To upgrade, or not to upgrade, that is the Windows question
Privacy, it’s something we all appreciate, those of us who live on the edge of society, ie living off-grid, we really look for ways to stay on the down low. At the same time, many of us want to us modern technology, ie computers, but using modern technology exposes us to the potential to be spied on, by the software companies and from the government.
You know what they say, it’s not being paranoid if they are actually after you, LOL… Who me? Paranoid? Naw… But with this new version of Windows, I was suspicious from the beginning, I’ve worked in the computer industry in the past, I’ve been “in” computers since the latter days of DOS and the beginnings of Windows, I promise you, they have never given this operating system away en masse before, you might get an upgrade to the next version, maybe, if everything was right and the planets all aligned at the right time.
Now suddenly, they want everyone to upgrade to the newest version of Windows, for free, just like that. I have resisted, for a couple of reasons, I know for a fact that I will lose my free version of Microsoft Office Starter and I use that suite on a weekly basis, I haven’t found anything that does exactly what I need it to do, yet… The other thing is I have an older version of Photohop and I don’t know if it will come through unscathed, the rest of my programs I believe will be OK or I’m not worried about losing them.
So back to the”free” upgrade, I have found over the years that free is never free, there are always strings, and in this case, one of those really big strings goes directly to your privacy, or rather lack of privacy. I’m sure that many of you have committed to the upgrade, and that’s fine, I hope you did some research before the upgrade and took measures to protect yourself.
Some folk do not care one way or the other. For me, I assume that everything I do online is being tracked by someone, or several someones, bottom line for me is I don’t do anything in the privacy of my browser that I wouldn’t want the world to see. I have to trust that my financial data is secure, I do my best to protect my finances, but there is always the risk.
The big issue is the fact that many of the software companies we trust may or may not have our best interests in mind, and that goes double (triple?) for the government. I did find a video explaining the security/privacy issues with Windows 10, and even better explains how to disable the spying parts of Windows that are turned on by default.
It’s a longer video, but well worth the time, watch it, bookmark it, …