It’s a nightmare scenario for Microsoft. The headlining feature of its new Copilot+ PC initiative, which is supposed to drive millions of PC sales over the next couple of years, is under significant fire for being what many say is a major breach of privacy and security on Windows. That feature in question is Windows Recall, a new AI tool designed to remember everything you do on Windows. The feature that we never asked and never wanted it.
Microsoft, has done a lot to degrade the Windows user experience over the last few years. Everything from obtrusive advertisements to full-screen popups, ignoring app defaults, forcing a Microsoft Account, and more have eroded the trust relationship between Windows users and Microsoft.
It’s no surprise that users are already assuming that Microsoft will eventually end up collecting that data and using it to shape advertisements for you. That really would be a huge invasion of privacy, and people fully expect Microsoft to do it, and it’s those bad Windows practices that have led people to this conclusion.
It’s the 1, 2, 3, 4 punch of
“Haha windows 10 EOL is soon and no your computer cannot upgrade 😏”
Followed by the
“We’re thinking about… no? Okay well anyways, we’re gonna shove ads into the UX, even after backpedaling after backlash”
Then the
“Listen the security situation is p bad and we’re not too sure what to do about it. Lots of internal accts have been compromised. Probably yours too, we don’t really know. Shhh, we got big AI news soon.”
And lastly the
“Unveiling, the biggest security nightmare tool in the history of connected devices. From the writers of Total Recall and the masterminds behind Ads in your OS comes: Recall!”
I don’t care what windows does to rectify this. My parents next machines are either Linux or Chromebooks.
If windows 12 isn’t FOSS, Microsoft can pound sand.
Apple ensures its operating systems are clean, polished, and without bloat.
Except for all the uninstallable Apple bloat such as Apple Music, Apple TV, etc. And the numerous bugs and issues, such as still not being able to have the touch pad and mouse scroll wheel have different settings.
Im cryin over here, honest injun
Seen gamers install things worse then Recall. So to them they won’t care. Unless it hurts their latency or fps.
Microsoft has already taken a step back: Microsoft implements drastic changes to Recall after criticism
- Recall needs to be enabled during installation
- Windows Hello is needed so that only the users can view it’s own screenshots
- Recall database will be encrypted
Microsoft has done nothing to earn any good will or trust. Everything seems to spite the user or just harvesting maximum user data.
I know that I shouldn’t, but here’s what I think about this whole deal, illustrated with a single image macro:
Get wrecked, Microsoft.
I think that the article does a good job highlighting how much of a trainwreck this is, because Microsoft is not to be trusted. The Windows users hysterically complaining about this are not expecting Microsoft to behave in some outrageous way; they’re expecting Microsoft to behave as usual.
Every generation needs to learn what microsoft is all over again, but they only learn the hard way.
I don’t want to be the guy that always says Linux, but… …Linux
OH, it was been a long time coming seeing this type of headline again, it’s…glorius!
Microsoft is most years a #1 and sometimes a #2 Funder of: Rust, Python, and Linux. Are those destined for an E^3 “rug pull” too? Will it ever stop this kind of behavior, consistently conforming our behavior to itself with the money and industry position it leverages?
Don’t forget in calculating that industry position that OpenAI is now able to contract to the DoD for offensive capability.
Whatevs, sheeple will continue to bleet about how bad things are but not take any steps to enact change.
Where are at point no where new features added to something (phone, OS, website, etc) are only to further monetize the user while providing a minimal benefit.
People are losing trust with technology providers.
If this technology existed back in Windows 95 days people, would have gone wild for it.
Why is Lemmy showing me news from the 00’s?
Glad I switched from PC to Mac back in 2022 because I was pissed Microsoft was forcing me to upgrade hardware to switch to Windows 11 which I didn’t want. Apple to me is more private and will be more thoughtful with their AI tools to expand user functionality. Screw Microsoft. This is a user that had used PCs since the late 1980s…
This is the best summary I could come up with:
As CEO Satya Nadella described it, Windows now has a photographic memory that uses AI to triage and index everything you’ve ever done on your computer, enabling you to semantically search for things you’ve seen using natural language.
Your favorite web browser, video editor, or music streaming app of choice could release an update that begins scraping data from Windows Recall and uploading it to its own backend.
Many have already assumed the worst; that Windows Recall will eventually be used as a means to sell data to advertisers and train AI models, and that if it’s not happening today, it’s only a matter of time.
It’s a feature reserved exclusively for new PCs shipping under the Copilot+ umbrella, which means if you want to use it, you’ll have to buy a new device with a neural processing unit (NPU) that can output 40 TOPS of power first.
But there’s a very dark cloud hanging over this feature right now, and a lot of privacy conscious people are simply not going to be able to subscribe to the idea of Windows Recall in its current form.
I suspect this means we will see new features and capabilities added to Windows Recall over the coming months, along with updates to ensure the data it collects is secure on the device.
The original article contains 2,259 words, the summary contains 219 words. Saved 90%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Microsoft: oh no we might loose 0.0000001% of users, it doesn’t matter since we can shove our software down people throats
