I imagine using steam in big picture mode would be equivalent if you're not streaming though. Maybe it's something else, I just can't remember a Windows pop-up ever interrupting my gaming whether I'm playing on my TV or not.
Bonus: disabling autorun is better security!
I don't think there's a need to dramatize and exaggerate. Once you get setup on Windows and uninstall the stuff you want to uninstall that’s pretty much the end of it.
Important account credentials are on macOS or iOS. Local copies of my important files are on a system running Linux, and the Windows machine doesn't have access to that (doesn't need to, all I do on it is play games, if I didn't PC game I wouldn't have Windows at all).
[EDIT] However, mine does have Windows Update turned on.
>> Some of us have windows just to play games
What bank accounts do you think are on that machine? Perhaps it's risking credentials to ex. Steam and such, but again, if all you run is games where are you getting malware from?
Edit: Actually, to steel man the argument: If you pirate a game and get a keylogger that way, and then type in your credit card to buy a game (ex. on Steam), then you'd have a problem. I maintain that it's perfectly possible to maintain a... "DMZ PC" for games, but there are ways for it to end badly.
This is just such a preposterous way to operate.
I can't wait to install this.
> There’s definitely a demand for windows that can play games and do nothing else.
It's called a "games console". Microsoft makes one called XBox.
I like being able to use emulators. Can XBox do that?
I like being able to use mod's for any given game. Can XBox do that?
I use Linux for my gaming these days because I just don't like Windows, but even Windows is much more powerful for gaming than a console.
There's a place for console's, but they don't replace everything.
PC gaming is a weird and wonderful ocean; console gaming more like a highly curated pond.
I suspect XBox isn't good for this, but the Nintendo Switch is actually probably better than a PC for this particular usecase.
The general-purpose stuff (emulators, mods) I agree with, though.
XBox I actually called out specifically because when we got an XBox 1, we discovered there is no way to do anything - setup of the console, launching a game, etc - without having an XBox Live account per user of the machine.
Also, closed source means it is hard for me to be sure which of those logs are sent to MS.
But comparing logging to spyware is nuts.
Event logs are just one of endpoints for event tracing mechanism and event viewer is just one crappy UI for that. You can turn on/off various logging to your hearts desire, including various diagnostic/tracing info. You can go all the way to capture stack traces, cpu context switches and whatnot. Windows is pretty configurable in this regard.
Also telemetry is well documented and configurable: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy/configure-w...
Defender doesn't hide option for cloud based scanning and it is up-front in settings. I dunno if it is enabled by default or not, but in our org, we had to explicitly rollout changes to enable it (we are pretty locked down by default)
The subject here is personal use, not corporate use. For example you might torrent a movie and then uninstall the torrent application, files and downloaded content. If you get sued and (i know it is rare) your windows install is submitted as evidence it can be proven that you executed the torrent program, the torrent program transferred so many bytes and that you opened the folder of the torrented content without looking at any file directly related to the torrent app or windows event logs. Or let's say you downloaded content from a site but then cleared your browing history and uninstalled your browser. Thanks to motw the downloaded files on your pc show the sites frol where you downloaded them and the referrer that lead to you visiting the download link. These are only some examples.
Have a look at what a typical Android phone sends out! Including your GPS location! Apple isn’t immune either because the Facebook SDK that’s included with everything would make the NSA blush. TikTok even tracks your phone motion sensor.
IMHO raging about 30-year old diagnostic features is misplaced anger. Be angry about how every piece of software now goes through these stages:
1) Opt-out telemetry only collecting the important stuff, we promise!
2) Okay, collecting it synchronously was a mistake and it slowed down everything for everyone that’s not sitting in our head office. We fixed it though, don’t worry!
3) Umm.. apparently some people are behind corporate web proxies which makes the async code leak threads and melt CPUs. We fixed it though!
4) Some people have used the newly added proxy support to inspect the encrypted blob. We promise that it was an honest mistake collecting every single point of information we possibly could about your system including mouse movements and key presses. Don’t worry, we fixed it! We now “anonymise” the information. Don’t worry about why that’s in quotes.
5) Those socialist Europeans sued us when we said we deleted their data but it was still there when they reactivated their accounts. Oopsie! Our bad. We promise to “wipe” your data including telemetry when you request this form. Fill it out in triplicate and fax it to this Cayman Islands number please.
6) We can no longer sell our software in some jurisdictions. Don’t ask why or what that implies about how we treat our customers in other jurisdictions with weaker legal protections.
Your list of complaints is whataboutism and is not directly related to OS privacy expectations and reality.
Linux is better at this because it gives you more control over what is logged and the code is open source.
Spyware is not the same as local system logs. Spyware in this case is software that sends unnecessary or intrusive information to Microsoft. The goal of Windows Ameliorated is to remove spyware, not prove your innocence in court.
You used Windows Defender as an example of a security benefit. There are alternatives to Windows Defender, and IMO If you're a tech literate power user, an AV isn't useful in most cases. If you have the time, consider reading this: https://wiki.ameliorated.info/doku.php?id=antivirus Personally I believe antivirus software in general does more harm than good, as they are generally quite resource hungry and privacy intrusive.
Also, AME does greatly help to mitigate the attack surface of Windows:
Windows Ameliorated ships with a non-administrator user account by default, which mitigates ~70% of Windows vulnerabilities. (Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20210618023509/https://www.beyon...). Of course you can still do admin actions, it just requires the admin password.
You can even update Windows offline if you want to.[0]
It's quite refreshing to be able to prep a USB stick containing all the updates for a clean install of a certain build of Windows and be able to deploy them without needing to connect to the internet.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-pro...
You can make it log everything, but the performance hit is noticeable.
Next thing you’re going to start complaining about dtrace spying on you.
Im a Dev. But outside of reversing games for hacks and cheats I havent done anything with Windows specifically.
Any links, books, articles, etc.. you can provide to learn more about this?
You'll find most if not all of these in `.bash_history`, wouldn't you?
Probably, it's possible to setup an install of Linux in such a way, that the user won't leave any traces in the system, but this is definitely not the default behavior. And the system setup in this way is likely a pain to use. But if you have a specific need, by all means, go for it. After all, with Linux you're in control.
But saying Windows is spyware because it logs your activity locally is stretching it.
I don't know how much of this MS collects and anyone who says they do, I would challenge them for evidence because there are many plausibly deniable and benign reasons to extract this information from the host.
I would say at best windows is spyware-friendly.
If I workes for the CCP and was instructed to get a list of people that used Signal so they can be sent for re-education, I would not even look to see if Signal.exe is installed in windows, I would just check prefetch and srum.
I do agree that trying to make a consensual OS out of Windows is an uphill battle. If you're stuck using it, however, for whatever reason, a patchkit like this is better than nothing.
Good luck if explorer previewed wrong file.
Good luck if trusted website has been hacked and serves malicious content.
Good luck if you do npm install.
Ok, so PSA: if you don't want "Spyware" don't use windows. In Forensics, you learn there are many many ways windows tracks what you do, some of which can be disabled but it is all architectures into the OS. If you looked at a specific folder in explorer, that can be proven in court, executed a specific program? At least 4-5 ways come to mind . Take a peek at c:\windows\system32\winevt\logs\ (equivalent of /var/log/) and that's just one place.
I mean the spyware has measurable and valuable security benefits. If you wanna really test your malware dev skills, leave cloud submission turned on Defender and write any basic malware (harmful not just undesirable) and avoid detection for longer than a day. It was very hard when I tried it (for legit purposes).
I bash on Linux because of all its problems (only because I love it and want to see it improve) but if you want privacy, use Linux, the cliche holds true. You can always use windows in vbox+seamless mode for most things or on a separate device if you can afford it.