installed. When I got my Win95 machine in December 1995 I watched carefully to see what it did. The phoning home and telling them what you had installed was voluntary, and the only program that Win95 could accurately detect was MS Office 95. It couldn't detect any of the DOS games I had installed, nor did it seem to recognize the 3rd party email apps, etc I had installed.
Don't I remember that Microsoft has been busted before trying to gather information on all installed applications clear back to Windows '95? Maybe Windows 98? Seems like back then they tried to do it under the radar, and beta testers with packet sniffers caught them and forced them to back down. Happened on a couple of releases of Windows.
Somehow I'm running a copy of Windows that is 90 versions ahead (a time vortex must have deposited it in my basement). I can tell you that, in the future, Microsoft will return to a simpler, more familiar UI.
I just checked my installation and it was already turned OFF.
I Installed Win8 two days ago. You just have to answer installation questions correctly I guess.
$100 on iOS and Android having the same feature. Not that I like it, but why the Windows-only bashing?
I don't have a sig.
The "Windows SmartScreen" referenced in TFA is nothing of the sort.
/. editors to generate traffic to their blog.
This is an IE9 feature, which would not be a huge surprise to find is still there in IE10. TFS links to an 18-month-old article talking about it in IE9. Not Windows 8. There is nothing to back up the wording used in TFS or TFA. It's a good feature I have enabled on my parent's machines for their protection, as it's one more layer against malware downloads.
The ONLY things this feature touches is executables which are downloaded from the Internet using IE. Install from a DVD? Download using Chrome/Firefox? USB drive? Copied from another disk? Compiled yourself? None of those things gets "sent to Microsoft".
Just someone (successfully) using a combination of inflammatory wording and gullible/lazy
You must have a username to download apps from Play. Google can track everything you do, yet no one really complains. Apple is even worse. Microsoft will probably be opening their own app store soon enough.
I think the reactions here are a little off base. First, SmartScreen is not a "new" technology, the only thing that is new is that it checks reputation for individual files as well as sites. Did we have similar articles about how Chrome/IE/Firefox/Safari is 'tracking' everything I do with its URL filtering technology? Maybe. Frankly I didn't care much for that idea either, but SmartScreen is the same exact approach taken to the file level: reputation-based file checking. Many antivirus and application gateway vendors are taking the same approach.
Secondly, it only applies *downloaded from the Internet*. There's nothing to indicate EVERY installed app is 'tracked', files downloaded from the Internet are checked against MS's reputation system. (Yes I know, almost everything is downloaded from the Internet). We see the start of this technology with the warnings that come up when a downloaded file is executed.
Third, I saw no indication that any specifics about the application such as application name (yes file name likely has this information), installation directory, what changes it makes to the system, etc. are transmitted. It likely is more along the lines of "hash xxxxxxxxxxxx downloaded from IP x.x.x.x, size x, type MSI'. Yes, MS will no doubt have a whitelist of known hashes for known application installers, so yes they probably will collect some sort of data from this. Now what really will happen with the data I can't say, but this isn't a case of MS building in overt 'tracking' technology any more than it was when Google's browser did it. Here's the FAQ on SmartScreen: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/smartscreen-filter-frequently-asked-questions#
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Consider downloads of packages from any linux distro. Dist sites can track their logs and see what you downloaded. It might even be able to track additional data. I don't think this is a shock by any means. It's just one step further in identifying you.
The world moves on. You can't live in your sheltered world forever. One day, you'll buy a computer that comes with Windows 8, and Windows 7 drivers aren't available for it. Then software comes out that requires Windows 8 or later. You would have a hard time living with Windows 2000 today. The same thing will happen with Windows 7 in a few years.
I would start with this excellent free tutuorial: Game Programming with C++ It's specifically written for people who don't have access to a computer that want to create C++ games.
It's a feature where where you download random programs from the internet and install them, windows checks if it's known malware.
That actually seems a useful feature, one I wish my parents had on their machine!
Is like putting in dvds a lot of screen time with warnings about piracy. The ones that really does piracy don't get it, and get a user better experience (or in this case, privacy), while the people that don't have to "pay" it.
From personal experience is managing computers that windows XP and windows 7, windows XP is easier to work with. many tools and scripts are designed around windows XP and many advanced sys admin related tasks require fewer steps under windows XP.
For the factory I work at, the computers that came with windows 7 but had windows XP drivers, were "upgraded" to windows XP (not only did they boot faster, they were more snappy on the same hardware.
There is a reason why many major companies refuse to install windows 7.
the first main reason is it will require most of the computers to be replaced (just to have the same workers do the same exact work (especially since most of the offer worker tools are hosted on a server, making the processing power on their end less relevant.
The second reason is there will be reduced productivity for the workers that are not used to windows 7
the 3rd reason is windows 7 uses more resources and offers no additional functionality that matters to the business.
With all this in mind, why would a company want to spend a ton of money buying new computers, a few tons more money getting windows 7 vlk keys, then a ton more money in lost revenue from reduced productivity as workers get used to the OS
and on top of all that, reduced productivity while all of us in the IT department work on new scripts and tools to adapt our work flow to windows 7, all so that the workers can do the same thing they did before?
People need to understand that old does not mean useless.
people who move from windows XP to windows 7, will do the same thing they did on windows XP and do it the same way, only difference for the most part is they will have a new UI that takes up twice the screen space (though they can switch to windows classic UI )
windows 7 is also not any more secure, if you look at when a security flaw is found, it effects multiple versions of windows (generally windows XP, vista, windows 7)
only in very rare cases do you get a infection that only effects 1 OS and when that happens it is usually windows 7 because a security flaw was found in a new feature they added (which is to be expected as no one writes perfect code)
You know, Steam knows not only every game you install, but also every time you play it. That's an even greater intrusion into your privacy, so why aren't you as worried about it?
>>> It's called "downgrade rights"
Please tell me more. I have a Windows 7 PC but suppose it dies five years from now, and I need a replacement. I goto staples, but a Win8 PC, and then what? How do I downgrade it to Windows 7? It isn't on stores shelves anymore (and frankly I don't want to pay for Windows twice... once for 8 and again for 7).
Please educate me and everybody else.
thx
You should have a license key for Win7 and install media; use that to reinstall it in 5 years.
At worst, you may have to burn a copy of the install DVD if you don't already have one. I had to do this with my Inspiron laptop, it has a key, but Dell didn't ship media but they include a method to burn it from a "recovery" partition.
Fifty watts per channel, baby cakes.
The amount of information leakage from windows and applications is quite alarming.
BROWSER:
In particular the change to combined URL+search bar in IE9 has a particularly nasty behavior. ctrl+e is supposed to perform a search with your current search provider so if I type ctrl+e then 'test' it sends that to google or whatever.
ctrl+l is supposed to allow the user to enter a URL not search yet the only difference is it attempts to lookup/connect and if that fails assumes it is a search term so if you put in a hostname for a local intranet site even if it contains query parameters with private information that gets leaked to your search provider! It seems quite intentionally designed to cause information leakage.
The only option I know to change this turns off the search feature completely.
Host of other browser things for phishing/smartscreen, certificate recovation, scanning..etc are obvious in their need to send information and can be toggled thru software options.
OFFICE:
The other day I was in office and every time I tried to cut and paste something I inadvertently was triggering the translation feature this was sending portions of my document to Microsoft to be translated simply by highlighting text... The way it was done it is so much of an automated gesture thing it was virtually impossible for me to navigate thru the document without accidently tripping it off even after trying not to. I turned off all translations - it was driving me nuts.
The networking location awareness service continually leaks data to Microsoft and whenever you connect to a network the only way to change this is via registry hacks.
I'm not against the existance of features which require coordination over a network or central databases to work however it must be made clear via central configuration to the user what is happening and in all cases they must have the option to disable any functionality that calls home either locally or by group policy.
Disabling these features must not unecessarily punish the user by unecessarily crippling a subsystem in retaliation.
... during Windows 8 installation it is one of the first options to disable..?
So many people complaining about Windows 8 have not even used it.
....so does every iPhone, iPad, iPod, Android out there. But its only bad because Microsoft is doing it because we know Apple and Google do no evil...snicker.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/30/smartphone_spying_app/ -- It sure stinks, but somebody's got to sniff it!
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
Nerds and other people that care about privacy will turn it off. .exe they see from a blinking advertisement saying it'll fix their computer.
Morons and other such idiots will leave it on, and that's probably a good thing.
Maybe this thing will stop them from downloading every
Apple would also know all your installations and the iOS environment
Yes, because they RUN THE APP STORE.
That's so obvious that anyone would EXPECT it.
Not only that, but it's on smartphones which inherently are much more locked down than desktops.
do you really think they are only doing this to "make sure you have a good experience?
They are doing is because after you buy an app you have to have some way to download it from a server. Therefore they have to know who you are.
It also means you can download the app again onto any other device because it knows you bought it already.
What is not obvious, where Microsoft is off on a new path, is that if I download an app for my laptop from some website Microsoft is told about that too (as I understand it). Apple doesn't do that if I download on app from any random website for my Macbook, and Microsoft has not done that before in Windows (that I know of).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Finally protection against unauthorized rootkit installation by MAFIAA companies!
Or does it not include everything?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
In actually, I always make perfect sense - now is a great opportunity to scrutinize all of your past disagreements with my posts and find where you were flawed. :-)
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Google does this with Android and it's acceptable. Apple does this with iOS and it's acceptable. Microsoft does this and everyone gets outraged!
With ASHEN GRAY PENCILS!
I mean it really skipped the "desktop" and went right to phone and tabet devices. Next is consoles. Then of course consoles will kill PC's so it will be moot right?
In Capitalist Amerika, servers monitor YOU!
I bet these admins have some great server monitors^W^W monitor servers...
There is a difference between an app store keeping track of what I have downloaded (and installed) from said store versus the OS keeping track of everything I've installed. The fact that it can be disabled is good, but still inadequate because how many users will even know to go in and disable it.
A better approach would be like many linux distros do and default the tracking to "no" and ask the user whether they would like to turn it on (along with what happens if they say "yes").
If M$ wants to keep track of the service patches I've downloaded from them and installed, that's fine. If they want to keep track of every other piece of software I've installed, whether downloaded (legally or not) or purchased, well, that's none of their business.
. . . assuming M$ is still installing that ADVAPI.DLL for their perusal and enjoyment....
Helping an old friend set up her new PC (an HP with Windows 7) and finding that I could not do things that I take for granted (file operations) and that I was precluded from making any meaningful changes. I just transferred her files installed Firefox and OpenOffice.org and threw in the towel! If Windows 8 is even worse, I'm not going to touch it either.
I am quite happy with Ubuntu!
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
Those of you that have gone through the installation would know that this is an option and it IS NOT checked by default. It's also quite clearly explained what it does.
Usual bullshit slashtard headline.
What hardware?
I'm a Mac and iOS user, but I don't see why anyone should really freak out over this. Apple knows each every single app you load your iPhone or iPad (as well as all apps you download through the App Store on the Mac), yet no one I know of is concerned by this "invasion of privacy". If and when they start tracking private data within the apps, then I'd protest.
"The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well."
You mean the OS that, by default, blocks you from running content that isn't blessed by Apple? Yes, you can download apps from sources that aren't the App Store - but they still have to be signed, otherwise, it either will refuse to run or lie to you and say that the app is "damaged" and you should "drag it to the trash."
I'm running apple's mountain lion and this simply is incorrect. If you right click on an application it will run it if it is signed or not signed. It warns you the first time it is not signed then it shuts up. You don't need to disable gate keeper.
the previous versions of the OS warned you the first time you ran anything from the internet. the new one avoids that warning if the app is signed. if it's unsigned it warns you and refuses to run. If you don't know that you can right click rather than left click to run it, then perhaps it's a good thing it refuses to run it. But if you do know to right click then it will let you do it then stop warning you.
What's good about this is that it reduces the number of warnings you see and only flags the ones that might matter. it does not keep warning you once you approve it.
Additionally apple is going to behavioural sandboxes which will let you approve the app to run as you expect but not do things you don't expect. These will grow int he future. This will let you approve more and more dubious apps. Thus this expands the freedom to use "untrusted" sources.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
pc's and laptops will come with an extra button on the keyboard or case to remove windows 8 and download windows 7 from the piratebay
Sometimes I wonder, what if we just forget about the whole privacy thing.
Even more, not forget about it, but go completely the other way: record everything, make everything a matter of public record. What you ate for lunch, what Mitt Romney put in his tax records 10 years ago, what the mafia boss gave to your elected representative last month, what you were watching when you masturbated in your bed last night.
I'm not entirely convinced it's a good idea, yet I can't help wonder. The problem right now is now the loss of privacy, but the selective loss of privacy - that certain people know certain things about other specific people. What if everybody could know everything about everyone - nothing hidden, nothing closed, everything 100% open, everywhere, all the time.
This would solve a number of issues with democracy, for sure. It would be the end of hypocrisy in the public sphere (because, well, everything would be public). It would certainly reduce a lot of crime and transform justice as we know it from an evaluation of opinions to an evaluation of facts and data.
One issue I see is how certain corporations could then correlate certain information and extract meaningful data - but they already do this in many instances, and if it were all in the open, anyone would be free to do the same thing, this information would not be secret. And well, the amount of data would dilute any one individual among a sea of data.
I don't know if it's a good idea, as I mentioned, or if humanity is ready for this. We've had some de-facto privacy since the dawn of civilisation, when larger groups gathered and built cities, but previously to that time those living in small villages and members of nomadic groups knew everything about each other, so I think we are mentally equipped to deal with others knowing a lot about ourselves. It has been impossible to share it all in larger groups until now, but the technology is here, and some are obviously ready to use (and abuse) it for their own ends. Why don't we bypass those abusers and remove their incentive by allowing everyone to have access to all of it?
If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
WinXP was Microsoft's very first operating system worthy of not being called a turd.
Windows Vista had some good ideas, but was a terrible (horrible, vile) implementation.
Windows7 seems to have fixed a lot of the aggravation that was Vista. It's the new XP.
Windows8 looks to be worse than vile. You cannot pay me to abuse myself with it.
We'll see what Window9 will bring, but at the current rate it will not redeem Microsoft.
--Udo.
While I'm a big Linux advocate (read "Microsoft hater"), I do not think there is harm in this as long as there is an option in the installation program to turn it off. Debian provides such a feature known as its "popularity contest" to determine which packages are the most popular. You can choose to either enable or disable it at install time. If you decide to change your mind later, you simply install/uninstall the popularity-contest package. If it is an opt-in choice like Debian's popularity contest, I don't see why it's such a big privacy issue so long as Microsoft doesn't mislead people by saying it helps to prevent malware infections such as viruses and trojans. After all, it's merely a way to submit information about installed applications to Microsoft and does nothing to prevent such infections.
I have been a captive in America my entire life. Everybody and everything uses customary units instead of metric.
Really? This is a top privacy threat Nadim? This post reminds me of the 1970's racial discrimination hidden under the guise of rational criticism on other fronts. We each get a limited amount of bandwidth to capture other people's attention on important issues and this doesn't seem like it meets the bar. I don't disagree with the observation that it would be better to surface app tracking by Microsoft as an opt-in choice with end user benefits and a clear use and retention policy. But what about all of the privacy issues which result from the lack of anonymous remailers or the problem with ISP's logging everything. Wouldn't the app downloads and all other unencrypted traffic be accessible from the ISP already? And what about web bugs that allow surrepticious tracking in web pages? Your criticism is valid but seems like it is distracting from more important issues. Let's get Cryptocat working in browsers without a plug-in. How about surfacing criticism regarding what ISN'T available to enable that to work today? -Matt
You know just go ahead and install little webcams and microphones and wireless transmitters in everyones foreheads and be done with it.
Can Microsoft make me NOT want to buy this OS anymore? I mean... Seriously?
I installed Windows 8 earlier this week at work. I don't explicitly remember seeing *anything* about SmartScreen. Based on this thread I checked the settings, and it was not turned on.
I'm not sure what I did to make SmartScreen disabled, but there is probably a choice in the installation process which prevents it from running.
That's BS, I wonder where they got that idea from. Sent from my iPad
remember kids, apple is the new microsoft.
now, let's look at this like the critical nerds we all are.
debian had this earlier than anyone else! popularity contest anyone? but it was opt-in.
then microsoft had windows update, which send all that anyway still opt-in. apple followed closely with they update thing, not opt-in anymore.
then apple went gold with itunes on mobiles, and android (and everybody else) followed. you stopped having privacy or even owing your stuff.
then apple decided you still had too much freedom and now they have the same on desktops.
meanwhile ubuntu being the evil linux followed suit and made popularity contest opt-out.
and why is people now being chocked that microsoft is just following the crowd?
https://support.apple.com/kb/HT4063
A) There is no standard IDE and the SDK is nonexistent -- App developers generally don't feel welcome or like they can easily 'get their legs'.
B) 'Developer' support sites are overwhelmingly oriented to system coders, and these sites pretend that all coders are the same.
C) The GUI environment fluctuates greatly from distro to distro, and within each distro, and every 18-24 months.
C1) The chaotic state of GUIs prevents the user experience from 'gelling', making the systems feel disjointed and even unidentifiable. (That's right, most people could not identify a "Linux Desktop" if their lives depended on it, which to me signifies that "Linux Desktop" is a apparition experienced by techies.)
C2) Just try doing phone tech support for a GUI app on Linux, for a living. I have and with non-techie customers the overhead and disorientation factor is too high.
D) Most PCs are now laptops, and Linux power management still sucks. Hardware support lags in general, partly because the Linux Foundation has ignored the role it has to play in helping consumers identify compatible equipment. The smart thing to do would be to start a hardware certification program for OEMs and license a special Linux-compatible logo to them.
D1) Shall I describe how popular distros handle mirroring and dual-displays, combined with events like wake and sleep, on my 2006 and 2009 vintage laptops? Actually, its too frustrating to go into here.
E) App packaging and management is still in a bad way. It has to be both intuitive for the consumer (they can download a file or use a CD if they wish) and flexible for the author (packaging for independent distribution ought not to be a high-wire act that leaves you with only the most sparse set of APIs to work with). Work on offering the best of both world instead of cramming everything into a huge repository because many things simply won't fit in there.
F) "Linux Desktop" proponents keep telling us to sit tight because web apps are the future. That cop out doesn't even work in the smartphone market. So stop pushing thick clients in place of personal computers; that is a shameful bait-and-switch.
G) Apps still sell the systems to a large degree. A,B,C and E are the most direct causes for the dearth of top-tier apps.
"No OS or desktop is perfect" -- indeed -- but what we know of as "Desktop Linux" is a non-entity for the average consumer. There will be no real advance in mindshare or marketshare until most of the above are changed for the better. A distro like Ubuntu would do well do follow my advice, and while they're at it remove the overt association with "Linux" itself... people who like and support the OS should be coding apps for "Ubuntu" not "Linux". It seems to work for Android.
Linux is ready for desktop use, I have not used Windows for 3 years and I donot see any point to use windows any more considering the secure-boot nonsense and etc..
http://fedora.12.n6.nabble.com/Fedora-causes-laptop-to-overheat-td2406515.html
I've had this experience myself with the RHEL-family distros (RHEL6, Fedora 16, CentOS 6). On some models they don't seem to run the system fans correctly, the kernel generates a lot of CPU temperature warnings, then the system stops working (sometimes permanently). Actually, I think this problem holds for most Linux distros that are not based on Ubuntu (which runs fine on the same systems).
n/t
Easier to compile a superdatabase than to go step by step into code and profile/debug/test/QA it. Then efforts are diverted to data mining a big database (!) and the OS, well, thank you, nice of you to ask about it, it is not a bug, it is a _feature_ (another one who does not bite the dust-eh). And you blame the **faulty** application rather than admit intracompany ineptitude OR invisible updating to turn your hacked undocumented ID_s into trash... and the app is now a OS new feature and a new MS division. But to be fair it is OK IF they do not impede installations, do not associate them to individuals, nor deal individually with individual system configurations (profile): you no longer own your system, it reverts to MS because your configuration is too good, nice TV watch. On the positive side... will they ensure payments to shareware providers? ._.
It has been ready for ages. I started using it in 1995 (not ready) and have not used anything else for at least 7 or 8 years.
If people can't leave products that abuse their trust nothing can be done really.
But frankly can't be bothered to reply. You are making most of those things up.
Doesn't Windows 7 do this already?