3 ms·

Or the other way: Finding an Alternative to Windows 10 That non-optional phone-home, non-optional updates, ads on startmenu, little QA (buggy like never befor

by frik 10y ago

Or the other way: Finding an Alternative to Windows 10 That non-optional phone-home, non-optional updates, ads on startmenu, little QA (buggy like never before) - Windows up to Win7 was so nice, since Nadella everything went downhill, so sad, but true. Good that Win7 is supported until 2020, and promising alternatives are around the corner with Google Android/Fuchsia, macOS, Linux - although, the transition will be painful and but necasserry. It's a little late and all trust is gone, but maybe they fire the CEO and make a u-turn.

Lio 10y ago
I see the downvotes for the parent post but no rebuttals to the phone home/privacy issues in Windows 10. I ask this as someone who hasn't really used Windows for 10+ years, could someone who knows please discuss the state of privacy in Windows 10? Is this a non-issue because you can turn off all the monitoring? How would one go about that? Is it a non-issue because Windows 10 doesn't send private information back to Microsoft? What does it send back?
- RossBencina 10y ago
  I use Windows 10 on my main dev box. I somewhat agree with the parent. The Windows 10 situation has been enough to push me to start experimenting with Linux. The phone-home and forced-update-reboot are the big problems for me: The phone-home behavior of Windows 10 is a repellent. Turning it all off is non-trivial. The easily accessible privacy settings don't disable everything. There are various lists of firewall rules, scripts, policy settings etc. I can't recommend a specific source, but I think there are some well-maintained lists/scripts on github. To be honest, I'm not sure whether anyone knows exactly what goes back to Microsoft (not being tin-foil hat about it, I just don't think it's well documented). The no-choice-auto-update-reboot thing is also terrible (I've lost data on more than one occasion from unsaved files when Windows forces a reboot while I'm afk). This can be disabled with a lot of work and research. Some people say manual updates will re-enable it. Note that I really do want to keep my machine up to date, but ideally I don't want to have to reboot, and when I do have to reboot I want to choose exactly when. I didn't buy a UPS so my computer could reboot randomly by itself. As for "ads on startmenu, little QA (buggy like never before)": Running Windows 10 Pro I have not seen any advertising. The system runs fine for me. Arguably it runs with lower memory usage than Win 7. I agree that Win 7 is very stable, and that's been my experience with Win 10 too. That said, I only started using Win10 in mid 2016, so perhaps earlier builds were worse. Overall I would have been happy to stay with Win 7. So far I've found Linux GUI to be less polished, but maybe I'll get used to it.

by frik 10y ago

Lio 10y ago

I see the downvotes for the parent post but no rebuttals to the phone home/privacy issues in Windows 10. I ask this as someone who hasn't really used Windows for 10+ years, could someone who knows please discuss the state of privacy in Windows 10? Is this a non-issue because you can turn off all the monitoring? How would one go about that? Is it a non-issue because Windows 10 doesn't send private information back to Microsoft? What does it send back?

RossBencina 10y ago
I use Windows 10 on my main dev box. I somewhat agree with the parent. The Windows 10 situation has been enough to push me to start experimenting with Linux. The phone-home and forced-update-reboot are the big problems for me: The phone-home behavior of Windows 10 is a repellent. Turning it all off is non-trivial. The easily accessible privacy settings don't disable everything. There are various lists of firewall rules, scripts, policy settings etc. I can't recommend a specific source, but I think there are some well-maintained lists/scripts on github. To be honest, I'm not sure whether anyone knows exactly what goes back to Microsoft (not being tin-foil hat about it, I just don't think it's well documented). The no-choice-auto-update-reboot thing is also terrible (I've lost data on more than one occasion from unsaved files when Windows forces a reboot while I'm afk). This can be disabled with a lot of work and research. Some people say manual updates will re-enable it. Note that I really do want to keep my machine up to date, but ideally I don't want to have to reboot, and when I do have to reboot I want to choose exactly when. I didn't buy a UPS so my computer could reboot randomly by itself. As for "ads on startmenu, little QA (buggy like never before)": Running Windows 10 Pro I have not seen any advertising. The system runs fine for me. Arguably it runs with lower memory usage than Win 7. I agree that Win 7 is very stable, and that's been my experience with Win 10 too. That said, I only started using Win10 in mid 2016, so perhaps earlier builds were worse. Overall I would have been happy to stay with Win 7. So far I've found Linux GUI to be less polished, but maybe I'll get used to it.