EFF blasts Microsoft over Windows 10 privacy concerns
theverge.com
theverge.com
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/08/windows-10-microsoft-b...
I'd just suggest people read that instead, The Verge article doesn't really contribute anything.
But I completely agree about MS going down the user-hostile path. It's actually pretty funny to watch, and to see so many people bitching and complaining about it. I just keep telling them to stop complaining and if they don't like it, don't use it, which hopefully pisses them off even more (it sure seems to). Maybe if these morons finally get fed up enough with being shat on by MS and then not getting any sympathy from the peanut gallery, and being told it's their own fault for picking MS as their vendor, they'll get a clue and switch. It seems to be working for some, and for the rest I have no sympathy. This whole terrible situation we have with MS being an abusive monopolist for so long is directly the result of the choices made by people like that, so I'm happy to see them get their come-uppance.
For my personal machines, however, it's a different story: I'm not going to waste my time and money on an inferior OS which has no appreciable benefit to me, and many gigantic downsides. If other people choose to, that's on them, but I'm tired of hearing them bitch and complain about that OS's vendor mistreating them. They made their bed, now they need to lie in it.
I can kind of see MS's perspective, in that everyone else is doing all kinds of tracking and auto-updating on all their platforms. But for me it really felt like I was losing control of my computer in an unacceptable way.
Wine really is quite impressive. Even for many games it is very solid.
It's the same thing I have to do on every other OS...there's no OS that I can install and then NOT have to configure in some way.
2) These settings have been resetted for many users in the past, especially after bigger upgrades, so you not having problems is not a terribly great metric. I don't have proper statistics either, but they would be very much appropriate here.
3) You cannot actually turn all telemetry off, at least not in any official way.
2) Every OS has bugs. You won't get away from that by switching.
3) I often see this fact quoted but nobody ever points out how it has actually ever caused a problem for them other than their sense of ownership being offended.
You can switch for whatever reasons you want though. Are you actually a Windows user who is considering a switch?
2) No, but you can get away from malicious defaults. Believe it or not, but there's OSs out there where the defaults are an actual recommendation from actual people. And again, same fallacy. Just because every OS has bugs, doesn't mean that it's ok for one OS to suddenly have more of them for no reason, or in this case more severe bugs, as with user-respecting defaults only the most hardcore Microsoft-fanboys would complain that their computer suddenly stopped sending telemetry to Microsoft.
3) Because we don't know the extent of the damage that this does. We don't know what is being sent, what is being stored, how long it's being stored. Could be that even the most privacy-friendly setting can still report you to the NSA and get you on some list. Could be that people have already disappeared, because they were on such a list at the NSA, without anyone knowing about it. The same stuff was going on for a good while at the Stasi before people noticed, and the Stasi was a bad joke in comparison to the NSA.
> You can switch for whatever reasons you want though. Are you actually a Windows user who is considering a switch?
No, I already switched with the Windows 10 + new ToS launch in expectation of something like this going down, although I also just got extremely lucky, as it wasn't my only reason at the time. This actually going down, though, certainly has cemented that decision. Why do you ask?
Uhmm, OK. I don't think that switching to a different OS is going to do anything to stop the NSA, but I sincerely wish you good fortune in that endeavor. Please make sure that you comb over every line of code that you run on your system, because that's the only way you're going to be safe.
Given the type of concerns that you stated I had a hard time imagining that you ever used Windows. That's why I asked.
Anyway, here are my other responses:
1) Sure there is a reason. It's a really bad design to have one switch that disables a set of completely unrelated features.
2) You say they're being malicious, but you have zero proof. Until such time as you have some proof, this argument holds no weight whatsoever.
3) Exactly. You don't know.
I think Nadella's style is just really arrogant and anti-consumer. It seemed everyone was happy there was an alternative to the Gates/Ballmer way of doing things, but he just seems as much, if not moreso, out of touch than they are. I would never never considered a juggernaut like MS going down anytime soon, but MS has always had a strong emphasis on customer satisfaction, especially for business. Nadella has somehow managed to piss of enterprise and consumers with a lot of hard handed tactics. I definitely could see a lot of organizations flirting with OSX and Linux to make a migration. Especially now that so many things can be cloud-ified and that IE6/7/8 requirements are pretty much long gone for most, even in slow-moving enterprise.
Why should they? What are people going to do, stop using Windows? Why should they give two shits about what users think about the Windows experience?
>I think Nadella's style is just really arrogant and anti-consumer.
Yep, and I like it. It's perfect for MS. They've been coddling customers for far too long; it's time for them to show their customers who's really in control. I think it's funny to see their customers being made miserable by MS's user-hostile policies. These customers have willingly made themselves absolutely dependent on MS, so now they get to pay the price for that choice. The only thing that should be important to MS is profitability, and they can make more money with user-hostile policies which force things like forced updates to Win10 and forced telemetry and advertising. MS really needed someone like Nadella to stop pussy-footing around and force this stuff on their customers.
>I would never never considered a juggernaut like MS going down anytime soon, but MS has always had a strong emphasis on customer satisfaction, especially for business.
Yes, and that was a mistake. Earlier on it was necessary to achieve vendor lock-in, but these days that's long since been achieved, so it's time to tighten the screws. These customers are not going anywhere.
>Nadella has somehow managed to piss of enterprise and consumers with a lot of hard handed tactics.
Yeah, so? Are they going to do anything about it? Didn't think so. Why shouldn't he piss them off if they're going to keep throwing money at him?
>I definitely could see a lot of organizations flirting with OSX and Linux to make a migration.
No, they won't. They'll made some lame threats to their MS sales reps about it, hoping to get better prices, like they always have in the past. But hopefully the MS sales reps have been coached now to not fall for this. Migrating to OSX or Linux is a big change, and their IT minions would all have to be replaced with competent people, which isn't easy to do. These customers aren't going anywhere.
Migrating to OSX or Linux is a big change.
Yeah, for a private individual who just wants a computer at home for surfing the web, reading email, etc., they'd really be much better-served with Linux Mint: no spyware, no advertising, no forced "upgrades" breaking their drivers, no Windows Updates putting their computer out of commission for 30 minutes right when they really need it, etc. But we're talking about businesses here.
That strategy works until it doesn't, and by then its too late to pivot out of it.
Maybe you're right; if so, I'd be happy to see MS collapse. Or maybe you're wrong, and treating their customers terribly will turn out to be very profitable for them. Either way, I don't really see a downside.
Satya Nadella is the CEO of Microsoft.
Terry Myerson is the Executive VP in charge of the Windows division at Microsoft and is the one calling the shots with respect to Windows.
I don't know why people persist in thinking that CEOs are directly responsible for every decision a company makes, particularly at huge companies.
From what I can find online, Myerson was put into his position in July 2013, Nadella into his in February 2014, so it's entirely possible that it was actually Myerson doing these things on his own and it just happened to collide with Nadella's promotion, but I would also assume that a Steve Ballmer would have told Myerson off by now, at the very least for the malware-like upgrade strategy, whereas it seems like Nadella is entirely ok with it, heck from how much the man has said to it, you could assume he doesn't even know that it's happening.
Also, at a company like MS, I think its a naive to think the big decisions in regards to Win10 have zero input from the CEO level. Also the CEO is responsible for the calls of the higher ups. Even if Nadella is hands off with Windows, the fact that he isn't intervening is a sign of incompetence.
I don't know why people persist in thinking the CEO is just a ceremonial role in big companies.
It was Surface RT that prevented installation of non-signed operating systems.