this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2025
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Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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[–] Horsey@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

I mean, I get that Microsoft is trying to compete with MacOS and its Time Machine software, but why not just start from there and add the other bits as optional to the user? lol

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[–] Critical_Thinker@lemm.ee 15 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

I'm certain this can be disabled in windows at any moment as without it loads and loads of criminal evidence would be available for discovery and litigation against the wealthiest people and businesses across the world.

A real fear is being a worker in a world with micromanagers inspecting your workweek, 3 second snapshots at a time.

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[–] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 2 points 1 month ago

No, it was chrome crashing. I dont use Windows

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 21 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

Is this legal in EU? I mean not the tool itself but just enabling it by default.

[–] lagoon8622@sh.itjust.works 19 points 1 month ago (1 children)

From the comments it seems like you have to opt in to the screenshots. But I'm sure they do it at the bottom of a three thousand page EULA or something so most users will wind up opting in by default

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[–] Chemo@discuss.tchncs.de 21 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

GDPR regulation mandates that there is at least informed consent. So MS has to ask users if they want all their data to be uploaded. This includes of course a disable option. But knowing big tech companies, they'll find a way to make users press that Okay button.

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[–] Charger@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I always keep an old windows iso file just incase I need to use it.

[–] Urist@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 month ago

Slap it into a VM. Name it jail. Call it Windows with bars.

[–] pyre@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

time for player 2 to join

[–] HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml 61 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Windows is malware. If you give the slightest shit about your privacy, switch ASAP

[–] silasmariner@programming.dev 4 points 1 month ago

Is ASAP Linux a variant of Asahi that I'm not hip enough to get?

[–] gwilikers@lemmy.ml 43 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Took this crap off my computer and installed Fedora as my daily. If I need to run Windows, I'll run it in a VM.

[–] Jason2357@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

When I originally switched, I kept an ultra clean windows 2000 VM going for a solid decade. Any time I needed it, I could install stuff, do the work, and then blow away the crud that always builds up with Windows. I would suggest using the oldest version of Windows you can practically use, de-bloating it, and taking vm snapshots.

You could even firewall it using another VM or the host if you wanted. Put windows in jail, erase its memory, and cut it off from the outside world so it behaves, lol.

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[–] irotsoma@lemmy.blahaj.zone 32 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Even if Copilot was suspended, the idea was put into the heads of managers and executives. My work laptop current has three applications constantly locking files as they track everything I do and every file that gets touched and upload it all to the servers. Git now takes a ridiculous amount of time to check in and push files since it creates tons of small changes to the cached files that a the tracking applications block further changes or uploads until they can record the information. It takes about 30 seconds to a minute to check in a single small file. Something that used to take a second or two at most. Worst part is if I'm in a WebEx meeting, the fighting over caches in it and git and any other processes,often causes deadlocks that crash the machine. I'm constantly apologizing for being late for meetings because the laptop crashed and had to reboot. It's gotten to the point that they finally gave me a much faster laptop rather than just excluding cache and git folders and such from the tracking because the people who want literally everything tracked don't know what cache or git is, much less how much useless data they're gathering or how the AI that analyzes it all is going yo get distracted by the garbage and not find any useful data anyway. Microsoft needs to get in the game to push the others back out.

[–] Jason2357@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I ran into this as my IDE is also constantly touching temporary files to maintain its state. It wasn’t copilot though, it was one drive. So I moved my work files into a local-only location, and then periodically rsync to the synced folder, excluding .git and other folders that have no business on a synced folder.

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[–] nagaram@startrek.website 14 points 1 month ago

No bro! I promise bro! It's just because Michaelsoft isnt tracking and indexing that info. I promise this next micromanaging software won't be as bad! The next one will be as good as teams bro! I promise!

[–] Emptiness@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I just want to tip my fellow colleagues that need to use windows for their job (and also maybe have invested thousands in pc games).

This is my favorite tool for debloating and uncrappifying and more. If you have others please reply with yours. 😊

https://christitus.com/windows-tool/

[–] Cris16228@lemmy.today 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Or install an OS without most of the crap? https://massgrave.dev/windows_ltsc_links

I use linux so idk how that is but I heard is lightweight in bs

[–] ggtdbz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 month ago

Hey, thanks for the laptop IT guy! Yeah everyone around the office has been very welcoming, I’m happy to be here. I’m pretty handy with computers so hopefully I won’t be bothering you too much haha…. Yeah anyway, I know you just imaged this laptop, but the thing is, I really don’t like all the fluff in the Windows updates, can I instead provide my own Windows image? It’s straight from Microsoft but you get it through a site called MASS GRAVE. And then you can apply the group policies and enable the drive mapping scripts and reinstall the secure company network client infrastructure —

I think when most people mean work they mean corporate where you have zero control. I’m just happy they let me use PowerTools. At home, manually amputating pieces of Windows has been a bit fiddly but no less fiddly than what people think configuring is still like.

It’s annoying, but for most people, even among the technically inclined, it’s fine. For now. I’m more likely to pivot to Linux than to OSX eventually.

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[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 27 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Fuuucking hell. I have to keep a laptop on win for work purposes and i just finished decrapifying 11 last night

[–] Cris16228@lemmy.today 9 points 1 month ago

https://massgrave.dev/windows_ltsc_links

It should have little to 0 crap since its the version used by companies

[–] tyrant@lemmy.world 46 points 1 month ago

Microsoft has shown over the years they will undo your preferences if they aren't what they prefer. They are the worst

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