Can't spell "copilot" without "cop".
Privacy
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 :)
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much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
you can definetly spell "linux" without "cop"
Windows is malware. If you give the slightest shit about your privacy, switch ASAP
I literally only use Windows for video games these days and Steam OS is looking better and better for that.
I use Debian for video games. Haven't had a problem yet.
Most distros will run games just about the same as any other. No point waiting for SteamOS like it's the golden egg.
I use Mint btw.
Doing the same on Ubuntu myself after trying Bazzite for a couple weeks. Bazzite kept messing up SSSD and would prevent me from authenticating with my home domain.
Will definitely try SteamOS once it is fully released.
Look into bazzite. LTT and Game Foundry have made videos about it too, and they were pleasantly surprised
Pretty much any Linux distro will work for gaming. Some just do more work for you at the beginning. Linux mint, Pop OS, Endeavor, manjaro, etc, you can game on basically any of them. After familiarizing myself I eventually swapped to Arch, but if any of the other distros I mentioned work, and you feel satisfied with it, then stick with it. Its about finding a distro you enjoy and can work around despite it's flaws.
SteamOS will not be your best option for desktop. Stop waiting for it. It's made for the Deck and console like experiences, not desktop. It's immutable too, which is great for a console experience, but probably not ideal for a desktop user.
Just go download Linux now. There's nothing special in SteamOS that you need. I use Garuda, which is Arch based (which SteamOS is also, if that matters), and has a version specifically designed for gaming. It comes with most of what you could need set up, and a tool to quickly install any packages you may want for additional things like controllers or whatever.
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.
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.
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.
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!
Fuuucking hell. I have to keep a laptop on win for work purposes and i just finished decrapifying 11 last night
Microsoft has shown over the years they will undo your preferences if they aren't what they prefer. They are the worst
https://massgrave.dev/windows_ltsc_links
It should have little to 0 crap since its the version used by companies
Is this legal in EU? I mean not the tool itself but just enabling it by default.
GDPR regulation mandates that their 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.
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
This is what forced me onto Linux for the first time, and permanently.
It's partly great, mostly fine, and 10% of the time god damn fucking annoying. Mostly having to learn the fucking game of thrones factions of installing things.
But I don't feel like there's a piece of shit company in my computer trying to completely ruin it, so it's a win. The positives outweigh the negatives, even as someone who wasn't really into the idea of switching.
But even if it was half as good, it would still be an improvement, given Microsoft destroying itself.
I'm reading this on a Microsoft Surface that I flashed with Linux Mint. Quite satisfying!
Message to Microsoft:🖕
Former Win10 user here, also a former MS employee, now on Mint. I never even heard of Recall but holy crap on a cracker, Microsoft - seriously? SERIOUSLY?
You guys have absolutely lost your fucking minds. My advice is to make Microsoft great again by quitting and forming a bunch of startups, where you can work on innovations that are actually good and useful. For the sake of your own sanity.
I firmly believe this will go the way of Cortana once the AI bubble bursts. What I'm more concerned about is the normalization of terrible security and privacy practices.
Hey copilot - what was that website I found with the sweet ass interracial stepsibling fuckin? You know the one where that sis's ass popped just the right way? Not the one with the first-cousins. I gotta draw the line somewhere. I mean, that was ALSO great porn but I have pre-postnut clarity here and that kind of shit just aint what I need right now.
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.
Microsoft turns things back on all the time though. It doesn't matter what you set if they can unset it whenever they want.
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. 😊
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
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.
I wouldn't be surprised if they get a class action suit over security/data violations.
Recall the time when Windows came on a DVD, had no Microsoft account option on install, no ads in settings nor in the startup menu, no AI slop.
It was still shit, but it feels shittier now, and harder to setup and configure in a way that's bearable.
Disable Recall with these instructions:
https://oracle-base.com/blog/2024/11/10/windows-recall-how-to-disable-spy-mode/