I’ve seen this movie before. They will make it enabled by default and make it difficult to disable. Then a few years later someone will figure out that this data that was supposed to be “private and encrypted” was being sent out to Microsoft, who will get a slap on the wrist, half assedly apologize and immediately move on to even more anti consumer ways to squeeze more income out of its users for “growth”.
immediately move on to even more anti consumer ways
but they’ll keep collecting that data even after the slap on the wrist which will be more like a gentle tap
fine-no-jail-time = cost of doing business.
More like a high five from the NSA.
This touches on what I find the most fuckin irritating about the current state of software decision. I bought this super generic run of the mill disk clean up software. In the past I’ve used similar software and the fucking spam for add on this amd plugin that or defend your pc with this… it’s fucking insane. Finding burried files from apps I deleted years ago. Well this time I got lucky. I download it, run it. Doesn’t ask me to sign up for shit, I don’t have to make an account. No added features for blah.99$ The fucking shit just ran after install, batch fixed it all. Then in the final report flagged it’s own fucking software as obsolete and quoued it up for delete. CUSTOMER FOR FUCKING LIFE. Who thr fuck is running these reports that must show customer retention is higher when you fuck them in the ass till they bleed green. I would pay fuckin 5x’s the price of windows os if it meant I could play steam games on a windows system with Linux tiered performance and security. Why the fuck is cramming so much bloatware that you need to upgrade your whole system the new thing. Fuck windows, fuck Google, fuck samsung and youtube.YouTube.
Edit: obligatory edit and shoutout to all the shitbag game developers too for thinking anyone fucking want another game that runs at 2 fps because it starts raining in the game. Fuck your 4k atari games. They’re a fucking embarrassment to everyone who has worked in the industry.
As long you don’t play multiplayer like cod, cs, forntinte. Linux is a gaming system. Yes sometimes you need to apply fixes from protondb or wait until the game starts for a minute, but it usually just works. At least if you are using steam.
You can run the epic games launcher through steam though. But you should install it with lutris. Or just use the hero launcher (which doesn’t support cloud game saves yet)
Can you suggest a good write-up / walkthrough for how to shift to gaming on Linux? I’ve installed and run it before so I understand the basics, but that was basically just to keep an old laptop alive to watch YouTube.
Fucking Windows…just purchasing one big DIY spyware package these days.
I don’t have guide I can remember,but some tips:
If you don’t have Nvidia. It should be just installing Linux mint. And you are ready to go.
Use the package manager to install anything and Google it if you need help.
If you have Nvidia it might just work, but you need the proprietary drivers.
In steam itself you want to enable proton for all games in the settings.
Check the reviews on protondb for hints if sth isn’t working out of the box.
Also use protonqup(for proton ge) and protontricks(for debugging some games).
Ge will enable some features that steam can’t legally enabled by default.
Finally my Radeon works better out of the box than Nvidia? Amazing.
Glad to hear Mint is the way to go! That’s the one I already have some very basic experience with.
Is Steam necessary? I also use GOG because I prefer no DRM, but maybe that’s not possible in the same way? I’ll Google this one too.
Thank you for your help! And for the confidence boost to think this might be more intuitive than I fear…
@undercrust @Johanno Lutris is how I play my non-steam, non-native games. I end up googling how to make each one work,but Lutris is the key.
Oh that looks great, thank you!
In theory you can start the gog launcher through steam. And everything should work fine, but lutris is the better option I think.
This is disheartening because it’s true. 😭
when will we learn sigh
You’re assuming at that point being outraged will have any impact, or that people will be allowed to be outraged.
I’m not saying that won’t happen but if it does Microsoft will be absolutely fucked as they got caught committing several million HIPAA violations, not to mention any exposure to classified material on government computers.
Consumer PCs are almost certainly not covered entities under HIPAA, nor is Microsoft in its role as an OS provider.
Even then, if this whole thing were to result in an inappropriate disclosure by a covered entity, the organization that processes the data would be liable, not Microsoft.
That’s like blaming the building contractor because you left the door unlocked and someone came in and stole your cat.
People give HIPAA way too much credit all the time, it’s fairly strict on who actually falls under it.
You’d think so, right?
Remember when this was considered the behavior of malware?
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Well the malware authors of yore could have gotten away with it, so long as they attached their malware to an even slightly useful program, added an EULA that was 40 pages long and on one of those pages mentioned the malware and had no way to use the software without agreement.
Wasn’t that basically Bonzi Buddy and whatever software bundled it without any options to opt out? 😆
The activities the program is said to engage in include constantly resetting the user’s web browser homepage to bonzi.com without the user’s permission, prompting and tracking various information about the user, installing a toolbar, and serving advertisements
Looks to me like they taught Microsoft well in this area.
It’s still malware.
Linux can run from a USB stick to try it out before committing to a full install.
I left windows because of the ai stuff but I didn’t expect it to get this bad. This is literally malware.
This is finally it for me. I just can’t justify this any longer and will need to dedicate myself to running some flavor of Linux permanently as my daily driver.
I think I’ll do the same. I wasn’t switching because of compatibility but I realized that there are only 1 or 2 apps that don’t run natively and I don’t use them that often
Which distro do you recommend? I haven’t used linux in a while, I usually went with ubuntu but I think that’s not the go-to anymore?
I am no expert though I like Linux Mint it has a windows 7 feel to it which makes it a great distro to start with.
Ubuntu is still really good and quite nicely polished. Alternatively, mint and fedora also get a lot of recommendations.
I personally use ubuntu.
Lots of people hate on Ubuntu for Snaps, but that’s your own preference. Any of the Ubuntu-based derivatives should work just as well. I would recommend Zorin or Mint, and probably throw PopOS! in for good measure.
PopOS is highly recommended, I tried it for a bit and really liked it, I need to plug in a second drive on my main pc to dual boot it there
The distro recommendation is usually mint, but I’d like to know, what does your setup look like? (Monitor specs, PC specs etc)
It’s a laptop with i3 gen 11, 12GB RAM, and I mainly use it for browsing, torrenting and watching movies (4K, connected to a TV)
Oh yeah, then if you like the look of it, Linux mint is the best option
Looks good! I’ll give it a try this weekend, thanks!
Edit: I just installed it, it looks great! I find it very funny that one of the apps I was worried about was the HP scanner and it worked seamlessly on mint without installing additional drivers or apps so I can stop using that stupid HP app
Edit2: I also found out that my windows installation (system, drivers, updates, other files that I cannot delete safely) takes about 70Gb out of my 250GB SSD, even after running many commands to try to clean it up
Lol, it’s not even a feature yet… And when it is, it will almost certainly come as an optional feature you need to opt into.
Just like, pre-installed Edge and Onedrive, completely opt in and one day a windows update (automatically) reboots your pc and you just got opted in.
To use Recall, users will need to purchase one of the new “Copilot Plus PCs” powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite chips, which include the necessary neural processing unit (NPU).
Well, I guess I’m keeping my current notebook for the unforseeable future.
Fear not! Eventually you’ll be forced to take an update that will bring this blessing to you:
On devices that are not powered by a Snapdragon® X Series processor, installation of a Windows update will be required to run Recall.
Yeah. But they’ll likely make Azure Recall running on their own AI hardware. You’ll have to opt out (on every windows update) of their ad driven free model that uses your data to target ads, and sell your overall profile on.
Actually, if this is the requirement, then this means our data isn’t leaving the device at all (for this purpose) since everything is being run locally.
Unless there’s a “database failure” that would resurface screenshots from your PC on Microsoft’s cloud, or anything like that. I mean, its too many lines of code, what if something happened and oops, the local data was uploaded to your Onedrive, my bad, keep using our products, this will never happen again we swear.
The only way to be sure is not having it at all. Remember the CSAM filter Apple wanted to force on iOS? This is as bad as that.
Very true… what I meant to say was:
[…] then this means our data shouldn’t need to leave the device at all […]
Or you know, you can just not turn it on.
IF that’s an option and IF it don’t turn itself on after an update. Given Microsoft’s history I wouldn’t trust that. They invested way too much in AI to afford making it easy for the user not to use the feature.
I’m going to make a Linux distro that helps you forget everything you did on the computer. “Oh, man. I was drunk last night. Thank god BoxWineOS comes with the Neuralyzer program.”
And the program is just some guy who comes by your place and hits you over the head with a baseball bat lol
I am really liking Linux Mint more and more . . .
SaaS - Surveillance as a Service
Can I just continue to not sign in to a Microsoft account and be good? Seems like it’s all tied to that
The Linux evangelists always jump on this stuff without reading the articles. Do not be alarmed by them. This is currently just a beta feature that Microsoft is still testing.
If Microsoft announces that this is going to be forcibly installed on all versions of Windows, then we can grab our pitchforks. Ideally this would end up being an opt-in feature. If it’s an opt-out when they release, again, pitchforks.
For now? Give them feedback if you’re worried, otherwise move on with your day and do nothing.
If Microsoft announces that this is going to be forcibly installed on all versions of Windows, then we can grab our pitchforks
Complaining when it is already released is too late to stop it.
If Microsoft announces that this is going to be forcibly installed on all versions of Windows, then we can grab our pitchforks. Ideally this would end up being an opt-in feature. If it’s an opt-out when they release, again, pitchforks.
Well, per Microsoft’s website:
On devices that are not powered by a Snapdragon® X Series processor, installation of a Windows update will be required to run Recall.
So it sounds like everyone on Windows 11 will get it via Windows Update eventually
Yeah I wish I had the time/knowledge to make Linux my main OS but it’s just unlikely to happen. I use my “gaming” PC primarily for work (like 95%), and have way too many programs and files that I don’t want to risk breaking/losing to make a switch. Maybe the next computer I build I’ll make a Linux setup but for now I’m stuck with Windows no matter what
There’s a great app for easily turning all of the tracking features off: https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10
There’s a dozen apps for it, but I wouldn’t trust them to do a perfect job. At a bare minimum, you’d probably need to keep said app up to date at all times, and it’d need to be one that runs in the background or runs on every boot or something.
They were already doing this before AI. Using windows is a bad idea.
That could be turned off though. It’s a good question if AI can be disabled or not.
I heard the next version of Windows will ravage your whole family, and the only solution is to immediately wipe all of your computers and install Linux.
It’s too late for me, since I hesitated. Bill’s already outside. If only I listened to the obnoxious, uninvited, endless evangelism of the Linux userbase!
Woe is us, the users of the evil platform! Woe!!1!
It’s never too late! Call Tux and he’ll rush over to do battle with Bill.
The thing that annoys me with this kind of thing is that there’s so much tech like this that COULD be really useful if we had absolutely any trust in Microsoft and big tech at all.
Like… data, data collection, ai, and big data could be so useful for general users, but instead of creating useful ui and features for users, they only suck up all our data to build nice charts for advertisers and feed all our data to ai that can help them train their advertising models to try and extract more money from us.
Yeah, agreed. The dream of AI is it understanding what you want and offering it, or even doing it for you. But this inherently requires a computer system to understand everything about what you want. Perfect for big tech companies that are hungry for your advertising data. This is why we need more open source model projects!
It’s not just about trusting Microsoft, but about control over the technology. Users will never have real control over AI technology, it’s too valuable and the inner workings are anxiously being kept under wraps by the big techbro companies. It also runs on their computers for the most part, so of course we can’t trust what’s being done with it, regardless of whether Microsoft has been a good boy or a bad boy recently.
He who controls the data controls the universe
What an amazing feature!
For Microsoft…
“Recall uses Copilot+ PC advanced processing capabilities to take images of your active screen every few seconds,”
Seems like a lot of extra disk thrashing that would shorten the life expectancy of an SSD? Like it would be considerably more than your usual background chatter of daemons writing to log files and what not. Unless I’m misunderstanding this?
Since everything is being run in a local LLM, most likely this will be some extra RAM usage rather than SSD usage, but that is assuming that they aren’t saving these images to file anywhere.
