Every time I use windows I feel sick, confused and annoyed.
The first thing it asks you on install is to choose how much data you want to give up for advertising and diagnostics. Not whether you want to send any, just how much, with the least being "minimal".
The constant barrage of ads, mandatory online connections, and corporate integrations disgusts me, and slows me down, I can't ignore them I have to decline and then investigate how to turn them off.
The number of hoops I have to jump through just to get a usable operating system is absurd, such as editing the registry so the file search shows files and not bing results, having to open Edge and ignore 5 requests to sign-in so I can download a real browser, while also ignoring 5 patronising and manipulative attempts to deter me from switching from Edge.
Then I have to download a bunch of third party proprietary drivers just to use my GPU properly, all of which need me to click through 5 windows to complete the install else I'll accidentally install the trial for some spyware antivirus or end up enabling enough analytics to recreate my personality as an AI, which will naturally be used to advertise to my own mother.
I then spend 15 minutes going through the privacy settings checking and disabling various additional data collection features that weren't mentioned in the setup because this isn't my computer it's Microsoft's and they deserve access to it.
Then I have to consider how much more effort I want to spend making windows mine, so I open up Group Policy and enforce several enterprise only settings that actually disables data collection entirely, disables tips, feedback surveys, "experiences" and other such garbage no one wants, knowing in despair more will be added in a new update and I'll have to check everything again. All of which is only available of you have Windows Pro because we couldn't allow just any old grunt full access to their own computer, instead we'll paywall it behind $150, or you can buy a dodgy key on G2A for $10 or hell run that massgrave thing and pirate your copy which btw is 100% malware and you should not run dodgy scripts off the internet especially ones so blatantly obfuscated and designed to be easily switched out to any script the highest bidder asks for.
Windows is user hostile, it's designed to exploit you, to squeeze you hard of as much cash and data that it can find. Windows is not popular because its good, but because Microsoft have a monopoly on the market, because so much software is designed to run on it, which makes a loop of parasiticsm, because it's there in front of you and you don't know any better (not your fault).
I don't use Linux as a joke, or a compromise, or as a struggle, or just for the moral high-ground. I use it because it's actually really good, I watch anime, i play games, i write emails, i watch youtube, i code (or try to), i manage servers, i send cat pictures to my grandma, i organise files, i do whatever the fuck i want and its between me and me and no one else and it just works, it's worth customising, it does what I ask and it does it quickly, it doesn't feel like I'm renting my computer, it doesn't hide things or patronise me, it doesn't ask me to spend money, or buy a subscription, it doesn't try to manipulate or gaslight me, it doesn't misunderstand the concept of consent, it doesn't randomly update and break itself, and it absofuckinglutely doesn't have the audacity of telling me to "license" it for the privilege of using a glorified digital billboard.
If you want your computer to feel like an abusive relationship, constantly working to undermine you, getting slower and slower while taking away features and replacing them with things you don't want, recording eveything you're doing and sharing it with Daddy Microsoft whike asking for money for that privilege, just because it's familiar to you, because it runs the software you grew up with, because it runs Valorant and League or some 30 year old enterprise centrifuge in your nuclear fuel refinement facility then that's fine. That's your perogative.
But Linux does work, and it works well. If you put in the effort to learn something new, (and it's not much effort, it's less than using the registry or policy editor), then in the long term everything gets so much easier, and the endless stream of bullshit Microsoft pumps out won't affect you.
I run Ubuntu BTW, LTS, with uncustomised Gnome and FireFox in a snap.
#microsoft #windows #privacy #linux
