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Microsoft Removes Wi-Fi Sense Feature From Windows 10 Which Shared Your Wi-Fi Password
Microsoft says it has removed the controversial Wi-Fi Sense feature that shared a user's password with their friends and people in the contact list. "We have removed the Wi-Fi Sense feature that allows you to share Wi-Fi networks with your contacts and to be automatically connected to networks shared by your contacts," says Microsoft's Gabe Aul. "The cost of updating the code to keep this feature working combined with low usage and low demand made this not worth further investment." Ben Woods, writing for The Next Web: The feature allows you to share Wi-Fi login information with friends automatically via your contacts, however it got a controversial reception due to privacy implications. Do you really want to share your Wi-Fi codes with everyone in your contacts? No, of course not. It seems that was the general response from users too, so that option will be removed in the upcoming Windows 10 Insider Preview update, Microsoft says. Public Wi-Fi login info will remain in the app though.
How about removing all the so-called 'telemetry' and other privacy-invading malware bullshit and return control of peoples' computers to the people who own and operate them? Or will not being assholes cut into your profit margin too much?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Now that Microsoft knows 90% of its users' wireless passwords, We have removed the Wi-Fi Sense feature
Okay, fine. We'll remove this feature. But not because everyone flipped their shit and hated it. The only reason we're removing it is because it was cost effective to do so. If we could have found a way to profit off of it, you can bet your pimply ass that it would still be in there and on by default.
A lot of folks I know have their password in a QR code.
Oh! That's an awesome idea. I need to put one of those up by my front door.
Just leave your house key at the door so they can just go read the password off the post-it -- we all -- have taped to the bottom of the router.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
This is why I love Slashdot. People (like you) are obsessed with comically niche features like IP over Firewire, which is utterly irrelevant, and yet you're too blind to reality to realize it. The last time I saw a thread complaining about Windows there was a similar post saying Windows absolutely MUST include built-in ssh. It's like you people are being willfully ignorant of how the end-user market actually works.
hi
Well, if you don't secure the WiFi, you're broadcasting all your packets in plain text.
Don't look at WPA2 as access control only, it's also providing channel encryption.
Guest networks (isolated from the main one) are a nice idea but they should be secured anyway for the sake of the guests.
I'm sorry, but what if (that's a big "IF" there but bear with me) I bought Windows 10 because I *wanted* this particular feature? Microsoft is just going to "update" it out anyway?
I understand Windows 10 is more of a rolling release than previous versions were, but this is insane. Are they going to "update" out things that I bought from the Windows Store because they weren't terribly popular as well? Imagine if you took your car in for maintenance and they took out your parking camera because nobody used it....
Who would have thought that there is low demand for a "feature" that broadcasts your passwords to others?
Hey, MS, allow me to let you in on a secret: There's also really low demand for the thousand "apps" that nobody needs, can't be uninstalled and take up unnecessary space on the drive and the start menu (where you ALSO cannot get rid of them), and there is really low demand for updates we can't turn off.
Maybe you could discover this great revelation next?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It was rather useful for device-to-device networking - direct connection at 400 or 800Mbps. I think the bigger complaint was that it was simply dropped when other consumer operating systems still support it. However, if he's still complaining about something that was dropped ten years ago, it's time to move on to a different OS if he's that bound to it.
SSH, on the other hand - that's my single biggest feature request for Windows....
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
The problem wasn't so much that you could share access to your network with your friends - it was that if you gave your WiFi password to someone (which what the majority of people do when they visit someone elses house) then you had to make sure that they didn't share access to your network with their friends.
The problem is that Microsoft cannot differentiate between someone who has the WiFi password because they own the connection and someone who has the WiFi password because they were told it. Microsoft made the assumption that if you have the password, then you have the right to offer that connection to others - but this is not what happens in the "real world".
Because of this incorrect assumption, the onus was suddenly placed on the owner of the WiFi (who does decide to provide their password) to police the entry of it into Windows 10 devices to ensure that a bunch of random people that they have never met aren't suddenly allowed to use their network.
That was why it was an issue.
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