Is Windows 10 safe to use?

[GCS]

I do understand, but Microsoft increases their developers based on the money coming in.
There is no money coming into Linux, so even if a billion people start using Linux tomorrow that doesn't mean people will volunteer to audit it in their spare time. I would assume that people who want to audit Linux are already doing so.

Having the source doesn't actually help too much either, most of the automated methods for finding exploits work off binaries.
In fact having the source can make it harder as comments can actually mean you misunderstand what the code is doing.

There are advantages to open source, but I think this one is a myth.

If Linux would get popular the donations would increase which can be used to hire more devs near the volunteer ones which would help closing exploits.
At least we won't be able to see such a thing in the near future.

 

[smf]

If Linux would get popular the donations would increase which can be used to hire more devs near the volunteer ones which would help closing exploits.

I don't think more devs finding them is much help. The future is automated tools.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/open-...-open-source-software-have-hit-a-record-high/

Of course the criminals can also accelerate their efforts using those methods and Linux ransomware is now on the loose.

I think it's going to be a rough ride for Linux, even without the desktop market they have the phone and server market & Microsoft have experience of this which Linux really hasn't (they were too busy ROFLing about Micro$oft)

 

[xpoverzion]

Windows 10 is way better than 7 if you take the time to set it up correctly. As others have said, you can disable most of the "spying" features. You can also disable automatic updates with some third party software. I would highly recommend installing "classic shell" too if you want Win 10 to feel more like a modern version of Win 7. I loved Win 7 as well, and held off as long as possible to install win 10. Now that i have 10 running exactly how I like it, I could never go back to 7.

 

[GCS]

I don't think more devs finding them is much help. The future is automated tools.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/open-...-open-source-software-have-hit-a-record-high/

Of course the criminals can also accelerate their efforts using those methods and Linux ransomware is now on the loose.

I think it's going to be a rough ride for Linux, even without the desktop market they have the phone and server market & Microsoft have experience of this which Linux really hasn't (they were too busy ROFLing about Micro$oft)

I still don't think Linux is in danger, Windows is. Yes Open Source software's exploits can be found via automated software but this technique can be used by Linux devs too, so that they can patch the exploits.
Other than this, Windows has most of the market share, and Windows users if you compare them to Linux have less experience with PCs or don't have knowledge about them that much (I am not saying all of them or something, Windows is more known in public and most pre-build computers come with it and of course Windows is used by programmers too but just comparing it with the userbase.). So in the end hackers will find it easier to hack or write malicious software for Windows users.
In the end, the biggest exploit of the system is its user.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Hackers can get some money from Linux users which hold 0,9% of the share but they would find it easier to just get money or install malware on 5%(this number is just as a symbol, to show that it is greater than Linux) of the Windows users and get money from them.
These numbers can be changed by informing users about the situation but for now or for at least 5 years I don't think this will change.

 

[smf]

Windows has most of the market share, and Windows users if you compare them to Linux have less experience with PCs or don't have knowledge about them that much (I am not saying all of them or something, Windows is more known in public and most pre-build computers come with it and of course Windows is used by programmers too but just comparing it with the userbase.). So in the end hackers will find it easier to hack or write malicious software for Windows users.
In the end, the biggest exploit of the system is its user.

Right, I think this has more of an effect than Microsoft being evil/closed source and Linux being saintly/open source.

 

[raging_chaos]

The average user isn't the target of ransomware anymore, its big business and data centers. That 0.9% share is just the number of Steam users on Linux as of Summer 2020 and is a very inaccurate figure to use here, in enterprise it hovers around 10%. Linux isn't made up of all home PC Linux enthusiasts, Linux enterprise distributions and deployments are many such as in Linux datacenters. The incentive to target Linux is and has always been there, we just don't hear about it very often. Businesses don't jump on twitter to announce they have been hacked like the average PC user would, they just restore their backups and go on. Only government offices and hospitals have been having issues because of lack of proper backups.

 

[PityOnU]

You're biased too. You work for Microsoft.

It's true - I do. I've seen how the sausage is made, and I'm of the opinion that it's nothing to worry about. You can take from that what you will.

Windows 10 is definitely "safe" to use. There are multiple levels of overview/regulation that exist within the company, and the people who work here are very aware that what they are doing effects millions (billions?) of users. Even if you don't trust that, there are also fairly detailed regulations already in place by global governments to protect your rights that companies (such as Microsoft) have to adhere to if they want to continue to do business at a global scale. A non-trivial amount of work is invested into documentation/disclosure/user-facing opt-ins/outs for the above reasons.

It's also worth pointing out that the main reason to track user activity is for content suggestion/delivery. Companies such as Google and Facebook make the majority of their revenue from ads (in Google's case, 85%+). Conversely, Microsoft's main revenue streams are commercial licensing of Windows, Office(365), and cloud services. Microsoft has much less of an incentive to track your private/personal info, and much more to track the performance/reliability of their own software, which is exactly what the telemetry is doing.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to how paranoid you want to be about things, and how much trust you're willing to allow in exchange for convenience. E.g., even with open source, unless you are downloading and compiling literally everything on your system from the source repos, you still have no idea what is actually running. It's very easy to configure modern build tools to automatically insert/modify code during the build/package/release process. Beyond that, what about your hardware? Who wrote the firmware running on your WiFi chipset? Where does the chain of trust end? Do you really have the time to do everything yourself in order to be completely sure, or would you rather, you know, go outside today?

That's not just tech, but society as a whole, which is what I was (mockingly) referring to in my original post. You want to keep a secret? Live by yourself completely off the grid. Anything beyond that and you are losing privacy. Two people can keep a secret, but only if one is dead, etc. But just imagine how stressful and shitty that life would be.

Anyway... grand scheme of things, Windows 10 is fine. It's been out long enough now that even if there was anything questionable going on, at least one person would have found it by now and raised a red flag. If you are actually concerned about privacy, there are other things you should be looking into wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy before this.

 

[GCS]

It's true - I do. I've seen how the sausage is made, and I'm of the opinion that it's nothing to worry about. You can take from that what you will.

Windows 10 is definitely "safe" to use. There are multiple levels of overview/regulation that exist within the company, and the people who work here are very aware that what they are doing effects millions (billions?) of users. Even if you don't trust that, there are also fairly detailed regulations already in place by global governments to protect your rights that companies (such as Microsoft) have to adhere to if they want to continue to do business at a global scale. A non-trivial amount of work is invested into documentation/disclosure/user-facing opt-ins/outs for the above reasons.

It's also worth pointing out that the main reason to track user activity is for content suggestion/delivery. Companies such as Google and Facebook make the majority of their revenue from ads (in Google's case, 85%+). Conversely, Microsoft's main revenue streams are commercial licensing of Windows, Office(365), and cloud services. Microsoft has much less of an incentive to track your private/personal info, and much more to track the performance/reliability of their own software, which is exactly what the telemetry is doing.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to how paranoid you want to be about things, and how much trust you're willing to allow in exchange for convenience. E.g., even with open source, unless you are downloading and compiling literally everything on your system from the source repos, you still have no idea what is actually running. It's very easy to configure modern build tools to automatically insert/modify code during the build/package/release process. Beyond that, what about your hardware? Who wrote the firmware running on your WiFi chipset? Where does the chain of trust end? Do you really have the time to do everything yourself in order to be completely sure, or would you rather, you know, go outside today?

That's not just tech, but society as a whole, which is what I was (mockingly) referring to in my original post. You want to keep a secret? Live by yourself completely off the grid. Anything beyond that and you are losing privacy. Two people can keep a secret, but only if one is dead, etc. But just imagine how stressful and shitty that life would be.

Anyway... grand scheme of things, Windows 10 is fine. It's been out long enough now that even if there was anything questionable going on, at least one person would have found it by now and raised a red flag. If you are actually concerned about privacy, there are other things you should be looking into wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy before this.

You can't say something like "definite" unless you know/read the source code of Windows 10 which is impossible.

Yes, they are very aware that they give your precious data to governments and sell them to companies. Again you can't be sure that the settings that you make matters or there are other telemtries that you can't change until you see the source code. Btw even the Windows EULA states their is telemetry.

So, you should be OK that NSA, Google, Facebook, CIA, Microsoft, etc. knows where you went that day, your contacts, access to your webcam and microphone, your messages and mails (most of these can be learned by Windows 10.) and even more... And how can you be so sure that they just use it for ads?

More eyes on the code equals more privacy and security. Known open source distros and software are checked by lots of devs so that you can learn if they respect privacy or not. You are right, you can't know about the hardware that much but you can use open source drivers.

There aren't just two options. Yes, you can not be 100% private but you can make this amount so smaller that even if they get an information about you they can't connect it with something else so it becomes more useless.

Again Windows 10 isn't fine until you know the source code. There are seeable telemetry settings and EULA agreements that we can see but we can't see the source code. You are right in this part but you should start from somewhere such as changing your OS to Linux and then changing your other services like mail, cloud, etc...

 

[PityOnU]

You can't say something like "definite" unless you know/read the source code of Windows 10 which is impossible.

Yes, they are very aware that they give your precious data to governments and sell them to companies. Again you can't be sure that the settings that you make matters or there are other telemtries that you can't change until you see the source code. Btw even the Windows EULA states their is telemetry.

So, you should be OK that NSA, Google, Facebook, CIA, Microsoft, etc. knows where you went that day, your contacts, access to your webcam and microphone, your messages and mails (most of these can be learned by Windows 10.) and even more... And how can you be so sure that they just use it for ads?

More eyes on the code equals more privacy and security. Known open source distros and software are checked by lots of devs so that you can learn if they respect privacy or not. You are right, you can't know about the hardware that much but you can use open source drivers.

There aren't just two options. Yes, you can not be 100% private but you can make this amount so smaller that even if they get an information about you they can't connect it with something else so it becomes more useless.

Again Windows 10 isn't fine until you know the source code. There are seeable telemetry settings and EULA agreements that we can see but we can't see the source code. You are right in this part but you should start from somewhere such as changing your OS to Linux and then changing your other services like mail, cloud, etc...

You didn't really seem to actually read/understand anything I posted, but meh, you do you, man. It's your call at the end of the day.

 

[Zoey79]

You can’t run your device in Safe Mode indefinitely because certain functions, such as networking, won’t be operating, but it is a great way to troubleshoot your device. And if that doesn’t work, you can restore your system to a previously working version with the System Restore tool.

 

[Joom]

If you are actually concerned about privacy, there are other things you should be looking into wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy before this.

If one is this overly paranoid they shouldn't even be connected to the internet. Even Linux and other UNIX-likes aren't privacy safe havens, and it even takes further set up to get even a semblance of actual privacy. Rent your own VDS with a privacy advocate host to run your own VPN/SSH tunnel (never rent a commercial VPN). Setup stubby for round robin DoH (DNS over HTTPS) so all of your DNS requests are encrypted with SSL through multiple resolvers (and use a router that allows custom resolvers). Never use Google or any of their other sites like YouTube, because even with an ad blocker, all of the text you input is fingerprinted and sold to some advertiser. The rabbit hole gets deep if you truly concern yourself with privacy, and it really comes down to how much time you're willing to educate yourself and how much money you're willing to spend for resources.

 

[Zoey79]

Windows' Safe Mode is an essential tool. On computers infected with malware or crashing because of buggy drivers, Safe Mode may be the only way to start the computer. Safe Mode starts your PC with a minimal set of drivers and services.

 

[KimKong]

Wow.. So much ignorance....

 

[burhansalih]

Use Window 10 Pro and Windows Debloater (https://github.com/Sycnex/Windows10Debloater) never let me down.

 

[raging_chaos]

Windows' Safe Mode is an essential tool. On computers infected with malware or crashing because of buggy drivers, Safe Mode may be the only way to start the computer. Safe Mode starts your PC with a minimal set of drivers and services.

No one is asking about Windows' Safe Mode at all. You have completely misunderstood the discussion.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Eh, it's safer than 7, that's for sure. If you're worried about spyware install something like Spybot Anti-Beacon. Microsoft publicized the entire list of the data they collect and it seems like there's nothing personal/important in there.

use windows 7

trust me

No one should be using Windows 7 anymore. This is terrible advice.

 

[nani17]

Windows 10 is great imo

 

[AsPika2219]

I am using Windows 10 forever! Say bye-bye to oldies Windows!
Anyway, there are some new updates today!

https://www.groovypost.com/news/microsoft-releases-june-patch-tuesday-updates-for-windows-10-3/

Including weathers, news, traffics, stocks etc

 

[console]

It's fine. Make sure turn off all other extra features like data share that send your info to Microsoft. Same apply to Windows 11 just like 10. Windows 10 and 11 have full spywares in background running. It never go away. People need to turn off all setting and use 3rd party software to kill all know Microsoft spywares then safe to use. Never use Microsoft store because not important to us anymore, it require our Microsoft account to sign in for to use Microsoft store. I dislike Microsoft store.

I still using Windows 7. I saw new Windows 11 now force everyone to use Microsoft account for to sign in! Windows 11 don't have local user on there for offline account system! Windows 10 have local user or use Microsoft account to sign in it. I don't like Microsoft sign in system! I hate Microsoft!

I have Windows 10 Professional Pre-Activated from filecr website and Linux on my VMware Workstation Pro program. If any internet apps no longer support on my Windows 7 then I will forced to use Windows 10 and Linux to running inside VMware Workstation Pro program on my Windows 7 Professional without format my computer to save my headache.

I will keep using Windows 7 until around year 2023 - 2025 then switch to Linux. I have old computers that come with Windows XP just for gaming only, not on internet. I'm big fans of Windows XP and 7 are just for gaming only.

I will going head to Linux and drop Windows out in near future. Windows 7 will be my last Windows operating system then jump to Linux operating system soon when new Intel Alder or Raptor or Meteor release out in end of year 2021, 2022 and 2023. I just want Linux gaming to replace my Windows gaming.


Cheers

Proof that Windows 10 have tons of spywares in background that what I found there.

 

[Deleted User]

It's fine. Make sure turn off all other extra features like data share that send your info to Microsoft. Same apply to Windows 11 just like 10. Windows 10 and 11 have full spywares in background running. It never go away. People need to turn off all setting and use 3rd party software to kill all know Microsoft spywares then safe to use. Never use Microsoft store because not important to us anymore, it require our Microsoft account to sign in for to use Microsoft store. I dislike Microsoft store.

I still using Windows 7. I saw new Windows 11 now force everyone to use Microsoft account for to sign in! Windows 11 don't have local user on there for offline account system! Windows 10 have local user or use Microsoft account to sign in it. I don't like Microsoft sign in system! I hate Microsoft!

I have Windows 10 Professional Pre-Activated from filecr website and Linux on my VMware Workstation Pro program. If any internet apps no longer support on my Windows 7 then I will forced to use Windows 10 and Linux to running inside VMware Workstation Pro program on my Windows 7 Professional without format my computer to save my headache.

I will keep using Windows 7 until around year 2023 - 2025 then switch to Linux. I have old computers that come with Windows XP just for gaming only, not on internet. I'm big fans of Windows XP and 7 are just for gaming only.

I will going head to Linux and drop Windows out in near future. Windows 7 will be my last Windows operating system then jump to Linux operating system soon when new Intel Alder or Raptor or Meteor release out in end of year 2021, 2022 and 2023. I just want Linux gaming to replace my Windows gaming.


Cheers

View attachment 267131



Proof that Windows 10 have tons of spywares in background that what I found there.

windows 11 still lets you use an offline account lol