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Comment by threeseed | Hacker News Reader

I was under the impression you can disable all of the telemetry. Is that not the case ?

And Pro really refers to Prosumer not Professional.

According to blog posts and articles on tech sites there still is no way to disable all telemetry on windows 10. I don’t use windows for a long time now so I cannot tell myself.

Anyhow, it is /not/ ok for an OS to spy on their users by default - even if you can disable it manually.

By the way, is there a list of things that Windows collects about computer/user activity?

-Everything

before anyone else downvotes the parent, take a look at the URL in the sibling comment about what is captured.

they're capturing more data about you than you probably realise exists to be captured.

That's only when you have it set to Full level, which is not the same as Basic level, which is pretty harmless.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/configuration/windo...

wow - that is comprehensive and terrifying.

I skimmed the list and these particular ones jumped out at me:

> Movies > URL for a specific two-second chunk of content if there is an error

> Music & TV > Service URL for song being downloaded from the music service -- collected when an error occurs to facilitate restoration of service

> Photos App > File source data -- local, SD card, network device, and OneDrive

That's only when you have it set to Full level, which is not the same as Basic level, which is pretty harmless.

Even though the "basic" telemetry data is quite the list [0], I agree that it's not nearly as intrusive as the "full" set.

> only when you have it set to Full level "you" (probably any users) won't set the level to "full"; this is the default setting (source [1]). MS only offers "basic" as opt-out (which it really is not).

[0] - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/configuration/basic...

[1] - https://www.ghacks.net/2018/03/12/configure-telemetry-window...

update: formatting

Even on Enterprise you can't disable all telemetry.

See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/configuration/confi....

According to my pihole, with every telemetry option turned off, it stills tries to phone home hundreds of times per day.

You sure it's not checking for updates?

No, updates work fine. Some blocked domains : settings-win.data.microsoft.com, v10.vortex-win.data.microsoft.com, mobile.pipe.aria.microsoft.com, nexusrules.officeapps.live.com

Really making me want to setup PiHole now... any tips on what to block?

This is my /etc/pihole/adlists.list https://pastebin.com/ssqea2nW

You can't. It still phones home a lot, even at the lowest telemetry settings. The only edition where you can disable it is LTSB and even there it is hidden in Local Group Policy Editor.

No you can turn it down from 11 to 5 basically.

No it really doesn't.

Microsoft have marketed it to business and portrayed it as intended for professional business use ever since XP introduced the version split. Until large enough to be allowed near volume licensing SKUs, when you pass some point past a hundred seats, it's the most professional offering a business can get.

That covers nearly all small and medium businesses.

Ah, well, as long as we can redefine previously understood terms to mean something different, I guess all's fair.

It gathers a lot of info and transfers it to vast number of domains under Microsoft control:

http://www.pcministry.com/win10_telemetry/summary_stats_and_...

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