This has got to be the most un-Linux thing I've seen in a VERY long time...

@Jayro Yeah, that was the case...back in 2013 when it launched. If anything, the model they went with, depending on the kind of player you are, could be considered to be more generous than most other fighters. I wouldn't believe everything that gets repeated based on an IGN article using a clickbait-as-hell title that miscommunicated the Hell out of what they were and still are going for, at least on the Xbox One version of the game.

Now? It's got everything. And before you go and @ me about having to pay $60 for season passes, think of it as being no different from paying to upgrade from Street Fighter 2 to Street Fighter 2 Turbo, from that to Super Turbo, etc..

So to summarize some of the complaints against Microsoft on this page:

• The Raspberry Pi Foundation has included a Microsoft-managed repo in their release of Raspbian, which is distributed free of cost. The repo in question is for VSCode, which is free and open source.
  
  I'm not sure the anger here. VSCode is actually a really awesome editor. It should also be said that Raspbian (and Raspberry Pi in general) is a platform that is targeted at amateur, casual tinkerers, and the software environment is designed around that. If you are actually serious about development/security, you should not be using a "one and done" image - you should be configuring custom installs using something like ArchLinux. Any time you rely on a third party to make decisions for you, they will... make decisions for you? I do see that the repo was also enabled on non-GUI images, which I will agree is very dumb. But blame for that one should fall on the Raspberry Pi Foundation - it's not like Microsoft manages Raspbian, right?
  
  
• Microsoft is deprecating Mojang accounts and moving all users to Microsoft accounts.
  
  I can understand being frustrated about moving to a new account after you have years of emotional investment your Mojang account, but anger/tinfoil hat wearing? Mojang is a first-party Microsoft studio. Microsoft has had access to your Mojang account and your personal details for a long time - the move is more to reduce overhead than to suck anything extra out of you. Additionally, Minecraft is incredibly prolific and available on multiple platforms - all of which use a Microsoft account - except Minecraft Java Edition. It seems to me only natural that Microsoft would want to bring all users under the same roof? Mojang accounts are also incredibly insecure, and are used for, what, 3 games (only one of which is popular)? So...? I'm not following. (Also: Java is a piece of shit, lol)
  
  
• Killer Instinct on Xbox is not entirely free.
  
  I... guess? I'm also mad at Nintendo that neither Smash nor their fighter DLC's are free. Seriously. I would have played it so much by now if they had an alternative monetization model. But as it stands, $60 for one game? With a terribly implemented online account system? No thanks.

Admittedly, I am somewhat biased towards Microsoft. But really, c'mon, my dudes. Did you notice that Microsoft is one of the few tech companies that you aren't hearing come up in any of the recent concerns about government regulations regarding privacy and disclosure here in the United States?

@PityOnU Windows 10 has loads of telemetry. There is a reason that now it is offered for free.
https://crazymax.dev/WindowsSpyBlocker/telemetry-info/
There's another easy app to disable all
https://wpd.app/

WTF! I want to get that piece of out of windows and now ubuntu introduces it, out with ubuntu.

@Henx Lol, nice, you gottem'.

Not sure where you are getting the idea that Windows is free, but it does indeed collect telemetry, which is all disclosed in those various lists you linked, and can also be disabled using tools that come with Windows. That third-party tool you listed only serves as a collective front end. BTW, if you are concerned about security/privacy why the hell are you running some rando third-party app and giving it administrative privileges on your system?

Anyway, if you like software which collects telemetry, you may also like:

• Mozilla Firefox
• Google Chrome
• Your router
• Ubuntu
• Debian
• Fedora
• Raspbian
• Android
• macOS
• PlayStation 3, 4, 5
• Switch, 3DS, WiiU
• Anything Amazon/Facebook/Google have ever so much as looked at

This list is incomplete, you can help by expanding it, lol

-----EDIT-----

I would just like to take an aside here and say that this is not me blanket endorsing any single company when it comes to your privacy/digital 'rights'. My point it that for whatever reason Microsoft is generally branded as 'the big bad' when it comes to stuff like this while multiple other software vendors seemingly get a pass. This is paradoxically offset by the fact that the majority of data that actually is collected by Microsoft is largely benign compared to the data which is collected by multiple other actors the majority of users interact with on a daily basis.

@PityOnU All the other big social media websites, most apps on your smartphone (especially those made by bigger companies), Discord, Epic Games store

Doesn't steam also collect telemetry?

I would have also included Steam but I'm not actually sure about it.

Xbox also collects data, and I think PlayStation might as well

@PityOnU I do agree that most of the big tech companies collect data, but you are punching the wrong card here.
I have been using linux since at least 16 years, both client and servers on the job. And if you are too worried about telemetry on linux, then you've got a much bigger problem. There are literally hundreds of distros to choose from. And yes, that includes my network. I make plenty of use of OpenWRT and pfSense, and others.

Those tools I mentioned, is what I frequently give to friends that are too stubborn to change to be honest. As you mentioned it is not just Windows or Microsoft, but it is a great start. You should admit that.

And social media? Have you heard of matrix or mastodon?
There are plenty of alternatives, most open-source (so that if you want you can check the source-code for telemetry). Windows source-code is closed behind doors.
If you love VSCode, do yourself a favor and use VSCodium

This thread was about MS. Google, Facebook and plenty of others are in the same boat. That's FAANG for you. I've been vocal about this already on another thread. Go check if you like.

Being pro-active in making changes to increase their own privacy, will ultimately improve the privacy for us all. If for whatever reason having edge on linux increases somebody's chances of moving to linux, so be it. This is a journey, not the end.
Please read "Permanent Record" by Edward Snowden. It will change your idea of the MS saints you paint of.

Stay aware and don't give up on your privacy easily!

Edward Snowden's book is great, I agree.

Searched it up, and I can't find anything about steam collecting telemetry, so that's nice of steam, I guess

@Henx

All good points, and I agree with you on the majority of them. As I said in my edit, I'm not blanket endorsing the privacy policies of any company. But! As you imply, all things are relative, and IMHO freaking out about Microsoft Windows telemetry is (for your average user) equivalent to obsessing over a single small hole in your ship while you are at sea in a sieve.

Honestly, if you have a cell phone and/or access the public internet not through an encrypted proxy, all bets are off. That's the reality. Even in the case of the proxy, you are trusting whatever third-party you are dialing through not to share your information, because if they do it may actually end up being easier to track you than had you just gone raw dog with your ISP.

BTW, even an entirely distributed proxying system such as Tor can be defeated by a single actor brute-forcing the number of exit nodes. Anecdotally, there are a large concentration of Tor nodes in Langley, VA

No big changes are going to be made to anything until the "average user" realizes two main points:

1. It is called the public internet for a reason. As soon as you connect, you have the same right to privacy as you would if you were walking into your local Walmart. That means that, yes, jerking it in your room is the same as doing it in the middle of the local mall as far as third-parties are concerned - whether or not you leave your door open. Behave accordingly.
   
   
2. You and your habits/interests are constantly tracked by third-parties while you are online, who then use that information to "show you what you want to see." "Digital fingerprinting" is very much a real thing and is almost impossible to stop. Because of this, it is extremely difficult to get unbiased search results on any of the main platforms. The result is that we each now live in our own private reality online. Queue all of the political nonsense currently going on in the USA.

Compared to those two things above, telemetry being collected about how you use your desktop operating system really shouldn't concern you that much.

There's also the idea that the automated telemetry can be used to figure out how the "average user" actually interacts with the software. While nerds (such as the type of people who would be using a forum like this) would actively provide feedback to a company/organization, and maybe even code contributions, your average user will not. This can lead to software becoming far too specialized/niche in order for it to be usable to a large audience. Lack of automated telemetry can also make it more difficult to pinpoint the source of bugs or performance issues, as your sample size will be greatly reduced. So it's somewhat straightforward to make the case that automated telemetry (if used correctly) can help lead to better-designed and more stable software, and blanket disabling it at all times would limit those benefits.

Just my 2p.