News Windows 11 Sends Tremendous Amount of User Data to Third Parties, YouTuber Claims

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Its ridiculous how these companies are allowed to get away with so much data collecting in the first place. Did a fresh install of Windows 10 Pro last night, and unchecked a lot of stuff I didn't want to allow. I'm sure I missed a thing or two, but I wonder if unchecking those things will even be honored or not. MS is probably still collecting that data, regardless. I do the same for my web browsers. I go in there and check, and uncheck, things I do / don't want enabled. I do all that I can, hoping for a little privacy, but I'm not sure doing all that even matters. I'll keep doing it for piece of mind, though.

All these companies are collecting so much data on us, some of it sensitive data, and at some point in time, we'll hear of that data being stolen. People have had enough of this nonsense. Hopefully a BIG change is coming to better protect us all. This has gone on for too long.

For the record, my real name is actually Dookie Draws. I'm 92-years-old. I live in the large African village of Baccaa Baccaa Goo Goo Ha Ha Hee Hee. 😀
 
PlaneInTheSky said:
Holy ****, I thought Google search was bad. Bing takes it to a whole other level. Bing is full of ads, irrelevant stuff left and right, tik-tok videos, shopping results, etc. How can anyone even use Bing, it's full of irrelevant spam.
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Agree.
But also Google results had been degraded lately, and I was forced to use bing and other search engines to find stuff that google used to find.
 
this news makes me glad I always refused to upgrade to 11. The only time I'm instaling 11 is when 10 reaches end of life.

when I was going from Win 7 to 10, there were important reasons for upgrading. Nod32 cannot update anymore, cannot use latest nvidia drivers, and several ps4 games demand Windows 10. With windows 11, those factors are not present - it feels like "change for the sake of change", which I feel is not worth doing right now.
 
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added things to my previous post the reason for not updating to 11. Anyway, just adding an opinion to the thread. No offense to those who already have Win 11.
 
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Alvar "Miles" Udell said:
Would be interesting to see if the results could be duplicated using a fresh, stock installation of Windows, and not an OEM system since OEM systems have been packed full of all kinds of -ware ever since Windows 95 at least.

Sounds like a good experiment for TomsHardware! Haven't seen many of those kinds of tests from TH in a while.
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I did an ms iso install of win 11 professional. I did so for a build machine and the support of docker/Linux. I deactivated widgets and standard bootup services like teams and one drive. I also set on all the standard privacy sliders and put balanced on for cookies with dnt.

Using fiddler and my router a lot of the data on my banned domains list still gets hit. {pfSense). I use SDNS 1.1.1.1 when I can but I can still track the dns being used.

I need to activate pihole so I can stop making random blocked entries in the host file. I'm don't think pihole stop collection of SDNS lookups however. It's encrypted before it leaves your computer.
 
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RichardtST said:
Is there a service/program/blocker/firewall that will sit there and record the outgoing sites for a while and then let me decide which ones to allow/block? I'd like just a nice list in a GUI with checkboxes to allow/deny anything going to each site. If so, how would I even tell which sites I want to allow other than by name? Maybe there's a "stop your data being stolen and sold all around the web" program? Windows firewall isn't the easiest thing to use. There has got to be better...
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Yes there is. I would strongly suggest using a program called safing port master. as for what to block. that would require research + trial and error. But I stand by it being the best option when you do eventually figure it out.
 
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Funny. I haven't received a single spam on my cell phones since my first one back in 1992. And I don't receive unwanted ads in email or pop-ups. Could it be I never click on every link that appears, or open even email? It's possey-bul.

Oh, I looked up O&O ShutUp10. They're a Gold mictosoft partner. Fascinating.
 
digitalgriffin said:
Using fiddler and my router a lot of the data on my banned domains list still gets hit. {pfSense). I use SDNS 1.1.1.1 when I can but I can still track the dns being used.

I need to activate pihole so I can stop making random blocked entries in the host file. I'm don't think pihole stop collection of SDNS lookups however. It's encrypted before it leaves your computer.
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I've never used pfsense, how does it block domains for a given device if that device is not using pfsense as its DNS server? How does it even know what domains are being accessed? Is it doing reverse DNS lookups or something?
 
Funny. I haven't received a single spam on my cell phones since my first one back in 1992. And I don't receive unwanted ads in email or pop-ups. Could it be I never click on every link that appears, or open even email?
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You don't have to click on anything for sites to know what you're doing.

Many commercial sites use partners that track mouse movement and scrolling behavior.

These partners record your behavior every time you come to the site, and they know exactly where you have been with your mouse and scroll wheel every time. They know exactly which part of a site you are looking at, be it an ad or other content.

Mouse movement visitor heat map:

click-heatmap.jpg
 
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TJ Hooker said:
I've never used pfsense, how does it block domains for a given device if that device is not using pfsense as its DNS server? How does it even know what domains are being accessed? Is it doing reverse DNS lookups or something?
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When you setup windows network you can specify the DNS source and point it to your router which will then retrieves or blocks the IP.

pfSense is like a serious professional router you can run on just about any old hardware. You then add plugins and you are good to go.
 
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I'm surprised that anyone is surprised by this. Win10 is a privacy nightmare, Win11 just takes it further. Android and MacOS/iOS are not that different.
 
Glock24 said:
I'm surprised that anyone is surprised by this. Win10 is a privacy nightmare, Win11 just takes it further. Android and MacOS/iOS are not that different.
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That's right. It really is NO different on the iPad. There's a checkbox in the iPad privacy settings that says to allow companies to target you with specific ads or generic ads, just like Windows 10/11. They all do it but you can't tell that to the Mac Cult. To them, Apple always has good intentions and everyone else is bad.
 
I don't believe.
Can you post processes which sending that data?
I will look connection logs then to make sure.
Thanks.
 
you can choose NOT to install w11 as I have. stick with w10 for as long as possible, which is fine for at least a few more years.
if you do choose w11, the IT ppl can use pihole, along with pfsense,pfblockerng and registry hacks or scripts and / or stuff simialr to OOSU10 to limit the telemetry further. However, your phone prob does a LOT more spying than windows will ever do.
 
pbrainii said:
you can choose NOT to install w11 as I have. stick with w10 for as long as possible, which is fine for at least a few more years.
if you do choose w11, the IT ppl can use pihole, along with pfsense,pfblockerng and registry hacks or scripts and / or stuff simialr to OOSU10 to limit the telemetry further. However, your phone prob does a LOT more spying than windows will ever do.
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A clean install of windows 10 will also have the news widget...
You have to go old school with an older build (1909 and earlier) and never update.
  • News and interests requires a device running Windows 10, version 1909 or later.
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The login screen that has a picture that is not always the same picture, that is why it connects to a picture server.
Mcafee is part of MS which is why it connects to that, it's part of windows security.
Goelocation is how you get articles in your language and not chinese or hungarian ones.
The analytic sites is how you get articles that people read so statistically they are more relevant to show you than news that nobody cares about.
All of this is powered by edge which is chrome which is google which is why it connects to googleapi.
Also this is why the connections look like they have a browser running, because they have.

It's 2023 people, you don't want a dumb PC that shows you news about a sack of rice falling over somewhere in china...written in chinese and targeted to chinese people.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...nterests-a39baa08-7488-4169-9ed8-577238f46f8f
45786c53-3d79-455b-96e3-03c2e03246cf.jpg
 
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coromonadalix said:
O&O is good, some other soft can help too win10 privacy etc ...
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pbrainii said:
you can choose NOT to install w11 as I have. stick with w10 for as long as possible, which is fine for at least a few more years.
if you do choose w11, the IT ppl can use pihole, along with pfsense,pfblockerng and registry hacks or scripts and / or stuff simialr to OOSU10 to limit the telemetry further. However, your phone prob does a LOT more spying than windows will ever do.
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Heat_Fan89 said:
You guys can try O&O Shutup for privacy.

https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10
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umeng2002_2 said:
I've been O&O shutup for years now.
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Can i ask what settings are you using with OO? only recommended?
 
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