I have no doubt about the level of spying on MY systems.
With having run several major "anti-spying setup tools" such as O&O ShutUp10 and W10Privacy, plus removal of all Apps (including Cortana), plus Disabling of Windows Update, plus installation of a 3rd party deny-by-default firewall and Disabling of Windows Firewall, I can confidently say I know all of what's being requested of what servers. NOTHING is getting out that I don't approve of.
There are SOME things that normally need to be allowed - certificate checks, for example. But not many. And these shouldn't be confused with spying.
I'm here to say, with authority, that it's possible to de-configure Windows 10 to reduce unwanted network traffic virtually to zero - even including Microsoft's "Basic" level of telemetry. My Win 7, 8.1, and 10 systems all went through the entire day today without even trying to spill the beans (if they had, the firewall would have blocked them anyway, but it's nice to see the firewall doesn't have to be the only line of defense).
I doubt, however, that very many folks would be willing to do without Apps, or without many of the convenient or gee-whiz "cloud-integrated" features that I don't want and have deconfigured.
-Noel
Author of the "How to Configure the 'To Work' Options" series of Windows books. Not feeling enough love to do one for Windows 10.
Post by Bayer A.User on Jan 27, 2016 7:22:24 GMT -6
Everything online is a compromise. As long as we are aware of it and act accordingly its not a problem. Want free email ? Expect the provider to profit from it somehow. Info collection= targeted adds. If i pay a couple bucks a month for "premium"email , then i won't see available single women in my area click bait or adverts for cheap car insurance. It wasn't that long ago that MSFT was bragging about the new Outlook & how they would NEVER read our email. Haha, anyone actually fall for that ? Yahoo,Google,whatever- they all do it.
What makes Win 10 far worse is the "looking over your shoulder" stuff is integral to the OS itself and the mindset of the company itself is presumptuous , Condescending and Patronizing.
They know exactly what they are doing with Cortana as a "personal assistant" novelty . Their ability to change/alter/upgrade 10 via windows update guarantees she will return no matter how many times we delete her . No matter what hacks work now, the next version will be tougher to crack. A bulletproof firewall seems to be the best strategy,for now.
The thing about firewalls is that managing them can easily become unreasonably labor intensive.
EVEN IF you have a firewall that denies outgoing requests by default, and EVEN IF it provides a UI that promotes easy management, and EVEN IF you have taken the time to research all the attempts and allow those that are legit...
You will have accumulated a set of "rules/zones/whatever" that allow things to work TODAY.
Firewalls don't work on names, they work on IP addresses. Tomorrow server addresses will change.
CDN organizations (which resolve many things) can change - and firewalls aren't integrated with DNS databases.
Tomorrow new features will be introduced to your system (either by Windows Update or by your having acquired new software) that will cause you to need to maintain the firewall database.
For anyone who doesn't have high-level tech skills AND an OCD-level interest in security (as several of us here do), or doesn't have an uncanny ability to develop sustainable ongoing processes, a firewall will introduce so much additional ongoing labor that they will just give up on it.
For most folks it will boil down to this:
Which do I want more: Privacy and ongoing work -or- forget my worries and take part in fun, cloud-oriented activities?
Yes, there ARE people in the big software companies who know the obvious answer to that.
It's possible cloud-based privacy management could be the answer...
Post by Bayer A.User on Jan 27, 2016 9:49:23 GMT -6
So far, everything about 10 has been unreasonably labor intensive ! The constant bait n switch "latest version" we are curious and hopeful about that winds up being no better or worse. Myself, I can spend a couple hours deleting the usual suspects (.exe process') and verifying my group policy after every version upgrade and wind up with a usable system that works almost as good as my other options. After 14months i can do it in my sleep. Why would anyone want to go through that on a regular basis from now on ? ....excuse me while i hit myself in the head with a hammer.
You're right, and that would end the discussion right there, BUT... Microsoft and the high tech world are conspiring to make Windows 10 impossible to do without.
If we want to continue to work with high tech, in a world where we can see clearly where it's going, we have some options that range from extremes:
Shun high tech altogether and move to a cabin in the woods.
Choose to use an older OS (Win 8.1 or 7) and hope that some new development will ultimately save us.
Adopt Windows 10 and develop a strategy for continuing to keep control, knowing this will be more work.
Adopt Windows 10, just go with the flow (and lose the requisite 30 points of IQ). This will be less work.
Since it's a 4 dimensional world, we must not only decide things now, but also re-evaluate the above list continuously.
At the moment I've stopped at "Choose to use an older OS" and am dabbling with "developing a strategy for continuing to keep control". For ME, that seems prudent. The answer will be different for each person.
Amongst us all this IS actually causing ongoing work, stress, and could indeed be likened to hitting oneself repeatedly with a heavy object. And I hate to say it but there's nothing we can do about it. The high tech world is bigger than any of us, or even a group of us.
Microsoft, through their greed and avarice, has chosen to make running Windows about running Windows and no longer about what the user wants to do. There is not an unlimited amount of spying and malice being done by the software, and it's still quite possible to run Windows 10 in a way that thwarts Microsoft's plans. Perhaps someone could even roll up all that knowledge into something even bigger than the Anti-Spyware packages (I don't know, a Windows 10 Re-Tweaker package maybe).
It might be that continuing to try to wrest control back away from Microsoft will be SO much work that IQ 70 people who just opt for the last option above will be equally productive and successful, at which point we fail.
-Noel
Author of the "How to Configure the 'To Work' Options" series of Windows books. Not feeling enough love to do one for Windows 10.
Post by Bayer A.User on Jan 27, 2016 11:52:51 GMT -6
Windows10 as of now: Advertising hype, Free(that word again)upgrade, nefarious pushed mystery KB's to Win7-8.1 machines that make 10 magically install at 3a.m. Thats the conspiracy,agreed. What happens next fall when they have to get money in return for it ? More importantly, what happens next fall when they heavily discount it like they did with Win8 ? I predict a major re-think of the "Last OS we'll ever make" business model. Never say never,as the saying goes.
Everything online is a compromise. As long as we are aware of it and act accordingly its not a problem. Want free email ? Expect the provider to profit from it somehow. Info collection= targeted adds. If i pay a couple bucks a month for "premium"email , then i won't see available single women in my area click bait or adverts for cheap car insurance. It wasn't that long ago that MSFT was bragging about the new Outlook & how they would NEVER read our email. Haha, anyone actually fall for that ? Yahoo,Google,whatever- they all do it.
If you're interested in an email service that's much better and more reliable than Outlook or Yahoo, that also doesn't read though your emails, you might want to look into GMX.com. I specifically avoided Google, but I wish I knew about GMX before I opened my Outlook account. You can read their Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions right on their website (links are at the bottom of their homepage). As I understand from their privacy policy, they only collect and share personal information related to the account itself (e.g. name, gender, birth date), and use tracking cookies (which are easy to delete).
Microsoft, is Windows 10 the best you could do? Really? After promising to listen to our feedback, what a letdown!
Post by Locutus deBorg on Jan 27, 2016 16:06:29 GMT -6
guess it's down to how much fake info can you maintain ?
my outhouse email is entirely fictional and was setup to get the tentanic trial downloads my yahu email is entirely fictional and was setup for nothing other than forum sign up
will never have a faceboot account (no use for it)
will never have real info entered into the OS also don't do anything online with joogle while signed in to a joogle email which I've also used entirely fictional info to set it up
everything I do uses fake non-PII data
don't even have a phart fone and will be avoiding it as long as possible
etc.
not planning on hiding in a cave
but the gov. is complicit in this data collection as well where I am it's becoming increasingly difficult to get any gov. benefits without doing it online
I find the lack of configuration options disturbing !
I felt a great disturbance in the force.. as if millions of win 7 systems suddenly cried out in terror.
And there is the problem...to try and circumvent all this spying is a full time job for people who already have full time jobs. I agree, we have to take it to some extent, as it's unavoidable, but I try and draw the line when and where I can, and W10 is simply too over the top in too many respects for me.
It may prove to be a fool's errand, but I'm going to ride the tide, pass entirely on this for as long as possible, and hope like hell for an upheaval that forces the Redmond Gulag to step back from this to what we'd consider a "normal" offering...never say never indeed.
I just completed a review of the logs... In the last 48 hours, each and every communication attempt online on all my systems (Win 7, 8.1, and 10) has been 100% accounted-for. NOTHING I didn't sanction - which covers basically only the necessary and expected security queries, and web browsing to places like this one - got out.
Further - and possibly most importantly - the ONLY outgoing connection attempts I saw across all the three systems that the firewall actually had to block were some queries to a Bing server that an Internet Explorer instance triggered. I don't normally browse anything online with that system (Win 7) as it's primarily a file server, but the management interface to the CollabNet Subversion Edge software is done via a web browser. Just running it to talk to localhost triggered the online checks - and this is not welcome! So... I deconfigured several "handy" features, including Bing Translation and a few others in Internet Options and that seems to have stopped these connection attempts.
I have Disabled the Windows Update and Windows Firewall services on all three systems, and the Sphinx firewall setup would not normally allow any Microsoft servers to be contacted. I have a short, easy procedure I go through should I want to check for updates. I do that fairly often on the Win 10 system - the other two are so stable I don't want to check for updates very often if at all moving forward.
So in short I've achieved near-perfection:
Windows systems in 3 generations all configured not to even TRY to spill the beans online, and a well-configured firewall safety net that allows ONLY what's expected and legitimate through.
Stability? Reliability? Productivity? Not bad...
The only minor challenge I still face is that while on Win 7 and 10 systems the Windows Defender still automatically updates itself (yes, without the Windows Update service), for some reason it doesn't even try to do so on my Win 8.1 system. It's possible I've tweaked something too aggressively that causes it not to try. I'll get to the bottom of it sooner or later.
<Rick> Good video. It's almost hard to believe that at one time Windows 98 was the resource hog, but even then, it still ran circles around what Windows 10 can do on today's modern hardware and look a heck of alot better doing it.
May 25, 2021 22:55:12 GMT -6
<Rick> As stated elsewhere, So much for the launch of Windows 11, "The Great Crash." Myself, I had a hard time getting into the site listed above, when I did get in, the video was partly done and then it crashed. There has been many other reports of crashing.
Jun 24, 2021 9:52:33 GMT -6
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<Rick> I see Microsoft has been very quick to pull down reports of site crashing regarding the Launch of Windows 11 on the Microsoft Insiders forum.
Jun 24, 2021 9:57:31 GMT -6
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<Rick> The rebroadcast is working okay.
Jun 24, 2021 11:00:25 GMT -6
<Rick> With reports of people being able to install the dev-edition of Windows 11 on machines not meeting spec, I thought I would give it a what-the-heck try. Lucky me, I'm caught in the downloading, doesn't meet spec, clearing, re-downloading loop on my machine!
Jul 2, 2021 7:08:46 GMT -6
<Rick> I've recently purchased a license for ArcaOS from www.arcanoae.com/ to play with. First impressions, it's still OS/2, but it now has a Linux twist to it.
Jul 2, 2021 7:32:53 GMT -6
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<dozrguy> laptop shit out and am stuck buying a new one. os win11 as fucked as win10 was?
Oct 2, 2021 12:56:10 GMT -6
<Rick> Let's see ..., my impression of Windows 11 is that it is a spruced up version of Windows 10 requiring a 64-bit processor plus a piece of security hardware that is less than 4 years old in order for it to run.
Oct 4, 2021 18:25:49 GMT -6
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<Rick> On the plus side, Microsoft is supposed to be supporting Windows 10 for some time to come for those of us still using systems with I7 or older processors.
Oct 4, 2021 18:44:35 GMT -6
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<dozrguy> i tried installing win10 om the 'shitout' pc this morning usung media creation. EPIC FAIL! went into an endless bootloop. win7 reinstalled just fine
Oct 21, 2021 11:23:38 GMT -6
<dozrguy> STILL so much bullshit and so little time for the kiddie ideas from the hill. My new laptop (MSI GE 11-UH461) would be an awesome "10" machine but because of Winblows I can only give it a "2"......wasted $3500
Oct 27, 2021 9:36:47 GMT -6
<Rick> Hello. Just checking in.
Mar 17, 2022 10:46:54 GMT -6
<isidroco> Each new w10 update adds >100000 useless files to \Windows\Servicing\LCU\Package_for_RollupFix... folders. Even in a SSD takes time to delete that stuff. In each version they manage to worsen stuff.
Mar 27, 2022 16:14:51 GMT -6
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<dozerguy> still traffic here?
Oct 9, 2022 17:32:44 GMT -6
<Rick> No, there does not seem to be very much traffic these days. I still check in from time to time.
Oct 9, 2022 20:08:58 GMT -6