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How To Keep Microsoft's Nose Out of Your Personal Data In Windows 10
MojoKid writes: Amid the privacy concerns and arguably invasive nature of Microsoft's Windows 10 regarding user information, it's no surprise that details on how to minimize leaks as much as possible are often requested by users who have recently made the jump to the new operating system. If you are using Windows 10, or plan to upgrade soon, it's worth bearing in mind a number of privacy-related options that are available, even during the installation/upgrade. If you are already running the OS and forgot to turn them off during installation (or didn't even see them), they can be accessed via the Settings menu on the start menu, and then selecting Privacy from the pop-up menu. Among these menus are a plethora of options regarding what data can be gathered about you. It's worth noting, however, that changing any of these options may disable various OS related services, namely Cortana, as Microsoft's digital assistant has it tendrils buried deep.
don't install the damm thing!
I got to the chocolate box before you, that's why the hard ones have teeth marks.
Just install Linux.
You're welcome.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
Yes, I can see the options during the setup. Years of updating Java have trained me to uncheck everything.
Anyway that is old news.
We want to know more about the things you can not set in the options.
Ways to prevent forced updates?
Remove hidden services?
You joke, but that pretty much IS the only way. Tons of experiments and wire captures have already shown that no matter what settings you disable, the OS still sends TONS of info back to MS servers.
It actually is that big a deal. It is just that the MS PR department managed to convince some clueless people that what they do is harmless. It is not.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
There is criminal energy involved in sabotaging mechanisms such as the hosts-file in order to deceive users. Even thinking of it requires significant criminal energy, and the strong intent to harm users.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Use a modern OS instead of Windows.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Yeah I have to agree with you there. Going out of your way to hide something from someone is different simply not mentioning it.
Nope. The only realistic way is not to install it -- and you're a moron if you do.
Well, don't worry. This is pretty much guaranteed to happen with each new release of Windows. Also, the article isn't as hysterical as the headline makes it out to be. I think it's a good thing for people to be made away of all the privacy controls and their implications.
There are some serious and legitimate privacy concerns, but nearly every single privacy invasive feature can be turned off, and that's really important. What's the downside? There are some features that rely on the ability to talk to Microsoft servers and read various personal data, like e-mail, calendars, and contacts. A personal digital assistant like Cortana needs to know a LOT about you to be effective. Another one is cloud synchronization - obviously, if you want your various PCs and devices to be synchronized automatically, personal data will need to be stored in Microsoft servers so they can be transferred between your machines. Whether you consider those "privacy invading" or "neat new features" (or both) largely depends on your perspective.
We've heard reports about a few services still communicating with MS servers. This isn't exactly a huge concern to me, as I'd expect a few things like activation and updates to still talk to MS. There may be a few other things that slip through the cracks (like start menu tiles still refreshing even though they're all removed), but it doesn't have the feel of anything malicious to me. Others may choose to believe the worst, of course.
One of the big issues for me is the forced updates, because that has serious implications regarding stability (I've personally had to roll back a seriously bugged Nvidia driver until it was fixed many months later). We've already seen problems with this, so it's not really a theoretical concern. I've heard Microsoft may be backing down a bit, acknowledging that people need to be able to block known bad updates / drivers, and have released a standalone tool that can do this. My bet is that this will later be integrated into Windows myself, but at least it's possible now.
I'm not a big believer in conspiracy theories about MS scanning your drive and sending your personal data away. What's the motivation? Plenty of people will gladly opt in (or more accurately, choose not to opt-out) just to get the convenience of automatic cloud backups, synchronization, and an intelligent digital assistant. They're not going to care about the minority of people that are privacy-concerned enough to shut off all those features. They stand to lose FAR more in lawsuits, lost consumer confidence, and political probes than whatever they might gain from it.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Until the OS ignores your HOSTS file for some hard-coded domains. If you can't trust your OS, why are you trusting it to filter things out? The filtering has to come from outside, from another system.
Until the OS ignores your HOSTS file for some hard-coded domains. If you can't trust your OS, why are you trusting it to filter things out? The filtering has to come from outside, from another system.
That's why you need to use a firewall. A real one, not that Windows Firewall crap. And block any outgoing connections you don't approve.
Couple of days of reading?, like you could just click the damn "Privacy options" link at install time and uncheck the 4 or 5 options.
Two major problems with that:
1) There aren't options to disable all of the spyware in Windows 10.
2) Even when you "disable" the options that you are graciously allowed to by Microsoft on your own PC, it still sends that data anyway.
If you knew how to use a packet analyser, you could see that for yourself instead of posting comments that reveal what a clueless idiot you are.
... or just disable the features you don't like... like you could have done all along. If you can use Linux, you can disable any feature you don't like from Windows.
Except that in Windows 10, you can't. There are many things for which there are no settings to disable them. And even you dig deep, it still doesn't work. But don't take my word for it. Try it.
Open Task Manager and kill Cortana. It immediately comes back. This is just one example of Microsoft going back to the old scam they used years ago, "We can't remove Internet Explorer because it's too deeply embedded in the OS".
I think the problem is that MS isn't being completely clear as to what it is they're collecting or why they're collecting it. Take those seven or eight updates to Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 that added forced telemetry collection. No one really knows what it is those things are collecting - MS's own update really doesn't say much other than "It's information needed to ease the transition between Windows 7 or 8.1 and Windows 10" and "It's for customer experience improvements". On top of this, all of the telemetry updates were marked as "Important" in Windows Update, meaning that they'll be automatically installed on most update configurations.
If MS really had some reason to do this, they should have said exactly what it is they were collecting and why from the get-go, and also had a clear opt-out provision. Failing to do this is what's sparking a lot of paranoia - I've heard everything from "MS's telemetry service is logging everything you type and sending it to MS to improve autocorrect functionality" to "MS is actively recording input from attached webcams and microphones and sending it to MS servers".
I think if MS were to put out a well-thought out announcement telling people why it is they're doing this, a lot of the paranoia would go away.
Hardware. A seperate system.
Windows firewall is just an app. A real firewall is on it's own hardware with its own OS.
Just run Linux, works every time.
it's not the real reason.
the real reason is pushing the appstore and pushing it for all kinds of applications.
pushing the appstore was also the reason why they were pushing win8/8.1 for practically free and it's the sole only reason for the shitfest that is metro(they shipped a program environment that was unfinished, unpolished and lacking in api's to replace what it was intended to replace only because they were in a hurry to release an appstore because some execs _thought_ they could get 30% of 3000$ photoshop and cad licenses, which was never going to happen anyway)
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Until the OS ignores your HOSTS file for some hard-coded domains.
What do you mean until?