If they want to keep government/corporate users that’s not going to happen.
Now that I’m thinking about it I should make a series of complaints against the practice to my representatives and consumer protection agencies as it’s basically locking me in to Microsoft cloud services
This is right attitude. If everyone would maintain it, there would be no situation, where all software users have taken hostages, for absurd cloud service dominance.
I'm not trying to offend anyone. This is not my goal. However, the reason, why the things have came that far, where it is all now, is because the main and primary target audience for MS Windows, is the domestic US citizen. The primary guinea pigs. And the vast majority US people do not give a sh*t about their security, nor rights, and do not even have a basic power user knowledge. Heck, most won't be able to install the apps themselves, or open them (W10/11 did make it even harder). Hence this is the source of all EULA BS, that MS pulls everywhere all over the world, except EU, because every governement and user on this planet is US/MS compliant by default.
So the ignorance and negligence of user base make the disservice to these very users. People feel comfortable, if the spyware is domestic, or for "safety reasons".
Online and XP/7 feels similarly nuts, perhaps you should read up on security a little bit. I'll take MS's keylogger over the one from a random nobody somewhere in Timbuktu, to be honest. I think you're just making your own life complicated that way for a false sense of security. Its totally counterproductive to be on ANY OS that is no longer kept up to date unless you keep it disconnected. You're basically advocating users trade in known security issues for unknown security issues. In what world is it better to not know attack vectors?
Man. You're an adult person. If you still is convinced that MS's keyloggers are that 'safer'.... MS Windows Defender and Firewall is a broken colander. It's as dangerous, as third party bottom line AV software. The worst part is Defender is perfectly fine with passing the dangerous and broken MS updates, and potentially hazardous UWS apps from Store, as much as other MS in-house ad and spyware.
Nothing personal, but MS and their services, Defender included, are even more intrusive and dangerous than third party antivirus software, like e.g. Kaspersky. Which I had absolutely no issues with. Very lightweight, strong firewall, easy to turn off if needed, the enormous proven/tested program/app database, to exclude the false positives, the open reports, and known virus database.
Defender on the other hand is a can of worms... literally. It's completely hampers and stops the execution of of any software, while it scans or updates. When it does which is unknown, because it lives it's own life, ignoring any rules and settings. The amount of false positives is staggering. It bans basically everything, and especially the software MS is not keen on. While the danger of Defender to "let in" is yeat very high, but no one would know, untill it's too late.
There's a lot of FUD with
"OMG you'll get hacked in seconds for running a 1-day out of date OS, but my updated W11 is immune to everything!". If you run W11 like that recent Youtube XP demonstration, ie, Windows Firewall intentionally disabled, all ports open, connected to the Internet "raw" like an old 56k analogue modem (not sitting behind a Router NAT & no router firewall), then that will be hacked in a day too. So too will half the worlds modern up to date IoT appliances connected to the Internet "raw". Likewise, "I run W11" doesn't automatically mean "up to date and secure" either, as almost half the people I know running it have disabled Windows updates at some point due to the Bullsh*t factor of Microsoft constantly shovelling more and more advertising / spyware or breaking something / locking down something else in each new build, as well as disabled Windows Defender due to the wall of false positives and exceptionally dishonest practise of falsely flagging non-hostile software as "viruses" simply because Microsoft doesn't "like" them (eg, Cheat Engine, ExplorerPatcher, StartAllBack and open-source KMS Windows / Office activators that
even Microsoft themselves have been caught telling customers to use).
"They're 'virus-less viruses' - mainly because we don't want you configuring your own PC anymore..."
There's also the psychological factor - someone still running an older 'insecure' OS is often likely to be more vigilant and disable Server service / SMB, switch Windows Firewall to a whitelist, etc. It's the casual W11 users who often get sucked into a complacent
"I'm running W11 and just updated so I have perfect security" whilst continuing to run Windows Firewall in default blacklist-only mode that happily lets anything and everything make outgoing connections, sit there with Remote Desktop Configuration, Remote Desktop Services, Remote Desktop Services UserMode Port Redirector, Remote Registry, Secondary Login, etc, services all still enabled by default on their 'secure' OS...
Windows is "fast food" of OS. The most users are lazy, ignorant and egoistic. AI and MS politics fit this pattern very well. People do not want to do many things for themselves, and rely on various services and devices. Thinking for themselves included. So they better rely on the "professionals" to do something for them.
Very fair point. To counter, one might argue, with a reasonable level of merit, that one of the reasons people have switched is due to the unreasonable hoops and nonsense imposed on PC's by microsoft's moronic requirements. It's almost as if microsoft has been taken over by a bunch of visionless tree-swinging poo-flingers who themselves can't see the forest for the trees.
Again, fair point.
The MS and other companies, were taken over by selfish, sociopathic morons decades ago. This is just the back end of the wave, that is just only now reaching the shore.
I've been using a MS account on 11 for a long time but it nearly screwed me over last month when I upgraded my desktop from X570 to X670E. Upgrade went fine and Windows booted to the password screen but here is where it almost screwed me over.
Because this was a large change I couldn't sign in with a pin or fingerprint which is understandable but here is the really stupid part, I couldn't even sign in using my password as there was no option to!. Windows wanted to verify my account online only, normally this wouldn't be a problem but being all new hardware it didnt have the driver for the ethernet and of course I can't login to fix that.
Just glad Windows had a driver for the WiFi because if it didn't I would have been locked out until I found a way to get the internet working. What stupid decision was this at MS that I need to verify my account online. I had a proper password to login so this ridiculous issue should never have occurred.
Great, that you've got things sorted out. And this is considering the HW manufacturers advertising their HW W11 'certified'. This is 'fools" tick box.
The other side of such described issue, is that it may be a case of BitLocker to lock all the user data completely, due to login error. And not only that. I've been transfering all my data from two drives to another, and the windows has locked all my data from one drive by previliges, while completely wiping the other, entire logical partition worth of data, after copying being 'successfuly complete'.
Calm down. It's an awful OS for anyone who does not have a PHD in computer science. That's basically it. End of.
I think it's great it exists, but it's not for me, and it's not for 95% of home computer users either. Its market share proves me right.
To be honest, people always complained about linux is too complicated, and needs to do everything manually. But it's hard to believe, how the tables have turned. After "experiencing" W10, it's hard to imagine the amount of labour, pain and extremely overcomplicated stuff, just in order to make the Windows ready for work. I do not know, what kool aid people drink while praising W10/11 over W7. But when W7 was installed, it was ready to go out of the box, with exception of some drivers required to be manually installed, and it was so snappy and fast. Now, it's ungodly amount of efforts, just to make the OS being "clean" fresh install, not the advertising/spyware utility.
On the other hand, I had to use the GParted, and Linux Mint. And what a surprise, it works flawlessly, even as a live USB from a micro-SD flash drive. Though, I didn't go that far as installing the games, but everything else was blistering fast.
Also, people put linux into culprit role, but this is the software corporations like Adobe, Autodesk, etc, including the "anti-piracy/anticheat" software, that are both lazy to work their path towards the linux community, and also, most likely take the bags of "incentives' from MS in order to stay within the "established" userbase and ecosystem. These are real culprit and villain here, because:
1 linux community is free, and open source oriented, and they won't pay bribes, in order to pursuade the companies publish their software for linux, let alone, give the code into wide open repositories.
2 Companies are not going to distribute their products for free. This is perhaps the most significant point, that prevents the Linux adoption for professional use. Unless it's RHL, but even then, there's no real intentions to fill that gap even among the paid corporate linux environment.
So untill those giants would show their will to spread their products to OSes other than Windows, there's no way to improve Linux adoption. And this is beyond the power, or sheer will of users, and thus is not their guilt, nor the guilt of Linux community. The companies should make the first move.