SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
If you have been refusing Microsoft's offer to upgrade your Windows 7 or 8* operating system to Windows 10 due to the oft-reported data and telemetry slurping it seems inclined to do, then it is time to be on your toes as to which updates you allow to be installed on your earlier version of the operating system.
El Reg reports that Microsoft are busy pushing similar functionality to those older operating systems by way of Windows Update. The updates in question can apparently be rolled back if required.
They are however very determined in their function if allowed to be installed, going so far as to ignore such venerable solutions as additions to the HOSTS file, which has historically been a way to knobble phone-home behaviour:
Now Microsoft is revamping the user-tracking tools in Windows 7 and 8 to harvest more data, via some new patches.
All the updates can be removed post-installation – but all ensure the OS reports data to Microsoft even when asked not to, bypassing the hosts file and (hence) third-party privacy tools. This data can include how long you use apps, and which features you use the most, snapshots of memory to investigate crashes, and so on.
The updates are KB3068708 ("Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry" and mandatory) KB3075249 ("Update that adds telemetry points to consent.exe in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7") and KB3080149 (also an "Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry", both optional).
(Score: 1) by boltronics on Wednesday September 02 2015, @01:31PM
I'm still fighting systemd. Debian Jessie GNU/Linux here, with a custom pinning file. :)
It's GNU/Linux dammit!
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Wednesday September 02 2015, @02:37PM
Part of my problem is that I've run out of alternatives that don't mind if I retain control of my data. I have to search back in time to get what I want.
I don't think complaining has done anything, and I don't know who I can give my money to that will provide what I want. Even the idealists have been pushed out of the way in may areas of Linux and have been co-opted by interests that are self-serving. Not everyone of course. And no, I can't code an OS, even if I think it's a good idea. Maybe I can if I tried, but it'd be the survivalist in a shack method of living in society. It would prove to have limitations.
I'd try to get people together to sue someone about all of the privacy violating stuff, but yeah no one really seems to care. Maybe if we could afford a hot spokesperson, it'd be mentioned a the end of the evening news as the anchor people called us paranoid. It's not free market choice if there are no valid choices. Comcast vs Time Warner makes sense to people, but the whole privacy thing seems to elicit there is nothing to hide mentality. Or the who cares mentality.
Anyway, it used to be fun to tweak an OS; it used to be difficult to get something working that wasn't normal to do. Now it is difficult to get something working and keep it that way, and secure (and private--I consider privacy to be a part of security, but many do not)... all because Cloud.
Rather than being ethereal in nature, it is proving to be ether vapors, where we don't know what happens and we're supposed to be stupified and like it. Then they take advantage of us.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheGratefulNet on Wednesday September 02 2015, @04:39PM
freebsd is a viable alt for many of the things that linux does (in some ways, some things are better on bsd).
I used to run a lot of bsd at home and at various workplaces. linux was so-so (fun, but not production qual) and bsd was great as a server and kind of, as a desktop. 10 yrs ago or so.
then, linux got very stable, had great hardware support and there was less reason for me to use bsd. I ran linux for the last 10 yrs or so, with no bsd installs anymore.
then, systemd happened, and I'm one of those guys who does not like any part of its concept. but since I'm debian-derivative based, I'm getting those stupid systemd updates. it may make me reconsider bsd again. bsd has come a long way in those 10 yrs and its not so obvious that linux is the 'better' of the 2 main unix-like os's for x86/64 hardware.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 03 2015, @02:00AM
Have you given antiX a test drive?
It's based on Debian Testing.
No Lennart anywhere in sight.
-- gewg_
(Score: 1) by boltronics on Thursday September 03 2015, @02:55AM
I'm sure I could get by on FreeBSD if I had to, but I have a preference for GPL software.
It's GNU/Linux dammit!
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Thursday September 03 2015, @04:07AM
There's always PCLinuxOS — it's kind of cobbled together from what the creator evidently felt was the best of every other distro (Synaptic package manager, RPM-based, Mandriva-derived admin tools, etc.), but thus far it's systemd-free, offers a pretty wide variety of desktop environments and has possibly the best repository I've found. It's not perfect, but it's at least on par with the other major distros I've gotten into over the years. :)
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday September 03 2015, @01:06AM
There's freebsd, there's devuan, and there's funtoo. And there's another one whose documentation is written in an East European or Balkan languages.
Check out the devuan mailing list. There's lots of people there tweaking their OS, tinkering with inits, writing service supervisors, wifi and network managers, and so forth. The whole trend is toward simplicity, reliability, and choice.
I'm writing this message in the Chrome browser running on xfce on the alpha 2 release of devuan Linux.
Runs like a charm.
The only hacking I've done to it is to remove systemd, which seems still to be in devuan by mistake. It was never the init system. Just another application, fetched in by some system service I had no use for.
Oh, Copying in the entire Debian /home filesystem, and a few entries frrom its /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow worked like a charm, too.
-- hendrik