The world is up-in-arms over Windows Recall, but why? It stems from Microsoft's seeming lack of care for Windows and its users.

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

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

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

  • dmtalon@infosec.pubEnglish
    3·
    5 months ago

    Ya, a PR nightmare for the next 15 minutes until the next unbelievable thing comes along and the ADD nature of people forgets windows is watching everything they do.

    • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      That’s usually what I think too, but after watching how Twitter’s gone to shit since the two big user departures, I think this could legitimately affect Microsoft’s bottom line.

    • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      01·
      5 months ago

      Ok fine, I’ll repeat it again:

      You’re right - many consumers will likely forget about it and just use it anyways. But enterprise customers absolutely, categorically will not. Even with their damage control, this is still going to hurt them a lot. Moreover, it’s going to hurt hardware sales from Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm, all of which have dumped MASSIVE amounts of capital into this tech. This is going to slow the rollout of NN-optimized chip tiles, and that is going to directly hit their bottom line. Microsoft hurt themselves AND the three most important hardware partners they have.

  • PerogiBoi@lemmy.caEnglish
    1·
    5 months ago

    I figured on my gaming and VR rig that I’d begrudgingly upgrade it to W11 when W10 stopped receiving security updates and support but at this point the recall feature (which will be used to train LLMs regardless of what Microsoft promises or guarantees) has ensured that I never install that kind of spyware as an operating system.

    I’d rather spend forever troubleshooting and getting my Valve Index to work with Ubuntu than deal with a giant backdoor.

    • areyouevenreal@lemm.eeEnglish
      11·
      5 months ago

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

        • rtxn@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          5 months ago

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

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

  • naeap@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    1·
    5 months ago

    Microsoft has built a number of safety features into Windows Recall to ensure that the service can’t run secretly in the background. When Windows Recall is enabled, it places a permanent visual indicator icon on the Taskbar to let the user know that Windows Recall is capturing data. This icon cannot be hidden or moved.

    Oh my, that one is really cute

  • AWittyUsername@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    5 months ago

    Apple ensures its operating systems are clean, polished, and without bloat.

    Except for all the uninstallable Apple bloat such as Apple Music, Apple TV, etc. And the numerous bugs and issues, such as still not being able to have the touch pad and mouse scroll wheel have different settings.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.ukEnglish
      1·
      5 months ago

      I remember when everyone was complaining about how terrible Safari is. The lead developer started having a go and ranting on Twitter, saying that raising bug reports is not constructive feedback.

      That was a mess.

    • billwashere@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      Apple is not blameless but they are a shit-ton better than Microsoft. I have to have M$ for a few work apps but I’m primarily MacOS for desktop and Linux for everything server-side. I avoid M$ as much as possible.

    • Weslee@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      5 months ago

      I’m using windows 11 and after hearing about recall and all the other shit they’ve done, I’ve finally decided to make the jump to Linux

      So for atleast me, this was the final straw

      • fluckx@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        5 months ago

        I had dabbled in gaming on Linux but never made the jump. After reading about recall I spent a week making my choice on OS of choice ( and then I switched a week after :') ).

        I’m fully on Linux now. Even if they fully back down from windows recall I dont need an OS that’s trying to sell me something based on whatever I do in it.

        It was my final straw as well.

        Edit: and it hasn’t really been bad either. The shader compilation after every gfx driver update is a bit annoying. That’s about it.

        I’ll probably run into something at one point. Like some anti cheat that doesn’t work and is preventing me from playing the game.

          • sgtgig@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            5 months ago

            A couple people recommended Fedora spins but I’d recommend just sticking with the big distros (that have up-to-date graphics drivers readily available - so not Debian.) A lot of the gaming-focused distros are only saving you a few terminal commands and increase your risk of running into issues; they’re good, but they may not be as 100% stable as you’ll find in major long-running distros like Fedora or Mint.

            I have settled on Fedora with KDE Plasma. Here’s basically everything I copy pasted for gaming:

            # install steam, discord, nvidia drivers
sudo dnf install https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm -y
sudo dnf config-manager --enable fedora-cisco-openh264 -y
sudo dnf update -y
sudo dnf install steam discord akmod-nvidia xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda

# install bluetooth Xbox driver
sudo dnf install git dkms
cd /tmp
git clone https://github.com/atar-axis/xpadneo.git && cd xpadneo
sudo ./install.sh

            I also had to enable Legacy X11 App Support through the settings gui so that Discord could receive push to talk presses without having focus.

  • jet@hackertalks.comEnglish
    1·
    5 months ago

    Not really

    For the retail market, most people just have phones not computers anymore. Microsoft has already lost The Battle of Windows phone.

    For the Enterprise market none of this recent b******* is going to enterprise customers anyway, they would have group policies and volume licensing deals to avoid all the b*******.

    For those poor retail customers who still run Windows, they suffer, but they’re minor, not significant

  • JasonDJ@lemmy.zipEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    You know what would be a nice thing to put into windows?

    A fucking decent way to search for files.

    Also, grep and tail, as implemented in Linux. It’s 2024 and there’s no native equivalent to tail -f *.log. How embarrassing.

    • retrospectology@lemmy.worldEnglish
      01·
      5 months ago

      You can do a commandline “dir /s *.log” to search an entire directory it works better than the normal file search generally. Unless I misunderstand what you’re asking.

      • grrgyle@slrpnk.netEnglish
        0·
        5 months ago

        -f follows the file so you can see updates as they come in to the bottom of the file. I wasn’t aware this worked with globs, but that’s neat.

        Is that what /s does? I haven’t used Windows in years.

        • retrospectology@lemmy.worldEnglish
          01·
          5 months ago

          Oh, perhaps not. I may’ve just understood how you’re using the search. /s is just a straight search if the directory, I don’t know that it can be used to generate dynamic results like that. Go figure.

  • 58008@lemmy.worldEnglish
    01·
    5 months ago

    I wish Linux weren’t completely fucking impenetrable for casual users.

    • andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      01·
      5 months ago

      It’s just a little different nowadays. Like the other user said, they just don’t know they have a choice or what to choose and follow whatever they know…

      And what was one of the early bolsheviks’ regime strongest points? They created schools and made people literate en masse, and did it with their own curriculum. People became less suspective to ex elites and religious propaganda, and became their target audience.

      Adobe, Google, MS give discounts and special programs for education because this way people get used to their products. Many local organizations that touch these casual users don’t have a real IT department and just flow with what’s given, they don’t make an informed choice like corporations. And that’s probably the place where this switch may even start to begin. A class of students who started with e.g. KDE Plasma would be used to it more than they used to Windows, same with other software. They can already do their homework and play most games. What else do they need?

      The sharp corner is to find money to fund select schools to show others it’s not scary and makes it even cheaper for them in the long run, maybe some special troubleshooting team to teach them the ropes. I’ve heard from some users there and on reddit that their computer classes with a geeky teacher who installed Linux is how they’ve rolled in without a problem.

  • NoiseColor@startrek.websiteEnglish
    01·
    5 months ago

    Lol! How incredibly detached from reality!

    Nobody cares! Well a few people care that make a big fuss, but most people don’t ever think about their os. I bet a pretty big percentage don’t know what os they use and I bet more than half don’t know what version of the os they are using.

    Nobody cares!

    • TrickDacy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      Haha I thought I recognized that username. The same person arguing with me that recall was a brilliant move which will solidify Microsoft as the industry leader they’ve always been 😂

  • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    01·
    5 months ago

    A lot of people here seem to be missing the nuance.

    Sure, it’s problematic for their consumer market share, but you’re right that that’ll probably be forgotten by the mostly tech-illiterate populace over time. But that’s not the problem.

    Step 0 of MS’s plan for this should have been “make sure there is an absolutely bulletproof and ironclad way to disable that stuff completely for enterprise customers”. And they didn’t do that. So now, enterprise IT writ large is going to… you know… just not buy any of these devices. Which is absolutely their right.

    But the really frustrating bit is that MS may have significantly harmed the rollout of ARM-based laptops (as well as x86 chips with beefy NN-optimized tiles) with this, and additionally done real, massive harm to Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm by doing so. All three of those manufacturers have gone to ENORMOUS lengths to roll this tech out, largely at MS’s behest. They’re all going to take this on the chin if the rollout goes poorly. And the rollout is already going poorly.

    But MS thought they could Apple-handwave away the details. And they can’t, because a lot of people who understand the absurd security implications of continuous capture and OCR and plaintext storage of the OCR output. It’s not something you can handwave away. It’s entirely a non-starter in the context of maintaining organizational security (as well as personal data security, but we’ve already talked about why that’s a bit of a moot point with the general public). But enterprise IT largely does try to take their job seriously, and they are collectively calling MS’s bluff.

    The problem for the long term is that MS has pretty much proven to the IT industry with this stunt that they can’t be trusted to make software that conforms to their needs. That’s a stain that isn’t going to go away any time soon. It might even be the spark that finally triggers enterprise to move away from MS as a primary client OS. After all, Linux is WAY easier to manage from a security perspective.

    TL;DR: the issue is that MS has significantly damaged their reputation with this stunt. And you can’t buy reputation.

    Edit:

    The article has an update:

    Update noon ET June 7, 2024: Microsoft has released a statement noting it is making three significant changes to how Recal works including making it opt-in during setup, requiring Windows Hello to enable Recall, proof of presence is now required to view your timeline, and search in Recall, and adding additional layers of data protection including “just in time” decryption protected by Windows Hello Enhanced Sign-in Security (ESS) so that snapshots will only be decrypted and accessible when the user authenticates.

    It’s definitely a move in the right direction… but it also begs the question of why didn’t they do that in the first fucking place? Seriously, some heads are gonna roll over how badly this whole release was planned, and the very clear lack of due diligence.