More Windows 11 Bad News From Microsoft

[Forest Cat]

There is one word that seems to pop up again and again when people talk about Windows 11.

Problem.

They should have called it Problem 11.

 

[Judge]

NOT GOOD ENOUGH!

Microsoft intends to again release their abominable software feature known as "Recall", which automatically takes snapshots of every page you access. Claiming it is now "secure", but harvesting all your data nevertheless. Apparently with the excuse that the software is allegedly tied to the file explorer. I guess Microsoft hates ALL their customers.

So much for gaming. Not worth it when I have to be concerned with substandard security not only against hackers, but against Microsoft. I'll pass once and for all on Windows 11.

There are still a few out there (like Gilles Letourneau) who insist that even now that Windows 11 "Recall" can technically be uninstalled. Which might pan out to be true. However like other "hacks" the public has figured out with Windows 11, that Microsoft will eventually catch up and neutralize them to remind their customers who is in control.

I'm not sure what it would take for Microsoft's "suits" to figure out how toxic their "Recall" feature will be to most of their customers, in order to allow them at least the choice of turning it off. Otherwise it may be the most egregious invasion of users' privacy and diminished security since the advent of the Internet itself.

 

[Forest Cat]

I mentioned that I tried the first solution on that list, the easiest one, restart computer four times. And so far everything is working fine. Something did change when I restarted it four times, it powers up faster now, gets to the desktop faster. Maybe it will 'refresh' itself again tomorrow and delete everything again, but so far everything is ok at least.

Well, it was good as long as it lasted, but this morning my luck ran out. It 'refreshed' itself again. Damn you Windows. And when I tried to fix it, first the taskbar icons became invisible. Then when I tried to fix that, everything disappeard and the entire screen was just white. Nothing to click on. Had to do a hard reset. At this point I think I should call a priest, maybe two priests, or a team of priests, an exorcism might fix this if I'm lucky.

Or it might be time to retire this computer and use it for target practice and buy a new one. Either that or an exorcism.

 

[Outdated]

Either that or an exorcism.

Try sacrificing a small goat to Odin. If that doesn't work his son has a bloody big hammer.

 

[Forest Cat]

Try sacrificing a small goat to Odin. If that doesn't work his son has a bloody big hammer.

I did sacrifice a cheese burger while shouting "By the beard of Outdated, work, I command thee!!". And then I smacked it with a ladle. So now I'm waiting to see if that changed something.

 

[Kayla55]

Need help,
My phone did what yeshuaduaghter did, it had black background setting on browser, so I reset everything, I've downloaded Mozilla and actually whole lot better. Now while back downloaded spyware package, detected nothing on my android. Types numerical keys and no outgoing connections, zilch. But my phone is just slow, slower. So think factory reset.

 

[Judge]

More reasons to hold off on installing Microsoft's infamous 24H2 update. From what I consider a reliable and balanced source when it comes to everything Windows:

 

[FilterFreq]

I'm starting to think the main reason people have trouble migrating over to Linux is due to the missing drivers that you inevitably have to scramble and beg for just to get things to work the way you're used to. The GUI on most distros seems pretty up to par, although I put my specific complaints in that other thread . I'm pickier than most.

Has anyone converted over due to a distaste for 11, and do you still use tools like Powershell? I'm kind of curious as to how many people might've finally decided to take the plunge based on 11's unpopularity.

I also want to check out Chris Titus' video on Powershelling on Linux

 

[Judge]

Has anyone converted over due to a distaste for 11

I also want to check out Chris Titus' video on Powershelling on Linux

Guilty as charged. Been using Linux Mint and Pop!OS for the last two years. Just recently wiped out my Windows 10 SSD to use as another Linux distro. I'm done with Microsoft for now. Scared to go anywhere near "Windows 11". What a trainwreck!

Though you're right about driver issues. They nearly did me in over the last few months in trying to figure out why Linux Mint 21.3 and 22.0 were randomly freezing anywhere from 30 minutes of uptime to a week or more. I was getting pretty discouraged too. This was the toughest hurdle for me yet with Linux.

Luckily with lots of help from @Outdated we were able to pinpoint the problem being what he initially told me. That the mere existence of the Xorg/Nouveau driver can interfere with all the other proprietary Nvidia drivers to cause such problems. Initially I mishandled the fix and ended up exhausting a number of alleged solutions, all which turned out not to stop the OS from suddenly freezing.

It was when I created a blacklisting for the Xorg/Nouveau driver that the freezing went away, now 21 days without it happening. In the meantime I've deduced that other measures I took did nothing, so I've been deleting them without incident so far.

Creating the file "blacklist-nouveau-nvidia.conf " as shown below:

# Keep Nouveau driver from interfering with other video drivers:
blacklist nouveau
options nouveau modeset=0

Then placing the file into the etc/modprobe.d folder, and then applying the following using the terminal: sudo update-initramfs -u

@Outdated rocks!

 

[FilterFreq]

It was when I created a blacklisting for the Xorg/Nouveau driver that the freezing went away, now 21 days without it happening. In the meantime I've deduced that other measures I took did nothing, so I've been deleting them without incident so far.

Creating the file "blacklist-nouveau-nvidia.conf " as shown below:

# Keep Nouveau driver from interfering with other video drivers:
blacklist nouveau
options nouveau modeset=0

I had the same thing happening under Mint, which actually discouraged me from using the distro altogether. Every 30 minutes to 5-ish hours it would just completely freeze until rebooting and I couldn't get to the root of it. It was so close to being my perfect Linux setup, too, since everything else was working smoother than ever.

Going to keep this in mind and handy the next time I try Mint. If I had a fix for that and Redshift being unable to find location data, I'd be willing to try the distro again!

 

[Judge]

I had the same thing happening under Mint, which actually discouraged me from using the distro altogether. Every 30 minutes to 5-ish hours it would just completely freeze until rebooting and I couldn't get to the root of it. It was so close to being my perfect Linux setup, too, since everything else was working smoother than ever.

Going to keep this in mind and handy the next time I try Mint. If I had a fix for that and Redshift being unable to find location data, I'd be willing to try the distro again!

I tried so many different alleged "solutions" to that problem with no avail. Still using an Nvidia GTX 1660Ti but until recently had no understanding that the Xorg/Nouveau driver could so easily interfere with every other Nvidia driver I had. Including the 470, 535 and 550 versions.

So far using both the 470 and 535 Nvidia drivers, I have not experienced another freeze.

 

[Judge]

If I had a fix for that and Redshift being unable to find location data, I'd be willing to try the distro again!

One thing about the latest versions of Mint. (21.3/22.0)

I have the impression that they simply default to privacy settings that omit being able to allow much of any application to determine your location any more. Whether Redshift or Gnome Maps. That it's an OS issue with Mint, and perhaps quite deliberate compared to past versions.

In the past earlier versions of Mint seemed to be hit-or-miss as to its ability to use GPS and accurately record a user's location. As I recall, I discovered this required exclusive use of wireless. Awkward, as I exclusively use Ethernet.

I'd like to hear about it from anyone using Mint 22.0 if in fact they have any applications able to accurately determine one's location. Seems most people prefer anonymity when it comes to that sort of thing, which might have also prompted them to drop this feature. Though I can only speculate.

 

[FilterFreq]

That would make a lot of sense. It happens under a few other distros too, and it's strange that even setting your own location data to something arbitrary doesn't seem to solve it either for about 90% of people.

Troubleshooting can be kind of fun regardless, oddly. I bet there are more settings files than I even know about, and everything feels like it's at least a few tweaks away if you get them right!

 

[Outdated]

Unless you're accessing the net via wifi location data can't work. And I don't mean wirelessly connecting to your own router, I mean only if your internet access is via wifi, such as tethering your phone for access.

If you're using a proper internet service provider on cable access then all they can go on is your IP Address which simply isn't going to work. Most service providers, mine too, use dynamic addresses and ports. That means sometimes when I connect it says I'm in Melbourne, or Perth or Sydney, it hardly ever picks my correct city.

This has nothing to do with what operating system you use.

 

[FilterFreq]

Oh, that makes sense in that case. A very small percentage of people could trick it into working by adding arbitrary location data (since it just hangs otherwise), but others noticed that certain distros (like Puppy Linux) had actually fixed the glitch, created a decent GUI wrapper for it and all of that good stuff. But as you'd probably agree, Puppy Linux is a little bit of a mess anyway, despite its cool lightweight aesthetic.

So far, I'm noticing that I'm in the clear if I just avoid GUIs altogether on Linux and just stay in the terminal, or even simply use server distros. Nano has decent syntax highlighting and doesn't burn my eyes, so I'm not even going to mess with graphical stuff for a long while (if ever). Super simple mode

 

[Boogs]

Just curious, never looked at location finding really, but could you not just buy a cheap USB GPS device to provide real time location data if you wanted it? Or is the software unsuitable to access that? (drivers or whatever)

 

[Outdated]

Just curious, never looked at location finding really, but could you not just buy a cheap USB GPS device to provide real time location data if you wanted it? Or is the software unsuitable to access that? (drivers or whatever)

You probably could, but it would only work if it connects to wifi towers instead of using genuine GPS. That's how they work out your location - triangulation between towers and signal strength.

Personally I find that to be a huge security risk, the ease at which some people can be tracked. If they try to track me it looks like I never leave home, I hate phones and never take mine with me when I go out.

 

[Boogs]

You probably could, but it would only work if it connects to wifi towers instead of using genuine GPS. That's how they work out your location - triangulation between towers and signal strength.

Personally I find that to be a huge security risk, the ease at which some people can be tracked. If they try to track me it looks like I never leave home, I hate phones and never take mine with me when I go out.

Hmmm, I thought GPS is separate from mobile comms. I know the comms towers can be used to triangulate (although I'm not aware of public services using it, but the police certainly do).
I admit I've not read it up (which I really should before replying!) but I thought the GPS units picked up a transmitted signal from the satellite's in range and used this to determine the location, otherwise things like car GPS wouldn't work? They don't all use a mobile/internet connection other than for updating their internal database, to my knowledge. But I could be completely wrong.

Edit: From a brief google it looks like GPS is not tied to internet or mobile connectivity at all.

 

[Outdated]

I admit I've not read it up (which I really should before replying!) but I thought the GPS units picked up a transmitted signal from the satellite's in range and used this to determine the location, otherwise things like car GPS wouldn't work? They don't all use a mobile/internet connection other than for updating their internal database, to my knowledge. But I could be completely wrong.

You're correct. But websites like google don't use GPS data, they rely on the mobile phone system for location information.

There's several types of GPS sytems you can get too, most are a hybrid system that uses both satellite geolocation and the mobile towers for accurate location. Most marine GPS systems operate solely on satellite data.

 

[Boogs]

To be honest I don't use GPS except occasionally when driving with google maps on phone, which I believe does have a GPS receiver built in, but as far as desktop/laptop's I have no knowledge of it's uses, what software uses it and what for, etc. I guess this is quibbling on my part, but you know I do so like to split any hairs I can find!

Thinking about it, I am quibbling - over use of "GPS" - it refers to only the satellite positioning system, but nowadays it's become synonymous with many other positioning technologies, often more than one used together (as you mentioned).
Sorry, my uncontrollably literal attitude to things!