Unfortunate. Luckily, Windows itself can be removed.
It's incredible how much Microsoft is resting on their laurels in terms of seeing Windows as insurmountable and so consumers must take whatever Microsoft decide to dish out. I would have been totally resigned to this fact a decade ago, but middle-school+ kids these days don't use Windows - they use Chromebooks. A huge minority of them use iPhones. Familiarity with Windows systems isn't a given anymore in the university courses my friends teach.
When these kids grow up and get to make procurement decisions, are they going to be as tolerant as today's staff of whatever overreach Microsoft is going to try with Windows in the future, or are they - and their peers - going to be much more accepting of non-Windows solutions? I think they'll be much more accepting, especially given how much is done in a browser today anyway.
MS will obviously survive, and Windows will of course remain dominant for the foreseeable future but I can't help but feel that if/when the tipping point for the end of Windows' dominance comes, it will all be seen retrospectively as so preventable, because it is.
> It's incredible how much Microsoft is resting on their laurels in terms of seeing Windows as insurmountable and so consumers must take whatever Microsoft decide to dish out.
Well no, they actually believe people want this. Microsoft strongly believe in "Data Driven Everything". Of course here in Europe we look very different at this due to privacy concerns. But trying to explain that to the MS consultants I work with is difficult. They're very much part of the cult of telemetry on everything and AI as the cherry on top.
They view deep analysis and reporting as their added value. Like those stupid office insight emails that tell you you didn't have enough speaking time in meetings or that you need to use @mention in teams more. They actually think companies and employees value that shit.
I've challenged them on this several times saying if they think people love it so much, why do you make it so hard to turn off? But they think it's just a matter of 'adoption' and users will love it once they get to know it. Their 'adoption' strategy is mainly marketing evangelisation crap that we're supposed to send out to the users.
I find it very weird to see how so many people can be so out of touch with reality. But I guess in the US they look at privacy very differently.
I also find it funny (in a sad way) how Microsoft pushes telemetry so hard. Yet they have the buggiest most unusable software. All that data clearly isn't making their products better.
People want Microsoft Word but that can be uninstalled. In fact they generally make you pay for it. If people wanted Recall, Microsoft would be making people buy it, not trying to force people to have it.
Microsoft is in the process of jumping the shark. I'm sure it could be argued that Windows Vista was when they jumped the shark, or a dozen other times in the past. But it's Windows 11 or whatever they are cooking up right now that has them jumping the shark. I'm a die-hard Windows fan. After the Amiga was discontinued, I went to Windows and dug in.
Now I'm moving to Linux. All of my many computers and even more virtual machines are migrating from various versions of Windows over to Mint Linux. I've been developing software that runs on Linux for a while, so I'm familiar with it but haven't used it as my main OS yet.
Windows is going to end up as a front-end for Microsoft AI, which will likely be something like Clippy but with its own opinions and it will automagically try to do stuff for you that you don't want or need it to do. I can see this going wrong in so many ways. "I reorganized all your files for you!"
I didn't say that the alternatives didn't have their own issues with vendor overreach, it's that the reaction you can imagine from staff in an average organisation now if you said "We're moving from Windows to [some other OS]" today is almost certainly going to be very different from the same announcement to an average organisation 20 years in the future.
Lots of people got tricked on their iPhones after installing ransomware apps on them from the app store.
They couldn't figure out how to exit the app (you had to open the shutdown dialog via long press on power) and went on to pay after getting a scary warning/full screen hijack
Been a while since I read about this though, not sure how frequently it happens currently
The ability to freely run software has its risks, no doubt. But switching to what are effectively terminals centrally managed by big corporations sounds quite dystopian to me.
> When these kids grow up and get to make procurement decisions, are they going to be as tolerant as today's staff of whatever overreach Microsoft is going to try with Windows in the future, or are they - and their peers - going to be much more accepting of non-Windows solutions?
Management will make those decisions and choose Windows because of the surveillance features built into it.
I'd say yes. Especially since cross platform support is becoming more of an expectation and the tooling is starting to enable that out of the box. It's definitely something I consider when picking a language and a framework. That's genuinely one of the biggest hurdles here, software availability. Picking Linux, Mac, Android and Chrome is getting a lot more common
I was inclined to disagree with you initially since groupthink is the default corporate mode, and I don't see free thinkers doing well in these environments - but then reflected on my own stance on MS and the reason I don't absolutely shun them is because of childhood nostalgia.
Maybe you're on to something. I just wish they'd replace it with Linux.
Windows+Micro$oft still seems to be the default for big installations, like tens of machines on a LAN needing centralized authentication. What is the state of Mac/Apple for this ? Can it be done ? Can MS be banished from the premises, perhaps traded for a Linux server here & there ?
I don't know about Apple. But Chromebooks have this central authentication and management.
But really, 90% of companies don't need central authentication/Active Directory at all. They just do it because everyone else does it like that. Most admins don't know how to manage AD properly and how to nail everything down so you don't get owned.
Macs work well in enterprise and get better with each major release. If you’re referring to a completely air gapped lab environment, then not so much; most of the management functions are designed around having outbound internet access.
I think Mac’s would be totally fine, albeit a higher hardware cost. You might actually find Mac’s to be better. My macOS machines have far better (continuous) uptime than windows.
I’d say there is a stigma around Linux in North America, if I went into a shop and every machine was running Linux I’d either think they are dirt poor or some kind of underground Russian secret service operation. It just isn’t seen.
Wow. I pasted my question into the free Claude, and it spit out a long answer but then wiped it and told me that it had hit constraints and I should upgrade to Pro. WTH. Phooey.
Microsoft shenanigans is the reason I switched recently to a Chromebook (Acer 516 GE 16GB - bought for £400 on EBay) and with minor exceptions it's been really easy.
I am a .NET dev who needs to remote into work via Citrix. I work locally on my own .NET stuff in JetBrains Rider and I can do it on the Chromebook now.
It's not perfect but, damn, it's really close: After installing the Linux Dev Environment I have all the tools I need.
The only issue is that sometimes when I open Rider, the font sizing is off - sometimes it's small, other times it's large. But Ctrl + MouseWheel takes care of it. Once or twice I had to restart the linux VM (right click, Close Linux and it's done) but that's it.
Anyway, the point is that nowadays there is becoming less and less reason to stay on Windows and I think Microsoft knows this too, hence trying to lock you into their ecosystem as much as possible and trying to dangle things in front of you to keep your attention.
But who would have thought that for £400 I can run all my .NET stuff on a Chromebook. Not only that, I switched from a 14700K on Windows to a 1260p running ChromeOS and coding/compiling is just as fast. It's nuts.
I had to replace an aeging Windows laptop recently, and MS (and to a lesser extent Apple) going all-in on this kind of AI boondoggle finally gave me the shove I needed to go Linux-only (not dual booting as I'd done in the past, or WSL as I've been doing more recently). Framework made the landing soft, and I'm really excited to never look back. I wish this were a more accessible path for non-tech people.
> I wish this were a more accessible path for non-tech people.
It should be forbidden to ship PCs with Windows preinstalled, unless the user made it a conscious purchase decision (and offered to choose between several options). I suspect fewer and fewer users would be willing to fork hundreds of bucks for something that's objectively terrible (and only getting worse), tech literacy would only improve as a result.
But then you can bet Microsoft lobbying won't let that happen.
> It should be forbidden to ship PCs with Windows preinstalled, unless the user made it a conscious purchase decision (and offered to choose between several options).
I don't know where you're buying PCs but where I'm from there is always an option to buy the PC with FreeDOS at a discount of about ~$20-30 compared to the Windows version. Lately, I also see an increase in Ubuntu computers.
> But then you can bet Microsoft lobbying won't let that happen.
I feel "MSFT lobbying" isn't charitable at all to what MSFT and their devs have achieved. You have to give credit where it's due. MSFT have spent a lot of time, effort and dev years ensuring that their customers can run their software without breakage and downtime. This is a non-trivial aspect that most people who don't use Windows often dismiss. MSFT have made themselves the standard platform because of their broad support. This is no mean feat. Canonical has tried for almost 20 years at this point and have barely made a dent with Ubuntu.
> I don't know where you're buying PCs but where I'm from there is always an option to buy the PC with FreeDOS at a discount of about ~$20-30 compared to the Windows version. Lately, I also see an increase in Ubuntu computers.
I'm not from there, it seems. The best you can do here is build your own PC, or go with a distributor (typically Dell/Lenovo) whose configuration allows opting-out of buying an OS. Needless to say that it's not a mainstream purchasing behaviour.
> MSFT have spent a lot of time, effort and dev years ensuring that their customers can run their software without breakage and downtime.
That wasn't my point at all. It was to stress how the ludicrous track-record of Microsoft anticompetitive practices, establishing and sustaining a decades-long monopoly, barred non-expert and non-enthusiasts from experiencing (possibly favourable) alternatives.
> It was to stress how the ludicrous track-record of Microsoft anticompetitive practices, establishing and sustaining a decades-long monopoly, barred non-expert and non-enthusiasts from experiencing (possibly favourable) alternatives.
My point served to counter this very statement.
There are alternatives (Linux, macOS, FreeBSD etc. etc.) but none are favorable like you say. A big part of why this is the excellent job that MSFT did as a technical force looking to consolidate Windows as the OS standard all those years ago. The efforts taken by them to ensure broad based application support and customer research and support on Windows has contributed to the continued perpetuation of their monopoly. Were they ever the most technically advanced option? No. Is any of their software products absolutely perfect and without deficiencies? Also no. And yet they are possible the leading software company in the world. This is NOT solely due to their anticompetitive practices. Saying so is a form of denial about the true state of things.
I gave Canonical and Ubuntu as an example of someone else who has tried to step in the breach and failed to force out MSFT as an alternative for non-experts and non-enthusiasts. Ubuntu and the FOSS community are many things but friendly to beginners and non-technical people is not one of them. There have been tremendous advances in the past decade but we're nowhere close to this being the Year of the Linux Desktop. The bottom line is that mainstream (i.e. non-technical and non-enthusiast) consumers will choose to put their money where they get the best value and that remains MSFT and Windows.
> MSFT have spent a lot of time, effort and dev years ensuring that their customers can run their software without breakage and downtime
I don’t know about that, but they have spent a lot of hours making sure you can run .exe’s from 30 years back, which is wildly valuable to slow-moving corporations.
> I don’t know about that, but they have spent a lot of hours making sure you can run .exe’s from 30 years back, which is wildly valuable to slow-moving corporations.
Which ones? There are tools like dosbox to get old DOS programs running again.
When the first Asus Eee laptops came out they had Linux installed. They later also did Windows XP versions.
This was the first (and probably only) time you could find Linux machines in most mainstream computer stores. The Linux version was better than XP in every way you can measure: cheaper, faster, easier (more optimized for those 7" screens). And these "netbooks" were just intended for browsing the net, so it doesn't matter all that much which system you run.
I worked at a computer store at the time, and the Linux machines sold poorly. People wanted Windows, because that's what they're used to. Consumers are very price-sensitive, but many opted to pay more.
All of this was a long time ago, but I doubt it would be very different today. Microsoft really doesn't need a "lobby" to keep the majority of machines Windows by default. People want what they're used to, because that's what's working for them. why do you think there is so much complaining every time Gnome or Firefox changes something?
> People wanted Windows, because that's what they're used to.
which is exactly what I'm talking about, that's the force that keeps competition inexistent: there can't be exposure to alternatives if the alternatives are not given equal visibility.
Now, let's repeat what Asus did by making it into the law that resellers must offer 3/4 OS alternatives, and let's wait out a few more terrible Windows releases to see if a trend emerges.
> People want what they're used to, because that's what's working for them.
Understandable, but in practice Microsoft keeps breaking this deal with end-user having no say in the matter (did people overwhelmingly ask for gaming ads and XBox uninstallable links in W7? tiles in W8? Dumbed-down settings in W10? Bullshit AI in W11? …). Now compare this to running a regular upgradeable (or even rolling) linux distro, which one do you think offers the least disruption on the longer run?
Is that not consistent with how Microsoft always introduced its "features"? Especially all the crap that came since Windows 10/11.
First you could still create a local account after there was backlash against cloud-everything, nowadays a local only Windows is quite complex to set up.
The Cortana/search bar stuff was also regularly re-enabled or parts of it made non-configurable, with them only occasionally backtracking. Not to speak of the ads that are included nowadays.
Their strategy generally seems to be boiling the frog when it comes to pushing these features onto the users, whether they want it or not.
You can still install Windows 11 without a Microsoft account.
It requires configuring the installation before you boot from the USB stick.
I use https://rufus.ie/en/ when creating bootable USB sticks, and it turns out that this tool detects when you're trying to create a Windows installation medium, and prompts with a list of useful customizations, including "Remove requirement for online Microsoft account". (if you look through the screenshots on the webpage, there's one with the Windows customization dialog box)
I've used this many times myself and it works great.
However, as I mentioned below, I read something recently that says local account options are being removed in an upcoming version (I can't find the article now).
I presume it means the binaries are being removed from the ISO so this may no longer work (except for Enterprise and LTSC I'd imagine).
Although this is still true for AD environments, Microsoft has been pushing Entra ( or whatever they call it these days ) hard and would prefer for that to no longer be the case. It's also been getting harder to actually run on-prem AD at a reasonable price point per user.
Effectively, expect even enterprise to be online first with an escape hatch for those customers that need it, obviously only available on E5 or something like that...
You can also do shift+F10 when a windows install is starting up, then type in `OOBE\BYPASSNRO`. That reboots and allows you to continue without internet and only setting up a local account without needing an online one. Wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft removes this eventually but I do this all the time when setting up new stations for my job.
I read recently somewhere that this has been removed in the latest (alpha?) build now... their intention is clear: this install belongs to Microsoft, not you!
same thing with the Edge browser for me, i have to remove on every update (he has so much telemetry that is a burden, same with other parts of the SO). This is a testament on the philosophy change between all those years, i used so much win95/98/xp that i loved, the times were so simple...
Just like Microsoft told congress that Internet Explorer couldn’t be uninstalled from Windows 98, even though it didn’t come preinstalled with Windows 95.
System requirements for Recall
Your PC needs the following minimum system requirements for Recall:
A Copilot+ PC
16 GB RAM
8 logical processors
256 GB storage capacity
To enable Recall, you’ll need at least 50 GB of storage space free
Saving screenshots automatically pauses once the device has less than 25 GB of storage space
So as long as you never buy a processor with a Copilot+ sticker on the box, I guess you don't have to worry about this?
doing this would destroy your file system performance (almost as much as using Windows). SSDs are much faster when not close to full since it let's them do things like use the unfilled capacity as an SLC write cache.
it depends what you mean. Pretty much no one cares about sequential speeds (unless you are copying 10s of gb it doesn't matter). OTOH, the latency of random 4k reads and writes matters a ton. Any time cached data is read/written (e.g. cookies/ UI settings etc), there are going to be a bunch of tiny disk operations will be performed.
National Defense runs almost entirely on Windows workstations, including "high-side" or classified networks.
I can't imagine the powers that be are too thrilled with this feature, and much like the Intel TPM High Assurance bit, I bet there's an undocumented way to remove it.
Give it time. I suspect step 1 is "don't worry, it's on your device." Step 2 will be "now it's in the cloud so you don't have to lose your Recall if you lose your computer."
They've got their own version of Windows and licensing. They're not running Windows 10 Home lol. They've got their own LTSC type thing. DoD works directly with Microsoft. None of this applies to them.
I have worked in National Defense, held a security clearance, etc. and can confidently say you are mistaken.
Microsoft is not maintaining a separate build of Windows for DoD. They may have bespoke licensing agreements and support contracts, but military and DoD workstations run regular windows.
They are, however, maintaining a separate cloud, and parent is not mistaken; windows professional running under group policies is a different animal than windows home
>> Subscriptions in the GCC High and DoD environments include the core Exchange Online, SharePoint, and Skype for Business features. Given the increased certification and accreditation of the infrastructure, there are some feature differences between the general commercial Office 365 offerings and those available in GCC High and DoD.
I'm not going to get any further into it, but the only one who mentioned "windows home" was the other poster, in an attempt at reductio ad absurdum.
Whether or not "windows professional with group policies" constitutes "their own version of windows" as per bongodongobob is left as an exercise to the reader.
They said version of Windows, you said there's not a separate build
Okay, it's the same operating system, but DoD managed devices have a different set of features and capabilities that are allowed to run on that device so I would contend that counts as a different "version", if the disagreement is semantic so be it
They won't put this shit in enterprise versions of Windows. Those customers will demand their own spyware.
Given time it will be twisted into a method for profiling consumers and delivering targeted marketing that goes far beyond cookie tracking and search histories. That doesn't work as effectively on a business or government system.
"National Defense runs almost entirely on Windows workstations, including "high-side" or classified networks."
Windows is "military-grade". That's a laugh.
In case of doubt I am referring to the US practice of marketing certain products as "military-grade". Perhaps to suggest something like, "If it is good enough for the military, then it is surely good enough for the civilian."
Yeah, the "military-grade" products I am comparing to are manufactured according to a specification provided by the customer, not COTS. Bad comparison.
The article is a bit of rage-bait. You can already disable
it via Group Policy and users can turn it off. They're trying to get clicks because they're trying to make it seems like uninstalling it is some meaningful difference. If you don't trust that the settings on your computer work what in gods name are you using windows for.
I don't trust them not to turn it back on (as happens to all sorts of features after a Windows update), and continue to install garbage I don't need or even wanted. I'm happy on POP_OS! and I'm not going back. Been on POP since January 18th of this year. I gave up on Microsoft when I realized Windows Defender will send over files to Microsoft it thinks are suspicious, and there's 0 audit trail for the files. For all I know it could be just about anything personal or even proprietary company files.
I had other reasons, but that one set me off as the final straw. The other one was not being able to make offline accounts by default from installation, without using hacks.
I was with you right up until you said you didn't like Windows Defender sending a file to Microsoft.
I want my file system to have metadata that (along with things like name, last edited, checksum, etc...) puts all files into one of three buckets:
1. Pre-installed
2. User generated
3. External sources (e.g. Downloaded, transferred from network, transferred from device)
If a file from an external source becomes executable then starts affecting my pre-installed/user-generated files and it's checksum isn't already on microsoft's whitelist, then I want microsoft to quarantine that executable and look inside it to figure out what the heck it's doing to my computer.
Consider this:
No one is uploading your personal files, they don't do anything and trying to look into them wouldn't help anyone avoid viruses.
Only executables are worth looking at.
Every single executable that was generated from an external source has been checked by microsoft. That is how microsoft, apple, google, and every anti-virus provider out there gets new virus definitions added to their virus lists.
If those executables weren't sent, then every single virus definition would be empty.
> If a file from an external source becomes executable then starts affecting my pre-installed/user-generated files and it's checksum isn't already on microsoft's whitelist, then I want microsoft to quarantine that executable and look inside it to figure out what the heck it's doing to my computer.
Yes, but I want an audit log of it all. I doubt they'll ever add this, so I'm not going to blindly trust Microsoft. In my case most files are probably not whitelisted anyway. I download some really huge files sometimes, do those get uploaded too? Do they throttle the uploads and if they don't are they just killing my personal network bandwidth? Like there's too many questions that set me off.
> I download some really huge files sometimes, do those get uploaded too?
Again, they're not uploading all files, they're only uploading suspicious executables, which by their very nature of needing to be fully loaded before they can be executed tend to be fairly small.
> Yes, but I want an audit log of it all. I doubt they'll ever add this [...]
Microsoft already has audit logs to the point where you can even see who's trying to turn off microsoft defender in your organisation and on which devices.
Just remember, they're catering to big businesses who are actually getting attacked on the regular, and big businesses need crazy levels of auditing.
They're going to have more than you can handle.
> so I'm not going to blindly trust Microsoft.
All security is based on trust and nothing about what you've said so far is specific to Microsoft.
Thats not always true. Just today my team was investigating why windows updates didnt install on server 2016 despite deadlines and specific updates GPO's set.
We did have some tweaks as an outcome. But overall these policies have been in place for years. And since 2012R2 and later there have been multiple instances where windows updates policies wont apply in lieu of say... "maintenance windows" features being added to windows, so it ignores policies centered around deadlines etc.
That is fair, I did not know that, I thought this was only respected if you were an enterprise licensed user, but that might be my misunderstanding. Even so, I've gotten so used to Linux, I can't go back. Whenever I use Windows I wind up missing Linux. The only thing holding me on Windows was games, but Steam's Proton has gotten insanely well.
Group Policy is available in any version of Windows from Professional and up and doesn't require joining into a domain or a special license. A standalone Windows Professional install can effect Group Policy for itself and the policies thereof will be respected.
Home also technically has Group Policy, but it's not supposed to and most workarounds to that effect are very janky.
The only officially supported way is disabling via Group Policy - but only for Enterprise systems.
Whilst users can turn it off today, Microsoft's history and lack of straightforward responses, suggests that won't be the case tomorrow.
Besides: Some of the concerns are that it can be utilised by people such as home abusers to track those who might be looking for help to leave that situation. It's a new, very powerful, avenue of control for people stuck there.
Being able to opt-out does not fix that. They've created a new way for people to be harmed.
> If you don't trust that the settings on your computer work what in gods name are you using windows for.
gaming and for sandboxes. It became obvious to me a while ago with the slow integration of ads where this was going, and that I could never treat windows as a serious work station, unfortunately. I don’t even do banking on windows machines anymore, and it sucks because I greatly prefer WSL 2 and windows tools for my work environment compared to something you typically see in a corporate setting like a Mac.
I don't really use Windows, And just have a Windows VM I use for testing or compiling some things.
The amount of effort I had to spend to turn off things like Search Indexer and Windows Defender is insane. You can disable things in the control panel but it's still not really disabled and you have to play tricks to really disable it somewhere else. And then sometimes it would come back on because ... reasons?
I have zero faith that if I disable something (anything!) on Windows that 1) I've actually disabled it, and 2) that it will stay off.
Current Windows is absolutely horrible giving any control over the internals – even more so than the old XP/7 systems were. Before my VM I hadn't touched Windows at all for more than ten years, and I was shocked just how difficult some of these things had become.
I can see most people, and by that I mean the rest of the world outside Techiestan and Hacker News, will want or perhaps even need this feature.
Having the computer literally show you what you were doing is super duper handy for Joe Average who doesn't computer and certainly doesn't care about learning to computer.
So just as an example, Facebook's login page has "it's free and always will be" prominently displayed. Your logic is that if Facebook switches to a purely subscription model and avoids getting nailed in court for lying specifically (either through legal gymnastics or by settlement), then they didn't actually lie? And if Recall is "supposed" to be analyzed on-device but all your personal information somehow makes it to MS servers, they haven't lied to you unless someone successfully sues them in court?
We can discuss how this has been implemented all day (and probably agree), but decades in IT have taught me that people use computers differently, especially now that the level of literacy needed to operate one is almost zero.
I am good with terminal, browser, NP++ and few other programs, while some people don't even know the existence of a file system hierarchy, or want to touch things to interact with them instead of typing.
Mr. Thefz, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
To be fair neither Windows nor AI need to have anything to do with it, there's someone in the thread who streams their monitor to a NAS and runs it through OCR
I do. In fact I already record my screen and steam it to my NAS for automatic time tracking and OCR search. It'd be nice to have a less a less janky solution.
I'm kinda surprised people just throw away their history. I love being able to restore deleted posts as long as I remember a few words of the content
in all kindness, you're such an incredibly niche example of actual usage of this, that only proves it should've been opt-in instead of opt-out. I don't need to know what my tabs were 3 months ago. I don't need to treasure my precious history of browsing amazon for vacuum cleaners.
I'll agree they are an incredibly niche example of actually using this... but only because ways to do this right now are incredibly niche. The rest remains to be seen.
If there hadn't been decades of normality of browsers storing history then people, particularly those in tech circles, would absolutely flip their shit if it were announced as part of Edge. There would be mass revolts on these forums if it would sync with the cloud. It makes measuring how popular a concept would be difficult as what is niche today and what is wildly unpopular with tech folks today may or may not have any relation whatsoever to what will be popular with users in the long term.
I have Malwarebytes installed and block all trackers in Edge and on my iPhone.
The idea of recording my activity on my laptop is something I could see being useful in a business where I’m billing non-stop and this feature would automatically generate invoices.
But on my personal laptop? I really can’t think of a single legitimate scenario.
More importantly, I think Microsoft should be demonstrating what use cases it envisions outside of potentially generating LLM training data.
Recall gives one such example I'd like it for in the intro paragraph on the feature's page:
> Recall’s analysis allows you to search for content, including both images and text, using natural language. Trying to remember the name of the Korean restaurant your friend Alice mentioned? Just ask Recall and it retrieves both text and visual matches for your search, automatically sorted by how closely the results match your search. Recall can even take you back to the exact location of the item you saw.
Of course you're welcome to say this isn't a legitimate scenario for you, just as someone might say no situation is legitimate for them to need browser history, but that doesn't mean there is no legitimate scenario for consumers in general. It also doesn't say much from you beyond "I don't like it".
Browser history makes my browsing incredibly more efficient and is the number one reason why I copy my Firefox profile on new computers.
It lets me find back pages I know I browsed in the past with a (few) keyword(s) in the address bar without firing a web search, which might not return the same results as last time. Like, what was the exact crêpe recipe I followed last time?
The alternative is bookmarks but then you need to think of bookmarking the page at the time you access it, but you don't always know you will want to go back to a page later.
It also makes it very efficient to reach pages I visit frequently. Unfortunately it also makes procrastination very efficient, with slacking off one character away ('n').
Currently using Ubuntu as my main driver, replaced Windows.
I wouldn't really say the user experience is as good as Windows. Apps hang more often, steam freezes and restarts more. Games crash more often. All problems I wouldn't have on windows.
Even though Linux has gotten really far, I wouldn't be using it if windows wasn't so shit now.
Try PopOS or Linux Mint. Canonical has been messing with Ubuntu the last few years trying to push people to use their new snap package distribution system. The hangs and crashes are one issue I had with it that I never experienced elsewhere.
But then you'll run the risks of your apps randomly breaking after OS upgrades. A simple Linux headers change can mess up apps installed via .deb files
> I wouldn't really say the user experience is as good as Windows. Apps hang more often, steam freezes and restarts more...
hmm.. while i do not use my linux systems for steam or high-end gaming, I do not share the same user experience as you. To me, my Linux machines.. running web browsers, RDPs, Text Editors, Mail, etc.. are run rock-solid. If anything, is faster loading apps compared to my Windows 10 work machine and Windows 11 home laptop.
My Windows 11 home laptop (which upgraded itself over a year or so, now) only exists because of a job... but that is ending end of the year. I cannot wait! First thing I am doing when im done.. uninstalling Windows 11... hello debian!
Ubuntu is supposed to be the most intuitive or friendly distro (very arguable), but it's a shame how bad and bloated it is.
I have been using steam in arch-based distros for a very long time and I have had no issues at all running most Windows games (see https://protondb.com). As someone else mentioned, the only real issue might be anti-cheats in competitive games.
> I wouldn't really say the user experience is as good as Windows
I use Windows mainly for work.
The user experience is terrible. At least 10 years ago it had a usable GUI, now it is a mess. Crashes are normal. Security theater is _security_.
I've noticed that Windows 11 (on multiple computers) will often display a flash of whatever programs are currently open on my computer before it gives me the login prompt after I wake the computer from sleep. That should never happen. It's yet another nail in the Windows 11 coffin for me.
Windows very much still has gaming by the short and curlies. Valve have done a ton of work with Proton that makes it considerably better, but if you enjoy anything competitive Windows is mandatory for anti-cheat.
Can't say I've shared your experience in terms of programs hanging more often, with the exception of Steam and games. Productivity apps and browsers run perfectly fine for me. That said, Windows has its own frustrations. I'm not sure if it's all fixed yet, but Xbox Game Bar and Game Mode for Windows came with awful performance penalties. When it first came out they had this Game DVR feature which was like Shadowplay but limited your FPS to half of your refresh rate. Enabled by default.
I find it interesting that I've found Linux to be flawless at gaming, with the exception of VR (though apparently you can make that work as well), but some of my friends have had the complete opposite experience. I think it's strongly determined by the genre of games you like - I don't play esports or gacha games.
If anyone here is considering switching to Linux, I'd recommend taking a look at whether the games _you_ play run well.
answering your own question. They are nice for portability but bad for security because usually no updates and almost always downloaded from random websites without verification.
I get that control of AI is playing for all the marbles, so I understand the desperate need to gather all the training data. Recall and its reason for being is an insult to my intelligence, and I will not be choosing Microsoft in the future. Windows now has negative value for me.
Getting an unverifiable iso for Windows seems like a bigger security risk than Recall tbh. Does MS publish hashes for the LTSC versions to at least let you ensure what you have hasn't been altered?
This might be a contrarian view to the rest of this thread but I think this is a decisive move by Microsoft. AI-enabled OSes are a part of the future (for mainstream consumers at the very least). By sticking with Recall despite the initial backlash, I think Microsoft is showing they're a serious player.
MSFT would not risk their enterprise and government business with features like Recall if they weren't sure that it had a need and requirement at some level. Fundamentally, MSFT isn't a company that preempts the needs of their users and haven't been for the past 25 years. They've lagged behind mobile and then cloud because none of their main customers thought they were important. They face they're going on the front foot is indicative that they have a larger strategic play going on here.
Coming to the product itself there appear to be sufficient controls in place on Recall. It's opt-in even if it cannot be uninstalled. It's all on-device and allocates specific space on the PC. I can specify if I don't want it to take snapshots of certain apps and it doesn't take snapshots of private browsing by default. IT teams can manage Recall through policies AND users can have further fine grained control over their settings beyond that. It's great that MSFT have included these right from the start because if we're frank, not all other tech companies would have thought it through.
Personally, I wouldn't use Recall but I can see the appeal and usefulness -- for both consumers and IT teams. You ask your computer what you did on so-and-so date and it'll tell you? That's great and what computers should do -- take cognitive load off of our minds. Plus it's a great audit trail in the office.
My only gripe with it -- as with anything MSFT really -- is security. I'm not entirely sure MSFT would be able to stop people writing malware that explicitly steal Recall data. I hope they have safeguards but being closed source that's the best we can expect unfortunately.
I know HN users are more likely to be anti-MSFT and more tech savvy than the average consumer -- it's a bit like the tech enthusiasts buying smart products and the senior engineer living alone in a forest off-grid. But what we have to remember that we're the exception than the rule. Most people are tech-illiterate and have no inclination towards learning more or towards spending more time with their computers. Products like this are for them.
Why would Microsoft push something that no user wants, is a privacy nightmare, a PR disaster, entails additional costs for them in storage, network and compute?
It's to train a multimodal AI model on what each employee role is doing and to replace employees. Because a lot of our jobs are looking at one set of windows and typing/clicking on another set.
They are probably thinking of training agents to do the back office work of their customers, no? Seems kinda obvious, regardless of the "this is local data only" talk.
I think you’re on to something. There is no way they would be pushing this so hard if they didn’t get something out of it, and collecting mass amounts of training data seems like a plausible explanation.
How much more is there left to collect? They already own Outlook, Edge, Bing, One Drive,
Sharepoint, GitHub, LinkedIn, etc. Thanks to numerous dark patterns, Microsoft is already getting a ton of telemetry about everything users are doing. You have to fight the OS to not let OneDrive slurp up every byte of data.
The only avenue really free from their clutches is mobile, but this does nothing to alleviate that.
But that's the thing: they do not have the data on things and usage patterns that exist outside the Microsoft ecosystem and/or on-premises/private clouds, such as work done within Atlassian stack, ERPs, desktop software and so on.
Wtf were they thinking. So now my computer has a nice up to 50gb repository is screenshots, sure "local ocr" but in the event someone can access that cache of screenshots they could for example watch me navigate my banking site/banking details etc. If someone uses the "show password" option then their password is exposed.
These tech exec idiots too rich now, the billions and desire for trillions has seeped into their shriveled brains.
I suspect this will lead to an increase in the number of people staying on Win10 and below. Naturally, MS will also continue spreading their usual FUD in their attempts at persuading the userbase to "bend over and take it".
This will also lead to an increased demand for custom "distros" and modding tools and such, which has always been a bit of an "underground" community but has occasional resurgences. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40130230
No one really cares about that "EOL" crap unless they've been brainwashed by the FUD. A lot of very important software[1] still works on Vista or 7, and a large portion of that even on XP and below. Also don't forget that Win10 IoT LTSC is officially supported until 2032.
[1] Not things like the latest games, but LOB applications and related software that companies rely on for their work.
The reality is Windows users have a looong history of drawing lines in the sand and saying they will go no further... then meekly going further anyway. Somebody who's done this half a dozen times already to wind up on Windows 10 will almost certainly do it again.
Gamers will care though. I know that demo seems irrelevant but I would assume a non-insignificant % of Windows users use the OS just to game. I hope some developers can recognize the concerns many of us have with Win 11 and continue developing for 10 past EOL.
I agree security depends on your threat model but CVEs counts tell you newly noted vulnerabilities and you don't really need to bother with that when the you've already got dozens that'll never be patched.
9 of 10 are Windows branded operating systems. 3,276 across all of these platforms. Of these, over 1,000 are different versions of Windows 10. Compared to 1799 on the Linux kernel, which is actively developed and will be actively developed for the foreseeable future.
Are you arguing that Windows doesn't continuously get CVE entries? That is not supported by the data.
It is not logical to arrive at the conclusion that after the manufacturer states they will no longer address vulnerabilities, which are actively being found as if this year, that this is FUD.
>9 of 10 are Windows branded operating systems. 3,276 across all of these platforms. Of these, over 1,000 are different versions of Windows 10. Compared to 1799 on the Linux kernel, which is actively developed and will be actively developed for the foreseeable future.
How many of those CVEs actually affect you in a tangible way as to disturb your sleep at night?
If you are not considering your threat model to discern which threats you should actually care about, you are doing computer security wrong.
I'm saying that the newer the version, the more CVEs it has.
Of these, over 1,000 are different versions of Windows 10
Precisely. Windows 11 will be worse.
Of course this doesn't exclude bogus/trivial ones, since CVE-chasing is a thing now, but how many were found in older versions?
...and no surprise that I'm being downvoted by the corporate-authoritarian shills for speaking against the narrative. Yet it should be clear that the newer the code is, the buggier it is --- especially with the sort of competence that passes for developers these days. MS is adding more and more attack surface every day.
"Truth doesn't mind being questioned. A lie does not like being challenged" ;-)
The difference is Win11 continues to address these vulnerabilities. Or you switch to a Nix or air gap the machine. The incorrect approach is to continue using Win10 in production as if nothing is going to happen.
I suspect we have gotten sidetracked into arguing different things at each other for this reason
I'm sure there will be GPOs and registry keys to disable it. We're actually not worried about it at all, at least no one I know is. Corporate Windows deployments are not the same as Windows Home. We manage it very differently.
I don't think any enterprise is going to be shocked Windows has a few extra bytes of cruft than they need in the base install. Ultimately it actually being disabled is a matter of general trust in the data controls - for which Microsoft is a lot better favored on the enterprise side than the consumer side.
You say this like there is one Linux that people can use. Instead, it is fragmented to hell and back with various distros. Since it's a replacement for Windows, a GUI will be needed. There's more than one of those as well.
So now, some one needs to go down that rabbit hole of trying to decide which distro/GUI will work for them. So a generic "use Linux" is not very helpful.
Decision paralysis is just a lame excuse people use to mask their real reason for not doing something. If you don't know enough about the choices to know which one you prefer, then either you simply chose any of them and subsequently have a more informed preference next time, or you chose none of them because you don't actually want the thing in the first place.
I want ice cream and approach a vendor in the park. He has brands and flavors I've never tried before so I throw up my hands and say there is too much choice, he needs to pick one single kind of ice cream before he gets my business. Somebody who behaves like this doesn't actually want ice cream in the first place but is pretending to for some reason.
I think the fragmentation problem extends well beyond "golly, which does my little head ever pick - they're all so perfectly usable I just don't know how to pick one!" and more to "well this one has Q, G, and Y... but that one has M, G, and Y but I can get Q if I tweak... and this one has M, G, Y, A, Q, Z but switching to that means I have to take its unrelated opinions on B, O, J, and N which I don't like" kind of scenario. There are plenty of flavors which can be acceptable but the premise is finding a flavor you want to use more. Without extreme ideological grounds on the level "Microsoft did ${thing} so I'm never touching them again" that becomes difficult to weigh.
I generally get away with a lot of use cases at work just saying "It's the front facing LTS of Ubuntu" and a lot of use cases at home just saying "Since it's just for me I'll customize Arch to what I need" but there are still plenty of scenarios, in each, just going with Windows makes a lot more sense (or sometimes is the only viable option, e.g. home HDR or work vendor application support).
I switched to Pop!_OS last year when I was doing a hardware refresh. I started reading up on all the hijinks in Windows 11 with trying to trick users into signing in to their local machine through an on-line MS ID. I had a big problem with the idea of paying someone a subscription fee to use my own machine. Showing ads and "feeds" on my desktop and in my start menu that I had no control over was already bad enough in Windows 10, but Microsoft had indeed cranked things up to... well... 11.
Since then, Microsoft has only added evidence that my decision was a good one.
In 2084, Mars is a colonized world under the tyrannical regime of Microsoft, who control the mining of valuable personal data.
On Earth, construction worker Douglas Quaid experiences recurring dreams about Mars and a mysterious woman.
Intrigued, he visits Rekall, a company that implants realistic false memories, and chooses one set on Mars (with a blue sky) where he is a Martian secret agent.
I don't understand why it's even legal; it's akin to call recording, which is illegal in many areas. Basically I think it's a great idea for people to AI-process their own information, but when it comes to conversations, it's highly problematic.
My money is that Microsoft knows we're all heading to a remote work environment within the decade. This "feature" will be something employers will be clamoring for, so having it baked in ensures that enterprises continue to deploy Windows as the OS of choice.
Of course not. Even though everyone tells me that all Microsoft software on top of the core operating system is actually installed using the same app installation framework that all third parties use, which definitely permits uninstalling.
It is possible to uninstall any Windows component if you know which files contain it. And it's not like Windows would refuse to boot if Recall exe/dlls suddenly go missing.
(this website is behind Cloudflare and blocks me unless I use a VPN)
Just move its files (C:/windows/system32/wua*.dll) somewhere else. Put them back when/if you want to install updates, install updates, then move them again.
I've noticed Windows is buggier when I disable certain features or tweak certain configurations. I'm not suggesting it's deliberate, but maybe just not well tested by Microsoft. For example, using the registry to disable copilot features, or disabling bing search in the start menu, are scenarios which are not going to be as well tested as the default configuration.
So maybe windows will still boot after "uninstalling" recall, but it could have other consequences that make the operating system less stable.
I assumed for readers of this forum, that answer would be obvious. They want the training data. The fact that it might possibly render a benefit to the user is totally a side effect
If only there was an alternative to Windows, then I’d happily switch. Currently, Linux Mint seem like the closest alternative, but I wish there was a more modern ui
DeepinOS had to best experience so far but there is something with it that makes me not want to fully transition to it, Idk what it is
I really wish the US would stop coddling these disgusting megacorps and would actually bring out some guillotines instead. M$ still existing is a complete farce and mockery.
Don't expect the government to do anything about this. The Five Eyes intelligence agencies are absolutely salivating over the fact that all of the data they have to collect is now colocated into a single area/feature.
Arguably, but I'm not sure. Usually, enshittification is when something starts out really good, but then the management tries to squeeze more "value" out of it by making it worse and worse in ways that make the company more profit, but makes the experience worse for the users. In the case of Windows, personally I don't remember it ever being "really good" in the first place; it's always been shitty, just in different ways. In the past, it wasn't shitty in this particular way, but it was shitty in other ways. They fixed some of the really shitty stuff (blue-screens all the time, bad vendor-provided drivers, etc.), but every time they fixed one shitty thing they added a new shitty thing.
> Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification, and it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the combination of the ease of changing how a platform allocates value, combined with the nature of a "two-sided market", where a platform sits between buyers and sellers, hold each hostage to the other, raking off an ever-larger share of the value that passes between them.
Windows doesn't quite fit that definition in the way that the term is usually applied to marketplace platforms like Facebook and Amazon.
This is a misfeature but it doesn't feel like it's directly part of the intervention in the buyer-seller relationships Windows is mediating.
enshittification is the cute fun name for the concept of becoming a nigh-monopoly by buying out your competition with private equity and destroying it, and then- because the free market has effectively been destroyed- resting on your laurels for the forseeable future because there's no longer any pressure to improve or fix your product.
you can basically let your product become garbage because any free market pressure, you know, the kind that capitalism purports to thrive on but actually seeks out to destroy, is gone. Why bother improving if there's nowhere else for your consumers to go?
We're so used to using substandard products, getting substandard service, using things that are old, busted, falling apart, inappropriate for the job we're using them for, and so on... I love seeing westerners go to other countries and go "whoa! they're living in the year 3000!"
It's incredible how much Microsoft is resting on their laurels in terms of seeing Windows as insurmountable and so consumers must take whatever Microsoft decide to dish out. I would have been totally resigned to this fact a decade ago, but middle-school+ kids these days don't use Windows - they use Chromebooks. A huge minority of them use iPhones. Familiarity with Windows systems isn't a given anymore in the university courses my friends teach.
When these kids grow up and get to make procurement decisions, are they going to be as tolerant as today's staff of whatever overreach Microsoft is going to try with Windows in the future, or are they - and their peers - going to be much more accepting of non-Windows solutions? I think they'll be much more accepting, especially given how much is done in a browser today anyway.
MS will obviously survive, and Windows will of course remain dominant for the foreseeable future but I can't help but feel that if/when the tipping point for the end of Windows' dominance comes, it will all be seen retrospectively as so preventable, because it is.