Windows 10 - The Spying Money Maker (featuring @minion as author)
There was and still is a lot of talk going around windows 10 spying and their pushing the upgrade to windows 10. But what many don't know there is more to see that just meets the eye, more than the fact that "windows 10 is spying on you", truth is, they are, but not for the reasons you might think.
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/http://i.imgur.com/1Lc0ESf.jpg)
But before we dive into windows 10, let me for a second tell you some other facts about who's also spying on you.
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/http://www.activistpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Facebook_Spying.png)
Amongst tracking your profile, messages, likes etc... Facebook tracks your tab activity, what do you search on youtube, what you watch, what you google etc... But they are not doing this for security, no, it's money, to be more precise advertising. Facebook, google, yotubue and other services track you not because they are concerned that your a terrorist or to "tailor the experience to you". They track you, to find about what yo like, so that they can place proper ads according to your personal preferences. So all they are doing is trying to sell you the products of their advertisers and they use your collected data to provide products you might be interested in.
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/http://graphicdesignjunction.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/print-advertising-52.jpg)
Advertising today isn't what it used to be, back in the days, a product was advertised using product's information, where the consumer would evaluate the product using information about it. But advertising today, is using psychology's help to create desires for a product, to make you want it! Companies like facebook and goolge, earn billions just from advertising....
Windows 10
Now that you know why they track you, you'll understand better, why windows is spying on you. So before windows 10, the only way you where tracked was by a browser and your browsing habits, but there are ways to bypass that, most popular one being the use of a vpn, but even that is not guaranteed to be "anonymous". What windows 10 is doing, is introducing tracking on the system level! Now that you know that there is a lot of money out of the data, just by tracking Internet use, Imagine how much data they will be able to track and how much profit will that data give them. They will be able to track,when do you turn on your pc, what songs you have, what games do you play, what Anti virus do most users use and they can enable/disable and expand these "features" with updates without user notice...
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/http://www.kdnuggets.com/wp-content/uploads/analytics-suite.png)
This way of tracking enabled windows to make windows 10 a free upgrade and made them call windows 10 the "the last version of Windows". I mean really a multi-billion company with the most used OS on the planet offering their newest product as a free upgrade? Every economist would say there's something fishy about that and they are right. But spying has some positive "side effects", like providing an user experience tailored just to you with astonishing accuracy. This tracking business model also explains why windows needed to "push" windows 10 user count. They where giving away a system that relies to generate revenue on tracking data and every Analytic knows, the more data you have, the more accurate the analysis and they need that data to make money.
We know that windows 10 is actively tracking you, but you can stop it or at least limit the data they get from your machine. Youtuber Barnacules made a great video on how to show windows the "polite" finger with an easy to follow guide. So if you really like windows 10 and don't like the tracking, Barnacules is there to help out with he's video Here(Make sure to check it out anyways). Even with the recent woman successfully suing windows for forced update and windows "pushing" the 10 upgrade less aggressively they still do something in the shadows.
Svchost.exe & "Skylake fiasco"
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/http://lowendguru.com/wp-content/uploads/task3.png)
Over the course of past 18 months a growing number of users have reported their windows copies malfunctioning. To be precise the service svchost.exe "eating up" massive amounts of ram or pushing the cpu to 100% due to the windows update module failing to obtain new updates and ending up in a infinite loop frenzy that renders your machine useless. Some users reported even having both high ram and cpu usage! Interesting info about this problem is:
- Windows to date, rolled out 3 different updates "attempting" to resolve the problem, but without major success, still the updates didn't fix the problem for 60% of the users.
- The problem is popular amongst machines that have, low RAM count(DDR2 below 2Gb) and generally "outdated" hardware.
- The problem mostly occurs in win 7 copies, but win 8/8.1 aren't excluded
- Upgrading to windows 10 seems to fix the problem
This data is weird, just by analyzing it we can come to a conclusion, that this problem might be on "purpose", that they are doing this just to push as many users as they can to windows 10. One of the more recent scandals about windows 10 is the "skylake fiasco", users who have a Skylake will pretty much have to upgrade to windows 10 within the next 18 months if they haven't done already. So if you plan on using the latest intel cpu's, windows 10 is a must...
Conclusion
But even with this all said bad about windows 10, fact is beneath a fancy look is the best OS "engine" to this date and If your concerned about your privacy there are ways to solve that. Microsoft seems to be pushing their monopolistic strategy once more after the monopoly scandal back in 2001, a year later after Bill Gates stepped down as chief executive officer, seems that they still haven't learned their lesson and that history will repeat itself.
![](https://steemitimages.com/0x0/http://i.imgur.com/FzBLPgp.gif)
@dragonslayer109 features authors to promote new authors and a diversity of content. ALL STEEM Dollars for this post go to the featured author
Don't just follow me, follow the author as well, if you like their post - @minion. Thank you
@dragonslayer
There is no such thing as free
I am not going to upgrade to windows 10 wish it would stop asking me, I'm sticking with windows 8.1 its much better
You can stop the update module, just do a simple google search. :)
But don't stop it unless your a professional working with very specific software. Even if you are you can still manually download and install required updates.
I'm not a professional do won't touch it I just kee postponing it hoping it will give up lol
I was referring as professional in a way that you need some of the updates. Disabling windows update is easy, as I said a simple google search will do the job.
hahahhahaha, lol
I will give google a go as can't see them giving up lol
hahahahhahahaa
![](https://steemitimages.com/0x0/http://i.makeagif.com/media/4-18-2014/XLairk.gif)
@minion SPYBOT ANTI-BEACON (free download) works well to block all telemetry in Win 10, works well for 8.1 too.
yep, I have ALWAYS needed to turn off auto-updates.
Win 2000 screwed me when one update ruined drivers for hardware locks, and some of my software, which was how I made INCOME. I turned off the updates and never cared again.
My laptop would take up to 30min to boot up, because of applying updates.
As soon as I began using IT as well for work, I turned of that crap too.
Well, as I state in the text and link to Barnacules's video where he does everything step byt step and provides "trusted" software that does the job for windows 10. Unfortunately I'm not aware of that software and I don't know anything about it, If you'd ask me I'd trust the software Barnacules uses.
Side note: Still rocking win7 x64 :), will upgrade to win 10 when I bulid a new pc.
That's why I moved to Linux. I chose Ubuntu 16.04 and nobody tracks me.
except canonical
install linux
What about IOs, apple does the same?
I'll make one about apple, but I wouldn't jump in that they are doing the same, yet their business model is chaining and Steve Job's wouldn't like to see that... It's noting seriously wrong but, It's definitively not Steve's vision.. :/
There's some truth in what you say. However svchost.exe very buggy service. Generally Windows 98 - 10 very buggy operating system. Free updates are made for sale of their applications in a market. Not for espionage. They were tired that Russians use only the hacked software. Though it didn't help them again. All spy and on all. But I don't think that simple people are interesting to them.
I am not updated. Because it is necessary to change iron. It is just the market. As soon as you were updated. Buy a new computer. Games issue are obviously connected with new video cards. Though old video card not than not worse.
Good points, also I'm very clear that they are not spying trying to take your privacy away, they are doing it as a part of their new business model, they are shifting their focus away from OS, they are expanding.
Hmmm. I was blown away by this. :/
Can I share this on other social sites? :)
Of course! That's why I'm sharing it, it's important information everyone should know! :))
Ed Bott has a pretty effective rebuttal for all this Windows 10 spyware FUD.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/no-microsoft-is-not-spying-on-you-with-windows-10/
Yes both "versions" are circling the Internet, I let you decide.
https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2016/01/04/windows-10-now-active-on-over-200-million-devices/#EFHPP7BiyWgoQChH.97
To be clear, I'm not claiming any of this to be true or not, it's up to the user to decide and as stated in the post, even if they where spying, they would do that purely for advertising purposes.
Telemetry is not the same as spying.
That's a "hard word" for the public to consume. Yeah I know the difference between the two. ;)
The purpose is to let people know that, "something is happening under the hood" and that it's not that bad as presented.
That's very different from "The Spying Money Maker". :)
Would a non techy click on a title: Windows 10 Telemetry? hahahhaha :))
It is necessary just to remove two folders of $Windows. ~ $Windows BT and. ~ WS. Any more not who won't be updated to ask you.
Yes i began to think microsoft is spying everything we search or use actually..they must change these spying methods because theyre only doing all the people dont trust them anymore