Windows 11: a spyware machine out of users' control?

[CrisisDog]

I run LineageOS with no google services installed. It's not for everyone but it's possible to have a de-googled android.

I have a Huawei phone running EMUI 12. No Google, plenty of side-loaded apps, actually works quite well. I'm just sharing my data with China. ;-)

 

[ID10T]

Curious how bad it is after changing all of the Privacy settings vs a fresh install, would love to see a deep dive on this, does microsoft actually respect the user settings in this regard?

Also do those privacy settings stick after updates, I have ready many a person claiming they don't but I my end using Win10, after my initial install and setup I saw no changes to my privacy settings after all these years and I switched to 10 about 6 months after release.

 

[wiyosaya]

That's probably the "safer way", of doing it. I confess my solution is more, "budget oriented"..

Linux will read NTFS, but writes in exFAT. That kinda left me scratching my head when transferring files from one OS to the other. "Why is this damned file only reporting 606 MB in Windows, but 636 MB in Linux. What did I do wrong?"

Hey Captain, Linux writes NTFS, too.

 

[wiyosaya]

IMO, this continued and unbridled spyware from big tech masquerading as an "OS" is precisely why we need what's covered here - https://www.techspot.com/community/...actices-in-state-of-the-union-address.279055/

Perhaps I will connect Wireshark myself to my various windows machines to see what the destination address are, then block them in my firewall (which is a Linux PC). I wonder if Windohs 10 or Windohs 11 would still actually work in this case? It sounds like doing so would be an interesting experiment. If it were to work, then maybe I'll just redirect those addresses in the Windohs PC's host files.

 

[hwertz]

Makes me glad I'm running Ubuntu! On install, it has an option to check for updates at install time, which you can do or not. It checks for updates (how often can be changed, and it can be turned off if you REALLY want no traffic), and optionally sends in crash reports (if that's turned on, it asks for permission each time; and it can be turned off.) That's it!

 

[captaincranky]

Hey Captain, Linux writes NTFS, too.

I've heard tell of that, at least with respect to Ubuntu. I had "Mint" installed, (which is basically Ubuntu with a more Windows-esque GUI). However, it doesn't write NTFS, "right out of the box", and keep in mind I'm a total rookie, without your skills of familiarity with the OS..

I'm copying and pasting an earlier post of mine in this thread, (to save, you the trouble of looking for it), about my latest excursion/ dabble into the, "dark arts", which is Linux for noobs:

I got sick of trying to update an old copy of Win 7, (no SP-1) M$ wouldn't update to SP-1, they just doled out the "cumulative security update", which didn't register as SP-1. So, most programs still available for Win 7 require SP-1. I said "f*ck it", and installed Mint. The boot times were reminiscent of an HDD, in spite of having an SSD on "sba1" (?).

OK, so this is an old box, (G-41 Intel), so it doesn't have much oomph. When I'd get a bunch of tabs open,it would red light the HDD indicator continuously, immobilizing the mouse pointer, and all browser controls. Recovery from this was hit or miss. Usually, a forced shutdown and reboot would rectify the situation. However, the other night I tried this and managed to brick the machine. Now it boots into a black screen, where I'm given the choice of "recovery mode", or "advanced". Whichever door I walk through, I get prompted to enter "help", for more "commands". It then spits out a bunch of gibberish, none of which resembles a command prompt, and proceeds to regurgitate that it can't find the "floppy drive", ("sbf" (?)), endlessly..

OK, I'm fairly certain Win 7 would have recovered under, "start Windows normally", or worst case, "insert disc to repair the system".. Mint, doesn't give you those opportunities. So, I guess it's time for the big reinstall. Which is a b*tch, since I was just getting used to Linux.

After about 5 calls to Windows activation, I was finally able to get the "industrial surplus" copy of Win 7 pro in this even older box (Intel G-31) up and running, enabling me to get this tale of woe and torment off my chest.

But no, even the latest edition of Mint, and therefore Ubuntu as well, isn't anywhere near as stable as Windows 7.

But then who the hell knows, maybe that damned G-41 board is on its way out.

 

[hwertz]

OK, I'm fairly certain Win 7 would have recovered under, "start Windows normally", or worst case, "insert disc to repair the system".. Mint, doesn't give you those opportunities. So, I guess it's time for the big reinstall. Which is a b*tch, since I was just getting used to Linux.
...

But no, even the latest edition of Mint, and therefore Ubuntu as well, isn't anywhere near as stable as Windows 7.

A) Ubuntu at least (and I think Mint as well) most definitely do have a live disk (usually USB stick now) you can install and use to repair your system.

Just as an FYI (if you have not already re-installed Mint you can try this!), if your boot drive is "/dev/sda1", almost any time I've seen the "initramfs" prompt pop up (which it sounds like is what you're at), the thing to do is run "fsck /dev/sda1" and just keep hitting "y" (yes). Out of a sense of paranoia, Ubuntu (at least) will run fsck if it thinks the disk needs a file system check, but if fsck finds anything "unexpected" it makes you run it manually (so one could have a chance of mounting the disk read-only and doing a backup first I guess.)

B) Mint is not Ubuntu, they make enough changes that you can't necessarily conclude "Mint, and therefore Ubuntu" anything really. That said, I'm no Microsoft fan but I'm not about to dispute that you get Win7 (and WinXP before that) on the right combo of hardware and software and it'll just run and run and run.

 

[captaincranky]

Every time that Microsoft has pushed hard for people to "upgrade" to the next generation of Windows, they always gave the same inane reasons of "Speed, security, blah...blah...blah" but in every instance that I've seen them REALLY push to get people to adopt the next one, the reason was always something that they DIDN'T talk about in their promotional materials.

Most of the high pressure / forced "update" to Windows 10 was at the hands of Satya Nadella. OK, so this guy is the equivalent of, "offshore customer service", with respect to his management style. He has all the business subtlety of someone who got his degree from a slum bizarre in New Delhi. He's likely making 1/10th of what Bill Gates was, but is 10 times as obnoxious and ruthless.

Now, M$ "bribed" all the gaming addicts with DX-12, and the rest "upgraded", because it was "free". (Don't you know "free" always comes with a catch)? Then there was the "chicken little contingent", buying into the security bullsh!t M$ was pumping out. "The sky is falling, the sky is falling, right into my PC". If I don't upgrade immediately, then I'll be at the mercy of every piece of malware on the web without Windows 10" (I guess nobody's ever heard of aftermarket A/V solutions).

So, I'm firmly convinced that M$ had a "good 'ol boyz sh!t house meetin'", wiff Intel, AMD, and god knows who else, so that all of their new product releases, "would not be fully compatible with anything but Windows 10". From what I've seen and heard, M$ has taken their subjugation of users to a whole new level, with this POS that is Windows 11. Win 11 is where "planned obsolescence", has morphed into "forced obsolescence". That should be obviously, as well as painfully, and unsettlingly, as plain as the nose on your face

So, Mr. Nadella sold y'all using a patent falsehood as bait that, "Windows 10 would be, the last edition of Windows ever". Now, you're finding out just how hard it is to get that hook out of your mouths.

 

[dalpilot]

As a supposed "techie" (I started with MS-DOS 2.0 back in 1983) at my age it's way too much work to use anything other than Windows - Turbotax, Quicken, and an unhealthy attachment to Chrome has resulted in dependence on Windows. Currently have two computers running 11, 3 Computers running 10, and two Chromebooks (nice little fast inexpensive computers/tablets (two Lenovo Duets). Work to minimize the amount of information shared and maintain some semblance of privacy and security. Linux (or other alternatives) is just a "Bridge too Far" for this retired computer nerd. There was a time when I might have considered Linux (at least 20 years ago) but that time has passed and most (if not all) consumers (99.99%) are not going to put up with the challenges of running Windows/OSX in the "real world" and Linux at home.

 

[Hotlynx16]

I get the joke, and maybe to the younger generation their phone really is their main workstation, but to me I've always seen a clear distinction between a phone and a desktop.

To me the phone is not for serious work and anything that's sensitive never has to be on it. I didn't expect my request for the nearest gas station to be secret in the first place.

That's not true of my expensive desk workstation and it's expensive Pro or Enterprise windows edition. Whatever records & documents are being created on it, I expect to stay on it. Windows machines are used in hospitals, doctors offices, banks, army bases, and probably inside plenty of environments that include classified secrets. The idea that the world's most common operating system can not keep its mouth shut is an unsettling one.

I Agree "To me the phone is not for serious work and anything that's sensitive never has to be on it" I do not do any kind of banking, emails or even FaceBarf on my Phone!!

 

[brunocasarini]

Dual boot is an option - probably less convenient.

I thought about dual booting, and though it was a cheaper option, it would still be the same hardware sharing the same files and resources. I tried running Windows in a VirtualBox VM inside Linux, but 1) I don't know if it would be effective privacy-wise and 2) I wanted to use GPU passthrough for better VM performance, but I didn't have the ideal hardware to do it and it was way too complicated to set up.

 

[Fastturtle]

I'll be switching to FreeBSD mid year once I retire and thanks to Steam Deck and Proton, my only online game now works great - GW2 - so I have nothing that holds me to windows. Heck I even had to pull the Solotaire, minesweeper, spider and freecell from a Win7 box I still have just to have them for a quick game. Better versions of Solotaire are available on FreeBSD such as PySol.

Thankfully, Win10 doesn't spy as badly but it's getting there and don't even get me going on Win12. Governments got exactly what they wanted; All the data and none of the controversy of them spying on their citizens.

 

[ramussons]

L

I run LineageOS with no google services installed. It's not for everyone but it's possible to have a de-googled android.

LineageOS calls for "rooting" the instrument. Most of my Financial apps refuse to run because of the "rooting"

 

[captaincranky]

I thought about dual booting, and though it was a cheaper option, it would still be the same hardware sharing the same files and resources.

Well, dual booting from a single partitioned drive, only gives you "either/or" capability. But, it doesn't chew up hardware resources anywhere near as badly as virtual machines do. Unless the system drive itself fails, you'll always have the Linux partition that can be used to recover your files.

Most of the time people use VM protocols to isolate themselves from malware. So, if the VM partition gets infected, you just delete it. VM is also used for software incompatible with the primary OS.

Believe it or not, M$ used to publish a VM to run XP inside of Windows 7. Of course it's, "no longer available for download". In a show of force, M$ withdrew everything of value for Win 7, to corral people into using Win 10, up to and including "SP-1".

In contradiction to what I said earlier, do a clean install of Windows first, create a partition for Linux, then install Linux to the partition. "GRUB" will hijack the boot loading duties, and give you the choice between the two OSes at startup.

 

[wiyosaya]

As a supposed "techie" (I started with MS-DOS 2.0 back in 1983) at my age it's way too much work to use anything other than Windows - Turbotax, Quicken, and an unhealthy attachment to Chrome has resulted in dependence on Windows. Currently have two computers running 11, 3 Computers running 10, and two Chromebooks (nice little fast inexpensive computers/tablets (two Lenovo Duets). Work to minimize the amount of information shared and maintain some semblance of privacy and security. Linux (or other alternatives) is just a "Bridge too Far" for this retired computer nerd. There was a time when I might have considered Linux (at least 20 years ago) but that time has passed and most (if not all) consumers (99.99%) are not going to put up with the challenges of running Windows/OSX in the "real world" and Linux at home.

Ugh. Quicken. I got out of that boat when they started forcing subscriptions. I'll suggest you have a look at Moneydance. I did, and I will never go back to Quicken. The transition from Quicken, while not entirely painless, was relatively easy to make with an import of Quicken Data to Moneydance.

 

[yannus]

As we left Windows, I told her to not look back lest she turn into a pillar of salt.

This is the best argument to stay on Linux. Freedom would be the second one. Talking seriously, it seems to me that most people switch to Linux for more than technical reasons. Open source is the real interesting thing in it. You own your OS entirely.

 

[captaincranky]

Just as an FYI (if you have not already re-installed Mint you can try this!), if your boot drive is "/dev/sda1", almost any time I've seen the "initramfs" prompt pop up (which it sounds like is what you're at), the thing to do is run "fsck /dev/sda1" and just keep hitting "y" (yes). Out of a sense of paranoia, Ubuntu (at least) will run fsck if it thinks the disk needs a file system check, but if fsck finds anything "unexpected" it makes you run it manually (so one could have a chance of mounting the disk read-only and doing a backup first I guess.)

Thanks for the heads up on this.

FWIW: I was running the Mint, (64 bit, (as you certainly know)) over top of 32 bits worth of hardware. The latest versions of Linux are far from the "lightweight OS", people used to seek out due to the fact, "XP required too much hardware to run".

In any case, I'm on an archaic G-31 / Pentium E-2200 ATM. The machine doesn't even have a DVI output on the board, S-VGA only.! It was fully in slug mode, (wouldn't load pages, FF using tons of RAM), until I popped in a GT-730. I had completely forgotten the Nvidia driver was already installed at the time I got rid of XP. So, big difference from the boards's truly anemic IGP.

Moving on to Mint & the G-41. I didn't get around to installing a separate card, which could have been a part, or most of the problem,.with the constant SSD usage and browser lockup. I had to reinstall Mint from the jump, as it read the GT-1030 that was in the machine as the board IGP. After I yanked the card, I managed to coerce it to install.

I actually liked the Mint, in spite of its quirks. It's painfully slow booting. When you consider this much lower powered G-31 rig gives me a clean desktop in about 30 seconds. The Mint took at least 3X that long. The sound driver wouldn't detect the headphones without having to unplug then plug them back in.

However, it does have most, or possibly more features than Win 7. A cute trick that it has is not needing printer drivers. You just plug the printer in, and that's it. (From version "Cinnamon" 21.xx on).

OK, enough of me droning on. Thanks again.

 

[Athlonite]

I dearly wish that were the case, but the experiences of myself and a good number of friends and co-workers says differently. Linux cannot automatically find Windows network servers, a critical ability for some. Its not quite as stable as Windows 7 or later versions no matter what anyone says. Its noticeably slower launching applications and you see inexplicable lag. I've tried many distros based on Ubuntu, Arch, Slack, you name it. Linux has made some major advances in the past decade but it still has a ways to go as a daily OS for average users, or even for Windows "power users". Truthfully, I think Mac users would be more comfortable with Linux - most Linux apps have a look and feel closer to to OSX than Windows. Linux on an M1 or M2 Mac would probably be amazing, though.

I'd be looking at what sort of potato machine you're running as the problem. I've got a very good friend who runs an older AM4 machine R7 2700 (non X) RX580 GPU and 16GB ram on and TUF X470 Gaming Mobo with an NVME SSD with his Linux Mint as the OS and programs it's snappy as hell even when using compressed program packs called flatpacks it's just as fast as my more modern AM4 system running Windows 11

 

[Julnor]

As a supposed "techie" (I started with MS-DOS 2.0 back in 1983) at my age it's way too much work to use anything other than Windows - Turbotax, Quicken, and an unhealthy attachment to Chrome has resulted in dependence on Windows. Currently have two computers running 11, 3 Computers running 10, and two Chromebooks (nice little fast inexpensive computers/tablets (two Lenovo Duets). Work to minimize the amount of information shared and maintain some semblance of privacy and security. Linux (or other alternatives) is just a "Bridge too Far" for this retired computer nerd. There was a time when I might have considered Linux (at least 20 years ago) but that time has passed and most (if not all) consumers (99.99%) are not going to put up with the challenges of running Windows/OSX in the "real world" and Linux at home.

tbph that will make it easier if anything, the old dosbox/command.com got nerfed over time in Windows but in Linux it's even more functional. I was around for those too, all the way up through DOS 6.21. Early Windows were very poor and DOS was still better up until probably right around Win98. Even then you had to still jump into command.com at times, it's only within the last couple of gens of Windows they finally abrogated it. I'd say probably around Win7, although if you want to do certain things even today you still need Powershell and it's just more annoying to get it working.

Browsers absolutely work the same in Linux regardless, even Chrome, which probably is compiled on Linux since most tech companies work off Linux.

One thing I had to come to the realization of myself recently, as we age out of course there are less of us around, and younger people today are different in that they are convinced they know things and are thus superior, when in fact they tend to be less capable and informed. The vast majority of young people actually can do less now, they rely on the technology to do it for them and exaggerate on every task. I think you'll find Linux is actually quite simple. I absolutely believe it was harder to learn and use MS-DOS back then than it is to use Linux today.

 

[captaincranky]

One thing I had to come to the realization of myself recently, as we age out of course there are less of us around, and younger people today are different in that they are convinced they know things and are thus superior, when in fact they tend to be less capable and informed. The vast majority of young people actually can do less now, they rely on the technology to do it for them and exaggerate on every task.

That effect has even been given a name, "Dunning & Kruger syndrome".

I have an "old adage", I keep laying around for "special occasions"., It's something to the effect of, "maturity is the realization of how much you don't know, as opposed to how much you think you do".

Exactly how old are you? Are you old enough to remember these times, along with Bob Dylan's epistle to creeping maturity and the self dismantling of one's ostensibly misguided ideals?

More to the topic at hand, the only "logical reason" I can suss out for the adoption of Windows 11, is the inability of many to separate want from need. Well that, and mindlessly doing exactly what M$ orders you to do.

 

[Guillermo Belli]

L

LineageOS calls for "rooting" the instrument. Most of my Financial apps refuse to run because of the "rooting"

You don't need for the phone to be rooted to install or run LineageOS, but most bank apps will refuse to work without Google services anyway.

 

[Xclusiveitalian]

Think of all the CPU usage being wasted on data harvesting by Google/Windows, and all the extra power needed for it and hoarding personal data onto storage. No wonder phone batteries are still so terrible 10 years later.

 

[Avro Arrow]

So, I'm firmly convinced that M$ had a "good 'ol boyz sh!t house meetin'", wiff Intel, AMD, and god knows who else, so that all of their new product releases, "would not be fully compatible with anything but Windows 10". From what I've seen and heard, M$ has taken their subjugation of users to a whole new level, with this POS that is Windows 11. Win 11 is where "planned obsolescence", has morphed into "forced obsolescence". That should be obviously, as well as painfully, and unsettlingly, as plain as the nose on your face

Yep, I do remember that I was forced to use Windows 10 when I purchased my R7-1700 because there were no Windows 7 drivers for the Ryzen platform. Fortunately, I found an Windows 10 Professional OEM key on Kinguin for under $15 CAD. I had to get another key (for far less than that) when I upgraded my motherboard from my X370 Killer SLI to my X570 Pro4 because OEM keys attach themselves to your motherboard's ID number.

 

[MaXtor]

Think of all the CPU usage being wasted on data harvesting by Google/Windows, and all the extra power needed for it and hoarding personal data onto storage. No wonder phone batteries are still so terrible 10 years later.

This is true. Degoogling and debloating your phone results in significantly longer battery life.

If you can't root or install LineageOS, I suggest this route:
https://github.com/0x192/universal-android-debloater

 

[rsmith222]

Run your code on compromised CPUs. Yes... they all are.

Then... the support chips, and the networks...