Microsoft says it has “listened to feedback” following a privacy row over a new tool which takes regular screenshots of users’ activity.
It was labelled a potential “privacy nightmare” by critics when it was unveiled in May 2024 - prompting the tech giant to postpone its release. It now plans to relaunch the artificial intelligence (AI) powered tool in November on its new CoPilot+ computers.
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When it initially announced the tool at its developer conference in May, Microsoft said it used AI “to make it possible to access virtually anything you have ever seen on your PC”, and likened it to having photographic memory. It said Recall could search through a users’ past activity, including their files, photos, emails and browsing history.
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But critics quickly raised concerns, given the quantity of sensitive data the system would harvest, with one expert labelling it a potential “privacy nightmare."
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[Pavan Davuluri, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Windows and devices says] that “Windows offers tools to help you control your privacy and customise what gets saved for you to find later”.
However a technical blog about it states that “diagnostic data” from the tool may be shared with the firm depending on individual privacy settings.
[Microsoft says in a blog post that users can remove Recall entirely by using the optional features settings in Windows.]
Also, I too love Linux, but when I ran a dual-boot for six weeks last summer I had to troubleshoot it almost every single day. Because of that I ended up just going back to Windows and making sure I keep it clean with O&O ShutUp. Some systems just aren’t compatible with Linux and mine is one of them.
Even when it was working, only approximately half of my games ran on it, so I needed Windows anyway. (Though that may be on me for choosing Mint instead of a more gaming-centric distro.)
I’m going to go back to Linux when get a new system and can have a gaming-dedicated PC, but for now, I’m stuck with Windows.
I’m a software developer and thus tried quite a few distros. Over the years I always switched back to Ubuntu, because it was the least broken. All others just suddenly gave up and had some weird bugs I wasn’t able to easily debug. Issues are not worth my free time. And that is the only reason I use Ubuntu alongside Windows. But when support for W10 seized, Windows will be history for me.
Exactly. I will say though that I learned a lot, so it’ll be easier when I go back. I do plan to give Ubuntu a try as I’ve read it plays nicer with Nvidia.
My plan is to have a gaming-dedicated system for Windows and a non-gaming system for literally everything else on Linux.
May i suggest for both of you to try Linux Mint (Regular Edition, XFCE MATE or Cinnamon) ? It is the only linux distro that has never failed me once, after also getting into unfixable messees with majaro, arch, endeavour, and also regular debian and LMDE not even booting up on my PC. It uses the Ubuntu base and several of its programs (like the extensive hardware compatibility and system stuff) but takes away the bad stuff in it (like the SNAPs, that loads of people hate both for not being FOSS and to replace the regular debian and flatpak, and give a worse performance in several cases like Firefox). I also agree every linux distro sans Mint is too rough for now, but Linux Mint is the magnum opus of linux, is already click-click-install, beginner-friendly and stable like rock.
Sadly, that’s the distro I had when I did my dual boot last summer. My Lenovo just isn’t compatible with it.
Mint has not worked well with my Nvidia card either. Pop_OS is doing great, though. They have an Nvidia specific install with some optimization for Nvidia cards.
That’s good to know. Is it user-friendly?
Very. I have had to use the terminal for a couple things (VPN and some Switch modding), but 99% of the time it is unnecessary.
Popos was the one I tried last, out of curiosity.It ran smoothly at first. Then all of a sudden logging in to my user took 3 minutes. Turned out it was some custom popos syncing code that blocked the login process. I’m now running Ubuntu again 🥴
How long before that happened? I’ve been running it for several months and have had no issues
Dualboot is pretty ass and breaks all the time. I strongly suspect that was part of your issue
I am baffled to read you had to troubleshoot your linux installation every day, what kind of distro were you using?
Sorry you didn’t have a good time.
Literally just Mint.
And yeah, I kind of just assumed dual-boot was a big part of the issue. I’m planning to repurpose my old PC to be a non-gaming Linux PC for everything but gaming when I upgrade later this year. Will be perfect for me to have a system for gaming only and one I can use for everything-but to protect my privacy.
Yeah, that’s really the most straightforward solution unfortunately.
In case you’re not already familiar look into sunshine/moonlight for quick access to the windows machine