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I hope this is an okay place to ask this. My Win 8.1 touchscreen laptop started freezing after removing some load-bearing crapware, so I did a 'refresh' on it. It works now, but a friend suggested that I'd might as well get the upgrade to Windows 10 now that I have lost all my programs anyway. However, I remember the tech news talking about the surveillance stuff in Win10 and the hysteria that followed. Looking for the news after the fact, I'm having a little trouble discerning if this is something I should be worried about, or if it is no worse than your average big company operating in the surveillance state in the 2010's. This laptop is going to be used for either Skype or Google Hangouts and maybe paying bills and Facebook. If the Win10 surveillance is not worse than what is already unavoidable in using services from Google and Facebook, then I suppose I don't care. If it is somehow worse, i suppose if I had to, I could make the jump to Ubuntu. I am hesitant to take that step just in case I need some software that doesn't run on Linux some point soon.
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Jan 6, 2016 15:43
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Rooney McNibnug posted:The problem with this plan is that Canonical has pushed Ubuntu to become eerily similar to Windows 10 in this respect. You must opt-out of some annoying OS data vaccuming on there as well.. I guess the lesson here is that data will get hoovered because data is money.
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Jan 7, 2016 00:22
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Lain Iwakura posted:Don't spend money on anti-virus if you can help it; it is not worth any amount of money. This statement from the OP is about 4 years old. Is this still true? I ask because this is my situation: In the past I've used paid Malware Bytes and was fine with it, but changed to paid BitDefender a little while ago, and I really don't like how much it nags me and spams me. It feels like when I used free AVG ten years ago. (Both products were at the suggestion of my IT-minded friend with a computer service business.) So, I was considering changing what I use, went to find goon suggestions, and landed here. I use Windows 10, Firefox, and uBlock Origin.
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Feb 14, 2021 18:01
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Khablam posted:No one should really consider a commercial VPN server a privacy device nor decide routing all their traffic through it is a good idea though. Run the VPN in a VM/separate machine if your use-case is getting linux distributions with some anonymity. Sorry, a question for those of us in the back. I feel like what you're saying is "Run a Virtual Machine with a Linux Distro, inside of which the internet is all going through the VPN" but I don't understand how that would jive with the "Don't use a commercial VPN" statement from the start. Or is this some sort of alternative to a commercial VPN that I am not understanding?
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Feb 23, 2021 23:18
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Khablam posted:A VPN is just a private virtual network (yeah I'm sure you know the acronym) which before a handful of years ago was pretty much only used in enterprise settings to communicate between branches securely. Some nerds would also run OpenVPN back to their home when using their phone/laptop or something, but it was never widely adopted. Okay, that all basically jives with what I thought (which is at least partially based on the Tom Scott video which I imagine is somewhat basic.) Two follow up questions: Does the Virtual Machine portion of this offer anything outside of 'not having to use a separate computer to access whatever you wish to access anonymously'? Last year, I started doing a virtual machine for my social networking so that 1: to separate any tracking in its own little prison and 2: it's an inconvenience to check so I don't look at Facebook. (I have since gone on a total social media diet, so I don't check it at all anymore.) Would it be the same if I just had a separate computer that I only used for social media, or is there something specific about VMs? Does the same principle apply to VMs in the cloud? As I dip my toes further and further into Azure at work, I sometimes daydream about spinning up random VMs in the cloud to do cool poo poo. My previous experience is all with VirtualBox locally.
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Feb 24, 2021 11:24
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Thanks for all the answers. It's been enlightening.
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Feb 24, 2021 21:37
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I've been thinking of doing a 'security refresh' on my home infrastructure, based on a few pieces of random advice I've accumulated over the years. Now, I don't know if they are sensible or not, so I'd be interested to hear the thread's thoughts on these. In descending order of "likelihood I will try them" are: 1: Setting up a second / guest wifi network to connect work devices to, separate from my existing personal network and devices. I see the process described here and it seems straightforward enough. Is it worth the bother? 2: Password managers: my old crusty password manager (PasswordSafe) is bordering on no longer being fit for purpose as I start accumulating more and more devices, so it might be time to start with an actual cloud-based service. Are any better or worse than any other? Are any others open source? 3: A bill-paying email address. Currently, I use my 'resume' email for bills, but I saw someone suggest that having an entirely separate email is a reasonable way to avoid phishes. It would be some work to change it all over, and add some additional overhead, but would it be worth it? 4: A bill-paying laptop: Similar to above, except that the only device which handles bills is a cheapo Chromebook or whatever. It feels kind of e-Waste-y to me to have an entire device for that, but I'm curious if it's worth the bother. Let me know what you think, or if there is a better place to post this question.
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Jul 23, 2022 11:38
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Saukkis posted:Beyond that you could setup a Hyper-V virtual machine. I have done something similar to this with my social media presence, and it is kind of a pain in the neck and slow.
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Jul 24, 2022 12:45
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Subjunctive posted:Duplicate passwords let the store compress better, so you’re really just being environmentally friendly. Good idea. Also I've heard short lowercase passwords save even more space.
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Nov 5, 2022 21:12
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Subjunctive posted:- install a Russian keyboard so that their malware will ignore you Is this a joke/meme? Or is this real?
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Mar 5, 2024 11:32
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