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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.
"How To Keep Microsoft's Nose Out of Your Personal Data In Windows 10"
How about a new HOSTS file? APK?
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?
If the default is "on" , what if a bug in the code resets the setting or ignores the setting. Are there any indicators that this information is going out? Can there be any indicators? What is the amount of encrypted traffic going out from the system to microsoft? Any way to look at what is being sent at any point in time? Does it ever log what was sent? Can it?
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.
I've been with windows for close to two decades.
But I'm probably going to either use an older windows box or just bite the bullet and go to linux for my "real" machine. I might use windows for a gaming machine.
I've used openoffice then libre office for years now and no longer even occasionally dip back into Word.
I've disliked the tighter microsoft email/social account integration for a while now.
I really dislike what I'm hearing about the new o/s. I stopped using facebook because of similar actions.
it's like being fabulously wealthy isn't enough. If windows 10 goes forward as is, I probably won't go with it.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Was when I was looking at the app store, but it said I had to log in to my microsoft account to use any of the apps. OK, logged in with my hotmail account which has a long complex password, which was copy/pasted with my password manager. I turn my PC off for the night, next day it won't take my usual password because it's now not a local machine logon, but is my microsoft logon, which I can't fill in because I can't open my password manager. Luckily I backup the keepass data to a USB flashdrive, so I fire up my other real OS which is linux so I can write down the frigging password to get the windows pile of shit logged back in. Screw MS... wiping the drive and installing linux.
The thing that pisses me off about Windows 10 is the apparent lack of control the user has with their own machine. Exhibit A: http://www.tenforums.com/attac...
Check out the real-time protection option. "You can turn it off temporarily, but if it's off for a while, we'll turn it back on automatically." What bullshit is that? First, it doesn't tell you what it constitutes as "a while". A day? A week? A month? Second, the fact that it believes that power users are extinct and might have an edge-case for permanently disabling it is ridiculous. It's based off of Microsoft Security Essentials, and I disabled the real-time protection when installed on Win 7 on my netbook because it was just too much for the poor little Atom processor to deal with. If I needed to scan something, I'd do it on-demand. Here, I have no permanent solution because Windows 10 thinks it knows better than my situation.
Windows 10 is peppered with many other areas which make me feel less in control than I used to. I know that I can't have full control when running a proprietary system, but it's all about degrees, and Win 10 feels far less catered for power users than Win 7.
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.
Don't use what? Cortana?
I don't use it. I disabled search features. I also live in an area where Cortana is not available. And yet every time I hit the start button and start typing some of my information is sent to servers related to the Cortana service.
Likewise I've removed a lot of the shitty live tiles. That doesn't stop the money app getting up to date stock information that it won't be displaying.
You can't not use some of these features, not without a firewall.
My wife has a small photography business, and Photoshop and Lightroom are huge aspects of her photo editing workflow. She's invested untold hours building up skills in them, and that proficiency really pays off in terms of the quality and speed of her editing work.
Right now she edits on our Windows 7 box. I'm almost dead set against us using Windows 10 because of this privacy crap (and now I apparently have to try undoing the telemetry those assholes snuck into Windows 7.)
I feel caught between a rock and a hard place, because switching to a Mac would be an unwelcome expense for us. Also an business risk, since I can cheaply repair or upgrade a PC, but I have not expectation of being able to do that on a Mac. So if a Mac craps out near one of her deadlines, I'm not confident that I can get it (or a replacement) online as fast as we really want.
I'm just amazed at how hard Microsoft is working to drive us away. They've gone from being a reasonable partner for our kind of business (Windows 7), to being one of our largest sources of medium- and long-term risk. They're now making our decision to use Windows for her business, into a strategic mistake.
I really hope Adobe comes up with some decent solution to people in our shoes. If they have a Linux port of Creative Suite in their back pocket, this would be a dandy time to start selling it.
I have been examining Windows Ten with a packet sniffer, and can confirm both of these claims. Even if you disable cortana and searching bing from the start menu, typing anything in there still results in a connection to a server associated with Bing - I don't know what's in that connection, as it's TLS. I've also confirmed that it does attempt to update the live tiles even when said tiles have been removed, as I see connections to servers such as foodanddrink.tile.appex.bing.com.