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Comment by samastur | Hacker News Reader

> > spies on you > Any reason to believe MS does this more than Apple does?

I can't speak for Windows since I don't use them, but I do run LittleSnitch on Mac (network monitor) and I don't really see requests to Apple I would not expect to see.

Of course that doesn't mean they couldn't send collected data with other information they sent, but it doesn't seem likely (a lot of effort for something almost nobody cares and optics are much worse when/if it would come out).

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Or is it? I use LittleSnitch too, and my Mac does A LOT of shady requests.

Every time I use Spotlight! Everytime I log in.. heck, even the keyboard service has to make internet requests!

Here you go:

  # Privacy: don’t send search queries to Apple
  # Safari
  defaults write com.apple.Safari UniversalSearchEnabled -bool false
  defaults write com.apple.Safari SuppressSearchSuggestions -bool true
  # Spotlight
  defaults write com.apple.spotlight orderedItems -array \
     '{"enabled" = 0;"name" = "MENU_WEBSEARCH";}' \
     '{"enabled" = 0;"name" = "MENU_SPOTLIGHT_SUGGESTIONS";}'

Also turn off Dictation in System Preferences > Keyboard > Dictation. I'm guessing you're smart enough to already have disabled Siri.

Voila! More privacy.

The fact that such hacks (which really aren't known beyonds developers) are necessary makes a very loud statement.

No, the few things these switches are toggling are nanoscopic in the grand scheme of things, and the data sent are only that necessary to implement an ostensibly useful feature.

Compare to the shit that Windows 10 collects, and the comparison isn't even remotely close.

They're not necessary at all. They're available, but really you shouldn't care about them unless you're very paranoid. These settings are basically the equivalent of telling your computer "I don't ever want to search the internet unless I manually navigate to google.com (or whatever) and do the search there". Because that's what you're doing, you're disabling the internet-enabled search functionality.

You can go to group policy (gpedit.exe) in Windows 10 pro to switch off most of privacy related settings. There is a good description written for every settings.

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