What value does jumping through hoops to download an iso add, exactly?
this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2024
35 points (92.7% liked)
Privacy
31981 readers
266 users here now
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.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
Some Rules
- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don't promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
Related communities
Chat rooms
-
[Matrix/Element]Dead
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
Some devices (Dell - possibly HP) will let you flash the firmware if you load said BIOS update on a USB stick.
That's what I ended up doing and it worked. I think I used like FreeDOS or something like that.
Someone else's computer. Like a library
You'll still need internet for Microsoft telemetry
Download iso from internet archive, but sometimes slow.
Just download it from a third party and compare the checksum with the official information. Granted, the official checksums on their website are behind a few steps, but you already tried on public Wi-Fi - once you generate the link a "Verify your Download" section should appear.
This seems like the way to do it. I went to https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/software-download/windows11 and found the current SHA256 hash for the English version. 36DE5ECB7A0DAA58DCE68C03B9465A543ED0F5498AA8AE60AB45FB7C8C4AE402. IDK if this URL is blocked for some VPNs.
Then I tried a few torrents based on the file name Win11_23H2_English_x64v2.iso.
Example search: https://btdig.com/search?q=Win11_23H2_English_x64v2.iso
I ended up using this torrent which game me the correct file: magnet:?xt=urn:btih:4f5f5cd398d947260876c231f93e2d40b61bac48&dn=Win11_23H2_English_x64v2.iso&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.opentrackr.org%3A1337%2Fannounce
To be honest it wouldn’t even let me download it off a vpn, on a different OS that hadn’t connected to a vpn, or in a different browser.
Had to find somewhere other than the Microsoft site to get one.
Not sure if it is still possible. But I believe you can on Tor if you spoof your user agent to be a black berry or some other device. Then you can grab the direct download link to the iso and download it over Tor. Been some time since I have done this though. Keep in mind this is from memory so it might be slightly different.
Why would spoofing the user-agent help if it is an IP-based block?
No idea. but I remember the direct download link for the iso to became available due to it.