That groan you hear is users’ reaction to Recall going back into Windows
https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/04/microsoft-is-putting-privacy-endangering-recall-back-into-windows-11/Open linkView original on lemmy.ml528
Comments142https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/04/microsoft-is-putting-privacy-endangering-recall-back-into-windows-11/Open linkView original on lemmy.ml
Can't spell "copilot" without "cop".
@deepfuckingdumb @zdhzm2pgp
A. Fuck Adobe
B. I tend to direct people to Linux Mint. It's so user friendly and similar to Windows its perfect for the Windows Refugees to start out with. It's what I installed two months ago after having used Windows since Windows 95.
I want to dump Adobe very badly but it’s still the industry standard for creative firms everywhere
I use mint and only had one game so far with a problem. The game was 20 years old and couldn't scale to an ultrawide monitor.
So far most things just work. Except the locked streaming services that force anti-Linux. For that I just sail the high seas.
I can run outlook and MS 365 in a browser so it's really the other stuff I need functional to be able to switch.--
You are using all of these yourself? What kind of crazy job is that?
Yeah,there is one dude in the Linux group here that is just a complete jackass. Half answers your question, and most of it is just telling you a line of code with no other input and basically treating you like an ass hole for even asking. I don't remember his name, I have him blocked, but absolutely hated seeing Linux posts with this fucking turd each time. Very demeaning and completely ruins the community. I feel like his personality is just trash and he's always in a "roll your eyes / deep sigh" mood.
There's one (at least) of them in every special interest group.
You've described like...half the IT guys I've worked with over the years. You've got them on one side, and the super awesome, slap you on the back fun IT guy. Nothing in between.
I wish I could just keep upvoting this.
I'll add, want to see your average person roll their eyes and say "nope", just tell them they have to manually edit a bunch of config files to get going. How much about your car do you need to know to start your car and get somewhere?
I don't think this community is a stronghold of linux, as you can see in the comments. We need to start from somewhere.
I'm halfway competent, spent 10 years in IT and even compiled my own kernel back in the early 2000s.
My last 3 attempts at running Ubuntu turned into complete and utter failures, including having to totally reinstall the system over the top of itself because the system became so corrupted it wouldn't even boot.
And, I barely got steam to work on it. I wasted hundreds of hours and ended up with a barely functional computer that couldn't print, didn't support my computers wifi card, and 90% of my work programs aren't available.
Oh, and someone please support AMD video cards.
Don’t know why you’re being downvoted. Truth hurts I guess? I have worked in IT for more than 25 years, installed Slackware from floppies in the 90s and have tried Linux countless times since. Every. Single. Time I end up wasting my time trying to fix hardware drivers or being forced to accept the programs I want to use don’t work on Linux and the alternative programs are just plain worse.
Oh and I have used Debian, Ubuntu, RedHat, Fedora, Mint, Slackware, Pop! Os, Alpine, Gentoo.
I thought the whole point of Linux was that there was one for everyone? A computer itself is an incredible potent tool, but most people just want to use Facebook and YouTube.
Why do some say "its not a windows alternative"? As someone who replaced windows with it, that doesn't make sense to me. I can do almost everything in Linux that I did in windows, and it keeps getting better. There's no negatives to be had from making it more user friendly and approachable to those who want to ditch windows. You can keep using Arch or whatever distro youre using.. You dont have to use one that makes things easier for non linux users. Im happy with the variety of projects. As someone whos learned a lot about linux after switching, this just sounds like gatekeeping to me.
But why even care if some random loser gets fucked by Microsoft? It's like the religious idiots out there who don't believe in global warming and hate trans people: you can't deprogram stupid. It's like waging a war against bears taking a shit in rivers.
It's an operating system, you fucking dweeb. Your weird moralizing only alienates potential users. And guess what? Without users, a thing dies.
Dweeb!?! How do you know that? Leave me alone you malevolent hacker.
The lack of self-awareness in this comment is depressing
I don't understand why Linux users are like this.
Elite smugness
Linux bros have been told this for literally decades. They'll never get it. As long as I can't use my air pods or even the built in fingerprint reader for my laptop, plug and play, I won't even try making the switch.
Linux is serverware with a barely working GUI and people are still talking about "just switch".
My airpods and fingerprint reader (framework 16) work fine on Fedora, sometimes it just be like that.
Linux is everywhere and doing everything already. Windows only continues to exist because business majors are in charge and they are fucking dumb.
Did you give it a try recently?
I agree with the first part of what you said, but I disagree with your last sentence.
I have been using Linux on my desktop PCs and laptops since 2017 and it's been working great for me, even playing games. Honestly, I probably play more games on Linux than I did back when I was on Windows lol
Windows is malware. If you give the slightest shit about your privacy, switch ASAP
It's incredible how much processor windows telemetry uses.
Is ASAP Linux a variant of Asahi that I'm not hip enough to get?
I literally only use Windows for video games these days and Steam OS is looking better and better for that.
Most distros will run games just about the same as any other. No point waiting for SteamOS like it's the golden egg.
I use Mint btw.
Buts its unique Gamescope is hard to recreate
Just install gamescope then
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/gamescope
Thats very wrong. Its hard to get just gamescope as Login together with steam and think everything works.
I am unsure what was missing but many people get low fps when doing it by themselves while the steam deck works fine.
I’ve only used it with Heroic and had no issues
No issues doesnt mean there is no difference. Its still not the same at all.
Doing the same on Ubuntu myself after trying Bazzite for a couple weeks. Bazzite kept messing up SSSD and would prevent me from authenticating with my home domain.
Will definitely try SteamOS once it is fully released.
SteamOS will not be your best option for desktop. Stop waiting for it. It's made for the Deck and console like experiences, not desktop. It's immutable too, which is great for a console experience, but probably not ideal for a desktop user.
Just go download Linux now. There's nothing special in SteamOS that you need. I use Garuda, which is Arch based (which SteamOS is also, if that matters), and has a version specifically designed for gaming. It comes with most of what you could need set up, and a tool to quickly install any packages you may want for additional things like controllers or whatever.
I've been enjoying Fedora Atomic, personally.
Aurora DX (which is based on Fedora atomic) has been the best distro I've used in a long time. Immutable OSes are great for general purpose desktop use! I set up a container for each development environment and never need to worry about conflicting dependencies anymore. But yeah, I wouldn't go with Steam OS for that. Steam works fine on pretty much any modern distro, so I don't see any obvious benefit to using it.
There's pros and cons. I personally don't want an immutable distro, but there are reasons for it. It's especially good for what the Deck is with a large portion of people who probably don't know what they're doing.
What?
https://www.howtogeek.com/what-is-an-immutable-linux-distro/
I know what it is, my question was more at the “not for desktop use”
I think being able to rollback is better for new users
Sure, that is an advantage. There's a lot of advantages. I just don't think it's good for users willing to learn. It's good to make sure the user can't fuck up, but then it also limits what they can do. I think if you've made it here and can use a full OS currently, you should try a non-immutable distro. If it turns out you fuck it up then you can swap to something that'll hold your hand.
Fair enough
Look into bazzite. LTT and Game Foundry have made videos about it too, and they were pleasantly surprised
Pretty much any Linux distro will work for gaming. Some just do more work for you at the beginning. Linux mint, Pop OS, Endeavor, manjaro, etc, you can game on basically any of them. After familiarizing myself I eventually swapped to Arch, but if any of the other distros I mentioned work, and you feel satisfied with it, then stick with it. Its about finding a distro you enjoy and can work around despite it's flaws.
Yeah, some distros just make it easier for the user
I really wish sim racing worked well on Linux. The other stuff I need windows for I can work around or compromise. But the sim rig is just too damn windows dependant
Will it work running in a VM with pass through?
Yeah, I’m big on Visual Pinball VR and I don’t think anybody has that running on Linux.
Bazzite works wonders for gaming. Nvidia cards are supposedly the one’s you will have to tinker with a bit, but everything besides VR has worked for me without needing to do a thing. Only really needed to install ALVR to get that working which took about 20-30 minutes to get set up.
You can also undervolt, overclock and all that with LACT. I believe it’s installable through the software center too if I’m remembering correctly. It fully supports Nvidia cards now.
VR is indeed a thing that keeps me chained to Windows for now. I spend a lot of time in Visual Pinball VR especially! But it’s not the biggest problem having a dual boot situation and only using Windows for games. Perhaps one day even VR will be doable in Linux and I can abandon Windows entirely. For now, it looks like my gaming sessions are going to be spied on so I better aim to impress. Heh.
Well, from my experience as someone who’s pretty new to Linux, it was very easy to set up as long as you follow the guide on the ALVR website. I had to do that for Oculus. Depending on the headset you have, it may work without needing to install any extra software! Been playing Half Life: Alyx and Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners without any problems.
@CallateCoyote @zdhzm2pgp
I installed Bazzite on my ROG Ally to get rid of Windows. I have a gaming laptop with Windows installed for 3 games that aren't compatible with Linux and that's all it's used for.
You can also use wine and other emulators to play games.
Took this crap off my computer and installed Fedora as my daily. If I need to run Windows, I'll run it in a VM.
When I originally switched, I kept an ultra clean windows 2000 VM going for a solid decade. Any time I needed it, I could install stuff, do the work, and then blow away the crud that always builds up with Windows. I would suggest using the oldest version of Windows you can practically use, de-bloating it, and taking vm snapshots.
You could even firewall it using another VM or the host if you wanted. Put windows in jail, erase its memory, and cut it off from the outside world so it behaves, lol.
I have yet to need Windows for anything and I switched when my WinXP machine decided booting was too difficult.
Fedora's like the Windows of Linux.
No it’s not
Yes huh.
What aspects then? You can't just throw out a baseless statement without justification and think others will agree with you.
Why would you assume I expect others to agree with me?
because you gave no justification for calling fedora the windows of Linux. Simple as that.
Even if Copilot was suspended, the idea was put into the heads of managers and executives. My work laptop current has three applications constantly locking files as they track everything I do and every file that gets touched and upload it all to the servers. Git now takes a ridiculous amount of time to check in and push files since it creates tons of small changes to the cached files that a the tracking applications block further changes or uploads until they can record the information. It takes about 30 seconds to a minute to check in a single small file. Something that used to take a second or two at most. Worst part is if I'm in a WebEx meeting, the fighting over caches in it and git and any other processes,often causes deadlocks that crash the machine. I'm constantly apologizing for being late for meetings because the laptop crashed and had to reboot. It's gotten to the point that they finally gave me a much faster laptop rather than just excluding cache and git folders and such from the tracking because the people who want literally everything tracked don't know what cache or git is, much less how much useless data they're gathering or how the AI that analyzes it all is going yo get distracted by the garbage and not find any useful data anyway. Microsoft needs to get in the game to push the others back out.
No bro! I promise bro! It's just because Michaelsoft isnt tracking and indexing that info. I promise this next micromanaging software won't be as bad! The next one will be as good as teams bro! I promise!
I ran into this as my IDE is also constantly touching temporary files to maintain its state. It wasn’t copilot though, it was one drive. So I moved my work files into a local-only location, and then periodically rsync to the synced folder, excluding .git and other folders that have no business on a synced folder.
Why would you even have git repositories in OneDrive in the first place? Or are those local-only repos without an actual server to push to?
Because the workflow for a lot of people is to have projects in folders which are synced to Onedrive. That allows for collaboration with colleagues that are not using git, as well as backup/archival of files and access from different computers or online sharing. My workflow of using rsync to periodically copy the files (--exclude .git) works, but isn't ideal. If I forget or someone else edits something, I have to manually deal with conflicts. I guess the real answer is just "not everyone is a software dev."
Fuuucking hell. I have to keep a laptop on win for work purposes and i just finished decrapifying 11 last night
Microsoft has shown over the years they will undo your preferences if they aren't what they prefer. They are the worst
https://massgrave.dev/windows_ltsc_links
It should have little to 0 crap since its the version used by companies
Is this legal in EU? I mean not the tool itself but just enabling it by default.
GDPR regulation mandates that there is at least informed consent. So MS has to ask users if they want all their data to be uploaded. This includes of course a disable option. But knowing big tech companies, they'll find a way to make users press that Okay button.
From the comments it seems like you have to opt in to the screenshots. But I'm sure they do it at the bottom of a three thousand page EULA or something so most users will wind up opting in by default
Probably in the same dark pattern bullshit they do to get you to turn the rest of their crap on.
Yes, you can modify your property to your like, Windows needs your consents, not the other way arrount.
This is what forced me onto Linux for the first time, and permanently.
It's partly great, mostly fine, and 10% of the time god damn fucking annoying. Mostly having to learn the fucking game of thrones factions of installing things.
But I don't feel like there's a piece of shit company in my computer trying to completely ruin it, so it's a win. The positives outweigh the negatives, even as someone who wasn't really into the idea of switching.
But even if it was half as good, it would still be an improvement, given Microsoft destroying itself.
@jaggedrobotpubes @zdhzm2pgp have you considered Mint. It's almost as user friendly as Windows.
The only thing I haven't been able to work out is SMB sharing which I need for my server that currently runs Windows and for my Jellyfin server.
I don't remember what I did to get smb sharing working in Linux mint, but I do remember asking chatgpt how to do it and it definitely works for me now. Anytime I get stuck I ask chatgpt or Gemini how to do what I'm trying to do and its made my switch to mint extremely successful.
Former Win10 user here, also a former MS employee, now on Mint. I never even heard of Recall but holy crap on a cracker, Microsoft - seriously? SERIOUSLY?
You guys have absolutely lost your fucking minds. My advice is to make Microsoft great again by quitting and forming a bunch of startups, where you can work on innovations that are actually good and useful. For the sake of your own sanity.
I firmly believe this will go the way of Cortana once the AI bubble bursts. What I'm more concerned about is the normalization of terrible security and privacy practices.
Let me also tell you a story about them dumping windows mixed reality...
Please do! Are we talking about Microsoft Bob or what?
While I was there they were working on integrating presence detection. I saw some demos where lights would go on and off when you walked from room to room, and music you were listening to would follow you. If you were using a computer your desktop environment would migrate to a computer in the new room. Never saw that hit the market in any way I was aware of.
Lots of stuff MS Research did never saw the light of day. One time when my kids were playing Toontown I found a bug that let a player slip behind the graphics. You could see that the clerk at the store was just a legless torso floating in the air, and you could even go behind the walls and fly backwards into empty space until the whole world shrank to a dot. This same bug was present in a MS project called V-Worlds I had worked on a couple years earlier, so I always wondered if they had made a deal with Disney to use the code or if it was just a common graphics bug.
Windows is awful. Why do you want that decaying ship with rotten wood to float?
I'm reading this on a Microsoft Surface that I flashed with Linux Mint. Quite satisfying!
Message to Microsoft:🖕
How's that working for you? I've got a surface, and I like it, but I know that Windows is not exactly an efficient piece of software.
Probably could be more slick, but working fine for my everyday needs.
The touch screen didn't work immediately, I had to search up for a command line solution to that. But most won't face that if they flash onto other (non-Surface) hardware.
Hey copilot - what was that website I found with the sweet ass interracial stepsibling fuckin? You know the one where that sis's ass popped just the right way? Not the one with the first-cousins. I gotta draw the line somewhere. I mean, that was ALSO great porn but I have pre-postnut clarity here and that kind of shit just aint what I need right now.
I'm certain this can be disabled in windows at any moment as without it loads and loads of criminal evidence would be available for discovery and litigation against the wealthiest people and businesses across the world.
A real fear is being a worker in a world with micromanagers inspecting your workweek, 3 second snapshots at a time.
Microsoft turns things back on all the time though. It doesn't matter what you set if they can unset it whenever they want.
Windows as is, is a valid, fast and private OS. The lack is that it is by default a bundleware, full of telemetries, spyware, services which nobody needs, trials and other crap "to improve the user experience". All this can be gutted by an advanced user. The alternastive for those which need use Windows, is to install one of the WindowsX series, an independent modification and optimization, without all these M$ crap.
Quick way of accomplishing the “de-bloating” of windows is by 1) managing your own DNS and blocking telemetry connections network wide (quite easy to do with PiHole + Docker Engine) or 2) installing Glasswire and blocking connections on the specific device however, I believe Glasswires Firewall is subscription based so this may be a turn-off for people.
Either work and are more efficient than digging around your Windows install and finding all the different variants of the same bloatware.
I use Portmaster, there go nothing in or out without my permissions.
Ah I figured Portmaster was only for Linux, I dabbled around their software and found it quite good!
I think the reason I stopped using it in lieu of OpenSnitch was because 1) most features were locked behind a subscription and 2) already had PiHole running so the firewall wasn’t something I really needed.
Regardless thanks for letting me know it works for Windows, I’ll started recommending it over Glasswire!
There are no need of subscriptions in Portmaster, it's FOSS. Well, the subscription is only if you want to use additional also the inbuild SPN service (optional service), which need an paid subscription like any good VPN (server cost money). I Prefer to use Portmaster over Pi-Hole, because Portmaster permits per app settings, Pi-Hole don'tm apart is way easier to setup, with already a good default settings, its almost download it, run install and peace. Then maybe open it, browse your listed apps and block their traffic if needed with an click.
Windows has a built in firewall, so why install a paid one?
Not nearly as user friendly for the non-networking types hence why I recommend one with a fancy GUI.
Edit: Also, I suspect Microsoft will do Microsoft things and hide/prevent their telemetry from being blocked, ultimately I don’t know the state of Windows right now as I’ve made the switched to Linux many years ago.
Simplewall works quite well too! And it's free.
Well, there are several methodes, WinX is one of the options and naturally can't be OpenSource, because Windows isn't, even not in this debloated version. As you said, there are several FOSS tools to do it, maybe the best is the hellzerg Optimizer, very capable to eliminate the bad Windows habits and apart improving the system-
Yes, as said, the problem isn't the OS as is, it's all the crap, spy- and bloatware which M$ put in it.
@Zerush @muusemuuse all of that "crap, spy- and bloatware" is baked into the OS and the only reliable way to remove it isn't not use Windows.
The problem is 100% the OS.
It isn't, I use currently W11 24H2 with less than 0,9GB on disk, no unwanted nettraffic shown in Portmaster. Full BOOT in less than 5 seconds and snappy responses. No problems with it, no unwanted apps in the updates or other issues. This certainly wasn't the case as default in my new laptop. Well "un-microsofted" Windows, not even with it's original UI.
Tools that claim to lighten windows are almost always riddled with malware. You should never ever trust them. Those project build a base of loyal users, then change and add in malware later, compromising the system.
Windows is not a system you modify like that. It’s actually surprisingly Mac like in how you have to handle it. Be responsible. Build an OS up and out, bow down and back.
The hellzerg Optimizer is FOSS and well known since years, do not confuse with proprietary tools, like those from IObit or Ashampoo, these are certainly not recommended. Anyway, also with the default Windows GodMode you can do a lot, also with the Regedit, if you know well what you do (somewhat risky)
Talk is cheap. Show me the code.
I wouldn't be surprised if they get a class action suit over security/data violations.
I just want to tip my fellow colleagues that need to use windows for their job (and also maybe have invested thousands in pc games).
This is my favorite tool for debloating and uncrappifying and more. If you have others please reply with yours. 😊
https://christitus.com/windows-tool/
Or install an OS without most of the crap? https://massgrave.dev/windows_ltsc_links
I use linux so idk how that is but I heard is lightweight in bs
I think when most people mean work they mean corporate where you have zero control. I’m just happy they let me use PowerTools. At home, manually amputating pieces of Windows has been a bit fiddly but no less fiddly than what people think configuring is still like.
It’s annoying, but for most people, even among the technically inclined, it’s fine. For now. I’m more likely to pivot to Linux than to OSX eventually.
Nah, I've done my share of home brewed ISOs in my day. That was fun for younger me. Work is standard Enterprise MS stuff. At home for lab, customization and trying the bleeding edge features a standard manually de bloated windows is fine. I'm too old, practical stuff to make work just work is fine. Plus I can toss on a game without having to jump through hoops.
You youngsters can rebel against the big corps. I'll cheer you on from my rocking chair.
Disable Recall with these instructions:
https://oracle-base.com/blog/2024/11/10/windows-recall-how-to-disable-spy-mode/
Well this news helped motivate me to overwrite my Windows 10 install with Linux Mint as of yesterday. So far so good.
I switched to Linux Mint a few months ago on my main PC. I do not regret it. In fact, when I need to use one of my windows PCs for something, I am instantly reminded why I switched. If you are new to Linux, there will be some bumps here and there, but it can all be overcome with some help from LLMs. I hope more people make the switch. As a windows user since 3.11, I don't want to go back to windows now.
I always keep an old windows iso file just incase I need to use it.
Slap it into a VM. Name it jail. Call it Windows with bars.
time for player 2 to join
Unfortunately most users don't care about privacy, they only move then (subscriptions) prices rises
This is truly awful. Microsoft need to return to sanity. Awful awful awful.
No, it was chrome crashing. I dont use Windows
Yay, now when your coworkers suggest getting some sushi and you use your laptop to look up the nearest restaurant, you're going to get a paperclip pop up saying "It looks like you're trying to get back to that tentacle porn hentai you nutted to last night. Would you like help with jerking off?"
Obviously recall is bad but for fuck sakes don't use company property for watching porn.
No offense, but isn't this kinda pointless considering most of use use android phones? And don't think Apple is any better either folks.
I mean, I get that Microsoft is trying to compete with MacOS and its Time Machine software, but why not just start from there and add the other bits as optional to the user? lol
Time Machine is just backup software isn't it? It's not doing an involuntary index of all your activity and content you interact with, right?
Yes, as far as I know it just backs up the system and user files.
You need to push the boundaries to get anyone to give a shit
I’m not going to use this myself but I don’t know why everyone’s complaining about it so much. It requires opt-in, it does all the processing locally, and if someone nefarious gets to the point they can read this stuff then they’ll already be able to record your screen, log keystrokes, etc. I expect it won’t be straightforward to view the data as well, it’s not just gonna be a folder full of jpegs.
I’m glad that people are actually trying to make interesting features still. OSs have been so boring years now, it’s good to see people actually trying to introduce standout features even if they are controversial. More of this I say.
Because GDPR requires it to be so. Ask people overseas if they can turn that feature off.
With the current government they have in the US, is this really something that the anybody should be comfortable having?
Also, nothing is stopping malware from turning it on without your consent, because the technology will be backed in into the OS by default.
So we should just ignore that Microsoft just created a new attack vector that nobody asked for?
Source?
What's interesting about this? Not only are you training AI models using your data without getting paid for it, I don't understand what use case you can have by asking Microsoft what porn you were watching at 2 am of February 19th. For important stuff that needs remembering, you can just go back to your browser history. Its easier to search there than to remember the specific time you were doing something anyway.
Literally, nobody wants this.
Okay so this is that mindset that seems to permeate the Tech industry through and through, these days. The idea that things that are working fine, need to be forcefully "improved" even when it's not necessary.
A pen can't just be a pen anymore, it needs to connect to the cloud so that the ink levels can be properly measured and new ink sent to you on a subscription basis to make sure you never run out of ink.
A juicer needs its own proprietary juice bags and it won't work with different ones, and how does it know you're not using the brand's originals? Why, it must be connected to the internet of course, otherwise it won't juice.
Your car can't just be a car anymore, it needs to have integrated mics and an internet connection so that the manufacturer can listen to all your calls and ear your sex sounds, and then sell that to advertisers who will know whether they should sell you a MagicWand or fisting lube, based on whether the moaning sounds they heard coming out of your car sound masculine or feminine.
So on and so forth.
You might think your take is unique, but it really isn't. It aligns perfectly with everything that companies want nowadays, which is to get your data at all costs.
For me, I want none of that shit. To the point that I go out of my way to make sure I only buy stuff that doesn't connect to the internet.
Which, BTW, this is the privacy community, I thought there was a common understanding of how abusing these features are, but I guess not.
Tbf, I (and I'm a random third guy not the guy to which you're replying, for clarity's sake), also doubt it'll be a folder of jpegs...but I think it'll be fairly trivial to exploit whatever it is, and it'll take way too much storage (storage cheap now, whatever, I know I'm old but I don't use cloud and I've got other shit to spend money on than HDDs or SSDs, which I do also need as a pirate/data hoarder and don't want to waste space on).
Well you see I have my browser set to delete history on exit because of security so this would override that and keep the history...that I...deleted... Wait...
Lmao idfk why people would possibly want this either.
The point is, that with Recall, they can do this back in time. A regular keylogger can only see what you do after he was installed. If you realize that your computer was compromised fast enough, then you can react. With Recall, everything you did in the last months is open to the attacker.
Well, that someone nefarious who gets access can then only steal from that point on. Recall will allow him to find out you were having a wank last Tuesday at 7PM.
No screenshots -> less data. Less data -> lower breach severity.
(Unless you have an unusual threat model)