Has Windows become Spyware?
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- Опубликовано: 1 июн 2024
- Has Windows become Spyware? Windows 11 vs XP Network Analysis on Wireshark. What websites does your new laptop secretly connect to?
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Every half decade or so MS needs a class action law suit to get them back in line
every update or so it should be at the rythm it goes.
MS is virgin Mary in comparison with alphabet.
Lawsuit DOES NOT mean anything!!!! Even if they lose, their fine winds up being 3-10% of the revenue the generated by violating your rights & privacy, so it's just a business expense for them!!!! And of course the tax cattle don't just STOP using their product & REFUSE to do any business with them!!! ITS so out of control anymore ya better get used to saying: ALL HAIL THE PARTY!!! 2+2=5
If only that made a difference. Anyway that's why I use Linux instead of Windows. Ubuntu is good too. Made by users for users. No forced updates
@@Christoff070 Ubuntu is Linux! There are like over 50 Linux distro's. I am using EndeavourOS which is based on Arch Linux. Ubuntu is based on Debian Linux. I switched to Linux just as Microsoft tried to push Windows 10 on me (Every user thereof) by force! I read the EULA, and that was it:
I literally nuked Windows 7 and broke the disk and forced myself through Linux boot camp, so I would learn it for not having Windows to fall back on. I tried getting on board in the 90's when Linux first came out and several times in between, but having Windows always gave me a way to give up for sheer convenience and familiarity. Once I made the switch cold turkey I learned it faster than I thought I would, fell in love with Linux, and have been using it ever since. With the KDE Plasma desktop, it makes Windows look like the POS it really is.
"This PC doesn't currently meet the minimum system requirements to run Windows 11"
Excellent.
Lol this is the same in windows 10
@@vectoralphaAI But i have dealt with the more primitive version...
Newer version = "Better Security" = More spying by Microsoft.
@@vectoralphaAI Yes. Windows 10 and 11 are the same, except 11 has even more peal.
My desktop is usually booted into Linux, unless I wanna game once or twice a month...
Dual-booting into Windows 10 provides me with 5 popups in a row, trying to trick me in getting Windows 11...
My work laptop is on Win11, ask the IT person how much I like it, I nagged his head off hoping to get my Linux distro of choice on my work machine!
Hehe, thats why im using ghost spectre win 11 hehe
In a slightly more reasonable world this kind of mass spying by corporations would be illegal.
And the people responsible should shake bars.
Es ilegal. Sólo que, el sistema es mentira❤
This is so true. Look at Edward Snowden, a CIA and NSA whistleblower who exposed the government for mass surveillance on thier citizens. Who do you think is got in trouble? Let me give you a guess, it wasn't the big 3 letter companies
Keep buyingvtheir sh-.. Uff.. Apple? Lololol. Not even dead.
So.. Linux be!
Sell out! We are the Product. The paying for it Product. Insane! 😒
We live in a world where Mark Zuckerberg is a billionaire. Reasonable is in a parallel universe.
It's very easy to know whether or not there's some foul play afoot:
Microsoft: We collect telemetry data. It's just for diagnostic purposes.
Consumer: I am not comfortable with that. Can I turn it off?
Microsoft: Yes, click here.
Consumer: It didn't turn it off.
Microsoft: Shut up.
At least things like O&O ShutUp10++ exist.
*microshit
An Old Consumer : ever used DoNotSpy on windows so you can turn that shit off, and it is off its been out there for a long time you must be new to the internet
You technically can firewall all of them, but I don't even need it lol. I'm from Russia, 90% of this sht isn't even working there after Feb 24nd, 2022.
@@andrey_sviridov can you take a guess why
With all of this data collection, the Windows license should be free or Microsoft should be paying me instead
de facto it is free for most people
but windows has always been free
That's why activators exist lmao
@@FakeMichau If you are buying a computer with windows, the price of windows is added to the price of the computer
@@RickRollMaster101 It's bold of you to assume that I do
It all goes back in a day when Microsoft renamed "My computer" to "This PC", kinda showing that its not your computer anymore
Well, to be fair "my computer" would be a lie for any PC with more than one user.
@@RFC3514 I always found "My Computer" patronizing, like those silly "Oops!" error messages some places do. I assumed they changed it the verbiage to make things feel a bit more professional.
Yep
@@RFC3514for each one of those users it is actually "My computer". Nothing wrong with the wording there.
@@Druze_Tito - So when someone else checks their e-mail from a computer you bought, they take ownership of the computer?
A year or so ago I noticed that my Windows PC was working extremely high on CPU, even while idle. I decided to take a deeper look, and saw that the telemetry service was abusing my CPU, for no apparent reason. Digging in a little deeper, it turns out that my pihole was blocking all the telemetry requests so Windows was trying to locally store all the telemetry data in an SQL database in order to try and send it back to Microsoft later. Turns out there was a bug in the way they locally stored the data, so the database kept being re-created constantly, causing my CPU to spike.
Try to fake the url and make the system think it is working
Blackbird can disable all of that shit, or you could dump Windows and install a real operating system.
thanks@@Wren1 I've never heard of this software but it looks useful
@@Wren1people use windows not because its a good operating system, but just because others arent optimized with the same programs
Which of course uses more power, that you didn't authorize which gives you a bigger utility bill which also you should send Microsoft for their bullshit which does not benefit you in any way, shape, or form. The extreme end of this is that it maxing your CPU is wearing it out and causing you to have to buy a new machine faster.
It would be interesting to see an equivalent video on MacOS to see if Apple's marketing claims that they care more about your privacy actually hold.
Not sure if it would apply to Wireshark, but iirc Apple have specifically engineered their network stack to allow their own apps to bypass any installed VPN or firewall software. Chances are if they're doing something similar to Windows in this video, it would just be better hidden from the user - Microsoft really just doesn't care if we know at this point.
@@DanBennettUltragood luck for them to bypass a network filter that's between the machine and the internet
@@Noksusit’s how you know the person talking is a fool.
@@Noksus Yeah, obviously Mac being designed to let 1st party apps bypass on-device VPNs and firewalls won't let it bypass VPNs and firewalls installed on external hardware. But the vast, vast majority of users don't have separate hardware running their VPNs and firewalls, they install software on their computer to do the job if they even manually install one at all rather than relying on what's provided pre-installed on the device they bought. Particularly with portable devices like phones, tablets, and laptops, their purpose is to be taken with you to use wherever you are: school, coffee shops, a friend's house, or just about wherever you find yourself out of the house or office with a mobile data connection. I personally have dedicated hardware on my home network filtering all traffic, but people like us are the rare exceptions not the rule.
And in case you guys wonder, from what I know, there's telemetry data sent whenever you open an application on osx. :| In fact, there has been cases where apps open slow because Apple has had server issues, where the fix is to disconnect from internet, because somehow if you're online it's required to contact Apple whenever you open an application. I absolutely hate all of this bs.
I think this is why they removed the network activity indicator from the system tray years ago. They don't want people to realise that their machine is constantly phoning home.
Microsoft is a piece of shit company
More like phoning to everyone in the phone book.
@@zito88 good one. Definitely more accurate.
they removed the network indicator because it is useless nowadays. it was useful in the past because web apps werent really a thing and most people had metered connections where they were billed by traffic volume. nowadays this indicator would just be on all of the time. any communication/messenger app like slack/discord/signal has several standing websocket connections open at any time, many apps download updates automatically and so on. any time you want to know "is there network traffic right now?" the answer is yes. no need for an icon to tell you that ^^
@@LostMekkaSoft Besides the task manager still displays traffic in an useful chart
dude, the amount of ad-tracking is nuts. I run my network through pi-hole and it's got nearly 40,000 blocked queries since I reset the router a week ago. absolutely insane.
That equates to four a minute. But I’m guessing you’re also surfing the internet through that gateway too, so while it sounds like a lot compared to the amount of traffic that’s going through, it’s probably a minute percentage.
@@-_James_- the vast majority of them were from the 3 roku's on my network.
@@-_James_- even me surfing the net would rack up 15k a month
It's nuts
Poor little pi working its ass off to save you 🥲
@@youtubasoarus lol it died months ago. IDK why, most likely a Mikrotik bug. Oh well, was annoying having the manually restart the container every time the router cycled.
"Scorecardresearch" through "Fullcircle studios", belongs to Comscore, which is HQ'd in Reston, VA, a cluster for US tech/defense companies.
I forgot how colorful XP is. Not only doesn't spy on you, but also looks nice and friendly. Good old days...
You can't connect to the internet on xp now can you ?
@@atommachine you still can, its just the internet explorer wont connect to most websites nowadays.
there are definitely other web browsers that still work on xp and you can use them perfectly nowadays if you still use xp for some reason.
@@atommachine you absolutely can
hell some modern wifi dongles still somehow have xp drivers available (from reputable manufacturers like tp-link too!)
@@atommachine The biggest issues are 1) getting your certificate store updated so you can speak HTTPS; and 2) finding a browser that is still built with support for XP.
@@nickwallette6201 YT keeps shadowbanning my comments so I cant tell you how to get around.
I always wondered why my old computer struggled with Windows 10 whenever I had an internet connection and it seemed to speed up significantly whenever I unplugged my network cable. Now I know why, it was just sending my soul to Microsoft.
that is true. when my laptop would connect to internet, windows telemetry and windows error report would both start up to collect and upload
My old computer is not capable to run Win 11, at least according to MS. Funny after that discovery it started running very slow, by using disks at 100%. At some point I reformatted the disk and I made a clean install. It was running fine. Then I plugged it to the net to let it get its digital license from MS. Big mistake. It started using disks at 100% again without anything installed yet. I guess MS really want to convince me that my old computer is slow, so I buy new compatible with Win11 comp. I was with Win 10. Now I'm with Linux.
Funny, I tried a win install on a VM running on top of Linux. It runs way faster than just Win10 without virtualization. But on this VM you can upgrade to Win11. All that experimentation was a lot of fun and my kids got visual lesson why they shouldn't trust big corporations.
Well, that, and Intel/Microsoft's old network drivers are balls. Plus the hardware back then did a lot less co-processing, offloading all your network traffic to the CPU.
Yes, maybe those same drivers functioned alright on XP, maybe even W7+, but the driver layer was changed in Win 10. It now emulates support for old hardware rather than giving direct hardware access. After upgrading to Windows 10, I had a Win 7 Virtual CD driver insert a 700mb CD as a ginormous 7gb protected file in System Volume Information. /facepalm
@@Mavendow is this why one of our work computers is soooooo terribly slow after updating to W10 we just stopped using it...?
The other computer that is running basically the same hardware but in Win7 (except I upgraded with a sata SSD) works just fine. It cant be that SSD made it go from snails pace to normal because that other machine takes like 5 seconds to respond from start bar menu commands, and 30 seconds to open chrome.. and there's almost nothing installed on it besides necessary work apps.
Has the performance really tanked so hard because of the change In the driver layer? Will the same happen on the other machine that Is begging us to upgrade? All I remember is that they're dual core CPUs
@@neocodex3 Nope. I tried to explain but YT keeps deleting my comment.
So, short version: The GUI's memory is managed differently, which forces an old PC to use the pagefile. The pagefile thus pegs the HDD. If you run a dual SSD/HDD config, the same thing (occasionally) happens because the default config is to have the pagefile on every drive. Solution is basically to add a SSD and move the pagefile to that drive. Or install Linux which doesn't have a dumb memory manager. I do use Windows, however, IMHO Linux should be seriously considered since Windows is circling the drain.
short answer: YES
long answer: HELL YES
Thank you for doing this! Just found this channel and loving it already. I would love to see you continue this to a mini-series and do this with Mac and on a Linux distro (or several) as well. Also, it's probably not your turf, but many are probably thinking about moving away to some more safe and secure OS and might be interested to learn about all kinds of hurdles you might encounter on the way (have to say goodbye for some Win only software etc.)
Nice work. Back in the day, it was standard practice to check if installed software (nevermind the OS) was "phoning home." People were _outraged_ if violations of privacy/trust were found and said software was promptly publicly shamed and boycotted. Sadly, it didn't take long before the practice became so rampant that it was nearly impossible to track of all the transgressions, leading us to right where we are now.
Unfortunately, the problems started with "automatic updates". Before then, people relied on receiving regular update packages via post, or upgrades through various service packs. It also gave companies more incentive to actually get the software right first time.
Automatic updates normalised the idea of software "phoning home".
Those boycotts were possible in an age where most computer users were tech savvy and knew enough about the system to care. Now, widespread adoption has led to an era where everybody has a computer, most of whom don't know anything about the device in front of them. Those tech illiterate consumers comprise the bulk of the market now, and they don't know and don't care enough to ever join a boycott.
I refuse to update to 11 until I am forced to. I only installed 10 when I heard that 11 had been released, because I realized they might stop selling new licenses to 10. But I still use 7 on one of my PCs.
Anyway, point is, I always make a point to disable all automatic updates. This was easy on 7. It was a little more tricky on 10 but definitely doable. There's a registry setting that tells the OS that the machine is using an enterprise management configuration. That sort of configuration is used on PCs used by workers in corporate office environments, inside their secure networks, where all software installations typically are performed by IT or desktop support folks and any OS updates or security patches are rolled out across the network on a carefully managed schedule. Anyway, this registry setting prevents automatic updates on Windows 10. Hopefully something similar exists on 11.
Beyond that, I also go through all Windows settings and disable anything that involves telemetry, linking to online accounts, "smart assistants", or is used for "improving the product" or "personalized experiences" (which means collecting user activity data for ad targeting purposes). Likewise I disable any services that sound dicey or a waste of resources, like anything involving Xbox.
@@MrEdrftgyuji 100% I still feel that way about software phoning home. I consider my home PC workstations to be like my castles. If a process is using CPU cycles I want to know what it is and why it's running. The idea of the OS on these machines behaving like Android is simply unacceptable. Operating systems should be able to function entirely offline, they should never be trying to serve me ads, and they should never be sending any third parties my personally identifiable information, data about user activity, what's installed on the machine, local network configuration, or the file contents of any attached drive. Any attempt to send anything like that should require explicit approval from the user EVERY. TIME. And rejecting such requests should never cause any failure at the OS level.
@@rdean150 1: you should also refuse to use win10. i know its hard, i am not perfect myself and I'm not using linux nearly enough.
2: use windows debloater from chris titus tech
Just a small piece of advice: by capturing within the booted OS, you will loose traffic that has already been finished. To do this properly you would want to mirror a switch port and use wireshark on a separate system to actually capture everything on that switch port. But still a good way to bring the point across. Would love to see this for Windows XP -> Windows 11 and Linux / Mac OS. In a complete comparrision, to objectively see how other products fare.
You'd need to compare a large number of Linux distributions.
Unlike Mac OS and Windows, there isn't a standar Linux install to examine.
You'd need to compare multiple different base distros like Arch, Debian, Fedora, etc. and multiple instances of each with different desktop environments installed.
Correct. These dns queries can be switched off in settings but kernel ones I don't think is possible
I think using ad block dns can block those spy traffic
@@sumuduranathunga yes that is possible but not what is intended. The idea is, that the normal standard user shoudn´t need to even have to do anything to protect their own personal space / data
Oooh I want to see that.
Would love to see a video showing the difference between turning telemetry off in the options V not turning it off just to see how effective it is.
That’s a good idea.
@@lussor1 how to install stuff like this?
Use simplewall. You decide exactly what gets on the wire.
@@user-rg5pr1ji2k The firewall options for Linux suck. It's basically just UFW, and that's it, unless you buy an Enterprise level program. MacOS had a bunch of Spyware as well, but it's not nearly as bad as Windows. You can use Hands Off or Little Snitch to monitor what is trying to go where.
@@lussor1does editing C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts work?
Id be interested in seeing one of these tests done on Windows 10 After running Windows10 debloater, there is an option that apparently disables telemetry, it would be interesting to see if it actually does
I wish XP was still supported. I loved that operating system. So easy to use, compared to Windows 10, and it seemed stronger. I also miss the Windows Movie Maker from that time/system.
Windows XP was super cool, but I don't miss the crashes, viruses, etc...
LTSC might still get security updates.... or windows 7. Also very good system.
Sadly none of them support DX12
Windows XP doesn't yet have the newer desktop compositor, the new way of handling audio, UAC, and the driver situation was horrible. Makes win7 much more viable choice.
I wish 7 was still supported
There is One Core API, which provides support of modern Windows apps for XP. You can run latest Chrome version on XP for example
Remember when they decided to rename "My Computer" to "This PC", it was more than just a symbolic gesture.
This is one of the reasons why I'm on Mint and not Windows.
"We will allow you to use this pc" was too long a name.
If Mint was good at power user tasks or gaming I'd be there. It's great at just about everything else straight out of the box, I even use it as a server OS just for the convenience factor, it's the only Linux branch I recommend just because it's as user-friendly as Windows XP was.
I'm still stuck with Windows 10 personally, thankfully via ReviOS so most of this telemetry is gutted. Why? Because most of the information on virtualization for Mint is woefully out of date and has led to some boot-bricks, and the few games I play either don't run at all (Cyberpunk, Private Server MMOs, some oddball JP stuff), or aren't modable on Mint (Skyrim, FONV, FO4, etc) with Proton (as of last check on September 2022), and NEITHER of the 2 Linux-compatIble games I play run right either. Insurgency doesn't like how Mint handles graphics handovers so out of the box it complains about not getting exclusive controll of the Nvidia GPU and crashes on startup, or after a random time interval it'll crash without a message anyway with either of the 2 fixes I've seen recommended for the crash on start. Starbound after a random period of time will have a black triangle cover a section of the screen until restarted, this'll even happen on the title screen and persist into gameplay.
@@KiraSlith Any linux distro will be significantly better for actual power users than Windows. Windows is anti-power user. I could even make the argument that MacOS is better for power users than Windows
As for gaming, Proton has gotten 90% of the way there, but eventually the blame for platform lock has to be on the developers of the game and not the OS. Same applies to Nvidia, as they haven't open sourced their drivers like everyone else, linux engineers can only go so far.
Don't forget "security updates" every 24 hours against threats that don't exist. Unless giving freedom to your user is the threat of course.
@@KiraSlith Yeah, I'm not saying Mint or linux in general is the best option for everyone, but for my specific use case it does a great job.
Lots of people are unfortunately stuck on Windows for one reason or another, I myself still have to use Windows at work.
Another misconception is when they used the term 'trusted' it does not mean they trust YOU. It means they trust your computer to act on their behalf, regardless of what you may want to do as the end user.
I rooted my android 10 and its now "orange state, your device can't be trusted". Oh, I trust it. It doesn't even have google services anymore, airplane mode really works and cuts off all wireless transmissions. I own this phone. However, I can't use google play store or official apps. Thats the trade off with big tech. You can run Linux and not get to use the best and latest software, or you can use windows and submit to authority.
*owner ... not "end user". I own the machine, i don't subscribe to it 🧐
@@lazertroll702 That's your delusion
Tbf there is some better reasoning here; 20 years ago you had tons of viruses going around because peoples PCs were unsafe, and they would easily spread malware over the network. So the question of if you can trust other PCs is actually more relevant than you might think, because of networks and internet.
These days security is way better, thats why we dont really got malware/virus waves like back in the day.
Doesnt mean Microsoft is pretty bad with a lot of stuff. In my family, the only time Ive seen corrupted profiles was with faulty MS updates.
An Antiviral Program found that Windows itself uses a backdoor to behave like malware.
This gave me the idea to compare LTSC builds with the more common Pro or Enterprise variants. Great work!
It also depends on manufacturers. I would have love to see a scrubbed system without all the mfnr installs (lke McAfee and so on). I tried it on an enterprise dell laptop, and I get a lot less. Even be tter, Win11 on dell pro/enterprise will not require a MS account. The default install is local user admin, which is not even easy to do on a fresh win1 iso
Definitely a step back. Nicely done. Thanks. Would like to see your opinion on using Virtual OS's to obfuscate things.
I miss XP and 7 which are my two favorite iterations of Windows which both felt more like a desktop OS and came without all the bloat that started showing up on Windows 8 and so forth. It feels like every operating system has gone down this route as of late and I'm tempted to just use linux once Windows 10 dies off.
For me I think when windows 10 dies I'm switching over to Linux. I've used it in the past & have it installed on many of my secondary computers.
I used tools like O&O Shutup 10, DestoryWindows10 Spying, etc. Hopefully this helps remove some of the stuff windows does but generally I find myself hating Microsoft these days after how they've been ruining Minecraft.
I will never give Microsoft a cent in the future, I will always have ad block on, I use my free OneDrive account with Crypomater so they can't spy on my data, etc. I am not gonna do my best to ensure they don't make money off me until they change their ways.
@@Enraiful Good on you for that, most people don't last half a year. Welcome to Linux
@@RAN-os5gz Ouch, I only last for two months. I still haven't had time to start organizing my mess yet. Hope this time I can relly REALLY build my own NAS now.
I have had zero issues running Windows 7 this whole time...
@@freedustin well, now we have games coming out made for DX12, and those do not work on Win 7. And there will be more of them.
Videocards also don't get graphics drivers updates anymore - this means if there is a specific issue running a game, Win 7 will never get fixes for it.
I think Microsoft in general has some third party platforms that they work with.
But I think they should be upfront with everyone to tell us the platforms they are affiliated with or to and their purpose also.
We need to know the data that is been collected.
wdym you "think" ?? did you not watch the video? he goes over the 3rd parties
Read the EULA! But yeah, it's called loading MSN on the taskbar... when you boot a new XP and load internet explorer to download chrome for the first time... same thing
Not gonna happen, there's no need or fear for them to do it
@@Londonistan_Calling ever heard of this little thing called the GDPR?
only thing i know to prevent it from sending that information is using safe mode.
This is a fantastic video, it's wild how much gets sent just by the laptop being on and existing.
I'd love to see comparisons between windows 11 traffic for machines that opted out of telemetry vs. the default configuration (which of course is telemetry being on). I'd be willing to bet there is still sketchy activity on machines that have opted out.
it's kind of weird that they're using XP 64bit though because that was kind of a flop and if i remmber correctly, the last version of 64bit XP was released before XP 32bit SP3
I remember all the way back, lots of people were talking about how when you make a new installation of Windows XP, the first thing you really have to do is to run the XP-Anti-Spy tool.
Ironically, one of the drawbacks to hardware advancements is that OS's don't need to be streamlined to run smoothly. There is plenty of room for background spyware.
What bothers me more than anything is that, by default, anything you type into the Start Menu gets sent to a search engine.
not only does it annoy me, it also goes to microsoft bing on ms edge instead of the one i set
@@theplayer12312 yeah god win 10 is hot trash and inefficient for tablet using morans, I don't know how people like it
When I type a localIP (192.168...) it automatically goes to the internet and then tells me " not found".
I have to use InternetExplorer to be successful.
The ways in which it tries to reset you to using Edge ... and / or Bing search ... got to admire their sheer diligence on this. It's a huge game of Whack-a-mole to kick it back under the carpet for a bit
Yeah and I love how it can't find a program installed with the exact name I type and instead takes me to a web page.
Great work on this. I will install it on my Mac to see the difference. I am subscribed now
I love your sense of humor, it seems the only way to deal with this madness, thank und keep it up :)
It's worth clarifying if this was a brand new off the shelf pc vs just a clean install of Windows because OEMs will also include their own bloat when they sell their units.
Gigabyte boards come with "McAfee service", right in the Bios level so there isn't a way for you to disable/opt out of that in the OS level, which also might be why in this video there was a ping to one of there websites. Or really, even if it's not the cause there still is nothing to be surprised of
Yeah, I was going to say… While Windows 10/11 is definitely doing stuff in the background, this comparison isn’t exactly fair. Off the shelf computers come with all kinds of extra junk installed - even in the XP days, there was extra software. I can imagine it would be hard to get a new old-stock XP PC to test with these days, but it would be trivial to do a bare installation of Windows 10/11 to at least make this test fair (even though the outcome would likely be the same)
@@Londonistan_Calling damn I was about to buy a Gigabyte board because I can't find myself a Z790-F. Guess I'll just have to wait
@@Londonistan_Calling When did they implement that? I had a Gigabyte X570 board and I never had McAfee pop up...
@@Londonistan_Calling source? how in the world you have a service in bios level? hardware level?
I love when people take the time to SHOW how awful companies are getting about just prying open the doors to our information without even telling us or people knowing about it. So happy I've been migrating everything I can over to Linux.
I did distro-hopping since ~2010 to ~2015, and since ~2015 I am trying to fully migrate myself to Linux. It's still a half-baked OS. For the common people that just browses the web and some other things like that, it may be a good OS. But deeply, for people that mess with the internal of operating systems... is not. For example: No proper disassembler/debugger; I'm hard-working to pimp out Evans debugger (edb, the most decent debugger with GUI in Linux [tried each one in existence]; still that thing couldn't even select multiple lines of disassembly, a basic and necessary feature that I had to add, for example) for myself but every time I remember everything It's already done and working on Windows 7 (x64dbg) I have a hard time doing it. Browsers in Linux constantly crashes and have diverse video problems; they all require you to do things, mess with flag combinations and command line parameters to work properly... just to find you just broke another thing. So, you worked hard and made internal, binary modifications to a Linux software? Prepare yourself to lose it in 3 days in the next update. Is that, or you condemn yourself to skip updates for that software. Also, there is no proper equivalent to Windows' Process Hacker. The closest one is "qps", is a good piece of software but is still years behind... I'm also working on it, adding the features I need. Htop and other similar things running on the terminal are just not enough for me.
And the Wayland thing... it just slowing all Linux development, requiring most software to start from scratch, now to work to adapt all the apps to that new, unnecessary protocol/display server. It will take years, again, for the Linux software to reach a stable status. That duality X11/Wayland, GTK/Qt, and what other calls "flavors" (distros) are just Linux weaknesses, internal divisions.
And about Windows... after almost 2 years of trying to replace Windows 7 with Windows 10, I returned to Win7 and promised myself never to return to that slow, involved version of Windows, no to say "Windows 11". They moved all the spying to kernelmode and raised what they call "security" _(Patchguard, the thing they added so you cannot gain deep control of your own kernel, of your own system )_ so is now even harder to patch.
@@Braxton1981 "Browsers in Linux constantly crashes and have diverse video problems" i've never got a browser to constantly crash, it could be because you are using a NVIDIA GPU
"And the Wayland crap... it just slowing all Linux development, requiring most software to start from scratch, now to work on a new, unnecessary protocol/display server" Wayland were created because X is insecure and also a mess. With that I think you hate innovation in cost of being compatible with other applications like how Windows does.
So the distro you're looking for is Debian Stable lol.
People seem to love their $100+ spyware for some reason
Yeah, that's where we are at the moment. All these people collectively telling Microsoft "There is *absolutely nothing* you can do that will me stop using your product" so then, yeah, they will do whatever they want to you and your data. People aren't willing to sacrifice anything in order to switch to Linux, they won't sacrifice their time in order to learn how to use it or sacrifice some of their productivity while they migrate to different applications, etc.
This is insane, people will read guides and watch videos on how to edit the registry on Windows, install stuff to block telemetry, use debloating scripts, etc. but they won't apply the same effort to learn Linux, it's mind boggling
@@RAN-os5gz This, i went to Linux in the first place because i thought Linux could be faster than Windows on an old Phenom machine, the interface were nice after all but only OpenGL games worked better (because Vulkan wasn't support on the GPU i was using), like Minecraft, and then later i switched my laptop to Linux because Windows loved to install back the OEM drivers that weren't better at all.
there are two reasons on why never updated my windows 7
1. performance loss
2. privacy issues
I love when my windows 11 makes up random errors and problems to force a restart if it’s not updated in a long time, or when it randomly turns itself on in the middle on night
Man I remember back in the day on dialup there would be the little network activity icon on the taskbar of two computers, one would blink for uploading, one for downloading and you could kind of tell if you had spyware or something on your computer because they'd be blinking away showing activity even if you weren't actively browsing. When your system was clean and you weren't doing anything they'd stay quiet also.
And they got rid of any animations and you gotta get a widget or taskbr applet
makes some sense but I think with modern day systems, and what little I know about programming, the cpu has to even keep thinking things like don't fall asleep until(whenever). just like a human. All kinds of functions are happening without obvious signs of any ones control.
@@zerronoah3851 To be fair they had a lot of that back in XP days too. I suspect Microsoft just decided no one cared about that feedback and removed it for a cleaner look.
Would've loved to have you test this with the tiny11 project to see how much telemetry can get stripped out of Windows without breaking functionality
Agree, I also want to see a comparison between this, Windows without microsfot account, and tiny11.
we need this
Why don't you do switch something else, instead of blackbox testing and patching broken pieces of binaries?
Yes Agreed. I’m running Ghost win 11 with o&o shutup.
It'd be great to see it for ReviOs10 or ReviOs11 too
Thnx for the video. This is defenetly something to consider for next operation system as it used to be easy to keep track of traffic. And backround apps.
Great Video. I know this video is a little older but i would love to see a comparison to a popular linux distro like Ubuntu or Mint or something else.
What are they collecting by default?
I did this with OpenSUSE Tumbleweed and it was collecting absolutely nothing, there was no traffic other than stuff that I myself started but yeah, I'd be curious as well, especially for "beginner" distros like Mint, Ubuntu, etc.
I know that it may seem "simple" or even silly to do, but it might be helpful to have a follow-up to this to show users "how you can make your Windows 11 traffic look more like XP" -- and highlighting exactly what User Experience "losses" or changes that it causes.
I honestly don't think this is even possible. Only solution would be to install Linux.
I don't know if it's correct or not, but a while back I saw a video that said that the Windows 11 EULA basically says that any file you put on your computer with Windows 11 is Microsofts property to do as they please with. They can basically also lock you out of your computer if they feel that that's what they would like to do and you can't do anything about it, because you accepted their EULA. Windows has become a gigantic pile of bloatware the last couple of versions and it's spying on you way more than you can imagine. On the other hand I guess Apple is no better than Microsoft.
@@longdashes what's up with these linux lobbers on every comment? this is very well possible and I do it with every Windows computer I own. As others suggested, there are tools as Spybot Anti-Beacon, Pihole etc.
@@freezEware Because also your weird 3rd party scripts, won't disable tracking entirely. Especially since Windows has a history of changing these settings back to "default", after updates.
The reality is, with Windows you cannot deactivate tracking entirely and Windows also violates the GPDR, which has been a topic for quite some time already in EU. At this point, Linux literally seems to be the only solution, sadly it won't fit everyone's needs.
@@longdashes this is why paid, subscription based immunizers are updated all the time, and you dont need to worry about re immunizing your pc manually. take a look
And yes, you can disable tracking 100% if you are tech savvy. I would imagine every avg linux user can do that
This information should be transparent and accessible to every user, not just those with a bit of technological knowledge and third party software.
Yeah, they call information that can be accessed by anyone with the right technical knowledge "publicly available"... Same as how they say Elon Musk's private jet FAA number is publicly available. I tired to find it myself and it would have required a 10 hour deep dive into how to do it.
@@LANPOCALYPSE It's only "publicly available" when it's convenient (to them). Remember that hitting F12 in a browser and finding embarrassing contents you could be accused of corporate espionage. Another fun and closely-related topic is those cookie alerts that (in the EU) are required to have a "reject all" button as accessible by number of clicks as the "accept all" button, but of course it's almost always a much smaller button the same colour as the background, or an x in the corner, if you can find it at all.
Never gonna happen. People dont care enough
Great video! Thanks! Would be nice to see the same for some common linux distributions (PopOS, Ubuntu, Arch, etc.) and macOS.
I'm using PopOS and I love it
Mac OS also is a spyware OS.
The correct thing it would be to have a starting page that asked your consent for these services and explained you which of them are required. I believe some of them you can disable if you dig enough at settings but still that is not transparent enough.
Windows is now “free-to-play” where you are the product. Then they push their “battle pass” at you with Microsoft 365.
Would be interesting to see what a fresh Ubuntu and MacOS setup does in comparison.
Also try Debian.
@@johndododoe1411 arch, open suse,Fedora ecc.. so all distros
And free or open bsd
Windows still isn’t free you pay for it when you buy the computer. Next time you are looking at computers select no OS and watch the price drop $100
The pushing of 365 is especially annoyingly if you already purchased Office. Why the hell would I pay a subscription for a product essentially identical to a product *I already purchased from you*?!
It would be interesting to see if changing the thousands of options that you can tweak in windows to improve privacy actually change anything.
An analysis like this of MacOS, Ubuntu, Fedora, Manjaro, FreeBSD or the SteamOS would also be nice.
@@paulbarclay4114 Yeah I guess that makes sense. But some options are strict enough to kill Cortana, for example. Some spyware will remain, for sure, but do you think that those options change absolutely nothing?
@@paulbarclay4114 Not sure about Windows 11, but you can definitely prevent updates in Windows 10. My computer is still running the version of Windows 10 that came installed on it, all that needed to be done, and I imagine it's the same in Windows 11, is to disable the Windows Update recovery and Windows Update services. Ta'da now Windows can't update and it can't turn update back on because the repair tool is turned off. (From a quick google this for sure works with Windows 11 as well.)
Yes that takes messing with the services on your computer, but given how user friendly the UI is it's fairly hard to screw it up.
@@Mojo_DK My guess would be that as long as you make sure the services for these things are disabled and not set to turn back on the moment the computer is restarted you should be able to get rid of most of the spyware. Failing that with some know how you can make a custom iso for installing Windows 11 that basically removes all the bloatware and spyware, or just use Ghost Spectre's custom install though as that is fully 3rd party there could be stuff hidden in the iso that we wouldn't know about so use Ghost Spectre at your own risk.
You can still block similar services on Win 11 as well but everything is moving in that direction. They may me more difficult to keep from getting turned back on but there's always a solution until Microsoft goes full 1984 on us which is going to happen sooner than later. I suspect at least the Home versions will eventually always be free and behave like stock Android on phones that can't get rooted.
@@paulbarclay4114 You could block the ip's/url's in windows 10. There is software like anti-beacon that does this in one swoop. I assume its not available as an option in window 11?
Yes it has. It's one of the reasons I switched over to Linux predominantly. I still have a windows install for software and hardware I still need to run, but generally use one Linux distro or another in day to day tasks.
How were you able to capture the network traffic on the first startup boot? Are you running wireshark on an appliance between the new computer and the router?
retired IT guy here. i've been out of the loop for a few decades. it's gotten to the point that i can't keep up with all the crap that's being thrown at me (us) by systems today. it never ceases to amaze me the amount of BS we are now forced to endure just to do simple tasks that were so much easier in the past. (back when a computer that i bought was actually mine and i was allowed to control it.)
You've just described the state of modern day living. Something that once worked well, was balanced, was easy to understand and did what it said on the tin has now been resigned to a shadow of its former self. IMO the Internet started it all, leading the 'modern world' into a civilization of people who sit in their houses and interact, communicate and consume through an RJ45 cable.
Haha over the last decades we've been told that it's unwise to reinvent the wheel in development
Maybe it's about time to do it all over again 😁
in my opinion its just part of the package to water down or simply extinguish the "i own this this thing or a copy of this software"
a few months ago i did a bit of work on an old laptop first for fun then just to see how far i can push it. if you are working in an office environment and old machine from 20 years ago is still perfectly usable and fit for purpose, do the things email the thing -> profit. The issue in this case is the "cloud" (aka someone else's computer), that can eat tons of resources on an older system for the simple reason that most of the stuff can be run in a browser window. another issue is the copious amount of java script that every website uses to make the experience smoother and friendlier, no issue there until you run out of resources.
personally i am glad the days of 110bps or 75/1200bps dialup are long gone. but it's just gotten ludicrous with (what seems like) all software moving to what they are calling a "subscription model" but i just call my monthly mugging. 😐
@@JohnLeePettimoreIII software monthly subscriptions??? What on earth are you paying for?
you should let this run for 24 hours... you'd be surprised how much more stuff is going on in windows 10 / 11.
the scheduled tasks are full of regular phoning home.
so? you agree to all of it when you install the software. If you don't agree, it won't install.
@@mrbubetube People like you is why these companies are getting away with this things more and more.
@@francescoberta Roasted
@@mrbubetube
It should be a crime for ANY thing of a computer to not be "Opt-In" WITH an "Opt-Out" option.
These companies shouldn't be allowed to steal data from us when we PAY FOR a product.
@@FelixUmbra you opt in as soon as you accept the terms of use agreement when you install Windows. If you don't agree to it, you don't have to install it.
Thank you for this video!!!
We have the Pi-hole use-case - which is essentially a home-owner maintained DNS server - which contains a database of online URLs which are classified as URLs to be blocked.
It does this by performing a query into database - for every URL call - and when it finds a match - it alters that given URL - essentially making it unusable.
But that logic could possibly be reversed?
In would instead simply block all URLs except those initiated by the user?
Is there a home-owner system of any kind - that is available to perform that function?
If such a system existed - wouldn't it prevent all of the spying functionality built into any OS?
Sincere thanks!
very interesting, but how do you prevent communication fpr said services? What data gets send over? Has during the windows installaion different feedbackoptions from windows and so on been disabled?
I love how it is now impossible to uninstall the Edge browser. It's so cool how it will eat up my memory and when I go to close the task it automatically disappears from the task manager, then it restarts after I close the task manager. These Microsoft products keep getting better and better!
Try suspending the task rather than ending it.
You can delete it using powershell
Don't even get me started on cortana. It uses ridiculous amounts of resources for something that should effectively do nothing unless you prompt it to
@@HadzabadZa you actually can't just like that nowadays
Hahahaaa
Would be interesting to see a comparison between Win11 out of the box (maybe after a reboot or two) and Win11 after being neutered by utilities that promise to disable most of the useless services (like O&O ShutUp10+)
@@Vercusgames this is completely false. Both systems perform within margin of error (with updated windows 11, not release win 11 with ryzen and intel cpu bugs) as evidence by literally every benchmark on youtube ever.
What is this O&O ShutUp10+?
Never heard of this program. Thank you.
@Vercusgames With Linus I assume you mean Linus Tech Tips? In that case, they're often wrong and mainly just an entertainment channel having fun with IT. There are much better channels out there if you want correct and useful advise.
I've been running Windows 10 and Windows 11, both from the very first technical preview. I've been running them on multiple machines, yet still a very low sample size.
It's very hard to say, this OS suffers from bla, bla, and this OS is the best out there... LTT even showed how bad they are at using Linux. Making stupid mistakes again and again, blaming the OS and not their own stupidity.
Linux requires that you have some technical knowledge or at least are willing to learn... Well, unless all you do is open the browser, then most distros would be fine.
I was personally very surprised with Windows 10, even during it's initial technical previews. After release I've been on and off the technical preview branch on my main PC, but I always kept at least one machine in preview.
Now all my machines are running Windows 11, and the only issues I've know with preview builds have been audio issues. My main PC is still running the release branch to be as stable as it can be, and I see no lag spikes, performance is great, and if you ignore the graphical changes and the new thread scheduler, it feels just like Windows 10.
But this is all just my luck... All my machines run Intel CPUs, say what you want about that, but in this case, it's to my benefit.
Windows 11 came with a new thread scheduler that supported Intel's new big-little (big-bigger if you ask Intel) design.
Many advancements are happening in the hardware industry, we're no longer just seeing higher clocks and more cores. This all puts a lot of strain on the operating systems thread scheduler/director, meaning it's hit or miss when you buy new hardware.
Just because someone is running Windows 11 without issues doesn't mean that the case is the same for you. And it also goes the other way...
@@TiroDvD A script that removes a lot of typically unwanted software and services from windows.
Just look it up, there's a list of changes it makes.
I started out as a loyal Microsoft user in the days of MS-DOS, but my migration to Linux and FOSS started in 2009 and my recent experiences with Windows 11 have convinced me that Microsoft has lost me as a customer forever. This video was the last nail in the coffin.
do not act like Linux is any better just because it does not spy you
Windows XP may not have that spyware stuff at the initial install but every "update" may add in bits of spyware as you use that system.
I used comodo firewall on a windows 11 computer and I couldn't understand why so many windows stuff were being blocked by it. At first I thought they were all false positive (and of course some were) but later I understood that was windows doing as always fishy stuff.
You should go into Settings then privacy then turn off the telemetry in there
Imagine paying $150 to Microsoft to get your Windows activated, but you still see those suspicious system stuff all over again
I miss the time where Windows actually give its users a true premium experience. No ads, no bloatware, and no suspicious system activities
@@sihamhamda47 Ikr? I seriously fucking miss Windows 7
@@kanjakan I did MSCA and E on windows 7 and absolutely wish it was still current. I still run a Server 2003 install that is isolated from the net for a file server.
@@bassjace Server 2003 is based on the XP codebase, why are you running an outdated, ineficcient and filled with RCE exploits SMB 1.0 file server? Unless you have some specific needs, a Linux Samba server will acomplish the same without all the security nightmares
Maybe compare Windows 10 LTSC. The truly strip down version of Windows and see what it is doing. I feel that Windows is pretty loud on ethernet when running, and if you try to block those connections using a firewall it breaks functionality in Windows. I wish they were more transparent on what each connection is really sharing. But there isn’t really another platform that has the software support that Windows has. So we are kind of stuck at the moment.
Look up "simplewall" (by Henry++) and "O&O ShutUp10" (by oo-software). Great tools that let you re-take ownership and control of your OS.
@@gabe_0x alternatively, you could just be the system administrator.
depends on your need, internet and googling?, use linux based OS
It's a chicken or the egg scenario. Linux is usable, and alternatives exist. If we invest time and money into privacy-respecting platforms, they'll flourish. Been using it for years.
Have you tried looking into Ghost Spectre? It's Windows with telemetry removed.
Would love to see a video on Mac OS telemetry next (if it's comparable).
So if Windows is set up to pass information about your machine even before you have had a chance to configure it how do you stop these requests? Do you set it off-line and then block these requests using Firewall or hosts file? Alternatively you might be able to set your router to block these unwanted requests for all machines on your network.
I think a very instructive anecdote is that I worry more about windows update bricking my machine than I do about malware. These days I think the impunity that "white hat" actors display in taking control of a pc that you are meant to own, is really no longer different to that of the hackers we are told to worry about. As the days go on I get more and more serious in assessing the alternatives to windows
do a debloat it will remove telemetry and free up tons of space
Im telling you, when SteamOS 3.0 for desktops is released, I am switching and never looking back.
what do you think about cubes OS? I'm not an IT pro but it sounds super secure 😁
@@jadedandbitter explain this
@@stereo-soulsoundsystem5070 The only reason I use Windows is video game compatibility. Every other program I need is available for linux. Steam OS 3.0 is a linux distro specifically built for compatibility of existing games, but which will also enjoy widespread future support as it is the OS of the Steamdeck. I.e. developers will ensure compatibility with the steamdeck for future releases, which means compatibility with Steam OS 3.0.
I'll be switching because it will be the point that I will no longer need Windows for the vidya-and that's the only reason I need Windows anymore, period.
I mean we all suspected that, but looking at deep analysis is very interesting
Problem is his deep analysis wasn't done properly. Most of the websites where he was going off about where from software that wasn't from a clean install, but programs like McAfee etc. who are added to laptops by manufacturers.
We also don't know what settings he used during install etc.
Can you do a MacOS video and a couple Linux ones with a view to figure out which Distro or flavour is safest? Thank for this by the way. What an eye opener.
Very good. Thank for helping us to see more what happens under the roof. This will not be useless.
I think an app that *genuinely* killed all these processes permanently without effecting any important stuff, might be very popular.
sorta O&O shutup10 right
quit using this s#it, use f.e linux
@@loggingbeans ''sorta 0&0 shutup10''
What in gods name does this mean?
@@vinnieg6161 it's a tool that removes most spy stuff from windows (yes, 0&0 shutup 10 is the actual name)
@@iamkneel517 Oooh now I get it thanks
I remember 20+ years on Windows Me we'd install something that showed a popup every time the computer was making a request to a new IP and we could allow/deny - effectively needing to whitelist every IP your PC could talk to manually. Cant imagine that even being possible now.
ummm... its called a firewall LMAO
@@n0rie9a yea it was a firewall. But the firewall that comes with windows wasn't as interactive.
simplewall does exactly what you described.
@@72pinkush thanks.ill look at getting that...🙏
comodo firewall had that function iirc
It would be interesting to take a look on the Windows 7 as well.
This is very interesting and not suprising at all. Would it be possible to also run these checks on MacOS and some popular linux distro's like the default ubuntu and fedora to see if they and what they may be collecting.
After watching this, would really like to see a tutorial with your take on how to setup a "clean" Win10 install with minimal inbuilt spyware
Install ntlite and make your own “clean” iso in comments earlier I wrote what I was able to remove and what not (almost everything exept edge and internet explorer)
@@DaxyGameryou can set only security updates with christitus tech toolkit
Windows IS the Spyware
Reminds me of the nLite tool during the Windows XP days.
@cooltexture yep, someone said to tinker with the windows iso, bro at that point just use linux
That's why we need to buy more powerful and expensive PCs, to give more info to companies we've never heard of.
I might be dumb, but some of those kinda make sense for the menu/status bar to display things like weather, calendar events, etc.
I think this is due to Microsoft edge by default runs in the background as a service now for quick launch. And edges default homepage is a mess of links to sites and cards. I would be interested to see what this looks like with just that one setting turned off so edge doesn't run in the background
It would be nice to see a comparison between completely clean installs from an ISO of the same build level (Home, Pro, Enterprise) and not a preconfigured laptop with bloatware on it. Not that Win 11 isn't spyware, but an apples to apples comparison.
Windows has been spyware since windows 8. They really ramped it up for win10. No doubt windows 11 is worse. I know a lot of technicians who still use win7 despite ongoing loss of support.
windows 11 is pretty much windows with integrated bloatware. so at the worst case it will just be bloatware on top of more bloatware, but since they made a deal with most bloatware provider, they got it shipped with the OS itself.
You can't compare apples to apples because mapple is a proprietary thing. I was trying to be funny. Lol
simple fact is that majority of users aren't installing from ISOs
@FredyR.S. It would be to test Windows itself, though. It doesn't matter if that's not how most users are installing it. If you want an accurate comparison between Windows versions, then comparing the ISOs is the way to go.
As some people already mentioned, would be cool to check other Windows versions, from Vista till 8.1.
Also, if possible, interesting to see same thing on MacOS and different Linux distributions!
Thanks for the video!
I’ve always wanted to see exactly this. Thx.
Thanks for video. 1/ How was this installation set up? Every fresh win install even preinstalled is asking how you want to proceed your data. 2/ Is there any way to get rid of it? (No I dont want Linux I need fully working allround system).
Thank you
Always been a fan of network analysis on Wireshark. It just points out everything that comes n goes through the network. Reminds me of the good old days as a teenager. I am looking forward to seeing the same analysis on macOS machines.
What were you doing in the good old days with Wireshark :D ? I got myself a small linux laptop and had lots of fun with messing packets up in my local network. Never stepped more than pranks on family though
@@____.__._.._ I was into cybersecurity and networking mostly. I remember using Backtrack Linux (Kali Linux now) to access all these network security tools. I had a wifi router with the WPS encryption key, and I used Wireshark and other tools for packet sniffing. I remember that I found out brute forcing was a much better approach :D
@@Behianoa yeah and then all of a sudden people started using those wpa psk. at least we managed to do sth before it become obsolete. now to get into some wifi I prefer social techniques tbh
I'd be real interested to learn what data is being sent, and also how this compares with the latest Mac OS.
You can. There's a diagnose data viewer app that you can install. It shows you the data that is being send and also the time it was being sent. However it takes 1GiB of disk space don't expect to understand it if you're not a programmer or someone who knows Windows to a deep level.
on macos you can get a 3rd party app called little snitch that can act as a gatekeeper , setting rules for what services want what websites which is highly effective, but apple may have a proprietary layer underneath you cant get to with whatever dark sh&t theyuse it for. I know that lenovos have a hardware add on made by the CCP. they can get on any lenovo anytime they want
@@J0nes111 Interesting. Do you know what kind of data they send?
A bunch of marketing research companies compile information that they can use to sell more stuff to people, that's pretty much it. Like Google Trends, but a lot more invasive.@@Tokuto-kun
Waiting...@@J0nes111
Im pretty sure Windows11 contacts msn, bing and gets your location because of the weather&news tray widget. msn & bing for the news, bing for the search bar (i think? it also searches online on bing), msn and location for the weather.
You can disable the weather widget on both 11 and 10 and it’ll stop doing the requests, or at least I think so, because when you re-enable it, it’ll be stuck on the weather of when you disabled it until you hit the refresh button when opening the widget
I think there should be greater transparency regarding what is monitored by them and what we could or could not turn off.
I bought a brand new laptop with windows 10, the moment I booted it up, it didn’t give me a choice, automatically gave me windows 11, refused to let me go back. I asked my local IT shop and they said they had zero idea how to reverse it and keep it reversed.
I hate it. I feel utterly powerless.
Just format it and fresh install windows 10
Thanks for this cool video! I'd like to see a similar video comparing the applications ("Programs and Features") and running services. And also to know what those odd-named things are doing, and what you can safely remove/kill.
Could you boot the machine for the first time without an internet connection, install a good firewall from disk, then plug it in and only allow what you wanted to get out via the firewall? Or would that be overwhelming?
I still remember the days when I could look at the case and tell if the system was doing something because the hard drive button was blinking red. If it was blinking too much while being idle, it was a sign something is wrong with your os. Nowadays, I still have one on my case, but it's constantly on. Not even blinking, it's red all the time. The amount of crap the os is doing while idling is mind blowing. Windows 8 and everything up won't even work properly without an ssd. Imagine that -the number of random, uncalled for shit your operating system is constantly doing is so large, that aprox 100 calls per second is not enough (that's the average of a hard drive btw)
The big question that you didn't address at all:
are those request from bloatware installed by the laptop vendor/manufacturer,
or are those request from MS?
Probably by the laptop manufacturer, I see no reason why McAfee would appear on the list otherwise.
I would like to see a test of Windows 11 Telemetry enabled vs. Telemetry disabled using O&O or similar tools. But also, I would like to see an accompanying detailed Task Manager list, because you had reference to DNS results which were not discovered through my own brief testing. Makes it difficult to ascertain what kind of Windows 11 environment/version you were using for the purpose of this video.
MSFT tried to bake telemetry into their Visual C++ compiler. So, every C++ program ever written with Visual Studio would phone home. Obviously, developers got angry. I'll bet you anything it's still phoning home even after O&O since they've likewise built these modules into the OS itself. Even if you remove the spyware, remember that the EULA gives them the right to update your OS without your explicit consent, which means they can (and have) re-enabled telemetry that was blocked or removed. They can entirely legally install backdoors, too.
@@Mavendow We have a good reason to be paranoid, but the integrated telemetry of Windows 10/11 has actually been very well documented by this point. I'm not too worried about the EULA because we can forcibly disable Windows Updates both with group policy, and by blocking the relevant addresses. No matter what MS encourages, the community loves to band together and make things tolerable for the more private and security conscious. When Windows 10 initially launched, MS used to re-enable telemetry aggressively with smaller updates in the past, but I have noticed recently that this bad practice has been stifled, though I doubt it will stay that way. Post-update I have a habit of re-running O&O along with a few custom PowerShell scripts + StevenBlack's host file, and I haven't detected anything too concerning for the past year. BTW check out Rectify 11. It's a very cool project that physically removes the telemetry from Windows 11 and also attempts to revamp UX theming so that it is more akin to the days of Windows XP.
This video just makes me even happier that last year I switched to Linux Mint. Though next problem is the software I have. Gotta try this out, maybe put an update here too.
They've been taking ten steps back with every OS since XP. Not only you have all that bloat, they constantly remove useful features, tools and options in updates or next windows versions - usually because said tools can be used to disable their crap.
This. This is exactly the reason why I want to smack the crap out of smoothbrains who try and tell me that "durr you should upgrade, why are you still running windows 7?"
Modern windows is definitely spyware... But I think it would be fair to segregate what comes from Microsoft and what comes from the manufacturer, as you mentioned it was a brand new Laptop and the OEM image is heavily bloated.
Like Apple doesn’t))
Yeah, a fresh, new and clean Windows installation would be better.
@@Max_G4 Not that much tho
exactly! the McAfee thing for example was most likely manufacturer bloat than Microsoft spyware, I would like to see the result tested again on a fresh install from an official iso
@@Mmmm_tea McAfee can't be bad though, you know Intel has 49% of the shares, right?
4:27 since the kernel for XP was released some time ago, I wonder if the community could create a fork that would modernize it, without all the spyware of today.
Its illegal
@@Galax2000 that’s stupid.
The closest we could ever have is ReactOS...
@@rubisetcie I really think that specific "project", it's roots (the ones leading it) was financed and organized by the same entities from Microsoft, to prevent a real clone from emerging anywhere. Just look at ReactOS: never advanced. fossil OS, never functional, eternal alpha; all it's important kernel API's lacks function bodies, just filled up with a "NOT_IMPLEMENTED" declaration or some other useless stuff like that. I think they do that same thing (creating and controlling their own "enemy", creating their own dissidence) about everything important.
but kernel development is pretty complex, hm kay
Is there a video that covers what we can do to minimize the amount of spying? Other than trial and error by blocking all this monitoring traffic through the firewall.
I thank you for this! Been contemplating Wiresharking W10 for a while now but felt the futility of it all. . Now all we need is a firewall template to block all this BS.
I’d love a video comparing a regular install with opting out of telemetry, using a strict firewall like SimpleWall, using a DNS sinkhole like PiHole and an app like O&O ShutUp 10++
I was thinking this too.
So many attempts at workarounds to Microsoft's BS when you could just install Linux.
@@bingusbongus1656 Stop preaching. Most people don't want Linux and it's not for everybody. Most Windows haters will rather use MacOS.
@@CelesteOnRUclips This is beyond preaching. I don't even like Linux, can't stand the command line BS, but it's still infinitely better than what windows have become. So I transitioned 12 of our family's machines to various flavors of Linux. No reason for the different ones, was more like I had no clue what to go with. All seem to work satisfactory. An immediate positive is way less ads all over the place.
@@CelesteOnRUclips Most people don't know enough about Linux to know if they want to use it or not. My wife was the same way, didn't want Linux at all. Then she started noticing Microsoft's and Google's BS a few years ago and asked if she could try Linux Mint (keep in mind she knows nothing about computers, much less Linux).
She has never gone back to Windows, uses Mint on a daily basis with zero issues.
"Most people don't want Linux", most people don't even know what Linux is
We need more of this kind of analysis brought to the public. Fantastic job, please keep up the work, I drop a like for this anyday! Love your content.
We absolutely do not need this kind of analysis. It's absolute rubbish. He's taken a laptop that's come installed with all the bloatware laptop vendors put on and attributed that to Windows 11 when it has nothing to do with Windows 11. If you did a clean bare install of Windows 11 McAfee wouldn't be listed in the connections for a start.
Can I add firewall rules or something to block these unwanted dns queries? Or is there an easy way to block them?
I would love to see this same test being done on systems like MacOS, and commen Linux distros. Maybie IOS and Android as well?
This is why when I reinstall Windows, I unplug my ethernet cable and do all the privacy and anti-telemetry settings first before going online again. Better than not doing it.
OR.. use NetBalancer and setup blocking telemetry, Microsoft, Windows update, etc. You can even block Russia and China nations if your into that.
Outstanding video. Techies have been calling Windows a piece of spyware for years and this really confirms it.
It was just a hidden Edge instance loading some lame news websites... Nothing about telemetry.
@@jik7864 are you just going to go from comment to comment and defend your infested OS? Seriously why do people not have better things to do 😂
My relative already said about Win 2k that it was spyware. Not sure what he meant by that as I was too young then to understand his reasons.
@@jik7864hidden web browser is very bloat
@@xhec Well to be frank I was about to ditch Windows 10 because it was real crap and switch to Linux, but Windows 11 arrived, and the interface is dope. Cannot say what happened to Microsoft for them to put tiles in the start menu.
I caught Steam, uploading system configuration, using Wireshark. It sometimes asks your permission to do so, but it doesn't have to, because it transmits your data regardless.
Can you compare it with Windows 10 LTSC Edition. In that edition, telemetry can be "fully" disabled or that what Microsoft say atleast.