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A PR disaster: Microsoft has lost trust with its users, and Windows Recall is the straw that broke the camel's back (www.windowscentral.com)

submitted 5 months ago by lemmee_in@lemm.ee to c/technology@lemmy.world

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It's a nightmare scenario for Microsoft. The headlining feature of its new Copilot+ PC initiative, which is supposed to drive millions of PC sales over the next couple of years, is under significant fire for being what many say is a major breach of privacy and security on Windows. That feature in question is Windows Recall, a new AI tool designed to remember everything you do on Windows. The feature that we never asked and never wanted it.

Microsoft, has done a lot to degrade the Windows user experience over the last few years. Everything from obtrusive advertisements to full-screen popups, ignoring app defaults, forcing a Microsoft Account, and more have eroded the trust relationship between Windows users and Microsoft.

It's no surprise that users are already assuming that Microsoft will eventually end up collecting that data and using it to shape advertisements for you. That really would be a huge invasion of privacy, and people fully expect Microsoft to do it, and it's those bad Windows practices that have led people to this conclusion.

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[–] areyouevenreal@lemm.ee 23 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I wouldn't go for Ubuntu. They are also run by a corporation that has done problematic things with the project. It also just doesn't work that well anymore. Better off going for something Debian or Fedora based, or even an Ubuntu derivative like Pop OS.

[–] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 16 points 5 months ago (4 children)

Isn't Ubuntu Debian based? Or is that no longer the case? I haven't used it for about a decade.

[–] rtxn@lemmy.world 29 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

It's Debian-based, but Canonical has been really Microsofty about its development. They now have Snap as a universal packaging format, and have mandated that all official Ubuntu flavors (so X/K/Lubuntu and others, but not derivatives like Mint) must include Snap, and must not include Flatpak in the default installation. They've also fucked with APT where installing certain packages, like Firefox, would first install Snap and then the application's Snap package, without even telling the user. They've had some controversy with Amazon ads in the search results, and advertising Ubuntu Pro in the fucking terminal. The default GNOME desktop also has a ton of issues.

I, and many others, recommend against Ubuntu. Linux Mint is the most commonly recommended "just works" distro. That being said, switching to Ubuntu, if able, is still preferable to staying on Windows.

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I agree most of this is fucked up, though I don't know what search results you mean. Also, I always find it funny that people refer to the Ubuntu pro thing as "ads". Yes it technically is, but it is a fuck ton less shitty than what we've come to know as ads in literally every other context. It's literally a couple lines of text about packages you can get premium updates and support for

[–] kurcatovium@lemm.ee 7 points 5 months ago

IIRC: about decade ago Ubuntu (still with its own Unity DE) processed system search in a way it shoveled amazon ads to users in first places. Or something lime that.

[–] rtxn@lemmy.world 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

The Unity desktop's search would display Amazon ads based on the query. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu#Conformity_with_European_data_privacy_law

It's like the "nazi bar" anecdote. It always starts small. You let in a bit of ads, a bit of self-promotion, then the revenue reaches a plateau. You let in a little more ads, maybe a pop-up saying that you could be more secure. Then a few years later you have a Recall situation. If you let one nazi drink at your bar, he'll bring his friends, and you'll be running a nazi bar.

I don't trust Canonical to act with integrity.

[–] wolf_2202@sh.itjust.works 7 points 5 months ago

It’s debian-based, but such an outlier from the rest of the linux ecosystem that it might as well be its own beast.

[–] zbb@lemmy.ml 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Yes, it is, although there are many differences between both.

Many suggest Linux Mint (one of the best regarded beginner distro) as well, which has two versions, one based on Ubuntu and the other on Debian.

So, the three are like Debian's most popular branch.

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago

Yes, always has been to my knowledge

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Pop os is fantastic

[–] areyouevenreal@lemm.ee 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It varies. I struggle with its interface personally. I also had to force it to switch to Wayland to get some things working reliably. The hybrid graphics mode has issues too using the GPU when it doesn't need to. Other than that it works reasonably well out of the box, though you still occasionally have to deal with headaches from apt. A lot of the issues will hopefully be fixed when the cosmic desktop is ready. Some more can be fixed if they end up going immutable, which I believe they are working on right now. The Ubuntu version is also kinda old.

Personally I would rather be on NixOS or Fedora right now, or UBlue's Aurora. I am probably not a good candidate to be running something like Pop OS though. I am too experienced and my needs and wants are too complex for the poor thing.

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I am sure you're right about at least most of this but I will say my experience hasn't been very troublesome. Other than a driver issue I had after an update 2 years ago, I haven't had much trouble. Since I switched to an amd GPU especially, since gaming is much smoother. I had a lot worse issues when I used Elementary OS. Stuff broke a ton. For example, I had a weird graphical issue in Firefox for months.

[–] areyouevenreal@lemm.ee 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Elementary OS probably isn't what I want either.

Are you talking about a desktop? I am on a laptop with Intel iGPU and Nvidia dGPU. The battery life in Windows isn't great, but it actually seems worse in Pop OS. I did actually catching it using the dGPU when it shouldn't be. Obviously Nvidia doesn't help things, and I am glad it works as well as it does. Still it's kind of sad. I might buy a second laptop just so I can have battery life that isn't horrible.

Cosmic desktop from my understanding will have a better implementation of the hybrid graphics mode to stop this nonsense.

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, desktops. I do think though that the Intel/Nvidia combo you have makes Linux in general a bit tougher than any setup more Linux friendly than that.

[–] areyouevenreal@lemm.ee 1 points 5 months ago

Very common setup sadly, actually the second laptop I have had like this. I can't imagine AMD + Nvidia is much better though, as Intel graphics has great support on Linux. KDE was probably a better bet, and I would have to change distro to get KDE 6.