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Windows 10 phones home when you search your start menu, even with Bing disabled
- CSDude 11y agoUbuntu does the same by default if you do not disable it via Privacy. Not suprised that MS does this, however the sad part is for a simple search, there are literally thosaunds of bytes exchanged
- bsilvereagle 11y ago> there are literally thousaunds of bytes exchanged For people on capped connections, this is a nightmare. 4kB/search, for using your computer normally! Even though 100 searches/day is only 12MB of data/month, the fact that Microsoft thinks it's okay for the OS to slurp data like this boggles my mind.
- eterm 11y agoIf people slurp data from a single source they can have that data easily be made "free" by the network providers, and so are then sold back to again.
- dc_gregory 11y agoIt seems a bit unlikely that users doing 100 searches a day would also be the same set of users who worry about 12MB of data usage in a month. For example, even in the Australian market (very low competition environment), 12MB of data via 4G is trivial.
- rbanffy 11y agoIt's not Microsoft's data traffic to grab. The user is paying for it and Microsoft should treat their users with respect. Not making users pay for data that benefits Microsoft would be a start.
- tacticus 11y agoThe australian market where most providers bill at least a MB for every connection session (1B over some arbitrary time and you're down one of your MB)
- rosege 11y agoTry running computers on boats where you have VSAT/Fleet connections and every KB counts
- pwnna 11y agoDidn't they disable this?
- ultramancool 11y agoThis occurs even on Enterprise with Cortana and Bing disabled via the UI and via GPOs.
- kyrra 11y agoWhen going through the "advanced" upgrade install of Win10, there was an option to NOT send Microsoft information about what you search for in the bar. It's set to send by default, but can be disabled.
- ultramancool 11y agoI have everything disabled in privacy settings. Doesn't help. Check for yourself if you like. It's important to note that this is _not_ info that you search for. No search query was included. Just a lot of identifying information about my machine.
- acqq 11y agoThe most interesting are the fields in the headers tab (machine id, resolution...)
- gruez 11y agoare you using LTSB?
- ultramancool 11y agoNo, I am not using LTSB. I think LTSB desktop only would be safe from this as it doesn't have the new start menu UI, but I don't have a copy around to test.
- resus 11y agoIt does it on LTSB too. Proof: http://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/63112-LTSB-Enterprise-N-Pure-Desktop-version-Flexible-update-behaviour-no-Modern-Apps?p=1107345&viewfull=1#post1107345 http://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/63112-LTSB-Enterpri...
- mahouse 11y agoDo "normal" applications look blurry on high DPI screens?
- ultramancool 11y agoApplications without DPI scaling support on Windows are like that. More and more apps are getting there, but still not Fiddler apparently.
- ericlaw 11y agoPass the -dpiAware command line argument into Fiddler to have it report that it is DPI aware.
- Paul_S 11y agoWhat's a "DPI screen"? Couldn't find anything on wikipedia.
- georgemcbay 11y agoApplications that don't mark themselves as explicitly handling High DPI correctly will be autoscaled up by default in a way that does look pretty blurry (basically their GDI canvases are being bitmap scaled from much lower resolutions for final display) because blurry is better than unreadably small as a default. You can opt out of this on a per-app basis (right click app icon, Compatibility tab, select "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings") and have them just display everything really tiny if you prefer that. This is actually a decent option if the app has its own scaling but doesn't properly interact with Windows to enable it. I still run Sublime Text 2 and have it set to disable High DPI scaling and then just use a bigger font point size to make the text readable; also used to do the same with Chrome back before it had proper High DPI scaling on Windows (disabled DPI scaling, then just used the normal web page render scaling).
- Paul_S 11y agoReminds me of when canononical did something similar with ubuntu and extended searching your applications to searching merchandise on amazon and other stores. It's really funny when you open the start menu equivalent at work to launch the terminal* and as you type "t" you get to see items you can buy - one of them being "The Simpsons". Genius. * before you complain I use the start menu to launch the terminal: I never remember ubuntu shortcuts, it's meta+t on my system
- Macha 11y agoThis behaviour bit me in the ass in work today. Had a new Mac, just installed Polycom (our video conferencing program), typed Polyc<enter> out of habit in spotlight to launch it, ended up on the wikipedia page for polycystic ovarian syndrome...
- to3m 11y agoI rarely use the Spotlight or Start Menu keyboard searching because of stuff like this. If it doesn't reliably produce the right result each time if you only type a small amount of the name - which it doesn't - what's the point? (Call me crazy, but because of this I've come to not mind the basic Windows 8 start screen. It's not as good as the classic start menu, but compared to the Windows 7 one you can at least arrange it for quick access to a larger number of programs.)
- ZoFreX 11y agoThis. I previously loved Spotlight but it's getting strange in its old age. For example, if I type "i" or "it" or "ite" or "iter", Spotlight predicts "iTerm". But if I actually type "iTerm" in full it takes me to "Go2Shell" in the App Store – because it has the word "iterm" in the patch notes of the most recent version. Useful.
- almostdvs 11y agoI use quicksilver and gnome do and launchy. The searches never worked the way should for me either.
- VOYD 11y agoAnd yet, you posed this on the internet, sharing your IP & MAC addresses with several companies.
- bsilvereagle 11y agoUtilitarianism - OP may have decided that the small amount of damage he's garnered from an IP + MAC leak (both of which are somewhat easily obtainable) was worth informing thousands of people that Microsoft is acting this way.
- ultramancool 11y agoI'll take one for the team here, I think it's important that people know about this and a one-off disclosure of these details is no big deal for me. However, a repeated one, sent with a unique identifier, from any location I bring my machine is more concerning and I know there are people with even greater privacy concerns than myself who will want to know this.
- QUFB 11y agoHow is he sharing his MAC address with any companies that are outside his network segment?
- jevgeni 11y agoSo sharing things on the network segment is OK?
- joaorj 11y agoEven worst, he is alive, and he had to share his name with the local authorities when he was born
- morganvachon 11y agoAnd? He could be running Tails with a spoofed MAC and bouncing through TOR while sitting in a coffee shop 100 miles from home. There's privacy-conscious, and then there's paranoid.
- stevecalifornia 11y agoI wish this was happening on my machine so I could investigate, but it's not. Searches in Start ask if I want to search the web then open a browser. I have the default search settings.
- ultramancool 11y agoCheck for connections being made by SearchUI.exe over HTTPS to Bing servers. A tool like TcpView or Wireshark should do the job. If you really don't have these being made, please share with us your settings, anything you suspect may have disabled these? I've been unable to find anything and I've applied the tweaks from this article, including the GPO changes: http://www.ghacks.net/2015/07/30/windows-10-and-privacy/ http://www.ghacks.net/2015/07/30/windows-10-and-privacy/
- stevecalifornia 11y agoJust FYI, Microsoft has one of the clearer Privacy Statements. It's organized by service and provides an overview and then the option to drill-in. You might get some answers in there: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement/default.aspx https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement/default.asp...
- Maarten88 11y agoI can confirm this: it also does not happen on my machine. However, it does download some app images that are displayed in my start menu for apps that are advertised in a "play and explore" category in the Start menu. If I select Settings in the search menu it says "Online search isn't supported in your region". I can enable Online Search, but even then I need to explicitly select "Web" as opposed to the default "My Stuff" before it opens a browser and connects to Bing. This machine including privacy settings was migrated from Windows 8.1. When I installed that I selected custom settings and disabled most of the privacy sensitive settings.
- EastSmith 11y agoThis is not happening to me either. I have disabled many things in the Settings => Privacy menu, I guess it might be related to Cortana (Settings => Privacy menu => Speech, inking, &typing), but I am not enabling it to find out.
- blinkingled 11y agoIt's the new norm apparently - everyone is doing this. Apple gives OS X away but nobody has yet got the memo that you are becoming the product. (Yosemite does exactly that by default - you can disable it though.)
- jonahx 11y agowhich setting is it under?
- vnchr 11y agoSpotlight suggestions is the issue, and there are settings for both Safari and Spotlight to adjust so searches are not shared. This article shows the steps to disable: http://www.intego.com/mac-security-blog/spotlight-suggestions-in-os-x-yosemite-and-ios-are-you-staying-private/ http://www.intego.com/mac-security-blog/spotlight-suggestion...
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- matthewmacleod 11y agoI thoroughly doubt that Apple's endgame here is to make their users the product – given that the operating system is only available to people who have paid them money in the first place. A much more pragmatic conclusion is that they think this feature is something that users want. And in Apple's case, as well as others, it probably is.
- joshuapants 11y agoIt could end up like cable TV. Initially you just pay for the service, eventually you keep paying but also get sold.
- blinkingled 11y agoYou paid for the hardware and the OS that shipped with it. Developing a new OS version costs Apple non trivial amounts of money - development, deployment, testing, bandwidth, support etc. and they used to charge for them up until just a few years ago. Something's got to fund it - things like pushing more of Apple's online services, gathering user data etc provide some ROI to Apple.
- blackbeard 11y agoI'm starting to think I need to worry about things getting out of my firewall more than things getting in.
- justThis1Post 11y agoCouldn't agree more. These days we have to protect ourselves more from our own software than from viruses. Assume any software is a trojan horse, even the OS.
- Paul_S 11y agoOr you could use free software.
- mucker 11y agoHow, pray tell, does free change the problem except in fantasies? There is plenty of "free" software that contains the same problem.
- rbanffy 11y agoAt least, with those, you can audit the code and have someone fix it. No such luck with proprietary software.
- mackal 11y agoFree as in freedom, not beer. You can look at the code of the free software, therefore tell if it's phoning home or not. More importantly, changing it.
- anigbrowl 11y agoHow many people have the time or inclination to validate everything that way?
- 11y ago
- narrator 11y agoI wonder what foreign governments such as China and Russia are going to do about this. How are they going to secure their networks from surveillance?
- chatmasta 11y agoThis also happens on iOS with spotlight. As far as I can tell there's no way to turn it off. Source: MITM your iOS traffic. Sidenote -- a possibly unforeseen side effect of end to end encryption everywhere is that it makes it far more difficult to man in the middle your traffic and hold companies accountable for their privacy policies.
- unluckier 11y agoIt's pretty simple if the OS you're using allows you to install a trusted root CA certificate.
- MichaelGG 11y agoExcept apps like this should probably not be using the OS CA store, and instead just pin their own CA cert. Doesn't seem to be the case here but in general I think pinning is getting more adoption, isn't it?
- ultramancool 11y agoNot really, heck, on Android and iOS around 40% of banking apps don't even check the certificate at all. Most people, even most developers seem to be pretty clueless with this stuff.
- yrro 11y ago> on Android and iOS around 40% of banking apps don't even check the certificate at all. Please name and shame, this sounds pretty surprising!
- ultramancool 11y agoHeard that on an old security now episode, https://www.grc.com/sn/sn-443-notes.pdf https://www.grc.com/sn/sn-443-notes.pdf is the best I have unfortunately, there's mention of it near the bottom there.
- justThis1Post 11y agoAs time goes by, computer software begins to feel more and more hostile to the user. When I installed Windows 10, all the privacy settings made me feel like I was wrangling a beast rather than setting up something that would help me. I don't know if there's any solution or if privacy is just a remnant of the past. Is Linux any better? And is there any way to own a smartphone which is built not to leak my information, either through the operating system or through 3rd party apps that request access to everything on the phone?
- greyone 11y agoThe Blackphone is built for privacy and Linux is pretty at not leaking private info, although you have to configure Ubuntu a bit I hear.
- justThis1Post 11y agoI looked into blackphone a while ago. If I remember correctly the first thing it asks for is your e-mail address so it can sign you up to their proprietary anonymity/cloud service. I'm not sure if this is still the case, but if it is I think they've completely misunderstood their target audience. Thanks for reminding me though I will have another look into it.
- mikegioia 11y agoI don't know if there's any solution or if privacy is just a remnant of the past. This always irritates me when I see it (not specific to you). It's not a remnant of the past and there is of course a solution! The solution is trading some of the conveniences you think you need. The solution is for once trying something other than what you're used to. The reason why you (and everyone else who thinks this way) feel there's no solution is because in your world, giving up a smart-phone or even using a non-Windows/Google/Apple device is a non-starter. There are new phones coming out like Ubuntu's and Mozilla's that, while not perfect, absolutely are better alternatives. If you keep digging there are projects like Neo900 that respect privacy in totality. You could use a feature phone, or an old n900, or any bevy of alternatives but the price they come with is convenience :)
- jug 11y agoCan you turn off search suggestions? I assume it's like all those sort of services, like the Google Chrome address bar, etc.
- pedalpete 11y agoThe start menu is a combination web-search and local search. How could it not 'phone home' on a web search? Note the address it is 'phoning home' to is Bing. As far as what the contents of the package being sent is, I'll assume it is more information than necessary, and probably over-reaching until they get a slap on the wrist, but to call this phoning home is probably a stretch in itself. -- Edit -- Apparently the search still phones home even if search is disabled, which makes my point mostly... pointless. I still suspect that this was an example of Microsoft (intentionally) over-reaching and that they'll backpedal on this now that it has been brought to light. Shame is, it feels like they are breaking any goodwill that the community may have still had left for them.
- ultramancool 11y agoThis occurs with the web search disabled, which is the real concern. Sorry, I couldn't fit it all in the title, HN title limit is very short. I posted it in the thread but clearly people aren't reading that. EDIT: I've changed the title of the post to clarify this. Hopefully that helps. 80 characters is quite annoying to work with.
- godgod 11y agoWhat's the big deal? You don't like being tracked by the NSA...I mean Microsoft.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- ultramancool 11y agoThe difference is that in Windows 10 it can't be disabled fully.
- unluckier 11y agoIs it really necessary to use a host that requires JavaScript to display an image? Anyway, I've confirmed this. I've disabled web search and all of the other privacy options I've seen with Windows 10 during and after install. As soon as the first character is typed into the Windows 10 search box, the request goes out to www.bing.com. It doesn't say what you searched for (as the request happens before you complete the search), but it does send a lot of info to Microsoft about your platform, including a unique identifier.
- shard972 11y agoYea i don't like this image hosting service either. I'm on some bad wifi atm and it actually froze my UI for a minute.
- MichaelGG 11y agoI opened a bug (well, feedback item) during the preview about this. Even with the various group policy settings set, there was no way to disable web search. Rather unacceptable. One would think this has regulatory and compliance issues as well, no?
- blackbeard 11y agoThis is a big problem for us in the finance sector. We're SOL when it comes to Windows 10. It's a complete dead end if we can't lock stuff down with GPO. There are meetings taking place to work out what to do about this in various companies and the general answer so far is jump the sinking platform ship and "thank fuck we wrote everything in Java". Some of the big guys are already rolling out RHEL desktops.
- pdkl95 11y agoI wonder if it is even legal to use Windows 10 if you have to comply with HIPAA regulated. I suggest using this incompatibility as leverage against this kind of data exfiltration. The only way a big company will change is when it hurts their pocket book. They might notice if enough businesses such as yours decline to use Windows 10 while complaining about this. Of course, Linux is always a good choice, regardless of what MS is doing. If big players are already jumping to RHEL, now would definately be the time to switch.
- blackbeard 11y agoThe problem is that we deliver everything via the web so people will barely notice if we move our stuff over to an alternative platform from Windows. Microsoft knows it has lock in from a lot of people and it will abuse this. I think their aggressive cloud move with Office 365 and Azure's PaaS stuff is an example of how they are moving this forward further yet retaining a subscription. NOTHING is portable away from them without significant cost. Edit: just the effort I started two weeks ago to move all my data to platform neutral formats and shift to Linux is less than 50% of the way through and that's just one person with 20 years of data.
- 11y ago
- bitmapbrother 11y agoI installed Windows 10 yesterday and used it for a couple of hours before coming to the conclusion that I made an error in downgrading from Windows 7. Windows 10 feels more like their phone OS disguised as a desktop OS. Perhaps the most jarring part was how ugly legacy (Windows 7) apps looked in Windows 10. They didn't even bother trying to make these apps look nice. Also, their services are plastered all over the place and there's little you can do to turn these off. And then there's the numerous privacy invasive "features" proactively turned on for you when you install it. Luckily, you have 30 days to change your mind and return to Windows 7. I did it within hours. I never liked Windows 8 and I think I dislike Windows 10 ever more. No wonder they're giving it away because had they tried to sell it then it would have probably met the same fate as Windows 8.
- devindotcom 11y agoI wonder - does that get you in the door to do the free upgrade more than a year from now? I wouldn't mind upgrading once 10 has had a little time to age properly.
- bitmapbrother 11y agoYou have only a year to decide if you want the free upgrade. What I did, however, was record the product key for Windows 10 should I ever decide to go back. In any case, I'm glad to be back on Windows 7. Windows 10 was a horrific experience that signals that you are now the product instead of the consumer.
- jonlucc 11y agoThey already have a large update coming in the Fall and one next Spring that should bring additional features. Of course, fixes to things that are broken should be happening regularly.
- tdkl 11y ago> They already have a large update coming in the Fall and one next Spring that should bring additional features. And this is relevant to a customer now as in what ? I'm getting tired or too old for this "continuous, agile, push now make it work later" attitude of products that's out today.
- bitmapbrother 11y agoHere's a list of servers Windows 10 contacts on startup. There are probably more, but these are the ones that showed up. BN1WNS2011508.wns.windows.com OneSettings-bn2.metron.live.com.nsatc.net a978.i6g1.akamai.net americas2.notify.windows.com.akadns.net any.edge.bing.com bingads.microsoft.com bl3302.storage.live.com bl3302geo.storage.dkyprod.akadns.net client.wns.windows.com corp.sts.microsoft.com diagnostics.support.microsoft.com directory.services.live.com directory.services.live.com.akadns.net dns.msftncsi.com en-us.appex-rf.msn.com fe3.delivery.dsp.mp.microsoft.com.nsatc.net fe3.delivery.mp.microsoft.com i1.services.social.microsoft.com i1.services.social.microsoft.com.nsatc.net ipv6.msftncsi.com ipv6.msftncsi.com.edgesuite.net login.live.com login.live.com.nsatc.net pre.footprintpredict.com register.mesh.com settings-win.data.microsoft.com settings.data.glbdns2.microsoft.com skyapi.live.net skyapi.skyprod.akadns.net skydrive.wns.windows.com ssw.live.com ssw.live.com.nsatc.net statsfe1.ws.microsoft.com travel.tile.appex.bing.com v10.vortex-win.data.metron.life.com.nsatc.net v10.vortex-win.data.microsoft.com watson.telemetry.microsoft.com watson.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net wildcard.appex-rf.msn.com.edgesuite.net win10.ipv6.microsoft.com win10.ipv6.microsoft.com.nsatc.net wns.notify.windows.com.akadns.net www.bing.com www.bingads.microsoft.com
- prawn 11y agoIt's really disturbing how many would be indistinguishable (to almost everyone) from malware servers. Lots of .net domains and entities I've never heard of.
- skeletonjelly 11y agoTrue. They all look like CDNs though
- simoncion 11y agoIt's pretty common practice for a .com to run its backend stuff on the .net version of their .com domain. Also, if you know how CDNs tend to structure their DNS entries for their clients, you can remove all but seven of those entries from the list.
- ikeboy 11y agoJust changed two rules in Windows Firewall to blocked and it appears to no longer send anything. https://i.imgur.com/a5yu5vb.png https://i.imgur.com/a5yu5vb.png Wondering if I should go through all the Windows stuff there and turn them off. Edit: just did (except for Edge and obvious internet related stuff). Is there a way to change Firewall rules with a registry tweak? That would be the ideal way to distribute this.
- jug5 11y agoI only have one entry for search, why do you have two?
- blackbeard 11y agoUse Powershell: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj554843%28v=wps.630%29.aspx https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj554843%28v=wps... You can get the rules and enable/disable them easily.
- ikeboy 11y agoThanks! Typing > New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "Search" -Direction Outbound -Action Block -Profile "Domain, Private, Public" -Program "C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy\SearchUI.exe" in elevated Powershell should work.
- blackbeard 11y agoPlease note that the manifest id above (cw5n1h2txyewy) may change if they update the app rendering the rule invalid.
- ikeboy 11y agoThat looks to be a publisher id in use since Windows 8.
- blackbeard 11y ago
- RexRollman 11y agoApple, Microsoft, and Google are on the road to destroying computing autonomy. I have been an OS geek since 1992 and I have never felt so disgusted with the commercial OS market.
- zekevermillion 11y agoIf you opt into the Windows ecosystem, there's no point in complaining about leaking private info. If you care about this, you should choose to run an OS that you control.
- ultramancool 11y agoNot all of us are all-in on the ecosystem. Personally, I just want to play some games and occasionally do some reverse engineering. Just for that, which was perfectly possible in the past, I should be forced to give up private info?
- zekevermillion 11y agoI'm not saying that building software which does not respect privacy is good. I'm saying that if you choose to use software that is designed by companies that are clearly motivated to monetize your personal info, then that is a trade-off which you accept. Render unto Caesar.
- HNSucksAss 11y agoIf Microsoft hadn't ruined the Start menu functionality, you wouldn't have to search it in the first place. Once upon a time, you could organize your applications into groups, which would open as cascading menus. MS broke that in Vista and never fixed it. The Start menu itself is a regression from Program Manager groups anyway. Even Apple has managed to come up with something better, in the form of Launchpad.
- abcxyz123 11y agoForeshadowing? From April 2014: "To be able to truly benefit from this platform you need to have a data culture inside of your organization. For me, this perhaps is the most paramount thing inside of Microsoft," said Nadella. "It's not going to happen without having that data culture where every engineer, every day, is looking at the usage data, learning from that usage data, questioning what new things to test out with our products and being on that improvement cycle which is the lifeblood of Microsoft." http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/15/us-microsoft-ceo-data-idUSBREA3E1US20140415 http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/15/us-microsoft-ceo-d...
- adamzubi 11y agohttp://googler700.blogspot.com/ http://googler700.blogspot.com/
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- sandworm101 11y agoAnother bad day for Microsoft. Another good day for linux.
- tychuz 11y agoYou mean Apple, we're talking about desktop OS here - new Windows Server is not released yet.
- sandworm101 11y agoNope. I mean desktop linux. Every time MS, or Apple, launch a new OS with silly fine print and non-removable malware I get people asking about linux. Actually, silly ToS language and spyware don't really matter. The entire update/versioning process with MS is so painful that distros like ubuntu start to seem the easier option.
- PhantomGremlin 11y agoNope. I mean desktop linux. So you're saying that 2015 is finally the year of Linux on the desktop? That prediction has been made before. That prediction has never come true, and never will. IMO.
- whalabi 11y agoClearly, the norm is phoning home now. Google perhaps sets the benchmark, every single action you take in Google apps, whether native or web, is tracked extensively. As far as I know Chrome OS isn't an exception. Perhaps we need firewalls to protect us from our own software.
- reilly3000 11y agoI'm presuming this is some kind of analytics function. Just as most sites send DOM events to GA based on every user's activity on your site, I'm guessing Microsoft wants to gather aggregated search patterns to better its usability. It's not cool that they didn't provide an explicit opt-out for this.
- mark_l_watson 11y agoThere may be too much paranoia here. I installed Windows 10. I turned off Cortana web search so it now only searches for stuff on my laptop. Convenient. I also turned off all camera and microphone use. Easy enough to turn on if I need it. Search for "privacy settings"' hit the first link and turn off what you want. (I turned off just about everything.) I think that as long as I use privacy badger in my web browsers, use duck duck go as my default search engine, and make sure to install security updates and scan daily, that my cheap little Windows 10 laptop is reasonably comparably privacy wise to my two Mac laptops, but less private and secure than my three Linux laptops. Seriously, I think it is a mistake to talk non-tech family and friends out of using Windows 10. Just help them make the right privacy settings.
- kethinov 11y agoWhile I agree with you that people are overreacting, I think overreaction is to be expected given that MS chose pretty much the most intrusive defaults possible. People have to opt-out of this stuff rather than opt-in which causes people to lose confidence in MS.
- cm2187 11y agoThe problem is how do you know that you succeeded at this whack a mole game of switching off all these features? And given this new cavalier approach, what confidence do you have that another of these call home things will not be quietly introduced through these new non optional automatic updates? I personally choose to pay a premium for my mobile by using an iphone rather an android precisely because I am put off by this constant intrusion into our privacy. So I am not exactly thrilled to see Microsoft adopting the google approach.
- moonfern 11y agoThere's an alternative appstore, Fdroid https://f-droid.org/ https://f-droid.org/, which has 1800 diverse apps at the moment. You can use and choose your own geolocation provider like opencellid,mozilla, apple, openstreetmap. This alternative is also part of "The google approach"
- orionblastar 11y agoMicrosoft has almost always done this with Windows. Each new version had something new to phone home about. Previous Windows versions told Microsoft what apps you had installed, send in crash data, and other things. Microsoft is doing the customer is the product thing that others have done for like the past decade. It is how they can give away Windows 10 upgrades for free, even to pirated copies, and still earn money off of it. If you don't want to be tracked or spied upon: https://prism-break.org/ https://prism-break.org/ You shouldn't be using Windows but one of the free or open source alternatives instead. HIPPA compliant offices cannot use Windows 10 because of the tracking it does and patient privacy laws. Even worse is the Wifi sharing with social networks, if even one of your corporate employees has it turned on, their friends can get access to your Corporate Wifi and it is a security breach. You'll have crackers trying to friend employees on social networks of your company just to get the Windows 10 Wifi sharing password to get into your corporate network. Even with all of the privacy settings turned off, there is most likely more stuff that phones home. You know that given enough time video gamers will be forced into DirectX12 and have to use Windows 10. That business apps will be written for Windows 10 and force companies to upgrade. Sooner or later most people will have to upgrade to Windows 10 in order to run the software they need. Woe be to the person who chooses express settings during startup. They will wonder why their Internet is so slow and woe be to them if they have a tablet with a data plan and wonder why they go over it.
- snuxoll 11y ago> Even worse is the Wifi sharing with social networks, if even one of your corporate employees has it turned on, their friends can get access to your Corporate Wifi and it is a security breach. You'll have crackers trying to friend employees on social networks of your company just to get the Windows 10 Wifi sharing password to get into your corporate network. Your first mistake was using a simple WPA pass-phrase to secure your corporate WLAN. If you aren't deploying RADIUS and requiring users either present a valid client certificate or their domain credentials to gain access to your corporate network you have already lost - and this goes for any of your wired ports too...
- orionblastar 11y ago
- Aoyagi 11y agoI don't see how is that strange considering in WP8 they send all primary contacts and calendar entries to THE CLOUD with no option to opt out and of course without telling the user, and considering what they've shown in Win10. Microsoft clearly hates privacy.
- jakub_g 11y agoIt seems there would be a big market for an app with a nice GUI making it possible to change all the privacy settings of Windows 10 (as we go and discover stuff like this) in one single screen.
- overgryphon 11y agoThe in-box Settings app already has a privacy section that is easy to find, has a nice GUI, and breaks down privacy options into reasonable categories (location, contacts, calendar, feedback, devices, ect). Microsoft may need to add a few more options, but overall it's a huge improvement over the privacy controls of Windows 8.1.
- mirimir 11y agoI'm not much into Windows anymore, but this might be useful: https://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/windows-10-privacy.377785 https://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/windows-10-privacy.3...
- jevgeni 11y agoI wonder how many people here complaining about privacy have frequent flyer cards or valued customer cards?
- RunawayGalaxy 11y agoOpting into a FF program is voluntarily exchanging your personal info and loyalty to a brand for benefits in pricing. How is that the same as an OS uploading your information from a local search by default in an opt-out model? I'm really not trying to be snarky, I genuinely think I'm missing some point here.
- jevgeni 11y agoI don't think this is a defining difference here. Sure, doing something by default without telling the customer seems sneaky, but its impact is small in comparison to other leaky privacy products most people use. What I understand about the matter, the information sent is a regularly regenerated random ID and some machine information. Compare that with a Tesco's Clubcard or Walmart's Credit Card: given the information you provide them with, these companies may know what you eat, how much you spend, where you live. They can judge your income, they can project your financial situation into the future, and they probably know when you go on holiday. And I don't really think people opting in on those products really understand these implications. I think this issue is overblown only due to it belonging in the area, where most commenters here work. As I see it, there are business practices way more harmful to privacy than this, but are happily ignored by the pop-privacy crowd just because they are convenient and have been in place for a long time.
- scholia 11y agoMost of the stuff complained about in Windows 10 was already in Windows 8 (except Cortana), but "the pop-privacy crowd" has only just discovered it, apparently ;-)
- _up 11y agoI have the feeling. MS implements more Intrusive Adware and Ads in Windows 10 next year. And you basicly will have to decide if you want Ads or pay Monthly for an Advertising free experience (Enterprise Version).
- ionised 11y agoYeah I noticed this and was very annoyed. I use Comodo firewall and have basically set up a load of rules to prevent phoning home of any kind except to check updates.
- scholia 11y agoDoes that mean you're blocking CDNs? What's the effect on performance?
- ionised 11y agoCan't say I've noticed any issues. That said, I'm not using the Windows Store, Cortana, ModernUI apps, OneDrive or even a Microsoft Account at all so your mileage may vary.
- scholia 11y agoOK. A bit like Hamlet without the prince! I take it you don't believe in app stores, secure apps, AI, deep learning, cloud computing and similar modern rubbish ;-)
- Spivak 11y agoModern rubbish? These things have been around for decades. App Stores are just repositories by another name. Secure apps are just signed binaries. Cloud computing is just, "pay someone else to host your shit" same as it always was. I'm not the person you replied to but I share his views. I use all of these 'modern' luxuries but in my case I'm in control of them.
- ionised 11y agoYou're jumping to a lot of conclusions. 1) I do use app stores (F-Droid, Play etc) but I have no use for the Windows Store. Windows ModernUI apps are basically stripped down versions of more feature-filled desktop applications, so why wouldn't I just use them instead? 2) Secure apps? What does this even mean? 3) I love AI. I play games, so I have to. 4) Again, not even sure what you're suggesting. 5) I do use cloud services. Just not Microsoft, Google or Apple ones. 6) Modern does not immediately equate to good. This kind of thinking is naive. My Windows machine is for games and games alone. I have no need or want of any of Microsoft's cloud integration.
- zubairsaif007 11y agohttp://googler700.blogspot.com/ http://googler700.blogspot.com/
- tremon 11y agorequires javascript; didn't read
- PhantomGremlin 11y agoSame for me. When I'm on my deathbed, I don't think I'll say "Damn! I wish I had enabled Javascript back in 2015 so I could read that clickbait article on Windows 10 privacy (or lack thereof)." All hyperbole aside, I'm glad for HN threads like this. I don't need to read the article to get the gist. And I also gain perspective from all the comments posted here.
- nathanaldensr 11y agoThe following fix worked for me. I don't see any outbound traffic on Fiddler when typing searches in the Start menu or when actually running the search. Granted, Microsoft needs to make this MUCH easier to do; the VAST majority of Windows users have no idea what group policies are. 1. Run gpedit.msc 2. Navigate to Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Search 3. Set the State to Enabled for "Do not allow web search", "Don't search the web or display web results in Search", and "Don't search the web or display web results in Search over metered connections" 4. Reboot Enjoy. :)
- redcalx 11y ago> I don't see any outbound traffic on Fiddler Be aware that software can choose to not use a system configure proxy. It's a good tool to use, but absence of traffic in fiddler is not a definitive result, not least because it's tracking http traffic only. Wireshark is probably the next best option.
- nathanaldensr 11y agoOf course this is true, but the OP's screenshot is a Fiddler screenshot. It's safe to say the calls in question do use the proxy configuration. For completeness, I ran Wireshark and didn't see any outbound HTTP (or otherwise abnormal) traffic while searching from the Start menu.
- ultramancool 11y agoA few people including myself have done some GPO changes and not had any luck. I'm not sure I was quite as thorough, so I'll retest this tonight using your specific suggestions.
- ultramancool 11y agoJust to confirm, I have all of these set, have rebooted and this traffic still occurs. If you really don't have it, I have no idea what you did.
- vinbreau 11y agoGlad I use a launcher and rarely ever touch the start search.
- belgianguy 11y agoI wonder if it'd be possible to either blackhole all this nonsense, or to "quasar" their data servers with preset queries like "I like my privacy", "mind your own business" instead of your original query.