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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."
"...software that can do more things and that works better..."
That's the funniest goddam thing I've read this week.
They already know that.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
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.
More people will just move to Linux.
I wish. I've tried to switch to Linux on many occasions (at least 6 that come to mind). Every single time something breaks in a manner that requires a complete re-install of the entire thing, spending hours searching forums for possible causes/solutions, etc. The last attempt was thwarted by Microsoft and UEFI. One thing Microsoft does well is it makes sure that once something important breaks it has tools to recover, at least partially, so the user can continue. With Linux it's luck into a terminal fix or re-install and start over from scratch.
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.
If i can use all my Windows programs without having to use some convoluted whatever so i can run them sure i will switch. Nothing Linux makes comes close to what is available to windows users. I want my OS to do the work, i don't have the time nor want too nor should I. That,s what a stinking computer is saposta do right? Take all the hard stuff and make it easy. You want to fiddle with your OS? more power to you. But me and a few billion others just don't want too. That,s why Linix is not popular, that's why Linux lost the Desktop OS wars. Ya telling user don't like it??change it yourself looser is going to make a ton of converts right? I hate windows 8 and 10 but i will never switch to an OS that cant even run my programs kinda ok. Gold?silver?Bronze? lol
Jack of all trades,master of none
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.
It's up to us tech folks to save the day....oh, shit, that's right, everyone here works for a company that profits from collecting data from end users.
Never mind, we're all fucked.
One more reason not to have windows in your home or business...
Haha, this is the biggest "Linux!!!!" flamebait article... Anyway, yeah, it seems fairly obvious. The trend for years has been a move back to server-side processing and services that are very heavy on collected user data.
The thing is, it's not just Evul Micro$oft spying on you with a telescope - the spying comes wrapped in services that people actually want. For many people it's a tradeoff - they know they're giving their data away, but they're willing to give up a bit of privacy for the convenience that comes with the service. I find that the average person doesn't usually have the same reverence for privacy as the average Slashdotter.
It's already been said, and it'll be said a hundred more times before we let this article go, but yes, Linux and FOSS in general are the answer. We've been going back and forth about the Year of the Linux Desktop, but really, this is where FOSS shines: as a relatively minority choice for enthusiasts. Let people make their privacy tradeoff choice in peace, it's a perfectly valid choice to make if one most of us (myself included) find highly distasteful, and the rest of us can work on and use FOSS to our heart's content.
Coming from the hardware side too, as more of an EE guy than a programmer: OSHW is getting more and more possible. Powerful hardware that is amenable to use in open designs is becoming more available every year. I can jump over to DigiKey and buy an ARM chip that is capable of running Linux and has more computing power than some of my first desktop computers for $20. The chip designs themselves tend not to be open, but they do tend to be quite well documented - the high end is almost always closed and subject to NDA, but there is little pressure to move that line backwards, and as the high end moves forward, the devices available to the OSHW developer get better and better.
I don't think this is the end of computing privacy, I think this is just the logical conclusion of computers (read: the computers in your pocket!) becoming popular, and starting to work the way Average Joe expects them to. Enthusiasts will always be here, and I think this is the start of a new era for them.
Almost that. I'm a bit tired to hear my fellow /.ers collegues refraining the same thing over and over like it matters to anyone out there. It doesn't, be acquaint to it. The lambda user just don't care about the OS, the privacy and all this stuff. Even a lot of people working in IT don't care. I even have seen bankers who don't care. This is really astonishing given how Edward Snowden is glorified by people which on another hand just don't care about a company doing much more than what NSA did few years ago. People are happy idiots.
Achille Talon
Hop!
When windows breaks the fix is still typically GUI based. And despite what people say windows is in my experience pretty damn resilient to breaking. The days of win95 blue-screens and reinstalls every few months are long gone.
When linux breaks you often find yourself thrown back into command line purgatory. There's frickin' huge log files to read (when/if you can find them - they seem to move from one install to the next), obscure technical terms to learn, and google will usually throw up dozens of outdated solutions each differing in subtle ways and none of which quite match the problem at hand. Yes you and I can usually stumble through and learn something on the way, but it's rarely a pleasant or quick experience.
And yes, I do in fact use linux because when it works I prefer it, and because I value my privacy. But I'm not going to pretend it's perfect in every way.
Blocking these domains will make your version of Windows 10 "Unconnected". To Microsoft at least.
dns.msftncsi.com
ipv6.msftncsi.com
win10.ipv6.microsoft.com
ipv6.msftncsi.com.edgesuite.net
a978.i6g1.akamai.net
win10.ipv6.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
en-us.appex-rf.msn.com
v10.vortex-win.data.microsoft.com
client.wns.windows.com
wildcard.appex-rf.msn.com.edgesuite.net
v10.vortex-win.data.metron.life.com.nsatc.net
wns.notify.windows.com.akadns.net
americas2.notify.windows.com.akadns.net
travel.tile.appex.bing.com
www.bing.com
any.edge.bing.com
fe3.delivery.mp.microsoft.com
fe3.delivery.dsp.mp.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
ssw.live.com
ssw.live.com.nsatc.net
login.live.com
login.live.com.nsatc.net
directory.services.live.com
directory.services.live.com.akadns.net
bl3302.storage.live.com
skyapi.live.net
bl3302geo.storage.dkyprod.akadns.net
skyapi.skyprod.akadns.net
skydrive.wns.windows.com
register.mesh.com
BN1WNS2011508.wns.windows.com
settings-win.data.microsoft.com
settings.data.glbdns2.microsoft.com
OneSettings-bn2.metron.live.com.nsatc.net
watson.telemetry.microsoft.com
watson.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
http://init.sh/?p=236
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
I'd usually boot a livecd, mount my partitions, and chroot into my install to fix whatever was broken. Usually, it's something that I did recently, and that I know how to undo. I've had to do that about as many times as I've had to boot from a Windows disk to restore corrupted files, fix the mbr, or some other such nonsense. That's not counting trouble with updates that won't install and can't tell me why or that put the computer into an unbootable state.
In Linux, I can usually trace problems to something that I did. In Windows, I can usually trace problems to something that the OS did. Each system has it's own philosophy of repair. For Windows: Use the Microsoft-supplied tools, and hope that you can get things working well enough. For Linux: Hope that your knowledge or search engine skills are enough to fix the problem. I like the second approach, because it feels like it relies on my own cleverness than it does the engineers that wrote the software.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
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.
You're missing the point, I don't want to waste my time re-installing my OS/reconfigure my preferences every couple weeks. When I was a kid and computers were new that was fun but I've got way too much on my plate to bother with re-installs now days. If something breaks, I want the OS to recognize it, fix it, and let me get on with my day without trashing my preferences.
Apple, and Microsoft, have always been just as bad.
I don't know what type of software you're using, but all my preferences are stored in my home directory, in something that's called a dotfile. They're hidden files in my user area, which don't ever get touched if the system is completely replaced by a brand new install. That's different from the way windows works, as different Windows programs can store user preferences anywhere they like, and then you have to reset your preferences each time you do a clean reinstall.
I move desktop, my documents, and a few other folders to the D: drive on Windows and get most of the same functionality.
If you are seriously saying home directories is the saving grace of Linux, you just don't understand.
I've been carrying along my home directory and my .fwvm2rc file, along with the critical bits of /etc on my NetBSD systems for years, now, btw. It's MUCH easier to do that on a stable and mature freenix than on a dogs breakfast userland,that runs on top of a Linux kernel.
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!
For a start, block these in your router, or hosts file:
http://pastebin.com/ULJjVM7w
vortex.data.microsoft.com
vortex-win.data.microsoft.com
telecommand.telemetry.microsoft.com
telecommand.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
oca.telemetry.microsoft.com
oca.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
sqm.telemetry.microsoft.com
sqm.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
watson.telemetry.microsoft.com
watson.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
redir.metaservices.microsoft.com
choice.microsoft.com
choice.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
df.telemetry.microsoft.com
reports.wes.df.telemetry.microsoft.com
wes.df.telemetry.microsoft.com
services.wes.df.telemetry.microsoft.com
sqm.df.telemetry.microsoft.com
telemetry.microsoft.com
watson.ppe.telemetry.microsoft.com
telemetry.appex.bing.net
telemetry.urs.microsoft.com
telemetry.appex.bing.net:443
settings-sandbox.data.microsoft.com
vortex-sandbox.data.microsoft.com
survey.watson.microsoft.com
watson.live.com
watson.microsoft.com
statsfe2.ws.microsoft.com
corpext.msitadfs.glbdns2.microsoft.com
compatexchange.cloudapp.net
cs1.wpc.v0cdn.net
a-0001.a-msedge.net
statsfe2.update.microsoft.com.akadns.net
sls.update.microsoft.com.akadns.net
fe2.update.microsoft.com.akadns.net
diagnostics.support.microsoft.com
corp.sts.microsoft.com
statsfe1.ws.microsoft.com
pre.footprintpredict.com
i1.services.social.microsoft.com
i1.services.social.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
feedback.windows.com
feedback.microsoft-hohm.com
feedback.search.microsoft.com
rad.msn.com
preview.msn.com
ad.doubleclick.net
ads.msn.com
ads1.msads.net
ads1.msn.com
a.ads1.msn.com
a.ads2.msn.com
adnexus.net
adnxs.com
az361816.vo.msecnd.net
az512334.vo.msecnd.net
Problem is, the hipsters are trying to push all this crap into Linux, too.
Pretty soon, I'm sure systemd will be sending all your logs to 'the cloud' because it lets them do some hipster shit that no user actually cares about.
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."
Bullshit. There had better be a way to turn ALL of it OFF, permanently. I don't give a fuck if you have to hack the shit out of the Registry to do it, either.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Linux has some problems though. Windows software does not run on it, well, som things work with Wine, others don't. A lot of games do not run on Linux too. Valve is starting to push Linux for games, but mainstream Linux support in games is still not here.
Also, Linux has problems with specialized hardware, like the kind you would find on a laptop. I do not know why the manufacturers build hardware that requires uber special drivers, but this is how it is. Also, at least some time ago, Linux on a laptop drained the battery faster than Windows (probably Windows could put the hardware in a lower power mode).
More people will just move to Linux.
That's what they said in 2001 when Windows XP came out. 14 years later, it still hasn't happened.
I want my OS to do the work
That's why I run Linux. For years and years it's enabled me to be productive.
I've heard the "LibreOffice is lacking x,y,z" and "I can't live without feature x,y,z in Photoshop" many, many times now. If you truly can't live without x,y,z then go ahead and use Windows. Even if it's a simple matter of you like Windows better, go ahead and use it. I don't care. But don't tell me Linux is inferior because it doesn't have some obscure feature not used by 99% of users.
I know Linux on the desktop will forever remain a small percentage of market share. It's simply never going to catch up with the big boys. I'm okay with that, too. The reason, though, is not inferiority. It's entrenchment and market muscle.
If Microsoft started pushing Linux as Windows 12, even if they made zero changes to it, it would take off quickly.
This is not about quality and merit. Not at all.
If you must use Windows 10, ( believe it or not there is some software that is still Windows only, or would cost a fortune to purchase new licences for another OS, if it's even an option ) just air gap the damn thing.
Load it, patch it to current, get all your software running on it, then deny it internet access completely. You can air gap it, but then you'll need to manually transfer your data over to another non Win 10 system. Use it as a workstation, not an all in one solution.
Or ( what I would do ) is simply put a route map or ACL on the router that explicitly denies access for that machine off the local network or Vlan. Hell, put it in its own VLAN and block the whole damn thing if you have to. Personally, I would disallow any talking between it and any other device on the local network outside of a network connected NAS drive so you can still transfer files. If you gotta get your game on I suppose you could allow very specific connections to very specific addresses, but block everything else.
Use a Windows box for specialized applications, use anything but to connect to the internet.
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)
Windows software does not run on it
Legacy non-cloud applications do not run on it.
New web-based applications run on Linux just fine.
Every legacy application is slowly getting replaced with an "App" anyways, as Tablets more and more replace PCs for end users.
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.
I don't give a fuck if you have to hack the shit out of the Registry to do it, either.
That's a constant battle too. Automatic updates will be mandatory for Windows 10 users, except in Enterprise environments with Windows Enterprise edition and WSUS, etc. You used to be able to disable Google Chrome browser auto-updating with a registry tweak, then Google came back and started changing Chrome so Group Policy settings in the registry will not be honored unless your computer is actually joined to a domain, and even then the policy must be configured through a GPO that the group policy clients knows about, otherwise it will be ignored..
Same with other settings such as app-autoinstalls. Also, If you want to re-enable Java, it seems as if they intentionally made it difficult to automate such things.
"People are happy idiots."
Actually, people are unhappy "idiots". When abusers succeed, that causes others to choose to be abusive. When there are a huge number of people doing many kinds of abuses, people begin feeling that they can't protect themselves, and try to ignore the abuses.
The U.S. government in general, U.S. banks, and the many secret agencies of the U.S. government engage in many kinds of abuses. For example, a side-effect of NSA activities also has the initials NSA: No Sales for America. Companies don't want to buy complicated products from the U.S. because agencies of the U.S. government can go to any U.S. corporation and tell executives that they must accept the insertion of spy products, and keep that secret, or go to prison. Since any complicated U.S. product could have methods of control or spying or worse, it is better for foreign customers to avoid buying anything touched by U.S. companies.
One effect of "upgrading" to Windows 10: Windows Media Center will be deleted.
Another loss in Windows 10: Windows Updates will be forced, in at least one version. Will there be other lost features, now or later? Will Microsoft extend its control over Windows in other hidden or complicated ways? The issue is not whether technically-knowledgeable users will be able to stop forced updates; the issue is that most people won't know how to regain control over their systems. That control is important because often Microsoft has given poorly designed updates that have caused problems on user's systems. See this Slashdot story, for example, Windows 10's Automatic Updates For NVidia Drivers Causing Trouble.
More about Microsoft releasing buggy software: The Slashdot story, Windows 10 Launches, says Windows 10 is "buggier than Windows 8.1, 8, 7, or Vista were on their respective launch days" and "During my testing on a variety of hardware, I've run into a lot of bugs and issues -- even with the version that will be released to consumers on launch day".
(At present, the best way to update Windows 7 is to use Autopatcher, because Microsoft's anti-customer "updates" are avoided.)
Online comments say that Microsoft will try to move Windows to a model that requires monthly payments.
Firefox: Embraced, "Extended", soon to be Extinguished? Mozilla Foundation now gets most of its money from Microsoft. Microsoft pays Yahoo. Yahoo pays Mozilla Foundation to make "Yahoo search" (actually Microsoft Bing search) the default search engine in Firefox. Most people don't have the technical knowledge to know how they've been manipulated, or how to restore the default search engine to Google search.
Thunderbird and SeaMonkey Composer GUIs: Damaged, apparently deliberately. Every time you do a file save, the newer versions of both ask for a new file name, and don't suggest the last one chosen. The damage was reported several months ago, but has not been fixed. Is that another example of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish? People who feel forced away from Thunderbird may choose Microsoft software to replace it. Is that what Microsoft is trying to accomplish?
One effect of abuse is that the abusers become VERY unhappy. For years, people called Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer "Monkey Boy". That reflected the results of Ballmer's constant involvement in Microsoft's abuse of its customers.
Microsoft is amazingly badly managed. The
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.
Stick with 7
Not your home PC that came with Windows already on it. Cyberspace. The servers, search engines, websites, name it.
I am a Linux server admin by trade :). And yes, Linux is great for servers. With one exception - I have not seen a proper alternative to MS Exchange server. Exchange is great for when users have tons of rules and many gigabytes of emails. Also, the way Exchange handles sharing mailboxes between users is better than the standard IMAP setup.
If more games were compiled already to run on Linux, Microsoft would already be archive.org.
Yes, is most new games ran on Linux, Microsoft would have harder time selling Windows.
However, as it currently is, most new PCs come with Windows, so for a user, Windows is kinda-free - I mean he already paid for it and probably did not have the option of buying the same exact PC without Windows for $100 less. Also, stuff like compiling the kernel is way above the head of an average user, even installing drivers on Windows is above his head.
What you don't to is to say oh, since Microsoft had us in a proprietary headlock for decades that now we just have to buy proprietary headlock edition PC's.
A lot of times the choice is limited. I wanted a small UMPC that could fit in my pocket and yet have a relatively normal keyboard and x86 CPU (essentially a Psion Series 5 with modern hardware). There were two options at the time - Viliv N5 and Umid BZ. They both most likely have some hardware that is difficult to make work in Linux. Similar is buying a bigger laptop.
If this is ever a case for anybody, simply install it into a Virtual Machine.
Wouldn't installing Linux inside a VM inside Windows defeat the point of not having Windows? Also, good luck playing games or even HD video from inside the VM.
Windows has no sell points other than forced updates, get spied on, share your WiFi password with outlook contacts, then decide who hacked your shit.
Now, yes. However, old versions were good - XP and now 7, this is why people still use the old versions. XP because the hardware they have may not be fast enough for anything newer and 7 because the later versions are crap. After Windows 7 MS found out that it essentially was "good enough", could not find anything to improve and started to muck around with the interface and later spying.
Which "more things" can Windows 10 do that say Windows 8 or Windows 7 can't? Apart from spy on you I mean.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
He's not doing it wrong. Not even 6 months ago I installed Linux Mint on my HP envy laptop, and it took me 2 days to get it fully working. Why? Partially UEFI, partially bugs in the installer, and mainly no network driver (had to compile my own with a manual patch). This doesn't even include having to install new drivers to ensure it doesn't overheat, nor the fact that "suspend" still doesn't work.
You can read about my experience here http://forums.linuxmint.com/vi..., but quite frankly nobody cares (no replies....). Until it really is "insert CD and go" for ALL computers (is an HP laptop so weird??) then Linux will never be mainstream. Sorry.
Then you are doing it wrong. That's not a problem with Linux instead it's PEBCAK.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Easy to accomplish with a network router that is not completely dumb. A bit more complicated when travelling, but hey a wifi-wifi repeater/router will probably do the trick.
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashdot.org Errors found while checking this document as HTML5!
As an IT professional, the only way I could use this would be if Microsoft provided me with appropriate documentation on their PCI compliance status regarding all this information they're collecting, which they will never do, since those documents would be legally binding.
Anybody who accept credit cards is walking in to a mindfield with Windows 10.
Until it really is "insert CD and go" for ALL computers (is an HP laptop so weird??) then Linux will never be mainstream. Sorry.
A lot of laptops aren't "insert CD and go" for Windows. If you don't have the official disc which re-images your system, you can't even install them without slipstreaming drivers into the Windows CD. Sorry.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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
That's not true. Some of us here work for a company that is losing money collecting data from end users.
"And yes, Linux is great for servers. With one exception - I have not seen a proper alternative to MS Exchange server."
Add another exception. You guys still have nothing comparable to a RemoteFX + HyperV solution that lets me part and piece out a multi-CPU multi-GPU multi-node system into specific VMs with specific number of GPU cores, GPU RAM, CPU cores/threads, and CPU RAM.
And the reality is, that Microsoft's solution SUCKS since they literally halved the performance between RDP7 and RDP8.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Uh, you do know how the Windows Logo certification works?
Device makers have to follow Windows driver model, not the other way around. There's literally nothing specialized about laptop hardware. In windows it's quite often a simple .ini change and suddenly the hardware is recognized by an OEM driver package. That's how I get new GPUs working on Windows XP, especially on laptops.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
While that makes sense for a Chromebook, Windows is still too complicated for users who don't understand anything about it... Users are still expected to install software themselves, know what they're installing and perform maintenance etc. It's simply not suitable for users with no understanding of the system, as those users just become infected with malware and thus a nuisance to everyone else.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
So buy hardware which is known to be compatible with linux... That's all windows users are doing, buying hardware that's known to be compatible... They don't buy an ARM based laptop and then complain that windows doesn't work on it.
As for battery life, that varies... On some some laptops linux has much better battery life, on others its much worse - again, pick your hardware appropriately.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
So, approach the thing more intelligently. I've broken Linux. Many of us have broken Linux. Yeah, it can be a pain in the ass to repair it - many of us have just given up and reinstalled. Reinstall only takes a half hour, or less, but repairing the damage that I've caused out of stupidity can take days to repair.
Two routes to solve most of the problems, include: /home. In half an hour, I'm pretty much where I started out when I fucked the system up.
1. put your home folder on a different hard drive than the OS. Many times, I've simply reinstalled, and pointed the installer to my separate drive, and told it NOT TO FORMAT
2. Install your favorite distro, then install VirtualBox. Do all your stupid shit inside of a virtual machine. Extra benefits - you can install MULTIPLE VM's. Do all of your online banking from one machine. Do all of your online gaming from another machine. Do your general browsing in another. Experiment with the operating system in another machine. Keep another separate machine for your employer's crap. Just look at all that redundant security - your boss can't install an application that will discover that you like to dress in drag, because his stuff doesn't even share the same OS that you use to troll the gay forums.
Windows is so damned stupid a choice, I can't imaging why so few people see that.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
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.
There is a serious problem. What is one of your contacts has a seriously malicious intent? They can park a car with tinted windows across street, and then access your LAN, which is a huge privacy AND security issue. At once, this feature of Windows 10 not only compromised privacy, but also the security of your entire home LAN. There will be a million interesting ways to exploit it. In fact, you don't even need to be a friend with the target. You simply need to be friend of his friend, and all will be good as long as the friend of the target has once visited targets home and cached his wifi network password. The possibilities are limitless. Would you like to snoop around on your boss or do you want to stalk your ex? Want to snoop around on their LAN? Find unsecured PC, SMB shares, or media servers? Well now you can, thanks to Microsoft.
I think MS will be eventually sued for that.
Maybe for you at home. At work the IT department made several new firewall policies that completely neuters all of windows 10 information gathering and sharing.
I am all for it as it s finally forcing people and companies to pay attention to security and that information leaks can be built into your OS.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I was thinking more along the lines of pablum. You can feed balogna to a beginning toddler, whereas feeding him steak might be a waste of time. When the little guy's teeth are fully grown in, then you can give him real meat.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Sigh...you don't REALLY believe the shit you are shoveling, yes? Because if you were to stop 10 random Windows users on the street none of them have ever seen regedit much less know what that even is! hell for over a year at the shop I kept coming across HP PCs that didn't even HAVE a "run" command, somebody at HP must have flipped the wrong switch on their image and it didn't have it by default in the start menu...know how many users I had ask me to stick it back? NONE, not a single one even knew it was gone!
While Win 10 may be nothing but spyware in OS clothing even the worst Windows can be run 100% with nothing but the GUI, and as I've pointed out a million times you can't even start Linux without the shell as like Win98 with DOS Linux simply cannot function without it. I can remove all access to CMD, completely disable it, windows runs just fine and the users never will notice...can you use chmod to disable the shell and even get Linux to boot? No? I rest my case.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
"Linux has already removed the reason of needing VM's for running your applications thanks to the control groups kernel feature."
That doesn't work with many bits of my software. To run multiple worlds in the game I'm creating, I need multiple separate server VMs with their own IP addresses for server linking and physical separation of game content. I can't just run the server application multiple times in the same instance. The game engine software was not designed to operate like that.
"And thanks to Hyper-V, MS can double-license you. Once for your Hyper-V and then for each Windows VM running on it."
I figured out a way around that ages ago. Run ReactOS VMs inside Hyper-V. More Windows programs work there than under Linux!
"The only good thing coming out from it, is that Windows is now looking in providing non-GUI server installations."
They've offered that for well over a decade with Core installations. I've been using non-GUI installs since Server 2003.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
One of our clients has dovecot now. They use Outlook on the client side and have multiple mailboxes shared between multiple users (user A may use mailboxes I,J,K, user B may use mailboxes K,L,M etc).. Most of those maiboxes contain gigabytes of emails. Outlook downloads the mailbox contents to the server (they use Terminal services - all users are on the same server). Which means that now there are multiple copies of the same mailbox on the server really wasting space (200-300GB or so) not to mention the copy on the IMAP server. Then if you, say, move a large amount of emails from one mailbox to another, it can be really slow with Outlook essentially freezing for a long time. Oh, and if one user quits the job, you need to change passwords on the mailboxes that the user had access to and then configure the new passwords for essentially everybody else.
With Exchange, the users each has his own password and can be assigned "rights" to some other mailbox. The email is kept in the Exchange server, no more hundreds of gigabytes of duplicate files.
I agree about Linux being fundamentally far better for the entire world. However, it seems that everything in Linux is poorly documented. Microsoft's documentation is very poor, but Linux documentation is considerably worse. That creates a HUGE barrier to using Linux.
Not many people want to spend a week trying to discover how some Linux program works. For example, XBMC, now Kodi, media center.