Slashdot Mirror
Windows 10's Privacy Policy: the New Normal?
An anonymous reader writes: The launch of Windows 10 brought a lot of users kicking and screaming to the "connected desktop." Its benefits come with tradeoffs: "the online service providers can track which devices are making which requests, which devices are near which Wi-Fi networks, and feasibly might be able to track how devices move around. The service providers will all claim that the data is anonymized, and that no persistent tracking is performed... but it almost certainly could be." There are non-trivial privacy concerns, particularly for default settings.
According to Peter Bright, for better or worse this is the new normal for mainstream operating systems. We're going to have to either get used to it, or get used to fighting with settings to turn it all off. "The days of mainstream operating systems that don't integrate cloud services, that don't exploit machine learning and big data, that don't let developers know which features are used and what problems occur, are behind us, and they're not coming back. This may cost us some amount of privacy, but we'll tend to get something in return: software that can do more things and that works better."
According to Peter Bright, for better or worse this is the new normal for mainstream operating systems. We're going to have to either get used to it, or get used to fighting with settings to turn it all off. "The days of mainstream operating systems that don't integrate cloud services, that don't exploit machine learning and big data, that don't let developers know which features are used and what problems occur, are behind us, and they're not coming back. This may cost us some amount of privacy, but we'll tend to get something in return: software that can do more things and that works better."
Cortana cannot be disabled without breaking Windows. Yes, you can turn all of the settings off, but the process still runs in the background and auto restarts when killed. I even went into the windows group policy settings and forbade Cortana, and it still ran as a process in the background. So, I tried to use powershell to remove it since it was installed as a "modern app". I removed every trace of modern app, including the Windows store, rebooted, Cortana was still there, running the background, consuming 0%-0.1% cpu and using ~35MB of RAM. So, I found out where Cortana was on the file system, killed the process, and renamed the folder, so that it would not be found. And that did work, Cortana never restarted. The only problem was Windows Update stopped working! Yes, not being able to start Cortana prevents Windows 10 from installing updates. I had to run sfc (which fixed Cortana) to install updates, and now the Cortana process is back. Also, when I renamed the Cortana install folder, the search feature of the start menu stopped working completely (no type to search). Magically started working once Cortana was back. I can't believe how deep this thing has its tentacles into the OS, it really is disturbing.
I'd love to run Linux, but it can't...
*Deal with a Cintiq for shit.
*Run Photoshop in any meaningful way. GIMP remains after all this time a deeply inferior piece of software.
*Offer a decent layout package... -This may have changed; I haven't checked recently to see if there is anything workable today. I would imagine there must be, since print agencies all take PDF files and any OS incapable of producing a PDF book layout is a joke...
But honestly, it comes down to this: if I can't run a pressure sensitive stylus in Photoshop or create industry standard press files, then the OS is a non-option, as has been the case with Linux for two decades and counting.
When that changes and is proven reliable, I'll jump to Linux in a heartbeat. Right now I've got a MS workflow which does the job, and I've got contracts to fill.
I've never been a Linux expert, but I've used it for a long time because it was stable, it worked, and I knew I could trust it more than I could trust the alternatives. I would even recommend it to family, friends and colleagues. At various times I've set up at least 10 of them with PCs or laptops running Ubuntu, and the feedback was generally positive.
But the situation has changed so dramatically over the past maybe two or three years. During this period of time we've watched as systemd has made its way into every distro, including important ones like Debian (my preferred distro) and soon Ubuntu (the distro I'd use for other people) from what I've heard. I've had some really bad experiences with systemd, where it rendered by system unbootable. While trying to solve these problems of mine I've come to learn that a lot of other people have had similar problems with systemd. I keep reading about how great it is, but it has caused me nothing but problems. I've also read about how awful the earlier systems were, but they never caused me any problem at all! I can't recommend Linux to people I know if it won't reliably boot!
It isn't just systemd that has caused me problems. I was a big fan of the GNOME desktop, back in the 1 and 2 days. But GNOME 3 crushed my enthusiasm. I've actually tried it for over a week at a time to give it a fair shake, but after the week is up I am desperate to get back to some other desktop environment. Everything about GNOME 3 is just awful. It isn't usable, it looks really bad, and it makes me extremely unproductive. Things aren't any better on Ubuntu. I haven't used it much, but I've found their desktop environment to be just as bad as GNOME 3, and maybe even worse. I've been using KDE lately, but it's not very good, either. I can't recommend Linux to people I know if it doesn't offer a usable desktop environment!
Even Firefox, the main Linux web browser, has taken a turn for the worse. The UI is really awful, in many of the same ways that GNOME 3 is awful. I still find Firefox feels really slow, while Chrome feels so much faster all of the time. But I don't want to use Chrome because of its association with Google. For a long time each upgrade of Firefox would break a bunch of my extensions, too. I can't recommend Linux to people I know if it doesn't offer a quality web browser!
I want to promote the use of Linux and open source software. I really do! But it's just something I can't do any longer, because the quality of so many critical components of a typical Linux desktop installation have gone straight to the pits of hell so badly. I'm not going to ruin my reputation by recommending software that will just cause my friends, family and colleagues trouble!
More people will just move to Linux.
Windows 10 just surpassed Linux in Steam installations. That ship has sailed, and it is long since over the horizon.
I have a Linux box and a Windows box, but I don't expect to be anything but the minority there.
Windows is still where it's at for PC gaming, I'm not hearing any bullshit about the Steam Linux library when it's just one slice of the PC gaming pie. And it still comes with PCs. So if you persist in believing that Linux is going to overtake Windows any time soon, you're gonna have a bad time.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Then you're doing it wrong. With linux, all you have to do is stick the install cd into the drive and reboot, you'll get a brand new system. The beauty of Linux is that the system is designed to cleanly separate your files from the system files, and the system partitions can be completely overwritten with a brand new system to make it work again.
If You're Not Paying, You're The Product.
Except they will charge for it later, and you will still be the product buying another product.
Woosh.
You can put /home on a separate partition. This means if the system needs to be reinstalled, you can reinstall the OS without having to replace /home, so all your files and user land settings remain intact.
Of course, you didn't use Linux long enough to learn that, did you?
Except it's not about making the software better. It's about making more money by selling the information you get from this 'feedback'.
This is happening everywhere you have software running connected to the internet. Vehicles, IoT, mobile apps, desktop software, web apps.
It's the idea that you didn't pay them enough up front, that they deserve an ongoing revenue stream at long as that license is being used and there are no limits as to what they can do to get that money.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
I also work with Photoshop a lot (with an Intuos though, no Cintiq), as well as InDesign, Illustrator, a bit of Lightroom. Every other company I deal with does the same and uses the same file formats. Linux is pointless for me as well.
But then again, we're an electronics manufacturer and for the most part Linux is useless to us as a desktop OS: .NET or old ones making very heavy use of MFC and other non-portable stuff)
-Our 3D design is done with SolidWorks which doesn't run on Linux
-Our electronic design is done with Altium Designer which doesn't run on Linux
-Most of our existing embedded code bases compile with Imagecraft and IAR only (And Keil for some older products), and some microcontrollers don't even have a GCC port (usable or not)
-We use MS Office as most companies because it's the only thing that really seems to work well
-Our accounting system is Windows-only
-100% of our in-house tools are windows only (either
-Most of our electronics lab tools are Windows-only
-99% of the other 3rd party software we use doesn't work on anything else than Windows
-some of our old ERP system reports even use ActiveX controls which is quickly becoming a pain in the ass (yes, laugh all you want and blame us for a decision made by some manager at another company 15+ years ago!)
I *really* hate Windows 8.x and 10 with a passion (7 seems like it'll the last good version *ever*) but Linux doesn't do 1% of what we need it for on the desktop. Even OS X is very limited in terms of what runs on it. As for servers, we do use Linux for some stuff though (git/svn repositories, simple databases, etc). It works well enough for that and the price is definitely right (no MS licensing hassle either)
It's funny how /. folks still don't get it. Consumers/users don't know anything about their PCs or devices, and they don't care.
They care when it starts displaying a slideshow of their pr0n stash in the Start Menu.
The real problem is that operating systems pretty much reached the 'all done' point ten years ago, when they did everything that anyone could reasonably want them to do. Everything since has just been trying to find new things they could add to justify pushing a new version. Writing 'The Cloud' services is much more exciting for hipsters than fixing bugs.
For many laptops, all the hardware is basically from Intel. Intel writes amazing open source drivers. There are exceptions I'm sure. My first working WiFi adapter that didn't require external configuration was the on-board Intel one.
Just because it hasn't happened to you doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
I've migrated myself back in 98. I've migrated other people. It's been getting easier to migrate people since Ubuntu Dapper which came out 9 years ago.
I'm going to migrate my wife to it, probably this week. She's fed up with 7, hates 8.x and read about the privacy stuff for 10. As a social activist, she wants no part of the "give everything to the cloud" stupidity.
Speaking of which, after analyzing what passes for a privacy policy for 10, it is completely HIPAA non-compliant. It basically says "we don't guarantee that your data won't leak from our servers, so enjoy your $50K fines and lawsuits." HIPAA covers not only hospitals and doctors, but other health care workers as well, including private contractors that do hospice and elderly care at the huge wage of $15-$17/hr, who simply /cannot afford/ to hire someone to harden their Windows laptops. 10 is a fucking nightmare for HIPAA - unsafe at any speed. Windows is the Corvair of OSes.
--
BMO
Stick with Win 7 until the pirate version comes out. Its the same thing we saw with games overflowing with DRM, the pirates end up releasing a better version with all that shit stripped out.
Just as we had "WinXP Micro" and "Win 7 Tiny" there will be a "Gamer Edition" or "Tiny edition" released by the hackers that will have all that shit ripped out so its just an OS that can play games. You of course won't be able to use the updates because they require all that phone home bullshit, but a good AV and a sandboxed browser fixes that problem pretty well.
But the only way we can get rid of Win 10 is if we all shit all over it just as we did with windows 8 and 8.1. If all the regular users hear is how much of a POS it is? They will stay away. If we tell them they are broadcasting their porn habits to a company that is gonna share it with anybody that offers them a buck? they will treat the "free" upgrade like plague blankets. We already have a HUGE head start as all I've been hearing is how "slow and jerky" Windows 10 is thanks to MSFT's bineheaded P2Ping Windows Updates, so if we all spread the word, get the bloggers writing about it (which we are seeing already) that Windows 10 is no different than the spyware that comes with some "free" program? Then we CAN change the narrative.
But until we get Win 10 thrown in the same shit bucket as 8 and 8.1 just avoid it and wait for a pirate version if there is some DX12 game you want to play.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Or have it turned off for you.
Seriously. The fact that this *can* be turned off in the enterprise version shows that there is nothing in Windows' archictecture that requires it.
As long as each and every MS Windows installation makes one administrator when one installs it, one can turn all those things off (or de-install them).
When I say "one", I don't mean the "average user" of course. It would take 'em (myself included) months of intense study to figure out how to do that (and they won't have the time, the interest, the aptitude, or the stamina for that). The good news is that they probably won't have to.
For computer-literate people there will probably be utilities / batch files to take care of Microsoft's pre-installed "tattleware" for you.
For complete end-users I also foresee a market for something like an "add-on control panel" that shows every (known) piece of "tattleware" on MS Windows and allows you to switch it off (or even de-install it). A seperate piece of software that works as a Windows "service" can ensure that this user "policy" is enforced every time Windows boots plus, say, at 2-hr intervals.