The reason is precisely what I wrote : do your own research.
It's not directed at or against you.
Problem is... Already well over a decade ago, I told people (IT Sec) where to look and tried to give them a hint or two. Even when presenting them a complete timeline with dozens of documented facts, in the end I had to realize I made a simple mistake.
It turned out they never wanted to learn. They wanted to believe that everything was okay. I was simply wasting my time.
Essentially the reason I stopped spoon-feeding people the research or direct facts/links etc. was this :
http://scienceblogs.com/corpuscallo...4a4855d5454ecce8c67-an-inconvenient-truth.jpg
So seriously, if your research (i.e. taken from magazines or alike publications for a general audience) turned out nothing... I'd say you looked at the wrong places and need to dig a little bit deeper.
Which is....funny, because I have done my research extensively before I switched to windows 10, when it was on the way out eve, while it was in beta, heck I voiced concerns together with the group.
But here's the thing, my research did not give the same result as you, I told you this and you are just pushing it away to say that that I didn't do my research right.
And here's the thing, if you use a microsoft service, then yes, things will be logged and whatnot, and prism and whatnot comes in over, if you use services, which include cortana and whatnot, they need to store some information, and this information is easily delivered to others, however largely the app information is contextual, so yes they might learn that you do certain things, they might look in your outlook emails.
Yup, use a microsoft service, and you can get these issues, this is however absolutely and utterly nothing new, happens many other places, including Apple, google and whatnot, heck proven fact that Apple has been significantly more questionable, and still is with its storage on iOS, and macOS, yet the outcry was against microsoft and windows 10?
But here's the thing, as a product itself, as an OS, windows 10 itself does not log excessively anymore, the things it does gather have an actual reason to be gathered and do not really compromise any privacy. Which is what I've told you, yet you've just dismissed it.
The issue is with services, use cortana, use whatnot, use any of the amount of features that need to gather data to function and that data can be compromised.
Windows 10 itself though? no, not really, which is my point all along.
This is what I found after 15 Seconds of a "I don't yet know anything on the matter" Simulated Google Search :
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)
Just one of hundreds of Data points. Entry points for research.
You seriously saying doing that exceeds anyone's capabilities or time? Really?
That's the issue nowadays. Spoonfeeding. People want it. But I don't do that - for
exactly the reasons so nicely demonstrated in this thread. It's always the same.
(continuing from above but also replying to this)
Yup, and I've read plenty of articles posts, forums you name it on the subject.
The problem is with microsoft services, and not microsoft products.
Problem is many products are a service now a days, and many do not know the difference, and also overreact when more information has been gathered by other, with less of a fuss, heck remember the big Apple hacks? icloud and whatnot? or when it was revealed that Apple has deliberately build in back doors? where was the public outcry? the mass of global news pages with concerns like there was with windows 10?
I'm not saying they should have had equal coverage and since they didn't Windows 10 is automatically 'safe', no.
I'm saying to anyone that researches and makes their own decision, keep that in mind, and remember a lot of media coverage does not mean it is as big as it is made out to be, take note 7, it was basically made out to be a danger to people's lives, and while yes, flaws were found, and yes, it should be recalled for the safety of consumers, it most certainly wasn't a life threatening grenade like it was made out to be. Yet now all people seemingly remember is that it blew up and was very dangerous, not that Samsung did the correct thing and recall the device, offer refunds and everything, taking a massive hit, when an enormous amount of companies including Apple just directly blame consumers for such issues.
And no this isn't a jab at Apple but fact, take the antenna problems there were? you are holding it wrong? Apple batteries burning (over several generations of products) 'you are charging it wrong', when its over several generations, that they can't increase the safety so that, if anything the charger dies, not the phone? that seems....very concerning, yet little outcry?
People should do their own research and come to their own conclusions, rather then believing directly what is media shouted, and yes, as already agreed windows 10 had some issues, but it doesn't have those anymore after launch and is no more or less a privacy concern as an OS as any other OS, and like most other OS, even linux (unless you very heavily modify it) if you use a service of some kind, privacy issues can occur.
But the platform itself which is on the user's own private drives? unlikely and would be a very very very poor business decision to do so.
Why services as in those that make use of storing data on servers? because services are hosted or handled on microsoft's own servers, and thus laws and everything else comes into play in an entirely different way then when it is a product. But people also need to learn to be away when a product is a service, and yes, there's been much talk about windows 10 being a service, a mixed drive/cloud solution, but that isn't the case currently, if it becomes, then the same issues as now mentioned will arise.
And no, this isn't me protecting Microsoft or being a fan or such, I'm not, this is reading through the actual facts, and seeing that they were blown way out of proportions compared to what else is going on, is what is going on bad for privacy in the long run? yeah definitely, but right now it doesn't really matter if its windows 7/8/10 you are using in terms of 'invading' privacy they are near equal.
Fact is, if you want 100% privacy you can't even be online, can't use any of the major popular products, since they also log, as mentioned above many have a reason for it, but they do log. So yeah..Privacy should be protected above all, and the largest amount of information gathered doesn't really touch your privacy. Heck using VPN's and whatnot is more likely to get you looked at then if not. Just say, if you want to be concerned gather information on what is collected rather then how, and judge from that.
That said, if anyone can point to actual repeatable proof, not what some site says or whatnot, but proof where you can go in and check yourself if it is truth or not, but actual objective confirmable proof of them storing/gathering things they shouldn't, that aren't done for a practical purpose (such having to manipulated calendar data, to make cortana and other programs able to manipulated it), I'll gladly admit that I was not aware of that.
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They can't do horizons on Mac yet and you're already asking for a Linux version. Don't see that being worth their time as the amount who use Linux over Mac and Windows is a fraction that doesn't attract money. If they had a successful kickstarter sure whatever but I'd rather see them spend dev time on fixing things and adding content. Adding yet another console/OS to the list isn't going to do any good.
And also, you should stop being so paranoid. Unless you're spying on someone and you dont want the government to know o.0
There's been plenty of talk to go Vulkan, once its matured a bit, so I see that happening, for performance and other reasons, there's very little reason to chose windows only dx12, when Vulkan allows cross platform (even consoles last I checked) support easily. And provides exactly the same features as DX12, so yeah, when they adding vulkan support, then delivering a cross platform version with solid performance everywhere becomes something that won't take as much dev time.
