[XabbaRus]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

One thing is sure: what we know about Windows 10 is dwarfed by what we don't know. I just read a summary of all the anti-privacy features which continue to operate after all the privacy features are turned off that are able to in the Windows options. You know, the ones you bypassed when you selected an automatic install. Every single privacy invading option is ENABLED BY DEFAULT. Microsoft is not your friend.

One VERY DISTURBING issue is that Microsoft has redefined a central article of trust in any software you install on your system: that menus are intended to make it easy to do things you want and not use things you don't want to use.

The method of turning off the cell phone app Windows Edge (my computer will NEVER be a cell phone no matter what Microsoft decides) is downright perverse. At one point in the nerfing of this terrible browser (just IE in cell phone clothing, not a new browser at all) you want to set Firefox as your default browser, for instance.

First of all when installing Firefox or Chrome they pop up a dialog box and say "Hey, want to make this your default browser?" Select yes and you're off to the races!!!!.......not. Microsoft has made that impossible. You're going to use their browser......dammmit! Or else. Next option.

Delving deep into the totally irritating charms hell we finally get into changing the default browser. Remember I told you about the repurposing of menu trees? Now, menu trees are for the purpose of tricking or intimidating you into doing things THEIR way, not yours. During the selection labyrnith you are confronted with a menu where the only choice you have is Windows Edge or bail out you fool. In order to get the selection process for desired default browser you MUST SELECT EDGE, the browser YOU DON'T WANT! The menu is for the purpose of intimidating you into giving up your quest to control your own computer.

Similar things happen when you want to boot a CD/DVD, with incomprehensible acronyms, red herring options, absolutely opaque procedures calculated to intimidate you from even trying to boot that CD/DVD. The exact thing happened when my brother bought a Windows 8 computer and transplanted the hard drive from his old laptop: just a comedy of Microsoft intimidation. Try getting into the BIOS. Sure it's possible, but by going through the Charms obstacle course of hell and deception.

If you have a great product, intimidation and flim flammery aren't necessary. People seek out and preferentially use your product without coercion. Customers voluntarily pay you money with a smile and then brag to all their friends about how great you and your product are. Since Microsoft thinks trickery and coercion are necessary this is evidence that bad things are happening which could harm us and which Microsoft does not want us to know about.

I recommend waiting at least six months for investigators to out the REST of the "features" that we don't know about and need to get rid of to avoid the operating system that is Facebook without the human face. I won't even talk about the "start menu" which is no start menu but merely a platform for crass monetization.

Even then, if it is possible to completely defang Windows and replace the bogus start menu with a real one, consider what you do when you use a product. Every download tells Microsoft "I want MORE of this!" What you buy or adopt you get more of. If you endorse their malware/monetization "operating system as Facebook" they will double down. You think they removed the ability not to download certain updates as a way to protect you? NO! It's because they redefined what an update is and now an update is to introduce further monetization features, to find those you've successfully circumvented and reactivate them, to disconnect your browser and reinstitute Edge, to remove your ownership from your hardware. It all started with the "install Windows 10" icon on your taskber, a piece of malware which reinstalls itself if you remove it. The methods of eradication are beyond the means of better than 90% of users. This is reprehensible and was a telegraphing of the true nature of Windows 10 itself. Update as malware. I glare in Microsoft's general direction. Shame on them but they are far too stupid to be ashamed.

I spend a lot of time eliminating malware. Now the operating system IS the malware. Time to sit on the sidelines for awhile and see if Microsoft grows a brain. Legitimate profits come from respecting and meeting the wants and needs of Customers. Microsoft has forgotten how to do that. They've decided it's better to have victims than Customers.

@steed Comodo Firewall bit the big one for performance because it's now infested with malware, a program supposed to eliminate malware which is malware itself mining you for sellable information. That slowed the program down and privacy groups have written Comodo off their list of legitimate vendors.

OK I replied in another thread to this but to repeat myself, Firefox is not stopped from being selected as the default browser. I installed it, selected it as my default and away I go. Not once has Windows 10 tried to stop it. As for Edge, easy to disable along with all the other stuff. I get you don't like it, fair enough. Then use Linux or get a Mac. Edge is a new browser, and in my opinion it sucks.