Microsoft may be collecting more data than initially thought

[Batu69]

Microsoft recently told the world that its new Windows 10 operating system was active on over 200 million devices, a fact that leaked a week earlier already.

 

The company stated that Windows 10 was its fastest growing operating system to date beating Windows 8 and even everyone's darling Windows 7 so far, and that it was seeing great adoption in retail and the Enterprise sector.

 

Considering that Windows 10 is offered for free currently to existing Windows users on Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, it is not really a surprise that this is happening.

 

The same article revealed data that may be of concern to privacy conscious users. If you read it carefully, you will notice that Microsoft provides aggregate usage statistics not only for the operating system's uptime, but also information about individual programs running on it.

Windows 10 usage

 

In particular, it listed the following information to demonstrate the popularity of Windows 10:

 

1. People spent more than 11 billion hours on Windows 10 in December 2015.
2. 44.5 billion minutes were spent in Microsoft Edge across Windows 10 devices in December 2015 (0.71 billion hours).
3. Users asked Cortana more than 2.5 billion questions since launch.
4. More than 82 billion photos were viewed in the Windows 10 Photo application.
5. Windows 10 gamers spent over 4 billion hours playing PC games.
6. Gamers have streamed more than 6.6 million hours of Xbox One games to Windows 10 PCs.
7. About 30% more Bing search queries from Windows devices compared to previous versions of Windows.

 

The statistics indicate that Microsoft may be collecting more data than initially thought. While it is unclear what data is exactly collected, it is clear that the company is collecting information about the use of individual applications and programs on Windows at the very least.

 

The real question is how fine grained the data collecting actually is. For instance, is Windows 10 recording what users do in Edge or the actual questions that individual users ask Cortana?

 

According to Microsoft, the data collecting is for the greater good only. It is being used to make the product work better and that is certainly true to an extent as Microsoft can use the data it collects to find out about the popularity of an application or operating system feature.

 

Still, since Microsoft does not reveal detailed information about what gets collected and to what end, it is something that users need to be aware about at the very least. Obviously, it would be helpful if Windows 10 would ship with options to turn off these data collecting features.

 

While some of that is implemented in Windows 10, it seems difficult to near impossible to block all the data collecting from taking place.

 

It is certainly no coincidence that the rise of privacy software went along with the release of Windows 10.

 

Article source

 

[Airstream_Bill]

Well I hope they are keeping good records on me as I loose stuff. 

[straycat19]

I have been saying this for months, that Microsoft is collecting metadata (if that sounds familiar it is because the NSA collects metadata) that contains much more information than what they are admitting to collecting, and even keep copies of your encryption keys.  Everyone knows what the NSA is capable of obtaining from metadata, so imagine what Microsoft is capable of harvesting when they have total control over the OS.  People accuse me of being paranoid, but I'm not, I am speaking from experience with several of the 3-Letter agencies.

[Karlston]

3 hours ago, Batu69 said:

• 200 million devices installed
• People spent more than 11 billion hours on Windows 10 in December 2015.
• 44.5 billion minutes were spent in Microsoft Edge across Windows 10 devices in December 2015 (0.71 billion hours).
• Users asked Cortana more than 2.5 billion questions since launch.
• More than 82 billion photos were viewed in the Windows 10 Photo application.
• Windows 10 gamers spent over 4 billion hours playing PC games.
• Gamers have streamed more than 6.6 million hours of Xbox One games to Windows 10 PCs.
• About 30% more Bing search queries from Windows devices compared to previous versions of Windows.

 

These are how Microsoft defends its claims that Windows 10 is a raging success. By quoting big but meaningless numbers to try and con the unthinking (most users and nearly all the media).

 

Well here's another big number Microsoft! One that destroys your claim of success...

 

Over 1 billion, that's 1,000 million Windows 7 and 8.1 have NOT upgraded to Windows 10. Given Microsoft's aggressive and unethical pushing of Windows 10, that means 80% of the July 2015 Windows 7 and 8.1 user base have actively rejected Windows 10.

 

So in summary... 1,000 million have said NO, only 200 million have said YES. That shows Windows 10 to be an abject failure, NOT a success.

 

Perhaps if Microsoft started treating users as adults capable of making their own decisions, not as children needing things forced on them for their own good. I WILL NOT BE BULLIED MICROSOFT!

[Holmes]

Will all my stuff be in my butt?  That wasnt photoshopped at all nope.  A article about windows ten this is a first lawls.

[straycat19]

Quote

Perhaps if Microsoft started treating users as adults capable of making their own decisions, not as children needing things forced on them for their own good. I WILL NOT BE BULLIED MICROSOFT!

 

I have had 5 hours sleep in the last 48 hours and will not sleep tonight since I have to be on the road at 3:30 a.m. to drive up to a little community where I am setting up shop in a feed and grain store so the farmers can bring their systems in to have them rolled back.  I provide this service free of charge now since a lot of the farmers have computers with GPS units in their tractors, harvesters, and combines.  They take the card out of it and put it in their home computer and can track how they planted or even plan a crop planting.  Then put the card back in the mobile system and just follow the path on the screen much as you would with an automobile GPS.  Unfortunately, Windows 10 breaks every one of these systems so those that don't feel competent to do their own rollbacks, I provide the service for them.  In some communities I have had so many 'customers' that we ran out of table space and was stacking up bags of grain and feed and using them as tables.  The only real problem is even Microsoft's rollback is fucked about 25% of the time which creates a few more problems, though not insurmountable, since I carry my networking equipment, a 40TB NAS, 4 laptops, and a portable (well, it does have handles to carry it) desktop with a 27 inch monitor.  What do I get out of this?  Some of the best home cooked breakfast, lunch, and dinners, occasionally a few dollars, sometimes a free tank of gas,  but most of all the opportunity to say 'F*CK YOU MICROSOFT!"

[Holmes]

You have a very noble account of yourself considering some posts you have made in here the noble account doesnt shed any light on the forum from what I have seen is there a reason for this do you have something against this forum.

[steven36]

Windows  10 vs  Legacy windows

 

[Batu69]

[mirassol]

5 hours ago, steven36 said:

Windows  10 vs  Legacy windows

 

 This deserves a retweet