In the context of OS, there is really only Apple, Microsoft, and Linux. With Linux (and to a significant extent OS X), users can understand what is going on with their computer. Apps are packaged in an easy to understand format. I can look at the human readable plists that apps use to store their config, or show package contents, for example. But I have no idea what stack Windows operates on, and Microsoft has no intention of ever letting me peek under the hood of their software. That was the general idea of Windows 7, just provide the interface and something that works, and hope to god the user doesn't want to change anything without installing 3rd party apps. A lot of people spend a very significant time on their computers, yet Microsoft has decided to tighten it's grip on how personal computing is done, because the user doesn't know what they want, apparently.

Google and Facebook offer services that I can choose to not use if I want to. The average user can't switch between OS' without at least a certain amount of knowledge, and Windows is taking advantage of its still gargantuan market share to snoop and embed things and install updates even after the user decides not to.

>You just "simple" don't trust Microsoft.

It's either a mistake/or English isn't their first language, regardless your wording and use of quotes makes this sound aggressive or insulting. (This sets the tone for the rest of the comment)

You understood what was meant.

>What about other big companies, for example Google? Do you trust them or not? Why? Do you trust Apple/Facebook/<put_here_another_big_company_with_users>? Why?

As for me personally, I don't trust most large companies very much. Many large companies have a goal to collect a lot of data on you and potentially sell that data, and that's ignoring Government snooping etc.

But I still use many of their services despite that. There's a trade off to be made and occasionally it can be worth it, I just try not to give out more data than necessary.

As for Microsoft and Windows/Windows 10 specifically the stakes are higher. Assuming I'm running a Microsoft OS I'm dependent that it's operating in my best interests, everything I do on a computer is run through the OS. If my OS is compromised by the vendor (in this case Microsoft) they can collect a lot of data about me and my habits against my will.

The counter argument is usually something around the lines of "Well Google/Apple is doing all this stuff and worse!" with their mobile operating systems, which may be true. The difference is I don't use my phone for critical tasks or the majority of them, partially for that reason.

We've already lost the battle with phones, but I still want my PC to be sacred, even though it might not actually be 100% possible.

"Simple" instead of "simply" was just a typo - writing on mobile and was being a bit careless by not proofreading.

And I trust Apple and OS X/macOS a lot more than Windows, because I can more-or-less understand what my Apple OS is doing and can control it accordingly. With Windows, I can't even turn off telemetry/sharing diagnostics with Windows without a bunch of unwieldy hacks.

I certainly don't.