A Linux User's Review Of Microsoft Windows 10

[bug77]

Your email is only available to Microsoft is it is sent to an outlook.com email address. Unless you specifically tell Cortana to read your emails. And how would Microsoft get a copy of your Skype video? Skype is a p2p application, it connects 2 endpoints to each other then provides a framework to send Video and Audio. When is it finding time to be sent to Microsoft as well? FUD is FUD. And this is FUD.

Here's some food for (your) thought: http://arstechnica.com/security/2013...n-think-again/

[humbug]

The privacy issues are a genuine concern.
I use a windows phone as well and while it is very good one thing I don't like is that device backups have to be done on the cloud. All I want to do is backup my phone to my PC. I don't want my phone contents on the cloud and I don't want to waste by data plan uploading/downloading. Microsoft gives no option for that so I am just copying and pasting folders onto my pc.

The uselessness of the windows store is not much of a concern for windows users. Windows users are very much used to googling the software they want, navigating to the manufacturer website and running the setup exe. And when they want to remove it they go to add/remove programs and uninstall. The failure of the store may be a problem for Microsoft, but it's not a problem for users.

[Danny3]

The only thing in Windows 10 that I would like to see in Linux is the privacy settings
I've never seen in a linux distro a way to restrict programs to access my webcam and mike
I know that the operating system is open source and most of the programs are too and probably no one is spying users, but still
Sometimes I have to install proprietary software and I have no way to restrict them from using the webcam and mike
Just because I installed them it doesn't mean that I want to allow them to track me

[Slartifartblast]

Two things very wrong with W10:

1) Forced updates - MS how can you be so stupid ? No disclosure of downloads, I want the old option of notify but don't download re-included.

2) Serious privacy issues by default and some potentially dangerous built in security issues ripe for future exploit, namely P2P updates.

[humbug]

Here's some food for (your) thought: http://arstechnica.com/security/2013...n-think-again/

Good investigative tech journalism

[chithanh]

Only on WEP which nobody uses anymore. WPA/WPA2 negotiate a new encryption key for every authenticated user therefore the password gets you access to the network but does NOT allow you to decrypt any other traffic on that network.

That is wrong. If you know the PSK and can record the WPA authentication/key exchange, then you can decrypt the whole session traffic.

It's also worth noting that wifi share service gives your friend the exact same access they would have had if you actually told them your wifi password, which people do with their friends all the time. If you don't tell your friends your wifi password, then clearly a service which shares wifi passwords with friends is not for you.

I can choose which friends I share my WiFi password with. With WiFi sense? Not so much, except by unfriending them on social networks. And not sharing the password with Microsoft appears impossible as well.

[Kano]

I don't think that forced updates for Win are bad, basically it is the only way to fix serious bugs in a timely manner. MS should of course test the updates before rollout, but the installed userbase will not differ that much anymore. Every Win install without all installed updates is basically a malware distributor, i don't see why it would be better do disable em. The enabled P2P updates most likely do not introduce more exploits, but I do not really like the default, sharing in LAN only should be default.

[chithanh]

It should be noted that automatic updates were already turned on by default for previous versions of Windows. Only users who had reason to turned them off.

Forced updates are already causing problems for users:

Then there is the forced updates. That turned out to be a big mistake on Microsoft's part.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonke...ess-crash-loop

The solution is to not distribute any broken or unwanted upgrades. Then nobody will have a reason to turn them off.

[A Laggy Grunt]

Vista will be my last Windows install unless Microsoft rethinks their privacy policy.

Automated P2P updating is rightly considered a bad idea, because someone may very well figure out how to zero-day it and r00t basically everybody.

[bregma]

I upgraded my single WIndows game console yesterday. It went smoothly: when presented with the "upgrade now?" dialog, I clicked the yes option amd let the thing run over night. I cam back in the morning and was guided through a few pages of negative-optioning selection over information sharing, a reboot, and a long wait to be presented with a low resolution screen. After some investigation, I found out that I needed to hunt down drivers for my nVidia gtx970 card on the internet and install them manually, and after more downloading and rebooting the display was restored. Then I discovered that sound no longer worked, so after more research, config clicky-clicky and reboots I managed to get the HDMI audio support working once again.

Over all, the system boots much slower than Windows 8.1 and I kind of miss the slick UI because the contemptible Windows 95 style Start menu is back. It kind of feels slower than Windows 8, but that may be because there is less visual feedback during application startup -- Windows 8 turned the cursor into a spinning circle, Windows 10 does nothing while you ask if the system was hung or if the mouse wasn't working again. Once the games are running, everything works as before.

The default black theme seems a little stark and misses all the eye candy that was the rage a few years ago but the simplicity could be considered less distracting. After all, it's just a program launcher, it should eat too many resources.

An upgrade to Ubuntu on the same machine was uneventful and smooth and just worked with problems, as usual.

All in all, I'd say this game console OS is not quite ready for the consumer market and has a few rough edges both in upgrading from the previous version and when launching the games, but with a few point releases (launch feedback especially) will make a decent system for the family living room when attached to the big screen TV.