How to Disable Windows 10 Spying

[clifford_cooley]

I just do not believe any of these apps actually do anything but offer a false sense of security.

I with you on this, and believes it only opens the door for yet another company to snoop.

 

[davehc]

I should stay out of this thread, I think. I don't use any of them. I have restricted certain items through the firewall, which, for me, is sufficient. Anyone who wants data (that is available) on my computer, are welcome. Passwords: pincode, s etc, are kept separately

 

[Bif]

I should stay out of this thread, I think. I don't use any of them. I have restricted certain items through the firewall, which, for me, is sufficient. Anyone who wants data (that is available) on my computer, are welcome. Passwords: pincode, s etc, are kept separately

I agree davehc...it's nothing but a false sense of privacy..there is no such thing as privacy on modern PCs or the web..I use one of the programs for nothing else but to trick my brain into thinking otherwise.

 

[Gideon]

I have stopped even trying to do this. It is a waste of time. There are other people that gather info on everyone that is a threat. MS does it to improve their product, I think.

 

[buffy]

Your exactly right, it doesn't just have to be MS, there are many ways to spy on people out there. So this sight could be never ending. So just consider this a solved issue.

 

[clifford_cooley]

But we shouldn't have to worry about it from an OS level.

 

[Regedit32]

Why not send your Windows to North Korea to disable spy?

O¿—

 

[Bob Smiley]

Maybe true, I just read an article on another site that said MS was going to do this..I just do not believe any of these apps actually do anything but offer a false sense of security.

Keep in mind that whatever Microsoft does is not only for advertising and other things (which BTW google, apple, yahoo, and everyone else does too, so Microsoft is actually playing catch-up on this one), but also to make the user experience better. So you don't want to limit everything.

But I agree about the false sense of security. Unless you're already monitoring your outbound traffic using a traffic analyzer on your firewall or router, you don't know whether these changes actually do anything, or what data continues to be sent. And such a device could help you see across all apps and vendors, not just Microsoft. And while you're at it, why not stop it at the network level instead of the PC level? That would prevent all your devices, whether Microsoft computers, phones, tablets, etc.

Waiting for Microsoft is like trusting the wolf to regulate other wolves when it comes to watching sheep. They'll provide something, for marketing and customer satisfaction purposes, but you'll have the same problem of not knowing whether they are respecting your options (or if they even provide options for all of the data points they gather) without an external check-and-balance of some sort, which the firewall traffic analyzer would provide.

 

[Gideon]

I would trust MS over any of these applications unless I blocked them myself They can be blocking them from MS and sending them elsewhere. Trust no one on The NeT.

 

[Data]

Spybot Anti-Beacon is my goto tool, it has the basic functions necessary.

However where it comes to group policy tweaks, I prefer to apply them manually.
I'm not sure if the bug is on Windows or Spybot or if it works as intended, but I find this not to be desired behaviour or perhaps the other option is I'm the only one that has this issue.

So the issue is on any group policy Spybot-Anti-Beacon sets, when you open the Group Policy Editor and navigate to the setting, you find that its not actually enabled.

Clearly, Spybot sets these policies via registry for compatiblitity with Home version, I would expect none-the-less the switch to be flipped in Group Policy Editor as well..

 

[Data]

AH yes, I remember now why I posted here and was sidetracked by something else.

There is another tool, used for working virtual images, but also works on live systems.
It has a staggering amount of options, so not for the faint of heart.

Goto https://labs.vmware.com/flings/vmware-os-optimization-tool
https://labs.vmware.com/flings/vmware-os-optimization-tool

The VMware OS Optimization Tool helps optimize Windows 7/8/2008/2012/10 systems for use with VMware Horizon View. The optimization tool includes customizable templates to enable or disable Windows system services and features, per VMware recommendations and best practices, across multiple systems. Since most Windows system services are enabled by default, the optimization tool can be used to easily disable unnecessary services and features to improve performance.

https://labs.vmware.com/flings/vmware-os-optimization-tool