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More reasons why I don’t use Windows

A close look at Microsoft’s track record in rolling out Windows 10 suggests the company “blatently disregards user choice and privacy.”

After describing the numerous horror stories of how Microsoft forced Windows 10 updates on people against their will, there was this:

The trouble with Windows 10 doesn’t end with forcing users to download the operating system. Windows 10 sends an unprecedented amount of usage data back to Microsoft, particularly if users opt in to “personalize” the software using the OS assistant called Cortana. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of data sent back: location data, text input, voice input, touch input, webpages you visit, and telemetry data regarding your general usage of your computer, including which programs you run and for how long.

You do have to opt-in to Cortana, but even if you don’t, your privacy is still not secure:

And while users can disable some of these settings, it is not a guarantee that your computer will stop talking to Microsoft’s servers. A significant issue is the telemetry data the company receives. While Microsoft insists that it aggregates and anonymizes this data, it hasn’t explained just how it does so. Microsoft also won’t say how long this data is retained, instead providing only general timeframes. Worse yet, unless you’re an enterprise user, no matter what, you have to share at least some of this telemetry data with Microsoft and there’s no way to opt-out of it. [emphasis in original]

It is once again time for people to consider alternatives. Here again are the links to James Stephens’ series on Behind the Black for Getting and Installing Linux:

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

4 comments

  • Calvin Dodge

    Tomorrow I’ll personally benefit from Microsoft’s mess, as I’ll be one of many doing a remediation project for a major hotel chain. I’ll be reimaging hotel guest-use computers, changing them from Windows 10 back to the originally installed version. I have the spreadsheet listing all of the locations, and there are THOUSANDS where the unexpected “upgrade” to 10 occurred. So I’m grateful for the work, even though I know that – per Bastiat’s “Parable of the Broken Window” – the country as a whole did NOT benefit from this.

  • Localfluff

    I run my second pirate copy of Windows 7 now and I’ve never been prompted to upgrade. Is it maybe because I don’t restart my computer every year? It just causes problems every time you reboot it. I’ve had Linux installed, but I need Windows to run a specific software. I’m just happy that W7 is stable. After a quarter of a century, Microsoft finally managed to make a stable OS, that’s great! :)

  • Crispus

    Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and others all seem to be working towards a a new hi-tech feudalism: Identified, Sorted and Catalogued we drift into our assigned future, dull and barely aware.

  • PeterF

    Crispus-
    I don’t agree.
    I see the invisible hand of capitalism at work.
    It may not be what you want to happen, but it will happen. Based on the law of supply and demand. None of those organizations you mentioned will ever be able to dictate market forces. And the ones that fight it will fall by the wayside…

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