All the "things" being talked about windows 11. Security, spyware, and etc.

HarleyQuinn said:

hello I saw title and want to ask something can virtualization-based protection of code integrity be enabled by its own even if virtualization disabled on bios?

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No

I have been trying to get so I can easily stay on Linux. Probably for decades now...
I dual boot win11 24H2 and Mint 22.2.
I have been staying on Mint for a month or 2 now, booting to win only to do occasional updates (WuMgr).
If I were still using Wondershare Filmora I would probably use win, though I did have it going once on Mint though not quite as fast there. But I stopped vlogging so don't need it.
I use wine and Lutris for a couple things but don't need virtualbox which is nice. (wine 9 has come a long ways!)
I use Terabyte I4L (image for linux) which I boot to (a stick) when needed and backs up ~120GB to ~90GB in about a minute. Really! Fast NVMe!
Superposition runs at ~160fps and benches to ~19000 which I am very pleased with. Heaven runs at ~300fps.
I do read the front page of askwoody forum perhaps daily just to keep in the know but am very happy at the number of things I do not have to be concerned about. I stopped being a member there a while ago.
I don't care about AI much as I do not use it and can avoid it in win and have the fix on in FF to avoid its AI summary. So that is not really a factor.
I use google search engine in FF and can shut off the AI summary. Simply the best for my uses.
My current Mint build is about 33.3GB and that includes perhaps 3-4GB of Unigine test stuff. Pretty light.
I use Scummvm, Lutris, wine for old RPG type games. No "modern" stuff.
Been computing since '62(IBM 7070) and 3.11/win95/98 when they first came out. Went through the Commodore and Radio Shack units before getting a real PC and then quickly shifting to DIY builds.
I just think/feel Linux is a better way to go.
I also much appreciate their (finally!!!) shift from X11 to Wayland, which seems to be going very well.
Other helper apps like winboat will likely take another year or to if they are to bear any really useful fruit like GPU and disk pass-through.
I chose Mint Cinnamon because it works for me and has a large mostly civil support forum/group. I had problems with Ubuntu support often leading me unnecessarily astray. I have tried many other distros but they just don't have the support groups if something goes wonky.
I am not a command line programmer (though I did program the 7070 in machine code once just to have done it.)

SlicEnDicE said:

No

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Then how the greyed out section (Core isolation) in my laptop suddenly became visible after the update? My system is unsupported. I got a bit paranoid and revert back to 23h2. Now core isolation shows off. Any possibility of this being a bug?

Check out COSMIC DE from System76 is modern looking, modular and built on rust so it is automatically way more secure since rust in itself closes a lot of attack paths (memory problems)

krism said:

I chose Mint Cinnamon because it works for me

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I run Mint Cinnamon too, but for me it is convenience. It is stupid simple to use. Not the fastest of the distros but at least there aren't a ton of background services disrupting my workflow.

While I still use Windows too, and for the most part I like it, it has lately been getting on my nerve, because I constantly have to fight the OS in order to get it to run as I want it to run. Also updates are ridiculously slow to get over and done with.

If Windows keeps progressing in the direction it is currently heading, I'll transition completely over to Linux and never look back. I don't even have the hardware that is officially supported by MS/Windows. The hardware is perfectly fine for me and am not going to buy a new computer because MS says so.

SlicEnDicE said:

I run Mint Cinnamon too, but for me it is convenience. It is stupid simple to use.

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Yes it is stupid simple to use! and has many nice applets that I can run in my taskbar to monitor my hardware.
The geek part of me does want fairly recent hardware. But Intel just hasn't really come up with anything faster than the i9-13000/14000 chips so here I sit for the moment. My little old i9-13000 is faster than AMD no matter what they say, per many online benchmarks that test such things so I don't have to.

Yes, there’s some truth to the concern—Windows 11 does collect a significant amount of user data by default, but most of it can be limited or disabled.

Here’s a breakdown of what’s really going on:

What Windows 11 Collects

• Telemetry data: This includes system diagnostics, app usage, and performance metrics. It’s used to improve Windows functionality and stability.
• Advertising ID: Windows assigns a unique ID to personalize ads across apps.
• Location and search history: If enabled, Windows can track your location and Bing search queries.
• Voice and typing input: Features like voice recognition and text prediction may collect input data to improve accuracy.
• Cloud sync and Recall: New features like Recall (which snapshots your activity) have raised fresh privacy concerns.

Is It Spying?

• Not in the malicious sense: Microsoft isn’t secretly watching you or stealing personal data. But the volume of data sent to its servers—especially during setup or idle time—can feel invasive.
• Transparency is limited: Some data collection is hard to opt out of, and Microsoft doesn’t always make it easy to understand what’s being shared.

You can reduce or block most tracking:

• During setup: Choose “Custom” install options to disable many tracking features upfront.
• After setup:
  • Go to Settings > Privacy & Security and review each category.
  • Disable telemetry under Diagnostics & Feedback.
  • Turn off Location, Advertising ID, and Speech Recognition if you don’t use them.

As far as privacy and security goes, I have managed to block ~99% by NextDNS alone.
I have not used AV since XP and I have never got infected, my email never leaked, I share it online.
There is no magic, it involves scripts, everything works like ABC, block B and it fails like a house of cards.
Windows 11 Clean uses 150 processes by default, I have half and I use MSA, Edge, Store, just no bs, only basics.

TraderGary said:

Yes, there’s some truth to the concern—Windows 11 does collect a significant amount of user data by default, but most of it can be limited or disabled.

Here’s a breakdown of what’s really going on:

What Windows 11 Collects

• Telemetry data: This includes system diagnostics, app usage, and performance metrics. It’s used to improve Windows functionality and stability.
• Advertising ID: Windows assigns a unique ID to personalize ads across apps.
• Location and search history: If enabled, Windows can track your location and Bing search queries.
• Voice and typing input: Features like voice recognition and text prediction may collect input data to improve accuracy.
• Cloud sync and Recall: New features like Recall (which snapshots your activity) have raised fresh privacy concerns.

Is It Spying?

• Not in the malicious sense: Microsoft isn’t secretly watching you or stealing personal data. But the volume of data sent to its servers—especially during setup or idle time—can feel invasive.
• Transparency is limited: Some data collection is hard to opt out of, and Microsoft doesn’t always make it easy to understand what’s being shared.

You can reduce or block most tracking:

• During setup: Choose “Custom” install options to disable many tracking features upfront.
• After setup:
  • Go to Settings > Privacy & Security and review each category.
  • Disable telemetry under Diagnostics & Feedback.
  • Turn off Location, Advertising ID, and Speech Recognition if you don’t use them.

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I agree with most of this, there is no privacy on the NET. Firefox uses Telemetry, Google does, I would never use Recall though I can't anyway.

Josey Wales said:

Firefox uses Telemetry

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LibreWolf has settings, which do not even allow to enable telemetry. FF does, what it needs, to survive. Sadly, we need FF, TOR uses it.

TairikuOkami said:

LibreWolf has settings, which do not even allow to enable telemetry. FF does, what it needs, to survive. Sadly, we need FF, TOR uses it.

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Maybe check out this browser,

The Spyware side of Windows - is corporate and military (taking into account - the war hungry times we live in - especially since Microsoft is an American corporation and a core pillar of U.S. economy), so - if you're just an average Joe (simply put - a nobody) - your data has only a statistical value. Don't know about future Windows builds - but even the last - can be stripped down (disabling, uninstalling or blocking and such) - to Windows 10 stripped down level. The recent complaints - are obviously tied to the recent event of Windows 10 reaching EOL - and the large mass of Windows 10 users giving Windows 11 another try - and being disappointed with the "default settings" - of a fresh Win 11 install (again, most can be disabled - so the complaints are reflective of one's ignorance - in regards to Windows 11 features and its settings - overreacting as if they're locked in place - which is obviously not the case).

neves said:

The Spyware side of Windows - is corporate and military (taking into account - the war hungry times we live in - especially since Microsoft is an American corporation and a core pillar of U.S. economy), so - if you're just an average Joe (simply put - a nobody) - your data has only a statistical value. Don't know about future Windows builds - but even the last - can be stripped down (disabling, uninstalling or blocking and such) - to Windows 10 stripped down level. The recent complaints - are obviously tied to the recent event of Windows 10 reaching EOL - and the marge lass of Windows 10 users giving Windows 11 another try - and being dispointed with the "default settings - of a fresh Win 11 install (again, most can be disabled - so the complaints are reflective of one's ignorance - in regards to Windows 11 features and its settings - overreacting as if they're locked in place - which is obviously not the case).

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This is true

While I agree with the above, I dislike very much that one have to go through hoops and loops and fight the OS in the process to achieve this level of "privacy" and "piece". And it gets worse for every update when new features are introduced.

I'm pretty sure Microsoft is no different from Google or Apple or any of the cell phone mfr's: they're harvesting as much useage, browsing and interest data as they can for reselling or their own uses.

But is any of it "Personally Identifiable Information", or PII, like bank account information, credit card numbers, SSAN's? There's not been any solid, verifiable evidence suggesting there is any of that going on. This in particular makes me think it's somewhere between 75% and 95% FUD.

But I do wonder why motherboard mfr's semi-secretly download and install Windows services if you don't disable it in BIOS settings, and include their own secure boot "Chain of Trust" certificates (not just PK, but KEK and DB too) in recent motherboard BIOS updates. Just how much "ownership, oversight and control" of your system and it's useage does that have potential to give them?

Buddywh said:

But I do wonder why motherboard mfr's semi-secretely download and install Windows drivers if you don't disable it in BIOS settings, and include their own secure boot "Chain of Trust" certificates (not just PK, but KEK and DB too) in recent motherboard BIOS updates. Just how much "ownership" of your system might that give them?

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Manufacturer drivers are known good working and verified drivers. Certificates are there to ensure trust and integrity. Nothing special with that.

SlicEnDicE said:

Manufacturer drivers are known good working and verified drivers. Certificates are there to ensure trust and integrity. Nothing special with that.

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sorry... corrected that! Windows services... why do it so secretly? without an opt-in?

Windows will install drivers now to get basic functionality for most common peripherals (LAN, sound card, chipsets). I choose which drivers I want installed for hardware... like GPU's for instance... that Windows doesn't support or want enhanced functionality on. This is, and should be, something I choose.

And trust them to do what? Neither Gigabyte nor MSI needs to install a boot loader to boot Windows... so just what boot loader is it for?

Buddywh said:

sorry... corrected that! Windows services... why do it so secretly? without an opt-in?

Windows will install drivers now.

And trust them to do what? Neither Gigabyte nor MSI needs to install a boot loader to boot Windows... so just what boot loader is it for?

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Maybe some recovery tools...

So much misinformation on this. The biggest threat to privacy and security is not Windows. Cookies and Cookie poisoning is the biggest problem. No OS is immune to this. It's a can of worms that no one talks about. Advice to remove machine telemety and mess with Services is ridiculous and poor advice. No user data is used for Telemetry. Also, évery service you log into collects data which is shared via Cookies.

ultrajv said:

So much misinformation on this. The biggest threat to privacy and security is not Windows. Cookies and Cookie poisoning is the biggest problem. No OS is immune to this. It's a can of worms that no one talks about. Advice to remove machine telemety and mess with Services is ridiculous and poor advice. No user data is used for Telemetry. Also, évery service you log into collects data which is shared via Cookies.

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Website cookies stored on your local computer do not directly affect the Windows 11 operating system itself—they only influence your web browsing experience.