Windows Privacy Dashboard: GUI for Windows 10 Privacy Settings
wpd.app
wpd.app
It's one of the only solutions I've seen that disables the automatic Bing based internet search feature when you use Win+S to search your system.
The only concern is I don't know if it hides it while still being run in the background, or if it completely blocks the search from happening in the first place.
Kind of sad that end users even need to think about this sort of thing. It should be painfully obvious on how to disable such an invasive feature.
It also offers an application uninstaller and downloads/applies firewall rules to the built-in Windows firewall. Shutup10 does not offer those features.
It _doesn't_ allow the user to completely disable telemetry on Windows 10 Home or Pro, which is the primary reason to use Shutup10 in the first place. For privacy purposes you want Shutup10 not this program.
Btw only one WPD feature "blocker" can completely cut off IP telemetry addresses. This is much more effective than any settings.
If you do not understand the topic, you should not give advice.
p.s Shutup10 is a Microsoft partner, closed source and you can't decompile it. Think about it :3
The rest of the marketing site is well done... surprised screenshots aren’t front and center!
I wonder why the same mistake keeps getting made again and again.
There are a few stack exchange questions about it but the answers are all outdated and don’t work for me.
Pin it to taskbar.
Rearrange the pinned icon so it's the first.
Now, Windows+1 shortcut key will open Everything.
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced]
"DisabledHotkeys"="S" ; Write out EI to disable the shortcut Win+E and Win+I.
How do people search inside files on Windows?
I use ripgrep on the CLI, as Windows Explorer's in-built search has a cumbersome syntax.
Sometimes though, a GUI is easier.
I have tried GrepWin many times and I can NEVER get it to give the results I want - or expect- when I use it.
Something about the UI and me, they don't click.
I had a file I was working on recently, "vuln2.docx". "vuln2" won't bring it up, but "vuln" will, alongside the other ones I had been working on. WHY?
B: Manage BitLocker
BI: Manage Bitlocker
BIT: Notepad ?????
I've tried everything. I'm considering asking my IT department for Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/whats-new/ltsc/), but that seems like a huge hassle.
I personally tend to modify the Windows install image these days to not include offensive components, as well as disable offending features in group policy.
To me this application is useless.
for example slack, dsicord, vscode, most games do not require anything
It's an unobfuscated .NET application that a bunch of folks seem to have built in their spare time. Did you use any of the widely available tools to decompile it and find anything egregious in there or is this just a lazy dismissal?
If you're making the point that disassembly is at least possible, you've already lost. Sure, maybe they haven't gone as far as they possibly could have in preventing us from inspecting the code's workings. Perhaps the licence is gracious enough not to try to prohibit such study. That's still not good enough.
These days it's pretty much the norm to release such freeware as Free and Open Source software. If this weren't true, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Why then haven't they done so? Why do they choose to deny the rights to study and improve the software?
Releasing the source is also a pretty good way of offering assurance of the absence of malware.
It's reasonable to be wary with admin privileges. Proprietary freeware comes across as saying You're not allowed to look, just trust me. I'll pass.
I agree with this completely, and I extend it to the operating system itself. I'm at the point (at home) where I no longer need a proprietary, closed source OS for work or for play. Linux and OpenBSD do essentially everything I need in my home office, and at work I've shifted most of my day-to-day over to my Linux workstation. The systems I maintain do of course still run Windows 10 out of necessity for our accounting software, but if we ever switch that over to a hosted solution we will only need one workstation with Windows, and it's not a critical role. The company president has already greenlit working in whatever OS I am most comfortable with, as long as it doesn't hinder my duties, so he's at least open to moving everything over one day.
The norm for HN maybe just hasn't reached the authors yet given their home countries and the fact they seem to identify via Steam profiles, i.e. are likely more involved in a social circle of Windows based gamers instead of FOSS folks. We don't know anything about those authors, it's pretty unlikely that this came from a point of explicitly choosing to deny somebody any rights, for all I know this was made by a bunch of 15 year olds that simply didn't know any better. While I realize the fundamental difference between this tool and random webapps, products without disclosed source or incentives are cheered on by HN all the time, which is why I found "not open source. won't install, won't suggest." a rather lazy contribution.
If one of the authors had submitted this we could have had a conversation and suggest they open source it, like you've just done, which is absolutely fine. Passing on closed source freeware is fine as well but attribution of bad intentions or "closed source == bad" style comments are just plain unnecessary imho.
I dismissed the project the moment I learnt it's closed-source, for the reasons I've given. A point of principle is a fine reason to dismiss something, even in the absence of a practical concern. Here we have both.
There are plenty of things I can shrug off about a software project, such as internal design decisions I disagree with, or using tools and languages that I dislike, or even using a Free and Open Source software licence that I dislike. Choosing to make it closed-source is bigger than that.
To be clear, I'm not a FOSS purist (I'm writing this from Firefox on Windows 10), but for a tool like this in particular, it should either be FOSS, or direct from Microsoft.
> The norm for HN maybe just hasn't reached the authors yet given their home countries and the fact they seem to identify via Steam profiles, i.e. are likely more involved in a social circle of Windows based gamers instead of FOSS folks.
This doesn't change my assessment at all. If the developers are beginners/hobbyists and are, bluntly, of such low calibre that they aren't aware of the advantages of Free and Open Source software, I don't see how that's reassuring.
> for all I know this was made by a bunch of 15 year olds that simply didn't know any better
Then I'm glad I was quick to dismiss the idea of giving their code admin rights on my machine!
> I found "not open source. won't install, won't suggest." a rather lazy contribution
You're right that detay's reply didn't explain their dismissal, yes.
> attribution of bad intentions
I mean, they are denying us the rights to study and improve the software. That's what closed-source software means. Was the decision to go closed-source the result of bad intentions? Perhaps not, as you say they might not be deliberately setting out to deny rights that people value, but my strong reservations remain justified.
> "closed source == bad" style comments are just plain unnecessary
In the context of software of this kind, closed source is bad. I think I've justified this position.
The only "issue" I ever had was with Dropbox updates. Dropbox main instance would download its new update, name it somewhat randomly and then use that program to trigger update from the internet. This would trigger simplewall to ask for permission, but by the time you click "yes" the update would already fail. Minutes alter Dropbox downloads same install with new file name and the whole whack-a-mole game starts all over. In this case you need to whitelist Dropbox IPs: in user rules create new rule: tcpip v6, any direction with remote rule: 162.125.35.0:443-162.125.36.255:443 - this will allow any new Dropbox update to download new version and safely call home to finish install.
[1] https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardHome
[2] https://github.com/crazy-max/WindowsSpyBlocker/tree/master/d...
The reason this software exists is fundamentally about a lack of trust. We don't trust Microsoft with the level of data that Windows 10 collects. That is a perfectly reasonable position to have. However if that is your opinion, it seems frankly bizarre to trust these nameless developers who have zero accountability for this software. Microsoft is at least accountable to the law, the stock market, and their customers. There is hundreds of billions on the line if they screw you over. If Barnacle screws you over, the only thing on the line is their copy of Ultra Street Fighter IV.
When it comes to privacy/security tools, it makes sense to make it open source, since they usually are given an insane amount of privileges to modify your machine.
In that order. We are last. In fact I'm not even a customer anymore, I haven't paid for an update to Windows since Windows 8 was released.
There's no reason for this program to not be open-source - especially if it all it does is tweak the registry and apply GPO settings.
You highly underestimate the skill of the community, and how it only takes one person to find out and spread the news if something is amiss. Source isn't needed, and doesn't tell the whole story anyway. (See: Ken Thompson Hack.)
the multinational corporation that could lose hundreds of billions of dollars if they inappropriately abuse my privacy
The corporation which has lawyers and knows exactly how to spin their spyware to carefully evade such laws?
Windows 10 would clearly be considered spyware 10 or even 5 years ago. Yet somehow Microsoft has convinced the general public that it isn't, and we are supposed to still trust them?
Edit: downloaded it to take a look. Appears to be written in easily-reversible .NET and not even obfuscated, so go ahead and analyse it yourself if you don't trust it. (If it was obfuscated, that would make my suspicion jump.)
Edit2: looks like people still think I'm wrong - go look at the binary yourself instead of blindly downvoting just because you don't want to do the thinking yourself. The more power you let them have, the more they will abuse it.
Even among those who know, only a fraction would be bothered enough to take action.
That Windows users have chosen to accept Windows becoming spyware
The developers of this, and others, are clearly fighting against it.
Compared to just about every SaaS product?
For decades, the Windows community thrived with mods and such, all without source code.
If you have an unobfuscated .NET binary you pretty much have the source, and it will be honestly what it says it does.
Шt amazes me that people blame WPD for closedsource, but they themselves use shutup10 :facepalm:
In fact they are already doing this, most probably breaking the GDPR.
Spyware has a definition. You don't get to change it.
Telemetry doesn't aim to do this.
They wouldn't be celebrating your cluelessness, they are talking about a "revolution", aka a revolution in the publics cluelessness about software ownership.
Why does ANY piece of software need a remote computer in order to function?
https://tifca.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/ClienttoCloud_V...
The data is close to impossible to inspect, and impossible to turn off without third-party tools or firewalls. So I suspect there's something to worry about.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/diagnostic-data-viewer/9n8...
You are correct in that they do not permit users to turn it off on Windows 10 Home and Pro, which is egregious and offensive.
Maybe it's time to switch to Linux if you don't like to be tracked and have ads everywhere for a product that is not free.
https://github.com/bmrf/tron/tree/master/resources/stage_2_d...
I run the Tron project, it's open-source and these scripts are updated frequently based on community input.
"Try the new cross-platform PowerShell https://aka.ms/pscore6"
There were a few pre-installed apps but that's completely normal to be honest. If you go in a shop and buy a PC then it's usually full of that shit. If you remove it, it doesn't come back. They're not really ads but things the average user will want (I want office!!!)
In Germany I have only ever seen OneDrive popups in Win10, which can be considered either a "suggestion" or an "advertisement".
Professionally, I've used all three major operating system branches. Windows was a hack when it came to things like terminal support. Linux needed me to hack into config files pretty quickly just to make it work, and it's lacking the UI polish that the other operating systems have. Mac combines the best of both worlds.
Privately I've always used Windows, simply because all games work on there at the intended performance. It's not in the way.
I am a very experienced Linux user both on desktop and server side of things. In fact 90% of what I do targets Linux but all the desktop solutions are quite frankly a mess. After 20 years of infighting and rewriting the universe, there is no cohesive desktop that even makes any sense at all and isn't bug ridden. I am forever fighting small things and edge cases to get anything working. Within a few days, it gets toasted and back to windows. I don't have enough hours left before I'm dead to actually argue with these things.
And as for MacOS, the hardware went down the toilet, you tend to have to fight the OS at every available opportunity, the pricing is quite frankly terrible and it's utterly inflexible. It's Apple's way or a punch in the balls. No thanks. At best I'm hanging on lightly to iOS as that's not too problematic when it's being inflexible (apart from HEIC which is a pain in the ass)
I also beg people to find a better place where I can throw together an 8-core workstation class machine with 32Gb of RAM, 4k 27" display, decent GPU, replaceable NVMe storage and high quality input devices for < £1300 that actually works reliably and the software doesn't get in the way.
I often see this sentiment but I guess I don't get it. You are actually seeing a response from the developer about this, that's a good thing! They have repeatedly acknowledged the usability problem in the bug report I found [1], while explaining that the implementation would be difficult.
I might wonder why in Windows I am not able to resize windows with a hotkey+the mouse instead of fumbling for the border to click on. Personally I find that much more of a usability issue. But I would never get some response from a Windows developer about it. I might make a post asking about it on a Microsoft support forum and get some volunteer unqualified Certified Microsoft Helper explaining to me why my use case is invalid, but you would probably never get any real contact with a developer.
Wasn't it only Windows 10 that finally allowed you to scroll inactive windows under the mouse cursor, something that I'm sure worked fine on Xfree86 in the 90's? Using Windows can be pretty tiring too.
When the benefit of doing so is greater than the cost of switching.
That may be true already for some group of users like web developers. However most other user segments are critically underserved on other OSes and so the experience isn't even in the same league.
And no, VM/IOMMU/Looking Glass is not a solution, it's a total pain in the butt and you're still running Windows anyway.