PSA:How Much Does Vista Tell Microsoft?

[fgarvb1]

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Forg...s-Harvest-User-Data-for-Microsoft-58752.shtml


Are you using Windows Vista? Then you might as well know that the licensed operating system installed on your machine is harvesting a healthy volume of information for Microsoft. In this context, a program such as the Windows Genuine Advantage is the last of your concerns. In fact, in excess of 20 Windows Vista features and services are hard at work collecting and transmitting your personal data to the Redmond company.

Microsoft makes no secret about the fact that Windows Vista is gathering information. End users have little to say, and no real choice in the matter. The company does provide both a Windows Vista Privacy Statement and references within the End User License Agreement for the operating system. Combined, the resources paint the big picture over the extent of Microsoft's end user data harvest via Vista.

and on and on and on...

 

[Colton_White]

I don't use vista anyways

cause

>it doesn't support many hardware drivers
>its a resource hog.
>i can use a Vista Transformation pack / theme to make my XP look just like vista

I've automatic updates disabled + many other such service [e.g seding of error reports etc.] also disabled. I only update comodo firewall + NOD32 antivirus updates. no one can take my info.that easily.



plus my surfing is very limited > to Literotica + Yahoo messenger + wikipedia + a very few trusted sites like Softpedia etc. so I'm not a soft target for potential threats of virus / trojans etc.

 

[Vahlen]

That is not very surprising, over time Microsoft has slowly increased the amount of information they collect from a system. I would be interested to have a better break down of what information is being sent and by what pieces of the operating system. I know some parts can be disabled; but what can not, how can it be disabled, and so on would be nice.

 

[NoLeafClover7]

Yet more reasons to resist Vista, stick with XP, and wait it out til Windows version 7(although version 7 will likely be far worse yet in this area!)

 

[Emilio_di_Roccabruna]

It took me about 20 minutes of using Vista on my new laptop PC to realize it was nothing short of a work of satan himself (AKA Bill)! Let's just say that it crashed at least 3 times in 20 minutes while I was installing applications on my brand new PC, which is needless, to say asolutly unacceptable!

My advice is to keep as far away as possible from any Microsoft product, be it Vista, Office 2007 or anything else those infernal programmers cook up!

 

[HornyHenry]

Wow

Yes, I had heard that they were doing this but didn't know it was so extensive.

I'm the guy who posted the link a few weeks ago to sign a petition to keep XP. Otherwise, they are going to stop producing it this summer. Fight to keep it, please!

I'm not ready, and cannot switch to anything else at this point, but I'm sure thinking about it more.

 

[Emilio_di_Roccabruna]

Sorry about yesterday's post guys! I know it was off topic and irrelevant to the thread, but I was extremely pissed at my MS Operating System that had crashed on me for the second time in a day and I found the thread just after rebooting and screaming obscenities for a couple of minutes at any microsoft programmer that might have programmed a part of Windows.

Again I apologize for my senseless and angry post!

 

[Colton_White]

....... I was extremely pissed at my MS Operating System that had crashed on me ...

chillx no body even noticed / cared .. we all undergo such frustration with computers.
if you feel so then just edit your previous post removing the anger from it.
btw, I absoultuly agree with your opinion staying away from vista and office 2007. I've office 2007 but its such a big resource hog..takes minutes to load. especially outlook 2007..initially I found it 'cool ' for lots of features but then it was so much 'heavy' on my cpu that finally I came back to Thunderbird

 

[short_circutz]

As far as I'm concerned, Vista is a modern day version of Windows Millenium.

 

[Primalex]

Microsoft makes no secret about the fact that Windows Vista is gathering information.

Unlike Google for example, that has more information about you than MS will ever be able to gather.

 

[Eritz]

As far as I'm concerned, Vista is a modern day version of Windows Millenium.

Vista isn't actually all that bad. It did take me a while to chase down every single little bit of OS which was a tad shit and make it... Not so. Ie Vista thinks that usiing 18% of your hard drive for system restore points is awesome until you wonder where 18% of your hd has disappeared too...

One of the reason I may have avoided some of the terrible comments about Vista was because I upgraded my hardware majorly when I jumped to the OS, and with the graphics card I bolted in I needed Vista for he DX10 support.

After geting rid of all the rubbish things like UAC Vista has been one of the most stable platforms I've used. It's difficult to judge an improvement since I made such a major hardware leap at the time but I don't regret it.

 

[N_B]

I've been resisting both Vista and Xp for a while now. This would be a great time to tip my hat to my favorate OS, Linux Ubuntu. Try the live disk and you can run it from a CD or DVD without changing anything on your machine and see if it meets your needs. No data collection unless you're aware of it, no rootkits, no nonsense.

 

[Emilio_di_Roccabruna]

N_B, I couldn't agree more. Ubuntu Linux is without a doubt the best Linux disto I've ever tried! And the live CD\DVD option is certainly a great addition, however it can get quite tricky if you are (like me) into gaming, specific applications or have very particular non-standard devices attached to your PC. In that case you have to either decompile and recompile the Windows device drivers (which I believe is illegal, apart from very difficult) or use a virtual machine, like Wine or VMware player\server.

Where it not for these minor technical issues I would abandon Microsoft world completely! But until they are resolved, I am forced to use windows...

 

[N_B]

Have you looked into Ubuntu 8.10? They have a number of what they call "restricted drivers" They are the proprietary drivers with the modifications to run under linux. I use them to run my Nvidea 3D card, amoung other devices. Most other devices have wrappers for the window drivers, you just have to dig around the forums a bit to find the files and how-tos. I got the girlfriend's laptop wireless working by using a wrapper.

 

[Emilio_di_Roccabruna]

Actually, I'm still running Ubuntu 7.10 and I'm still looking for a few drivers I can't get to work. I haven't seen any of these "restricted drivers", and I will check them out ASAP!
Thanks N_B!

 

[N_B]

I'm a little ahead of myself. 8.10 has not dropped yet, but you should upgrade your build to 8.04 soon. They have those restricted drivers in 8.04 and they work like a charm for me. Just make sure to back up your important stuff first. I had no problems, nor has anyone else I know, but it's just good computing practice... I think you'll like the result from upgrading since they have Compiz integrated in, restricted drivers, and the ability to auto-download the codecs needed to play a number of common files (cough cough DVD/MP3 cough cough).

 

[rydia57]

I figure they probably since they already track what kind of sites we goto, then Windoze keeps track of what we're downloading, what we're not downloading, Which owners have what jobs, how many people are on the computer, the ages if possible, and the other types of software we use, (that aren't made by Microsoft) and maybe how much money we make. I'm not that crazy about upgrading software. I just keep it as long as it does what I want it to. Not that crazy about service packs either... but Vista hasn't got anything that makes me wanna have it. Linux is nice isn't it... but I can't get past Linux Mandrake.

 

[bisexualsmoker]

This is old news.Almost every web site in the world reads your ip address,stores
it in a database.When these databases are cross referenced
by multi corporations they know a hell of a lot about you.