Windows 8 to Tell Microsoft About Everything You Install?

[Wisecracker]

I knew my investment in Alcoa stock would pay off ...

 

[Guest]

Consider the founder of Microsoft for a moment. Bill Gates now owns a large chunk of one of the most evil companies (Monsanto) on Earth. He has boasted about how death panels are wonderful and needed with the affordable health care act. He is spraying tons of Sulfur Dioxide and Aluminum particles into the atmosphere of New Mexico to combat so called global warming. Do you think his company will have any hesitation or problem violating your 4th amendment rights with Window's 8?

 

[DiggityDoggie]

This is how I felt about Vista/Win7 which is why I still use XP. Plus XP just runs 3D applications better on my PC. If it aint broke don't fix it.

 

[nameon]

alright... ive stuck my neck out for MS long enough thismis the final straw.. if this gets into official release.. im looking for the cute penguin!!!

 

[stivesstu]

Well, I was still using XP up until a week ago slowly getting more annoyed at its deficiencies handling networks and external storage especially. It's getting old and the 4GB RAM limit is also a pain when RAM is so cheap.

Whatever, I was persuaded to buy Windows 8 for a simple reason....it's now on a super duper special offer (around $50-60) and has to be worth a try at that price. The bottom line is my PC has been transformed into a 64bit Windows machine with 15GB of RAM - for less than $100. I reckon it's added three or four more years to the life of my computer. For that reason alone I'll stick with W8

I absolutely agree it has a lot of stupid faults but for the most part they're not something that either can't be turned off, bypassed with a utility of some sort or just learnt. Yes, it bugs the shit out of me but I'm prepared to give it a bit of time. Already it's obvious to me that Windows 8 does a lot of things much better.

In regard to this discussion, Windows asked me early on during the installation if I wanted Smartscreen switched on. Since I didn't know what this or half the other new stuff was I simply switched everything off and will switch them back on one by one as I understand what they do. So in effect, as far as I know Smartscreen has never been activated on my PC.

A bit of commonsense is needed here. Microsoft have learnt a lot of lessons from the way they treated users and their data in the past (Apple's turn is coming). Like Google they're on probation but I want to use their software so like a lot of people am willing (resigned even) to give them the benefit of the doubt. I still haven't switched Smartscreen on yet but its purpose and the way it's supposed to work makes sense to me. Who believes Google when they said they collected private data from people's homes by "accident" and then "forgot" to delete it? MS could never get away with something like that.

If they are tracking stuff they don't need to or using information in ways they shouldn't be, somebody will eventually find out. Not maybe, but for sure, and when they do - and if it's serious enough - what's left of Microsoft's reputation and Windows will go down the drain. I doubt they'd ever recover, at least in Europe. So why would they risk so much just to find out what type of porn takes your fancy or the software you're using when they already know what MS products you've got? It doesn't make sense.