Remove anti-privacy, anti-security, and general nuisance “features” from Win 10

To make Fedora even remotely usable I had to un-Mac OS X it by installing a bunch of third party tweak tools and plugins because they took all of the major UI anti-patterns from OS X.

Even people who are power users can only use Windows for games and some enterprise apps.

So you either don't use a computer at all or use Windows and sometimes OSX.

I don't trust open systems either. I don't have the time to audit them. If I did, I wouldn't trust myself to catch everything. I don't trust "enough eyes make all bugs shallow" either.

Case in point: Canonical written "features" in Ubuntu, and OpenSSL bugs in general.

> why would you then, after performing these steps, trust the system that it really does what it says it does.

Don't trust: verify with wireshark? Alternatively, trust the people who wrote this to have run wireshark. Alternatively, "Trust but verify."

I generally trust Microsoft and FOSS to not be actively malicious on their own behalf.

I trust neither Microsoft nor FOSS to do their privacy due diligence, write perfect software, to be free of capitalistic or engineering pressure to add privacy harming features, nor to be free from subversion by state actors (NSA etc.)

What's your superior counter-proposal, under these conditions?

> The point is that you don't know, and you can never be sure.

Fundamental truth of computing, not "windows 10". I can't even trust the code I write myself to be free of security or privacy issues due to my own mistakes or lack of consideration.

> The solution is to either trust or not, switch or stay, there is no middle path, because any middle path implies some amount of non-trust.

I reject the thesis that trust is binary. Were I to accept it, I trust nobody - everyone is vulnerable to being subverted by blackmail, intimidation, making mistakes, etc.

Trust of system is also not the only factor influencing my use of a system. I trust a deeply buried cement brick more than any computer, but I can't use the web with it. I have very different trust needs for my bank servers, my workstation, my catstation, and my gaming console.

desktop computer (also laptops) know your location, what you type, who you are (sort of), who you are emailing, etc. and it has been so for a while but it used to be third party software, websites, governments, corpo or malware that would collect and use this data.

Cell phones are tracking devices you can use to make a phone call, people using those devices doesn't mean they are ok with the surveillance that come with it.

When your friends complain they're complaining that the surveillance is creeping its way back into an OS.

Additionally, Apple is very clear which what they collect and what gets sent to Apple. They go through it when you set your iOS or Mac OS X device up. It's not hidden in some "advanced setup" link.

I don't think this is the case. People have complained about that too and personally I take a lot of precautions to protect my data.

Pretty much every reddit thread on the subject has a top comment akin to "Who cares? everyone else is doing it", and your comment seems to be a more well thought out version of the same sentiment.

We've known for a while the NSA is abusing our technology and working with large corporations to spy on us, but at this point there is almost no way around it except to stop using technology (and even then you can be spied on by other sophisticated equipment like drones).

I don't really think this is any type of excuse or justification. Just because people have no control over the spying doesn't mean people like it or are "okay" with it. The only other option is to give up most technology and stop participating in the world, which is absurd.

This kind of irrational paranoia is extremely common amongst tech people, especially on HN. I can't think of anything that could slow down progress more than fear of transparency. Yet I can't blame these people because they clearly don't know better.

I regularly try to have discussions around the benefits of transparency and the unsustainable nature of privacy, but it's such a touchy subject that it inevitably gets buried.

I think that in this particular case you can trust the random bat file more than Microsofts official binary blob OS.