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A Naysayer's Take On Windows 10: Potential Privacy Mess, and Worse
Lauren Weinstein writes: I had originally been considering accepting Microsoft's offer of a free upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10. After all, reports have suggested that it's a much more usable system than Windows 8/8.1 — but of course in keeping with the 'every other MS release of Windows is a dog' history, that's a pretty low bar. However, it appears that MS has significantly botched their deployment of Windows 10. I suppose we shouldn't be surprised, even though hope springs eternal. Since there are so many issues involved, and MS is very aggressively pushing this upgrade, I'm going to run through key points here quickly, and reference other sites' pages that can give you more information right now. But here's my executive summary: You may want to think twice, or three times, or many more times, about whether or not you wish to accept the Windows 10 free upgrade on your existing Windows 7 or 8/8.1 system.
Now that we're into the first week of widespread availability for the new version, if you're a Windows user and upgrader, has your experience been good, horrible, or someplace between?
I am not a fan of Microsoft but the Author's trust in Google wrt his data is definitely misplaced, that makes me assume he doesn't know 2 bits about modern day technology (advertisements) and is probably just a MS hater.
This is Slashdot. Don't expect anything sensible or even half reasonable about Microsoft here.
You are still griping about automatic updates to the system? KEEP YOUR SYSTEM PATCHED. Or don't run Windows. Or run the Enterprise Version. Home users NEED AUTOMATIC UPDATES. Otherwise their systems won't stay patched.
Not that it matters at this point. As was evidenced by the recent OSX one-line-root flaw, security is non-existent.
There's going to be a lot of noise. I would suggest taking a wait-and-see attitude for some weeks or months before bringing down the hammer. I have seen others say they had no issue.
Maybe it was just poorly written, but it doesn't seem like she has any specific complaints.
Then there was the odd bit about how she trusts Google, so it's okay for them to collect vast amounts of information about her.
Why is this here?
Required reading for internet skeptics
Anti-Microsoft, pro-Google, and no stated reason for faith in one "doing the right thing with respect to protecting the data" while the other, apparently, will not.
Except for this:
How this suffices for posting on Slashdot with the headline tease "Privacy Mess" eludes me. Google = Bing. Google Drive = OneDrive. Chrome = Win 8+ windows-account-synced favorites and settings. Pot and Kettle both the same color, black or otherwise.
Don't try to upgrade from Windows Update. Just don't. It'll fail. Something is borked with the download process. It'll probably be fixed in a week (or even today, maybe), but for now, to be on the safe side, just go to this link - https://www.microsoft.com/en-u... and download the ISO. Then burn it to a DVD or install it onto a USB drive of sufficient capacity, and away you go. Not sure if it would work if you mounted it to a virtual drive, but worth a try.
I updated 3 systems (a 3 year old desktop, a 2 year old laptop with hybrid graphics, and a virtual machine in VMware on a 4 year old craptop) and did not have any upgrade issues. The only problem I had was on my desktop, where I would occasionally get a MEMORY_MANAGEMENT BSOD when viewing the start menu, until I updated my AMD Catalyst drivers to the latest on the AMD site.
Some more pitfalls:
- If you have exotic or rare network cards, graphics cards or printers, you may want to hold off to see if people with your hardware have similar problems. .NET framework, kernel, or other things like that? You should probably not attempt an upgrade, especially if the vendor/developer of these changes is not a well-known commercial entity with an established footprint.
- Is your GPU (graphics card, whether it's on the CPU, on the motherboard, or an expansion card) *more than* 4 years old? If so, you may have some problems, especially if it's by Intel.
- Do you have any programs installed which install custom software into the OS kernel ("kernel modules" / "drivers")? Things like: virtualization software (VMware, Virtual Box), VPN software (OpenVPN, SSL VPN clients, etc.), certain audio / video production software, etc? If you see anything in Device Manager that isn't actually a piece of hardware and sounds like it's associated with a program you have, chances are good that the answer is "yes". You should really consider uninstalling these programs before you upgrade to reduce the potential for incompatibility in the kernel. Then you can try to install them after the upgrade is complete, where the driver will hopefully fail to load "gracefully" and error out of the installer if it turns out to be incompatible.
- Is your system *extremely* "hacked up", with extensive deep-running customizations to the UI,
Summary: If you have a computer that was purchased new with current-gen hardware within the past 4 years, and you don't have anything more than web browsers, office programs, and games installed, you should have no problems upgrading. If you have a much older computer, your risk of breakage is higher. If you have deep customizations to the OS, your risk of breakage is higher. If you're in doubt, hold off until others with similar configurations try it first and report their results. But for the love of God, use the ISO, not Windows Update, to upgrade.
Or, and hear me out here, home users might just in fact need the ability to opt out of some updates due to a wide variety of reasons ranging from compatibility issues to the update doing something they don't want (i.e. installing a "upgrade to windows 10!" popup) to the update not being required to install right at this instant and they need the bandwidth for something else (hello 300mb "ms word 2010 help file" update) due to being in a low connectivity area.
Apparently this also applies to driver updates, which have a much greater chance to brick your system, or at least prevent games you played yesterday from running today.
So, basically, it only sends all your stuff to Microsoft if you don't turn off that 'feature'?
Yes, lets run down the arguments in the article:
"It's obvious from my email today that this icon and MS pitch alone are confusing many users."
Ok, this actually has nothing to do with Windows 10 itself. It's a valid point as far as it goes, but how exactly was MS supposed to inform the affected users that the Windows 10 update was available?
"If you decide you do not wish to upgrade to Win10 now, you may want to get rid of that notification. MS doesn't tell you how (surprise!) and the procedure can range from relatively simple to "a real mess" "
Again, not actually about Windows 10. In fact it's about how to avoid Windows 10, which MS wants people to see as simply another update a la "Update Tuesday", though granted a major one.
"Many users -- especially on somewhat under-powered systems -- may find Win10 to be a painfully slow experience compared with Win7, irrespective of MS' claims."
Big citation needed. There's no evidence that Windows 10 performs worse on low power systems and there's significant evidence that it performs better.
"Worse, some functionalities important to many users are missing. If you use Windows Media Center -- that's gone from Win10. DVD playback is currently problematic."
I guess I don't know about this one. I do know I was able to play DVD's on the technical previews without issue.
"And here's a biggy. If you don't want Microsoft installing updates automatically -- if you're a user who has chosen to take control of this process up to now -- you probably will hate Win10."
Ok, here we have arguably the first real problem. MS has botched Windows updates in the past. Being able to block them and roll them back is how those situations have been limited and fixed. Lumping drivers into this forced upgrade schedule... as a laptop user this makes me nervous. Laptop drivers can be quite finicky and I don't always blindly trust newer versions when they land.
"In some environments, this is unacceptable from a support and security standpoint, and reports are already coming in regarding driver related issues."
Going back to FUD again... the automatic, unblockable upgrades only applies to Home users. If you're using Home editions in a corporate environment you're gonna have a bad time. It's also probably against your license agreement and can land you in trouble (right or not) with the licensing boards.
"The details are buried down in the new Win10 privacy policy/user agreement, but the bottom line is that by default Win10 will be sending a lot of your data from your computer to Microsoft that they never had access to before." (Data syncing by default)
We're back on track! This is a real issue potentially. I'd prefer this were more explicitly spelled out during install and the user given more fine grained control over things. Sending all your docs and data to a 3rd party by default without informed consent should be illegal IMO. The fact that you can turn the features off mitigates things, but doesn't really solve them.
You asshat. Why wouldn't you check to see if your RAID setup was compatible first? This isn't a windows problem, this is classic pebcac.
The level of data collection and sharing enabled by default in Windows 10 is truly scary, as I mentioned in a comment yesterday (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=7759605&cid=50205063). But that blog post is snarky and awful. There is a decent article about it, which belongs in the summary, ironically one she linked herself: http://thenextweb.com/microsof...
There may be a valid point or two in that blog, but the Google drool all over it makes it truly terrible.
"I have enormous faith in Google and Googlers doing the right thing with respect to protecting the data I share with them"
Umm yeah...
"Users with Home versions of Win10 will be required to accept automatic updates, including drivers.
And here's a biggy. If you don't want Microsoft installing updates automatically -- if you're a user who has chosen to take control of this process up to now -- you probably will hate Win10.
In some environments, this is unacceptable from a support and security standpoint, and reports are already coming in regarding driver related issues."
The cesspool that is the average Windows Home machine can only be improved by automatic updates. Just heard from someone a couple of days ago that they disabled Windows Update completely because it made their computer slow.
Many users -- especially on somewhat under-powered systems -- may find Win10 to be a painfully slow experience compared with Win7, irrespective of MS' claims.
Weasel worded nonsense - most factual reports suggest the opposite.
First things first. It's obvious from my email today that this icon and MS pitch alone are confusing many users. They've never seen anything like this appear before and many think it's a virus or that their system has been otherwise compromised.
Ah I wish the average user was that suspicious about actual threats. That corner on the average Windows machine is taken up by about twenty background apps.
The privacy issues in Windows 10 are quite fucking terrifying, and matter far more than one more icon hidden in a corner.
The issue for me is that I use Windows because I have to, Android / iPhone / GMail / Siri / Google Now etc. are a choice. And if I am not wrong, these are all opt in, you get notices when you first start up your phone / iDevice. Also a quick read suggest Microsoft's data collection goes far beyond anything I have seen even from Google.
"Windows 10 generates a unique advertising ID for each user on each device. "
"We will access, disclose and preserve personal data, including your content (such as the content of your emails, other private communications or files in private folders), when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary to protect our customers or enforce the terms governing the use of the services."
tl;dr Windows 10 privacy issues are scary, but that blog post is garbage, try here: http://thenextweb.com/microsof...
(Data syncing by default)
And thus does opt-out rear its ugly head, yet again. Not only that, if what you write is true the average user won't even know that it's happening, that they can stop it or that they have any control whatsoever over what gets sent to the cloud. Now, consider what happens when you're on limited bandwidth and you get a bill for far more traffic than you can account for. If I ran Windows (I don't.) this would be one more reason for me to avoid Windows 10 like the plague.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
My views of Microsoft and Google are pretty much diametrically opposed -- I have enormous faith in Google and Googlers doing the right thing with respect to protecting the data I share with them
Right. Of those two companies, only one has pretty much built their entire business model around harvesting your data 6 ways from Sunday, and the other one hasn't.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
One Ring 0 to rule them all. One ring to wiretap them.
One Ring 0 to spy on them all and in adware f... them.
Unique ad ID for every user, forced updates, harvesting and sharing our data. Come on guys, you must know where this is going. IMHO it is all targeted at future advertising and monetising us. They might have finally realised that there are tools like adblock that won't go away easily and the only sure way to present us with crap is to firstly deprive us of ways of fighting back (eg. uninstalling unwanted bloatware) and then make advertising a part of the system which I am pretty sure will start appearing sooner than we think..
And that's a worrying idea. It seems that soon they may not only have our data but our hardware as well. You'll be buying a shiny new unit just to let someone else tell you what to run on it. Imagine ads popping up while working in Excel.
And when you think about it, there is no real alternative. Even though there other OSes available for our own tasks, the majority of the world runs on Microsoft products. We cannot simply dump and ignore them if we care about our jobs.
Modern slavery.
How many bugs did you actually find? How many did you report? That part is not so "fun".
Which is exactly why Microsofts million-person testing scheme did them almost exactly no good. Most of their "testers" played with it until it failed and then silently stopped using it, giving MS no value at all for the exercise. Worse, it may have given them a false sense of security. They desperately need people with obscure hardware to test the new OS, but this is the last kind of system that anyone is likely to use to test a new OS from Microsoft unless they are explicitly being paid to do so.
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
and the other one hasn't.
Correction: The other one would like to, but can't figure out why no one wants to give them the data?
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted