5 ms·

Yes, I absolutely include my phone, and most of the software I use, including FireFox. I was actually feeling quite irritated this morning because I have to si

Yes, I absolutely include my phone, and most of the software I use, including FireFox. I was actually feeling quite irritated this morning because I have to sign in to use Visual Studio - in order to have my settings. I don't know what stuff they collect, but it's not nothing because they can for sure track my sign ins. You raise a great point about who we trust. I feel okay trusting Microsoft, but there's no way in hell I'd trust Google or Amazon.

freeflight 9y ago
It's even worse with drivers for hardware, like with Razer devices. I still use a Microsoft Habu mouse and a Reclusa keyboard, they are the result of a cooperation between Microsoft and Razer with Razer supplying the drivers and software. At this point they are ancient but they still work very well for me. Recently I got a Razer Orbweaver, heavily discounted, and installing the drivers for that required me to create an account with Razer and install "Razer Synapse". I went along with it thinking that it would at least give me one package to keep drivers and options for all three of my Razer devices in one place. But it doesn't, Synapse only recognizes the Orbweaver, the other two Razer peripherals still need their own dedicated driver and software packages installed. Synapse phones home all the time when booting up it tells me how it's connecting to the "Synapse cloud". Sounds really fancy and all but what use is that if it can't even get drivers for other Razer devices from the "cloud"? This feels like getting all the disadvantages but none of the advantages.
- biocomputation 9y ago
  << This feels like getting all the disadvantages but none of the advantages. I couldn't have said it better. It's funny because I'm totally cool with having an account provided it does things like gives me access to software, drivers, tools, backups, whatever. But yeah, I'm not going for it if it's just an excuse to vacuum up data. It's gotten to the point where I actively avoid companies/products that just don't get the message. To this point, I switched from Google to Microsoft a few years ago because I really got sick of feeling like my personal data was just making them richer in exchange for nothing. Email and web apps aren't worth the loss of privacy. At first Bing search was a bit weird, but then it turned out that it worked just as well as Google for most things, and better for some.
  - jacksmith21006 9y ago
    Trust MS more than Google? MS put an ad inside windows for OneDrive. MS put a nag inside the OS to use Edge. To me MS has crossed lines you just do not cross.
    - freeflight 9y ago
      MS putting advertisements of its own products inside its other products is certainly not a cool move, nobody wants to pay for ads. But in regards to private data, the parent does have a point. Google's main business is aggregating data for ad purposes, selling their users privacy is how they make most of their money, you wouldn't expect anything else from them. MS does some of that too, but they make most of their money through other means, so they have less incentive of disrespecting their user's privacy. Even more so considering the PR blowback if it should ever turn out that Windows spies on its users so MS can sell that data.
KozmoNau7 9y ago
> I feel okay trusting Microsoft, but there's no way in hell I'd trust Google or Amazon. I feel curious as to why that is. Is it because you know Microsoft is blatantly in it for the money, meaning you are the direct customer. As opposed to Google/Amazon/Facebook, where you're the product?
- biocomputation 9y ago
  Part of it is because several of my family members have worked there, and, for the record, I totally agree with your characterization about them being blatantly about money. I feel like Microsoft is a bit more trustworthy because they haven't yet abused my personal information. I get the sense that things are slowly changing for the worse, and if it goes a bit further, I'll just switch to Clang and ditch Windows too. I definitely don't trust Google, Amazon, or Facebook at all. I'm only on Facebook a few times a month, and only from my computer. Never from my phone. No way in hell I'd ever install the FB surveillance app. FB is on probation with the FTC until when? 2030? They're an evil bunch of jackasses. IMHO, Amazon is the most sociopathic of the big four/five. They don't invade my privacy (because I don't let them), but I think they're pretty evil. I mean, Google is sort of soft evil whereas Amazon is WalMart level evil.

freeflight 9y ago

It's even worse with drivers for hardware, like with Razer devices. I still use a Microsoft Habu mouse and a Reclusa keyboard, they are the result of a cooperation between Microsoft and Razer with Razer supplying the drivers and software. At this point they are ancient but they still work very well for me. Recently I got a Razer Orbweaver, heavily discounted, and installing the drivers for that required me to create an account with Razer and install "Razer Synapse". I went along with it thinking that it would at least give me one package to keep drivers and options for all three of my Razer devices in one place. But it doesn't, Synapse only recognizes the Orbweaver, the other two Razer peripherals still need their own dedicated driver and software packages installed. Synapse phones home all the time when booting up it tells me how it's connecting to the "Synapse cloud". Sounds really fancy and all but what use is that if it can't even get drivers for other Razer devices from the "cloud"? This feels like getting all the disadvantages but none of the advantages.

biocomputation 9y ago
<< This feels like getting all the disadvantages but none of the advantages. I couldn't have said it better. It's funny because I'm totally cool with having an account provided it does things like gives me access to software, drivers, tools, backups, whatever. But yeah, I'm not going for it if it's just an excuse to vacuum up data. It's gotten to the point where I actively avoid companies/products that just don't get the message. To this point, I switched from Google to Microsoft a few years ago because I really got sick of feeling like my personal data was just making them richer in exchange for nothing. Email and web apps aren't worth the loss of privacy. At first Bing search was a bit weird, but then it turned out that it worked just as well as Google for most things, and better for some.
- jacksmith21006 9y ago
  Trust MS more than Google? MS put an ad inside windows for OneDrive. MS put a nag inside the OS to use Edge. To me MS has crossed lines you just do not cross.
  - freeflight 9y ago
    MS putting advertisements of its own products inside its other products is certainly not a cool move, nobody wants to pay for ads. But in regards to private data, the parent does have a point. Google's main business is aggregating data for ad purposes, selling their users privacy is how they make most of their money, you wouldn't expect anything else from them. MS does some of that too, but they make most of their money through other means, so they have less incentive of disrespecting their user's privacy. Even more so considering the PR blowback if it should ever turn out that Windows spies on its users so MS can sell that data.

KozmoNau7 9y ago

> I feel okay trusting Microsoft, but there's no way in hell I'd trust Google or Amazon. I feel curious as to why that is. Is it because you know Microsoft is blatantly in it for the money, meaning you are the direct customer. As opposed to Google/Amazon/Facebook, where you're the product?

biocomputation 9y ago
Part of it is because several of my family members have worked there, and, for the record, I totally agree with your characterization about them being blatantly about money. I feel like Microsoft is a bit more trustworthy because they haven't yet abused my personal information. I get the sense that things are slowly changing for the worse, and if it goes a bit further, I'll just switch to Clang and ditch Windows too. I definitely don't trust Google, Amazon, or Facebook at all. I'm only on Facebook a few times a month, and only from my computer. Never from my phone. No way in hell I'd ever install the FB surveillance app. FB is on probation with the FTC until when? 2030? They're an evil bunch of jackasses. IMHO, Amazon is the most sociopathic of the big four/five. They don't invade my privacy (because I don't let them), but I think they're pretty evil. I mean, Google is sort of soft evil whereas Amazon is WalMart level evil.