Microsoft says it has “listened to feedback” following a privacy row over a new tool which takes regular screenshots of users’ activity.
It was labelled a potential “privacy nightmare” by critics when it was unveiled in May 2024 - prompting the tech giant to postpone its release. It now plans to relaunch the artificial intelligence (AI) powered tool in November on its new CoPilot+ computers.
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When it initially announced the tool at its developer conference in May, Microsoft said it used AI “to make it possible to access virtually anything you have ever seen on your PC”, and likened it to having photographic memory. It said Recall could search through a users’ past activity, including their files, photos, emails and browsing history.
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But critics quickly raised concerns, given the quantity of sensitive data the system would harvest, with one expert labelling it a potential “privacy nightmare."
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[Pavan Davuluri, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Windows and devices says] that “Windows offers tools to help you control your privacy and customise what gets saved for you to find later”.
However a technical blog about it states that “diagnostic data” from the tool may be shared with the firm depending on individual privacy settings.
[Microsoft says in a blog post that users can remove Recall entirely by using the optional features settings in Windows.]
The whole Recall thing is what finally made me get off my lazy ass and make the jump to Linux. I chose PopOS, and I’ve been very impressed with the out-of-the-box experience. Between Steam and Lutris, I can play just about any game I want to.
It feels like I actually own my laptop now.
MS doesn’t realize how close they are to being disposable to gamers. If a few more game companies made their catalogs linux-native, they’d be toast.
Lots of people would be shocked just how many games offer linux-native binaries, not just windows ones that work with proton.
For the time being, Proton is good enough for me. I think devs/publishers refusing to enable their chosen anticheat to work with Proton is what is holding things back now for tech people. For other people, there’s even bigger challenges, and I doubt they even read up on these “tech nightmares” so they’re good with just continuing on with Windows.
What the heck am I going to do when win10 stops getting security patches? I really wish Valve would open up SteamOS to desktops in a public and supported way. That kind of pressure from valve has forced MS to play nice to users in the past. Anyone remember MS demanding that all software for Win8 be sold through the MS store only? And Valve said, fine we’ll make our own OS, with blackjack! And Hookers! And steam machines became a thing. Noone bought them. But it didn’t matter. It was enough pressure for MS to open up to having 3rd party storefronts again. I feel like we need this again. Also, if linux played nice with anti cheat, and discord I would probably be fine ditching windows but as it stands I’d miss out on playing games with my friends.
Anyway. Privacy Nightmare AI tool bad.
SteamOS is focused on gaming, so its not a full replacement for Win10. There are ton of Linux operating systems for general use (even those that SteamOS is based on), without gaming focus and being a “normal” operating system like Windows. And if you want a gaming oriented OS, then there are plenty alternatives already: HoloISO, aiming for a SteamOS like system, and bunch of other: https://github.com/ChimeraOS/chimeraos/wiki/OS-Comparison . So there is no need to wait for SteamOS to open up as a general installation media on desktop.
Besides what other users said: if you feel comfortable with SteamOS you might want to give EndeavourOS and Manjaro a check - all three distros are based on Arch Linux, and while Arch is geared towards experienced users the later two try to “sell” it towards a wider audience.
Oh my god if you are a new user please do not go straight to Arch or Manjaro. By far the two distros most likely to breaky irreparably.
You can keep using win10 without security updates, just be smart about it. Have a good firewall, and just use it for gaming and bills or whatever and you’ll be fine
You can keep using win10 without security updates
if you want to be part of a botnet in a few years, sure
just be smart about it
being smart about it means not using an unsupported os
Linux mint looks like windows and is really easy to use
… until you inevitably need to use the shell. Linux, no matter the flavor, has been very easy to use in the 22 years that I’ve tried to use it - until you need to dig ever so slightly deeper for something and then it very much isn’t. I started out with a Knoppix live-CD back in 2002. Remember that distro?
It looks like your opinions about Linux are outdated and need an update.
I use Bazzite (which is steam now but community maintained for more PCs) for my htpc and PopOS for my main PC, both play every game I can throw at it. Maybe it’s time to try it out. I started with a windows dual boot and found myself using it less and less, until just a couple months ago I deleted windows completely
I would not recommend Bazzite to anyone who already complains about software tinkering in regular distros. Immutable distros are very much incompatible with a lot of shit - basically almost anything that is not in their regular repos or on Flathub, and it is an absolute pain in the ass to get those type of applications running on it.
Thanks, ill stick with snipping tool
Using the snipping tool manually every second seems like a lot of work /s
