Replacing /Windows/System32/Drivers/etc/hosts isn't black magic and truly works wonders even for the more paranoid ;)

What I don't understand about this, however, are people being paranoid about W10 while they're happily accepting Google and friends to infiltrate their lives ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You are of course exempt if you don't use any cloud-based services that you don't host yourself :D