I learned from here on Slashdot the two best tools to deal with Win11 at the moment you get the first windows setup screen. Used the shell trick to create a local-account-only, then installed O&O Shutup10+++ and Winhance. I used those two tools to remove every single piece of telemetry, junk software, spam, spyware, AI and forced updates from the OS. All of this before ever connecting it to the internet. (I loaded those two pieces of software from a thumbdrive.) The result is a super clean install that just does what I want. This is an older Microsoft Surface so it needed to be clean to run well with limited RAM. It's my throwaway lightweight laptop for international travel. No personal information on it. This register article is also handy.

On my main machine I'm still happily running Win10. My browsing habits are pretty boring and I run Ublock Origin, AdblockPlus etc. in Firefox to keep anything unruly out. I used to run noscript but pretty much no sites work with JS disabled these days.

...that it's just New York City. Hopefully the idea will spread.

Laissez faire capitalism is great if everyone is honest. But in this reality there are a lot of incredibly dishonest people who will do anything for a buck. A modicum of base regulation is desirable to keep consumers from getting swindled at every turn. I applaud efforts like these.

Another good reason to use third party software to disable all windows telemetry from first install.

I'm unclear on the exact mechanism for how the device ID was extracted by a website. Is this something available as a piece of data a site can request via edge?

Is this part of telemetry data sent back to microsoft if you leave all that enabled, at the windows level?

Use a privacy-safe brower with blocking plugins (ublock origin) and completely disable all telemetry to microsoft using O&OShutUp and WinHance to turn off every single reporting mechanism that goes back to Microsoft. And use the shell access on the first windows config screen to create a local account only. Do all of this before ever connecting the machine to the internet.

I just did a clean install of 11 (all should work with 11 as well), did the shift+F10 command prompt on setup to create a local account only and used O&OShutUp10, WinHance before I ever connected the machine to the internet and disabled all telemetry and involuntary communication with M$'s servers. Those two pieces of software are really handy.

...and nothing of value was lost.

You'll end up with the worst employee you've ever had. A narcissist who sounds completely compelling but is completely wrong, or just wrong enough that it sounds right, but the load calculation is off by a small factor, no one else catches it and the bridge fails under a certain condition, someone dies.

There's no intelligence when it's just mindlessly trying to slot the right word in the next position. I realize specialized AIs are starting to have some particular skills, but it still seems so untrustworthy that you still need intensive design reviews by senior engineers, assuming the AI engineer is an idiot and needs double checking at every turn.

It's also the duty of every country to warn their citizens against the spying activities of adversaries. You should both be spying AND protecting against the spying of others.

It's nice that they are making an official statement to drive the point home though.

LinkedIn is basically a platform for asset recruitment by foreign state intelligence services, job fraud scammers, and companies keeping job listings open that they're not actually hiring for to make them look better to investors.

Not sure if the windows version will have the same issue. But I have a bought and paid-for copy of office 2019. On a newer laptop I installed LibreOffice. My main worry is Word formatting errors or differences that LibreOffice can make that you don't know about until you open them in MS office. It becomes less of an issue as time goes on, as mostly these days I make Word Files that get turned into PDFs before anyone sees them.

I've had great luck not subscribing to any software as a service except Adobe Creative Cloud, which I use a lot. Would like to keep it to just that one and no others.

I can't understand the thought process behind them making everything public by default. Why on earth would anyone want personal financial transactions public?

That's the first setting I changed when I installed the app. I don't use it much, but some people prefer to be paid that way.

I just bought a used, reconditioned Surface Pro 7 for under $400 to have something small for international travel. It has 16 GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. This is more capacity than the base model of the Surface Pro 12, and it was released in 2021. If you don't need the very latest processor, there are a lot of good options on Amazon and Ebay for reconditioned units at budget prices. The only caveat is that the batteries are extremely difficult to replace, so they have a finite lifetime. They could be so much longer lasting if the battery could be accessed purely by miniature fasteners rather than having to un-glue the display and various other components with specialized tools, risking destruction of the unit at every step. Most people aren't going to try this. I believe it's possible to engineer for thin and light without compromising that much on repairability. I'm happy to live with a few extra ounces or an extra ten to thirty thousands of device thickness if it means I can swap the battery out.

A friend had a perfectly good, almost unused surface book 3 with dead batteries (it has two, one in the detachable screen / tablet and one in the base with the keyboard) and after looking up the replacement procedure I decided there was no way I was not going to fuck it up, and that it wasn't worth the trouble. We ended up sending it to the recycler and I kept the docking station and charger to use with my reconditioned Surface Pro. Planned obsolescence strikes again.

Other than the repairability issues, they are neat devices, well designed, and run full windows for those of us who need it. Probably the best hardware offering MS has ever churned out.

No one ever mentions that this is an option. The tech media just screams, "Your computer will be useless after they stop supporting Win10!" For a lot of people, sure, I wouldn't recommend using legacy OSs. For a small group of us, it's perfect. Once I got a substantial number of updates, I disabled automatic updates via the policy editor, before it started installing nags to upgrade to Win11 and trying to trick you into it. If it ain't broke...

I make heavy use of the quick launch feature on a double height taskbar in Win10, and no it's not the same as 'pinned apps'.

There are some workarounds and third party options to restore that functionality, but again, why did you take it out? When it's disabled it's not bothering anyone who doesn't want it.

Movable taskbar....putting a feature back in that's been there since windows 95, until you deliberately removed it for no good reason.

You can keep your ads and B.S., I will keep using Windows 10 as long as I can. It works great and doesn't harass me.