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What I find most appalling about Windows 10 is the draconian "default install" options. Seriously, how did having a key logger as the default option get through

by kctess5 10y ago

What I find most appalling about Windows 10 is the draconian "default install" options. Seriously, how did having a key logger as the default option get through privacy review? Also desktop ad tracking? I said no to three solid screens full of what I consider to be highly privacy infringing settings on install, all of which were on by default if you didn't do a "custom install."

scholia 10y ago
There is no keylogger in Windows 10. Also, you can change all the privacy defaults later. Windows 10 provides a lot of privacy controls, so I actually prefer to do it that way. Update: thanks for the downvotes, redditors ;-)
- ams6110 10y ago
  I think this is in reference to the setting that says (paraphrasing) "Send samples of my typing to Microsoft so Windows can offer better suggestions as I type." If you don't disable this in a "custom" install, or later in the system settings, it's on.
  - scholia 10y ago
    A keylogger is a surveillance tool that collects every keystroke on a PC and sends it to a remote location without your knowledge. On that (correct) definition, Windows 10 doesn't contain a keylogger. UPDATE: First, it doesn't collect every keystroke. Second, it doesn't send every keystroke to Microsoft. It generates information for personalization purposes, some of which is stored locally on your own PC, and some of which is stored online where you can delete it at https://www.bing.com/account/personalization https://www.bing.com/account/personalization Note: downvotes don't change the reality. If you can't handle truth, that's your problem.
    - icefo 10y ago
      For most people you just have to remove "every" from the definition. I don't think they are aware of what's happening. That and Microsoft can probably turn it in a real keylogger if they want/have to but it's speculation
      - scholia 10y ago
        So could Google or Apple on any of their devices. The point is that people are mis-using the word keylogger, either because they really don't understand what's happening, or as a device for scaring people. Neither is satisfactory, especially not on HN.
        RaleyField 10y ago
        It has some qualities of keylogger software and that's the implied context. It may not be and probably isn't a variant of what would one think as classical keylogger (but what do we know, they say they collect keys without explaining at all how they are processed before they are sent) but if it sends every second or every third keystroke or if it sends poorly aggregated statistics that still leak usable entropy in Shannonian sense then that software could rightfully be said to mimic a keylogger.
        scholia 10y ago
        Think of it this way: Microsoft isn't interested in individual cars, or their occupants, it's interested in traffic flows, and especially in crashes. It's dealing with anonymized, aggregated data, and the dashboards that Microsoft programmers can access look much like Google Analytics. Microsoft wants to know how often people use, say, Notepad, but it has no interest at all in what you write in it. They're doing that to improve the product, in exactly the same was as Google does with Gmail or Facebook does, though I think Windows 10 is a much lower privacy risk than those. Personalization is another step, and you can turn it off. Every major voice recognition and handwriting program has always done this: they create templates (or whatever) that enable them to work better for specific users. Most of that info is held locally anyway. None of this is remotely like a traditional keylogger.
    - khedoros 10y ago
      "Keylogger" may be a little bit of an inflammatory way to put it, but it gets the point across: Windows sends an unspecified selection of your keyboard inputs to Microsoft's servers, and it doesn't inform you what it's sending or when it's sending it. If you want to language-lawyer it, fine. Calling that property of Windows 10 something different doesn't change what Microsoft's doing, and it doesn't make me like it any more. That is the point. Missing the point is why you're being downvoted.
      - scholia 10y ago
        I'm not missing the point. Calling it a "keylogger" isn't just inflammatory, it's wrong. Being upset about what Windows 10 actually does is fair enough -- I understand that not everyone wants things like telemetry and personalization (or maybe just not on Windows). It's not an excuse for claiming it does things that it doesn't do.
        eximius 10y ago
        Does it log keystrokes and send them somewhere?
        scholia 10y ago
        No. What would Microsoft do with billions of keystrokes from approaching 1.5 billion PCs? Especially since most of those keystrokes are probably Solitaire or GTA or some other game, or else they're from email or social networking (where somebody else has far more interest in your keystrokes). In any case, running a real keylogger in Windows would be a magnet for the NSA and similar services, which would end up being far more trouble than it was worth....
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
        Dylan16807 10y ago
        >> Does it log keystrokes and send them somewhere? > No. Then you should say "It's not a keylogger because it doesn't send keystrokes anywhere". Not fuss about whether the definition of keylogger requires capturing every key. But please explain how "send samples of my typing" does not involve sending keystrokes.
    - Dylan16807 10y ago
      So if I have malware that records my keystrokes in all programs outside of the start menu, and sends them home secretly, that's not a keylogger, because it's not every keystroke? It is not good that you're calling people out as having problems and being below the level of discourse expected on HN just because their definition of keylogger includes programs that only log the keys used in other programs part of the time. That you won't acknowledge any chance that your definition isn't the best one.
    - cm2187 10y ago
      A software that only collects half of the keystrokes is still a keylogger in my book.
  - dingo_bat 10y ago
    This is true for android too. I think most people don't care. I've certainly given up trying to get my father to care about all this.
- gisenberg 10y ago
  Is that the case? It looks like there's still confusion out there: * http://www.pcworld.com/article/2974057/windows/how-to-turn-off-windows-10s-keylogger-yes-it-still-has-one.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/2974057/windows/how-to-turn-o... * http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/windows/how-disable-hidden-keylogger-in-windows-10-3639643/ http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/windows/how-disable-hidden...
  - scholia 10y ago
    Being confused is not particularly useful. One of those articles is old and the other mainly has a sensational headline. There's no evidence in the text that the writer knows what a keylogger is, but he does say "Click Turn Off and you’ll be free from the watchful eye of your own PC". He doesn't say "Click Turn Off and you’ll avoid having all your keystrokes stored on a Microsoft server." In passing, yes, there was a keylogger in the Technical Preview version of Windows 10.
api 10y ago
I get the sense privacy review is "how can we maximally invade privacy?" I'm sure it got through fine. Since everything is free now, spyware is the only viable B2C business model.
- scholia 10y ago
  > Since everything is free now, spyware is the only viable B2C business model. Everything is not free and spyware is not Microsoft's business model. (It makes very little money from ads, and most of that is sold by AOL for Bing.) The Windows B2C business model is to charge OEMs to install Windows code on PCs, and to charge users for upgrades. This is exactly what it was before. UPDATE: The extra profit from Windows 10 is earned from your use of Bing. (You will recall that Google and other search engines pay vast sums to get people to use their search by default.) In the case of Windows 10, your extra use of Bing comes from Cortana firing up the Edge browser and doing a Bing search. You may well find this annoying or even evil, but it seems to me that OK Google and Siri do much the same thing.
  - yuhong 10y ago
    That is the traditional model, but the reality is that little of the Windows revenue come from upgrades and PC sales are falling. In addition to Bing, there is also the Windows store. And there is also the B2B model of Software Assurance.
    - scholia 10y ago
      Absolutely true. And because, as you say, "little of the Windows revenue come from upgrades," Microsoft didn't give up much income by making the Windows 10 upgrade free for one year (though it did add a bunch of server and bandwidth costs). To compensate for falling PC sales, Microsoft is clearly heading online as rapidly as possible, with Office 365, CRM, Azure etc. It's also heading cross-platform with online services and dozens of apps for iOS and Android, and Linux support in Azure and Windows 10. Times change.... But my point was that the Windows 10 business model hasn't fundamentally changed, even if Microsoft manages to make a bit of extra money via Bing ads and Windows Store apps.
Esau 10y ago
If the default settings are for user information to be shared, then the defaults are evil (even if the intent behind them is not). I say this because they know most people will accept the defaults. Maybe there needs to be a law about default settings and privacy.
- totony 10y ago
  Or we should stop overlesgislating. Users are responsible for their own actions.
  - Esau 10y ago
    I used to think that but the unchecked greed of corporations is disgusting. It is obvious that they will act unethically for a buck.
  - bballer 10y ago
    I agree, people are all to quick today to say, hey I don't like what that company is doing! Lets write laws to force them to change! It's like people forgot that the ultimate form of voting is with your dollars and patronage/use (even if its free). If you don't like what a company is doing, why are you supporting them by using their product? I know this doesn't work for some monopolies, but Microsoft is far from a monopoly, use Linux or OS X. Show them how much you are dissatisfied with their approaches by abandoning their product suites.
    - tunap 10y ago
      The problem lies with when the malicious(IMO) practices become ubiquitous AND profitable it becomes the norm. Any informed user would question thee practices IF THEY WERE INFORMED. MS has a monopoly, through intent & ubiquity, on business class software, gaming & new computer sales(w/ OSX it is duopoly). Sure there are options for the technical folks, for everyone else it's spyware.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
      Because we actually do want to use Microsoft products, or Apple, or Google, or Facebook. If we don't enact laws then jumping boats only leads to the next popular thing being careless with our privacy. I want to be certain that regardless of what software I'm using the people who developed that software have a common concern for the protection of privacy. When enough people have a common concern we usually enact those concerns in laws because it's the minimum we expect from civil participants in society.
gribbly 10y ago
This is the Microsoft which ran a two year 'Scroogled' campaign. The old adage, 'never pay any attention to what companies say, only what they do', is as true as ever.
- Natsu 10y ago
  > The old adage, 'never pay any attention to what companies say, only what they do', is as true as ever. This also works for politicians.
  - npizzolato 10y ago
    It honestly works for everyone. Words are cheap. Actions matter.
KirinDave 10y ago
The same way it does for Mac OSX's spotlight. The same way it did for Ubuntu's search feature. I say this not to be combative, but because I think you and the average consumer operate under very different definitions of "privacy invasion." It's really important to recognize this.
- blub 10y ago
  Both Ubuntu and Mac OS X are much better at privacy today compared to Windows 10. Windows has reached Android-level data gathering capacity. Microsoft should make it official and say they're an advertising company too if that's what they want and give Windows 10 really for free forever (not this limited time under certain conditions crap).
  - KirinDave 10y ago
    > Both Ubuntu and Mac OS X are much better at privacy today compared to Windows 10. Windows has reached Android-level data gathering capacity. Could you be more specific about the concern though? I actually don't see what MS is doing that other competitors are, from a practical perspective. I'll try to be very specific as well. I've done some research here and this is what I've observed: 1. Individual apps in Windows send back telemetry commensurate with other apps I've got on OSX. They send back usage data that includes my activity. This used to be a very web-specific thing, then it was a mobile-specific thing, but I think most app store apps I have now open connections to a telemetry collector like Mixpanel or Kahuna. This used to be unusual, but now is the norm for every commercial app, and as someone building and managing said apps all I can say is "people want this stuff so good and so cheaply now, I don't know how else we could possibly get the data we need to deliver it that cheaply." 2. Win10 even at rest seems to send back very tiny amounts of data as part of its update checks and general telemetry. This seems really really similar to what OSX is doing, but of course I'm eager to see a security researcher break into this data. I'm sure there is slightly more to it. But people are shocked that Microsoft can discuss Edge hours used and pages viewed, and I think literally every competently executed application could produce those figures in 2016. To be honest, I trust Microsoft with this data more than I do tiny ISVs just using canned products outside their sphere of expertise to manage updates and analytics. 3. I think the "keylogger" people discuss is something nearly every OS does by default on its search engines and something every browser does as well: do debounced as you type pre-queries on search items. It's measurably more invasive with Spotlight or Cortana because you might be searching for indexed file content. I'm unaware of what else people might be discussing and I can't find many relevant alternative culprits here. I don't disagree MS could be more obvious with its intentions on Win10. What's most frustrating is that from a consumer and even developer standpoint, Win10 is rapidly emerging as the best of all worlds for developers. The next major edition (which most of us are running via fast/slow rings) and the current iterations of MS-first-party hardware are directly competitive with Apple's offerings, and hardware wise they're quite good now. So we're left in this awkward space where Apple has really dropped the ball on progressing their OS and they're profoundly developer unfriendly and even quite exploitative, Linux is still all but unusable on modern mobile and portable hardware without substantial commercial work layered on top, and Win10 is delivering a really functional environment with support for Linux that is done in FreeBSD's excellent style of direct compatibility. It might make more sense for us to treat analytics collection like we would with ads via Adblocker. There's probably a massive addressible market if that's not already a product. Windows actually has fantastic and sophisticated per-application permissions controls that could be automated here...
jmspring 10y ago
I've got a Surface Pro 2 currently running Win10 and a MacbookPro running OS X 10.11.5. I run Little Snitch on my Mac. The number of "outgoing" connections for every tom dick and harry app and OS call is nearly as bad as what Win10 gets lambasted for. Install 3rd party apps, it's a great thing to watch. Stop with the hyperbole. It is the industry standard and that is what needs to be fixed.
- Sylos 10y ago
  1) How do you fix that something is a standard? By not accepting it being done by yet another company. 2) This is not just about the number of connections that are made. It's about the amount of information that could be collected through those connections. And Microsoft's Privacy Statement asks for legal permission for them to collect, store and share any of your content. Apple's Privacy Policy does not, as far as I can tell. https://www.apple.com/privacy/privacy-policy/ https://www.apple.com/privacy/privacy-policy/
- blub 10y ago
  One of my computers has the same configuration and there's a night and day difference between the Apple and Microsoft approach to privacy. Microsoft is gathering analytics data plain and simple. Everything is turned on by default, some of which can't even be disabled. Most of the Apple connections are feature-related (geod, appstored, akd, inappurchased, iCloud if you made the mistake of enabling it, etc). There are notable exceptions in Spotlight searches and the about dialog. Apps can be pretty bad, thank the lax US privacy laws, the industry's lack of backbone and Apple's disinterest for that one. Ultimately it's a question of intent and trust. Microsoft has shown that they're willing to use dark patterns to get their way and force invasive analytics on their users. Apple hasn't done that yet.
anonbanker 10y ago
So Microsoft installs have become as bad as RealPlayer installs used to be back in the day. Serious question: are games that important that you'll take these intrusions rather than switch to (Calculate) Linux?

by kctess5 10y ago

scholia 10y ago

There is no keylogger in Windows 10. Also, you can change all the privacy defaults later. Windows 10 provides a lot of privacy controls, so I actually prefer to do it that way. Update: thanks for the downvotes, redditors ;-)

ams6110 10y ago
I think this is in reference to the setting that says (paraphrasing) "Send samples of my typing to Microsoft so Windows can offer better suggestions as I type." If you don't disable this in a "custom" install, or later in the system settings, it's on.
- scholia 10y ago
  A keylogger is a surveillance tool that collects every keystroke on a PC and sends it to a remote location without your knowledge. On that (correct) definition, Windows 10 doesn't contain a keylogger. UPDATE: First, it doesn't collect every keystroke. Second, it doesn't send every keystroke to Microsoft. It generates information for personalization purposes, some of which is stored locally on your own PC, and some of which is stored online where you can delete it at https://www.bing.com/account/personalization https://www.bing.com/account/personalization Note: downvotes don't change the reality. If you can't handle truth, that's your problem.
  - icefo 10y ago
    For most people you just have to remove "every" from the definition. I don't think they are aware of what's happening. That and Microsoft can probably turn it in a real keylogger if they want/have to but it's speculation
    - scholia 10y ago
      So could Google or Apple on any of their devices. The point is that people are mis-using the word keylogger, either because they really don't understand what's happening, or as a device for scaring people. Neither is satisfactory, especially not on HN.
      - RaleyField 10y ago
        It has some qualities of keylogger software and that's the implied context. It may not be and probably isn't a variant of what would one think as classical keylogger (but what do we know, they say they collect keys without explaining at all how they are processed before they are sent) but if it sends every second or every third keystroke or if it sends poorly aggregated statistics that still leak usable entropy in Shannonian sense then that software could rightfully be said to mimic a keylogger.
        scholia 10y ago
        Think of it this way: Microsoft isn't interested in individual cars, or their occupants, it's interested in traffic flows, and especially in crashes. It's dealing with anonymized, aggregated data, and the dashboards that Microsoft programmers can access look much like Google Analytics. Microsoft wants to know how often people use, say, Notepad, but it has no interest at all in what you write in it. They're doing that to improve the product, in exactly the same was as Google does with Gmail or Facebook does, though I think Windows 10 is a much lower privacy risk than those. Personalization is another step, and you can turn it off. Every major voice recognition and handwriting program has always done this: they create templates (or whatever) that enable them to work better for specific users. Most of that info is held locally anyway. None of this is remotely like a traditional keylogger.
  - khedoros 10y ago
    "Keylogger" may be a little bit of an inflammatory way to put it, but it gets the point across: Windows sends an unspecified selection of your keyboard inputs to Microsoft's servers, and it doesn't inform you what it's sending or when it's sending it. If you want to language-lawyer it, fine. Calling that property of Windows 10 something different doesn't change what Microsoft's doing, and it doesn't make me like it any more. That is the point. Missing the point is why you're being downvoted.
    - scholia 10y ago
      I'm not missing the point. Calling it a "keylogger" isn't just inflammatory, it's wrong. Being upset about what Windows 10 actually does is fair enough -- I understand that not everyone wants things like telemetry and personalization (or maybe just not on Windows). It's not an excuse for claiming it does things that it doesn't do.
      - eximius 10y ago
        Does it log keystrokes and send them somewhere?
        scholia 10y ago
        No. What would Microsoft do with billions of keystrokes from approaching 1.5 billion PCs? Especially since most of those keystrokes are probably Solitaire or GTA or some other game, or else they're from email or social networking (where somebody else has far more interest in your keystrokes). In any case, running a real keylogger in Windows would be a magnet for the NSA and similar services, which would end up being far more trouble than it was worth....
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
        Dylan16807 10y ago
        >> Does it log keystrokes and send them somewhere? > No. Then you should say "It's not a keylogger because it doesn't send keystrokes anywhere". Not fuss about whether the definition of keylogger requires capturing every key. But please explain how "send samples of my typing" does not involve sending keystrokes.
  - Dylan16807 10y ago
    So if I have malware that records my keystrokes in all programs outside of the start menu, and sends them home secretly, that's not a keylogger, because it's not every keystroke? It is not good that you're calling people out as having problems and being below the level of discourse expected on HN just because their definition of keylogger includes programs that only log the keys used in other programs part of the time. That you won't acknowledge any chance that your definition isn't the best one.
  - cm2187 10y ago
    A software that only collects half of the keystrokes is still a keylogger in my book.
- dingo_bat 10y ago
  This is true for android too. I think most people don't care. I've certainly given up trying to get my father to care about all this.
gisenberg 10y ago
Is that the case? It looks like there's still confusion out there: * http://www.pcworld.com/article/2974057/windows/how-to-turn-off-windows-10s-keylogger-yes-it-still-has-one.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/2974057/windows/how-to-turn-o... * http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/windows/how-disable-hidden-keylogger-in-windows-10-3639643/ http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/windows/how-disable-hidden...
- scholia 10y ago
  Being confused is not particularly useful. One of those articles is old and the other mainly has a sensational headline. There's no evidence in the text that the writer knows what a keylogger is, but he does say "Click Turn Off and you’ll be free from the watchful eye of your own PC". He doesn't say "Click Turn Off and you’ll avoid having all your keystrokes stored on a Microsoft server." In passing, yes, there was a keylogger in the Technical Preview version of Windows 10.

api 10y ago

I get the sense privacy review is "how can we maximally invade privacy?" I'm sure it got through fine. Since everything is free now, spyware is the only viable B2C business model.

scholia 10y ago
> Since everything is free now, spyware is the only viable B2C business model. Everything is not free and spyware is not Microsoft's business model. (It makes very little money from ads, and most of that is sold by AOL for Bing.) The Windows B2C business model is to charge OEMs to install Windows code on PCs, and to charge users for upgrades. This is exactly what it was before. UPDATE: The extra profit from Windows 10 is earned from your use of Bing. (You will recall that Google and other search engines pay vast sums to get people to use their search by default.) In the case of Windows 10, your extra use of Bing comes from Cortana firing up the Edge browser and doing a Bing search. You may well find this annoying or even evil, but it seems to me that OK Google and Siri do much the same thing.
- yuhong 10y ago
  That is the traditional model, but the reality is that little of the Windows revenue come from upgrades and PC sales are falling. In addition to Bing, there is also the Windows store. And there is also the B2B model of Software Assurance.
  - scholia 10y ago
    Absolutely true. And because, as you say, "little of the Windows revenue come from upgrades," Microsoft didn't give up much income by making the Windows 10 upgrade free for one year (though it did add a bunch of server and bandwidth costs). To compensate for falling PC sales, Microsoft is clearly heading online as rapidly as possible, with Office 365, CRM, Azure etc. It's also heading cross-platform with online services and dozens of apps for iOS and Android, and Linux support in Azure and Windows 10. Times change.... But my point was that the Windows 10 business model hasn't fundamentally changed, even if Microsoft manages to make a bit of extra money via Bing ads and Windows Store apps.

Esau 10y ago

If the default settings are for user information to be shared, then the defaults are evil (even if the intent behind them is not). I say this because they know most people will accept the defaults. Maybe there needs to be a law about default settings and privacy.

totony 10y ago
Or we should stop overlesgislating. Users are responsible for their own actions.
- Esau 10y ago
  I used to think that but the unchecked greed of corporations is disgusting. It is obvious that they will act unethically for a buck.
- bballer 10y ago
  I agree, people are all to quick today to say, hey I don't like what that company is doing! Lets write laws to force them to change! It's like people forgot that the ultimate form of voting is with your dollars and patronage/use (even if its free). If you don't like what a company is doing, why are you supporting them by using their product? I know this doesn't work for some monopolies, but Microsoft is far from a monopoly, use Linux or OS X. Show them how much you are dissatisfied with their approaches by abandoning their product suites.
  - tunap 10y ago
    The problem lies with when the malicious(IMO) practices become ubiquitous AND profitable it becomes the norm. Any informed user would question thee practices IF THEY WERE INFORMED. MS has a monopoly, through intent & ubiquity, on business class software, gaming & new computer sales(w/ OSX it is duopoly). Sure there are options for the technical folks, for everyone else it's spyware.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
    Because we actually do want to use Microsoft products, or Apple, or Google, or Facebook. If we don't enact laws then jumping boats only leads to the next popular thing being careless with our privacy. I want to be certain that regardless of what software I'm using the people who developed that software have a common concern for the protection of privacy. When enough people have a common concern we usually enact those concerns in laws because it's the minimum we expect from civil participants in society.

gribbly 10y ago

This is the Microsoft which ran a two year 'Scroogled' campaign. The old adage, 'never pay any attention to what companies say, only what they do', is as true as ever.

Natsu 10y ago
> The old adage, 'never pay any attention to what companies say, only what they do', is as true as ever. This also works for politicians.
- npizzolato 10y ago
  It honestly works for everyone. Words are cheap. Actions matter.

KirinDave 10y ago

The same way it does for Mac OSX's spotlight. The same way it did for Ubuntu's search feature. I say this not to be combative, but because I think you and the average consumer operate under very different definitions of "privacy invasion." It's really important to recognize this.

blub 10y ago
Both Ubuntu and Mac OS X are much better at privacy today compared to Windows 10. Windows has reached Android-level data gathering capacity. Microsoft should make it official and say they're an advertising company too if that's what they want and give Windows 10 really for free forever (not this limited time under certain conditions crap).
- KirinDave 10y ago
  > Both Ubuntu and Mac OS X are much better at privacy today compared to Windows 10. Windows has reached Android-level data gathering capacity. Could you be more specific about the concern though? I actually don't see what MS is doing that other competitors are, from a practical perspective. I'll try to be very specific as well. I've done some research here and this is what I've observed: 1. Individual apps in Windows send back telemetry commensurate with other apps I've got on OSX. They send back usage data that includes my activity. This used to be a very web-specific thing, then it was a mobile-specific thing, but I think most app store apps I have now open connections to a telemetry collector like Mixpanel or Kahuna. This used to be unusual, but now is the norm for every commercial app, and as someone building and managing said apps all I can say is "people want this stuff so good and so cheaply now, I don't know how else we could possibly get the data we need to deliver it that cheaply." 2. Win10 even at rest seems to send back very tiny amounts of data as part of its update checks and general telemetry. This seems really really similar to what OSX is doing, but of course I'm eager to see a security researcher break into this data. I'm sure there is slightly more to it. But people are shocked that Microsoft can discuss Edge hours used and pages viewed, and I think literally every competently executed application could produce those figures in 2016. To be honest, I trust Microsoft with this data more than I do tiny ISVs just using canned products outside their sphere of expertise to manage updates and analytics. 3. I think the "keylogger" people discuss is something nearly every OS does by default on its search engines and something every browser does as well: do debounced as you type pre-queries on search items. It's measurably more invasive with Spotlight or Cortana because you might be searching for indexed file content. I'm unaware of what else people might be discussing and I can't find many relevant alternative culprits here. I don't disagree MS could be more obvious with its intentions on Win10. What's most frustrating is that from a consumer and even developer standpoint, Win10 is rapidly emerging as the best of all worlds for developers. The next major edition (which most of us are running via fast/slow rings) and the current iterations of MS-first-party hardware are directly competitive with Apple's offerings, and hardware wise they're quite good now. So we're left in this awkward space where Apple has really dropped the ball on progressing their OS and they're profoundly developer unfriendly and even quite exploitative, Linux is still all but unusable on modern mobile and portable hardware without substantial commercial work layered on top, and Win10 is delivering a really functional environment with support for Linux that is done in FreeBSD's excellent style of direct compatibility. It might make more sense for us to treat analytics collection like we would with ads via Adblocker. There's probably a massive addressible market if that's not already a product. Windows actually has fantastic and sophisticated per-application permissions controls that could be automated here...

jmspring 10y ago

I've got a Surface Pro 2 currently running Win10 and a MacbookPro running OS X 10.11.5. I run Little Snitch on my Mac. The number of "outgoing" connections for every tom dick and harry app and OS call is nearly as bad as what Win10 gets lambasted for. Install 3rd party apps, it's a great thing to watch. Stop with the hyperbole. It is the industry standard and that is what needs to be fixed.

Sylos 10y ago
1) How do you fix that something is a standard? By not accepting it being done by yet another company. 2) This is not just about the number of connections that are made. It's about the amount of information that could be collected through those connections. And Microsoft's Privacy Statement asks for legal permission for them to collect, store and share any of your content. Apple's Privacy Policy does not, as far as I can tell. https://www.apple.com/privacy/privacy-policy/ https://www.apple.com/privacy/privacy-policy/
blub 10y ago
One of my computers has the same configuration and there's a night and day difference between the Apple and Microsoft approach to privacy. Microsoft is gathering analytics data plain and simple. Everything is turned on by default, some of which can't even be disabled. Most of the Apple connections are feature-related (geod, appstored, akd, inappurchased, iCloud if you made the mistake of enabling it, etc). There are notable exceptions in Spotlight searches and the about dialog. Apps can be pretty bad, thank the lax US privacy laws, the industry's lack of backbone and Apple's disinterest for that one. Ultimately it's a question of intent and trust. Microsoft has shown that they're willing to use dark patterns to get their way and force invasive analytics on their users. Apple hasn't done that yet.

anonbanker 10y ago

So Microsoft installs have become as bad as RealPlayer installs used to be back in the day. Serious question: are games that important that you'll take these intrusions rather than switch to (Calculate) Linux?