Windows 10 - Worse Windows Ever!

[cleverwise]

So Microsoft's Windows 10 spying just gets worse and worse and so I wanted to share additional information for your knowledge.

The following information is from a post they proudly admit in Jan 2016 on their own Windows.com domain - link at bottom.

Page reads:

"Over 44.5 billion minutes spent in Microsoft Edge across Windows 10 devices in just the last month."

My Response:

So MS is clearly tracking how long people are using Edge on their own computer. Edge is the replacement for Internet Explorer (IE). You can bet they are sending the URLs you are visiting to Redmond; I don't care if they claim otherwise.

Page reads:

"Over 82 billion photos viewed within the Windows 10 Photo app."

My Response:

So MS is proudly and clearly tracking how many pictures people are opening on their Windows 10 machines.

Now one can use another web browser like Chrome (my prefered) or Firefox for surfing the web or using another photo program like Irfanview. This would prevent those Edge and Windows 10 Photo app from reporting stats. Still this shows two major things:

1) The clear mentality of MS to gather as much data as they can while you are using Windows 10. This is deep spying and I mean deep spying. Google and Facebook can only dream of this level of spying into your computer.

2) This is just what they proudly admit to in the open and public eye. Since Windows 10 is the Operating System (OS) it can easily spy on ANYTHING you do because well it is the OS and has deep level access to your computer's software and hardware.

This doesn't even really begin to address the MAJOR privacy issues with Windows 10. After all many viruses would love this level of spying yet this all baked into (build into) Windows 10. So much for we aren't monitoring your files. Yeah right!

Now you may be fine with this level of spying and even like Windows 10 or perhaps you are repulsed by it. Still either way you ought to know that it is unlike any previous Windows version in its level of spying on you and your data.

The stats above aren't some third party blog but straight from MS itself. You may read the whole article including MS' gleeful and proud tone:

https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperi ... n-devices/

[Martok]

Can't say I'm even remotely surprised. Yet another reason -- not that I need any -- to not get Win10.

[cleverwise]

I have had it with Windows! A large percentage of my family is staying on Windows 7 or 8 (depending on the machine) and I am actively researching switching to Linux. People around me are starting to say the same thing no frakking way to pile of over hyped bits that is Windows 10.

There is NOTHING I do on Windows I can't accomplish on Linux including run many Windows apps using WINE.

[Weedwacker]

I hope none of you folks use smart phones then.

[Weedwacker]

Also this has more to do with google and apple practices that happens to coincide with the times of digital warfare, gov is more then happy with this. Also big money pays for this information to sell you crap, thats all they want in the end, your money.

now adays the big thing is information monoplies, and if the govt hasn't cracked down on fb or apple or google, well its time for the big king to get on board, also i tend to believe it helps streamline error reports for them.

i'd like to get linux aswell, go on the frindges ya know, outer rim stuff.

[slickrcbd]

I'm convinced the main reason they get away with all this is because the general public does not understand exactly what is being done and what information is being harvested and collected.

That, and they don't have the gumption to turn down the big companies, same as with software and one-sided EULAs, they don't have the gumption to click "decline" and return the product, citing the EULA.

[KrazeeXXL]

Well, win10 is basically free, so they're going to use it to gather information to get some dough. No surprise there. They have to stay relevant and selling a barely improved OS any couple of years won't get them so far as people of course refuse to "upgrade". The prices of Windows were always insanely high, too. So, now they're also riding the information train. Can't blame them really. They're kinda forced to do it to stay relevant. And I rather use Windows than some facebookOS tbh.

But when it comes to my own information and a free OS, it's a really bad trade for me. I'm not planning to go that Win10-route either. The only reason is DX12 but I hope lots of games will get Vulkan support. But it'll prolly end up the same way as mantle. Not much support from the industry... Still hoping for SteamOS, too.

I'm convinced the main reason they get away with all this is because the general public does not understand exactly what is being done and what information is being harvested and collected.

Yea, it's hard to guess what is being done and how these infos are used and to whom they are sold to and what these people are doing with them. Probably nothing good.

I think people are so constantly bombarded with useless stuff these days, that they're getting tired about any kind of important debates. It doesn't help that these get dragged whenever possible, too. After SOPA came CIPA, then CISPA and whatever they named it after another. It was stopped a couple of times but then it sadly passed. I guess it's really just because people got tired of the debate.

A couple of weeks ago I read a post from a guy who was watching win10 telemetry and it was eye opening. It was an absurdly high amount of server connections. We're talking about 10k in a couple of days, perhaps a week. Nah, I don't want that. The debates have to go on and people have to actively switch to Linux. But as long as there is no industry and no money behind support-wise, it'll always be niche. And in the hardware world, niche and exotic stuff is bad.

Better to have a couple of systems. One independent rig/VM for gaming and one for business. Aka business in the front, party in the back.

[slickrcbd]

I have always had trouble with using VM to play games except for really old DOS games with DOSBOX. I'd have to make the business machine the VM.

In any case, there are or used to be (I haven't looked in years) companies that did offer support for their flavor of Linux for a fee. That was part of their business plan, the support services that were pretty much the same as Apple's AppleCare or Microsoft's extended support.

[cleverwise]

I hope none of you folks use smart phones then.

True smartphones can and do leak data but that doesn't mean one should just blindly accept what a desktop OS does.

I'm convinced the main reason they get away with all this is because the general public does not understand exactly what is being done and what information is being harvested and collected.

I totally agree. Most people don't really realize how much spying is being done. With Windows 10 it is far far worse. By default Windows 10 logs your keystrokes and uploads a copy of EVERY file to their systems. That is far worse than smartphones. This is spying on a whole new level period. They say in their EULA they will give the data over to law enforcement at request. Does that mean without a warrant? Who knows.

Some online say just turn this or that setting off and you are fine. Really? For starters no other Windows version required going through pages of settings. MS reserves the right to make any changes and thus could just over ride your changes at any time. Also it has been proven that even with all settings off Windows 10 still is very leaky although less so. So following those guides is only partially effective. MS has been caught just renaming services when a stink arises. The bottom line this shows a serious mentality of MS. Viruses and governments would LOVE this level of access that is baked into the OS.

But when it comes to my own information and a free OS, it's a really bad trade for me. I'm not planning to go that Win10-route either. The only reason is DX12 but I hope lots of games will get Vulkan support. But it'll prolly end up the same way as mantle. Not much support from the industry... Still hoping for SteamOS, too.

Vulkan will change the industry period. Also it does have MAJOR support from tech players including ATI, Nvidia, Microsoft, SteamOS, Apple, etc. In fact the day it officially launch over 20 major tech companies blogged about it and put their weight behind it. This will, over time, be a big game changer and will make it much easier to code software (including games). I noticed my system already has the Nvidia Vulcan driver installed.

A couple of weeks ago I read a post from a guy who was watching win10 telemetry and it was eye opening. It was an absurdly high amount of server connections. We're talking about 10k in a couple of days, perhaps a week. Nah, I don't want that. The debates have to go on and people have to actively switch to Linux. But as long as there is no industry and no money behind support-wise, it'll always be niche. And in the hardware world, niche and exotic stuff is bad.

That isn't true either. Red Hat a major Linux company just reached the 2 billion dollar mark. Ubuntu backs their distro will paid support and free support. The community for Linux is HUGE. Linux runs more servers than any OS. It has thousands of forums ready to help people out for both desktop and server installs. Linux is very mature and thousands of configurations of hardware do in fact work on it. There are companies like System76 that sell hardware preinstalled with Linux and offer support for it. They aren't the only ones either. More and more games and software is coming out for Linux and many titles work with WINE although not everything.

It is coming down to what is more important data security and ownership or "familiarity" which I say loosely because Windows keeps changing a lot. Windows 7 looked different from XP, Windows 8 looked different from 7, and now Windows 10 looks different from 8. Plus back to Linux you can theme it like Windows if you really want.

I have always had trouble with using VM to play games except for really old DOS games with DOSBOX. I'd have to make the business machine the VM.

In any case, there are or used to be (I haven't looked in years) companies that did offer support for their flavor of Linux for a fee. That was part of their business plan, the support services that were pretty much the same as Apple's AppleCare or Microsoft's extended support.

That is backwards if you care about your data security. The choice is yours of course. VM Ware offers free software that allows "Support for up to 16 vCPUs, 8TB disks, 64 GB of RAM, and 2GB Video RAM" which is enough to play most games. It is totally 100% free for personal usage.

I am not trying to say anyone should switch but don't kid yourself you are handing your data over to MS if you are using Windows 10 in a way NO other company has done before. I don't care if you have turned off all those key settings. That doesn't solve the total issue and just wait until next month when MS decides to force a new piece of spyware onto your computer. This is the new MS.

[slickrcbd]

Anything will have to wait until I can afford a new computer. My best computer is from 2009 and is running Windows 7.

[KrazeeXXL]

If you don't care about the latest games, go Linux for sure.

Vulkan will change the industry period. Also it does have MAJOR support from tech players including ATI, Nvidia, Microsoft, SteamOS, Apple, etc. In fact the day it officially launch over 20 major tech companies blogged about it and put their weight behind it. This will, over time, be a big game changer and will make it much easier to code software (including games). I noticed my system already has the Nvidia Vulcan driver installed.

We'll see. Mantle was hyped as well and then got supported by some 3 games if anything. About a month ago, AMD rolled their drivers out with Vulkan support, too.
I'm still not seeing any games with Vulkan support on the horizon. For people like us who don't want to go the Win 10 route, Vulkan is a bit like Obi-Wan. It's our only hope.

A couple of weeks ago I read a post from a guy who was watching win10 telemetry and it was eye opening. It was an absurdly high amount of server connections. We're talking about 10k in a couple of days, perhaps a week. Nah, I don't want that. The debates have to go on and people have to actively switch to Linux. But as long as there is no industry and no money behind support-wise, it'll always be niche. And in the hardware world, niche and exotic stuff is bad.

That isn't true either. Red Hat a major Linux company just reached the 2 billion dollar mark. Ubuntu backs their distro will paid support and free support. The community for Linux is HUGE. Linux runs more servers than any OS. It has thousands of forums ready to help people out for both desktop and server installs. Linux is very mature and thousands of configurations of hardware do in fact work on it. There are companies like System76 that sell hardware preinstalled with Linux and offer support for it. They aren't the only ones either. More and more games and software is coming out for Linux and many titles work with WINE although not everything.

True, Linux runs well on servers. And that's nothing new. And how does that affect me as a regular user who's playing games?

Regular driver updates and I'm talking graphics cards here, need to be maintained often. Linux is still too niche to get this kind of support. If it had a market share of lets say 20% this would look way different. (I'm talking about consumers obviously). But it doesn't.
Nvidia and AMD hardly get their shit together when it comes to Windows only. I don't dare to think about they'd do the same for another OS and in time. And I doubt redhat will throw some millions at Nvidia and AMD to make them collaborate. They've other goals than getting into the gaming market. They're established in servers and this is the only way their money goes.

It's all about popularity. You don't have enough users > you're not relevant > you don't get support. Best example were the AMD drivers for Linux which didn't change for way over 5 years. I heard they got a bit better recently but can't confirm.

Linux as an alternative for gaming is the dream. But until another major player steps in, it'll stay a dream. It's nice to see some distros make money. 2b isn't that shabby either. But where do they put that money? Definitely not to rival Windows because they take pride to be something else and don't want to be another windows or worse: considered to be a windows clone. That's the vibe I get from the Linux community for almost 20 years now and this hasn't changed.

And this is what makes it hard to switch. I'm not going to switch to something where I'll get bad hardware support (+not in time). It's another thing to run some low-level stuff which runs on everything (you could even create a cluster with old 486 these days). But this low-level stuff will run bad on latest tech as it won't get optimized to a level where it could be competitive. Even if games would be just 5-10fps behind in Linux (which is totally unrealistic), a lot of people still wouldn't use it because they'd get more in windows.

I'll go there where the mass of people is going to at the end. Popularity is key. And with popularity comes support. No support means countless nights of wasted time and a fuckton of frustration for me as a user. And ain't nobody got time for that.

[Flocke]

Other than Mantle Vulkan will get support for sure, it's the official successor to OpenGL.
Mantle never really had a chance for wide support as it's complex to optimize and only addressed a small customer range.
But it forced DirectX and OpenGL to address the shortcomings and introduce DirectX12 and yep Vulkan.

Linux is going to find more game support as well as the most major hurdle is porting the engine that closely is tied to the os interfaces. There are just a few major gaming engines nowerdays and they wrap more and more of the os functionality and mostly already have linux support. Unreal 4 has linux support, cryengine has linux support, source 2 engine has linux support and unity now has linux support too. It's just a matter to switch compiler flags or settings and fix some few code locations that have no os abstractions yet. It's getting straight forward so there's not much of a reason left for game developers not to support linux.

Giving the increasing resistance on Win10 we actually might be happy for it to be the last ignition for many to finally switch to linux, including myself.

But be honest, Microsoft has a hard stand. People distrust them for long and ascribe them to spy. Their previous selling model failed and ppl are not willing to adapt to their new os tile interfaces. Their mobile phones failed as well and the only way to spread their latest os is to aggressively hand it for free and partially force to auto-update.
The only good money making office family left they already felt forced to port to ios and android for the mobile market.
It's a huge company we once had fear to become a worldwide monopolist but they drastically lost importance to the point one might start to wonder what substance is left. Even the office monopole is going to fall with alternatives becoming better and improving compatibility all the time.
Win10 is their try to become a selling platform like Android and a hope for wider app support to also boost their mobile phones and regain market shares. Collecting data just copies Android as well as Google went so successful with it collecting even more data scanning mails and about everything. Now if they fail with Win10, that already fall behind Win7 spreading despite their aggressive marketing, then what more can they do to catch up.

Regarding governmental monitoring and suppression on the other hand atm I just know to sing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2e2yHjc_mc xD (for those from overseas, that video caused a diplomatic crisis with Turkey here in Germany, with Erdogan personally demanding to take it off - it was produced by a public state channel)

[cleverwise]

Yeah Vulcan will be a game changer for sure. It is already having some impact. MS itself hates DirectX and really never wanted to develop it. If you read about Vulcan MS is excited about killing off DirectX. OpenGL had its issues and many were addressed in Vulcan. I am not trying to say Vulcan is 100% perfect as there is always room for improvement but still it is a major deal.

I agree for a while official video card support on Linux was weak, although the open source drivers were pretty good. Still Linus called out Nvidia and they have stepped up. The last release for 64bit Linux from Nvidia was on 2016.3.30 and includes all the features like Vulcan support, 4K support, CUBA support, and is FULL support from Nvidia. They release driver updates all the time now for Linux, so that is a thing of the past. ATI from AMD isn't doing as well but Nvidia kicks ATI's butt anyway.

As for gaming it is true it is more limiting but that is changing fast. Thanks to Steam and GoG many titles work on Linux. SteamOS is having a major impact and more and more class A titles like Unreal are working on Linux with frame rates of 140 to 200fps. There are videos showing the frame rate and Linux IS actually getting above 120 on many major game titles and this is before Vulcan. So start noting on Steam and GoG and you'll see a lot of high quality games for Linux.

I noticed on GoG you can get games like XWing Alliance that was released in the 90's for DOS that works natively in Linux. So true more games work on Windows than Linux but quickly changing. Valve has reported there are more Linux gamers than ever on its network. Plus some games that work on Windows work under WINE with little to no configuration. There is PlayOnLinux which helps make this easier and it is growing fast.

Finally one can run the aforementioned free VM Player for games that really need Windows. So the bottom line is it possible for gamers to game on Linux even with less share. Valve really deserves a lot of credit here especially thanks, again, to SteamOS being Linux based. If you search for Linux on Steam there are over 160 pages of games, again, including many class A titles and more being ported all the time.

Linux does face some issue though. I grant you that. For one unlike Mac and Windows no one is running come to Linux ads on TV and radio. Linux is spread by word of mouth. Second Linux does face headwind. Many people believe as expressed here it doesn't work on much hardware, which is totally false. It works on a lot of hardware and unlike Windows you rarely need to install many drivers it is more plug and play. You can get Linux desktops with i7's, 128GB of ram, quad video cards, etc if you want or you can get cheaper laptops for $150 off ebay and run Linux. Linux plays well with thousands of configurations.

Also, as expressed, there is this thought that Linux can't game. I just went over that is changing rapidly. Of course most games are written for Windows but unlike Mac Linux is gaining quick adoption for past and present titles. I refer you back to GoG and Steam just look around and you'll see that growing number. Cities: Skylines (a modern game) plays natively on Linux, which again is another example. Euro Truck Simulator 2 (a modern game) works on Linux.

Does Linux have some issues for the desktop? Sure. Does Windows have some issues? Yes. Does Linux work well on EVERY configuration? No. Does Windows work well on EVERY configuration? No.

A lot has happened to Linux in the last five years. Unfortunately reaching people is an issue. Plus more and more businesses are starting to switch which will expose their employees to this OS and that in turn will cause some to think about their OS choice.

Finally I am not saying rush out and switch to Linux today. Nope. Zip. Nada. I am however addressing some of the concerns and issues raised and pointing out Linux isn't where many people think it is. I, myself, am still on Windows 7 but I am going to get off it. I have started by journey and am simply saying you might want to start doing some research too. There is VirtualBox or VM Player for testing and Live CDs although this won't show the full power of Linux installed as the host OS but will provide some testing. The choice, is of course, yours.

[Flocke]

lets celebrate microsoft, they finally realized linux bash is better than the windows command shell:
http://www.slashgear.com/windows-10-mig ... -30433935/
http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/30/11331 ... buntu-bash
http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft- ... indows-10/

[cleverwise]

lets celebrate microsoft, they finally realized linux bash is better than the windows command shell:
http://www.slashgear.com/windows-10-mig ... -30433935/
http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/30/11331 ... buntu-bash
http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft- ... indows-10/

Yeah I saw that a few days ago. It isn't hard to be better than Windows. MS is also bringing MSSQL to Linux next year too. Plus they will be allowing Ubuntu to run directly on Windows with out a virtual machine. That is a horrible idea though as Windows will be able to spy a lot on the Ubuntu install.

All this "love" for Linux isn't love at all. MS is fast becoming irrelevant. They have no major presence in mobile. Their desktop OS has stalled. Their app store is a joke. Win10 doesn't really have that much new. Linux is kicking Windows butt in servers. On MS' cloud most installs are Linux as companies don't want crappy Windows server.

As you stated Flocke they are grasping for straws. MS is trying to delay the switching to Linux and why now there is so much "love" for it. If they really loved Linux they wouldn't kill things like the Skype Linux client. MS isn't trying to be Mr Nice guy. They just can see the future isn't looking that great for them. The last strong hold was gaming and now with Vulcan that will change. Also while no OS is perfect Windows has more holes than there are atoms in the Universe.