I dunno.

On the one hand we have a major software vendor being open about what they are and aren't doing, with US and EU legal officials watching ready to pounce, with national data protection legislation all over the world that has to be complied with, and with a huge revenue stream from licensing potentially under threat if they go too far.

On the other hand we have paranoid random dude ranting on the internet.

Which shall I believe? Decisions, decisions. 

Troll harder bro...

It's not paranoia when it's factual and TRUE!

Just one example, and NOT from some "random paranoid dude ranting on the internet"... gfy

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3073457/windows/how-microsofts-nasty-new-windows-10-pop-up-tricks-you-into-upgrading.html

Just because you accept it, doesn't mean it's correct. It just makes you complacent, as I stated above. 

Technically, they didn't do anything illegal here. 

I don't think anybody said what they do is illegal. As a matter of fact, you have to agree to let them do it before you can use Windows 10. They call it their "Service Agreement". It doesn't apply to just Windows either, it includes most of their other products and services.

I don't know the "paranoid random dude". I first heard of the issues from a Microsoft employee who said he personally wouldn't use Windows 10 because it made him feel uncomfortable. He didn't work in the OS division though, so what does he know?

Personally, I think it's one of those situations where it's better to be safe than sorry. Since there's no really good reason to use Windows 10 and many reasons to avoid it, that's what I've done.

Of course, as I said before, many people just don't care for one reason or another. That's fine, but I hope they actually read and understood but the Service Agreement and Privacy Policy that they agreed to first. 

Install Gentoo 

Now let's people uninstall the Windows 10 upgrade crap now that Windows 10 isn't a free upgrade any longer.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3184143/remove-software-related-to-the-windows-10-free-upgrade-offer 

Oh the naivety of some people

Everybody is on the "your customers data is the real $$$" gravy train and M$ sure as fuck are baking on it with Win10

Hehe, "free" Win10 upgrade. Yup, where the FUCK do some of you **** think they generate $ from with that shit ?

Legal or not does not fucking matter. 

Microsoft make the vast majority of their profits from corporate licensing. Sorry to shit in your cornflakes, but you're nowhere near as important as you think you are. 

It matters when the lawsuits come. Or at least it should.

There's a difference between using dirty tactics to trick the users into doing something, and outright lying to them. Though both are despicable. 

mh yes they do.

They are also publicly traded.

They are also loosing ground as to corporate licenses or at least see such a thing starting to happen, they have already adapted theyr strategy there, joining in the open source movement etc.

Their prerogative it to constantly generate more profit.

Wherever they can, and the big ticket is customer data.

Just look at their most expensive acquisitions:

June 13, 2016 | LinkedIn | Value USD 26,200,000,000

May 10, 2011 | Skype Technologies | Value USD 8,500,000,000

And others.

They are DESPERATE for it to stay relevant in investors eyes.

This is how it goes today and always but more than ever now in the tech world: someone has made mega$$$ with X ? We must do X too or we are irrelevant and investors will think we will fail in future (nevermind if its a fucking stupid idea for Y company to do X thing.

For M$ recently :
CLOUD / AMAZON CLOUD OMG!! -> AZURE!!
(For corporate reasons foremost but Win10 is very ready to be offloaded onto the cloud, thats the end goal, your OS will not run on your PC but a remote server they have plenty control over), same already with office etc

and USER DATA!! -> lets spend sickening amount acquiring social networks and mine our userbase (Win10)

mh, please shut up. 

Skynet will go online soon! 

Please shut up lest we get more Killes rants. 

 

Geez - i had to debug a friends OS X printer issue today. It was a wireless connection... but worked perfectly. What a lovely piece of software.

I'm just saying - i really don't understand why people don't use OS X. Their desktop share is going backwards even though MS gives everyone the pineapple, and Desktop Linux is so pathetic

Mebee Chromebooks are the future, laugh. All hail our Google overlords. 

People wonder why people don't use OS X? Perhaps it's the cost. Or the software support. Or the continuing decline of Apple's software quality over the past few years - even if they are still miles ahead of Microsoft, they're getting worse when it comes to bugs and flaws with every release, and Microsoft is only gaining ground. 

But Microsoft is gaining ground? Please. Their OS is about as shit as it always has been. It's a complete mess in the UI department. Just because Windows 10 is better than 8 doesn't mean that they're gaining anything. 

The point is they're closing the gap, for better or worse. They have their own little walled enclave with the Store, they had a voice assistant before Apple did (!), Driver support has been improving or at least holding steady since 7 and yes, the UI does suck compared to what Apple offers, but it's slightly better than 7 from a QoL perspective and at least it's not as bad as 8.