Hardening Windows for privacy and security

Graphene18 ?

Yes, very funny. The reality is that some of us are stuck with Windows for various reasons; even if I personally would prefer to use less privacy-invasive OSes. Minimizing data collection is what we can do in these cases.

[deleted] it's funny because it's an incorrect statement

titaniumtown ok it's funny... windows is secure and privacy friendly. https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/security-privacy-advice.html#operating-system

titaniumtown and if windows isn't enough for you, you can install whonix.

[deleted]

ok it's funny... windows is secure and privacy friendly. https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/security-privacy-advice.html#operating-system

lol no

[deleted] While Windows is somewhat secure it doesn't necessarily mean that it's private as well. Privacy and security aren't the same thing. Even the source you mentioned only states the following about privacy:

https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/security-privacy-advice.html#:~:text=Some%20of%20these%20operating%20systems%20do%20have%20some%20privacy%20invasive%20telemetry%2C%20but%20it%20can%20usually%20be%20disabled%20in%20the%20settings%20and%20verified%20with%20a%20network%20analyser%20tool%20like%20Wireshark%20if%20you%20wish%20to%20be%20certain.

Also no specifics have been given there and the emphasis lies on usually.

Your privacy depends solely on what you do with your tools. Nothing and nobody can protect your privacy, even on GOS.

There are thousands of Reddit or other posts on this subject.

Windows personal/induvidual edition is absolutely not private in the sense your data is yours and not leaking to M$. That should be abundantly clear when they now are now deeply integrating ChatGPT, and it's just another step in their road of showing you more and better ads based on what you do in their OS.

Don't forget they have for many years sniffed on the idea of giving Windows away for free, and they are already doing it for tons for ppl with free major upgrades.

dgzeij I don't see the problem with free, I made donations for bromite and today it's abandoned... I'd love the ads to be better targeted so I don't run into ads for men's city shoes when I'm a woman and live in the country. And that's on Google.

[deleted] I'd like to understand you and your threat model better. Please let me know if I get you correctly:

• You do care a lot about security (hence why you love Google, arguably the most secure big tech company on the planet).
• You do not really care for privacy regarding big tech though, given your praises towards Google, Microsoft and Facebook. You also wish for targeted advertisements.
• You care little about anonymity either as it is rather impossible with the mentioned privacy model.

For clarity: Security to me means protecting your data/assets against unauthorized access. Privacy means controlling the (meta)data you give away (and ideally giving away as little as possible). Anonymity would be the ability to hide in a mass and not be identifiable, even if some of your data can be seen. While all three can empower/enable each other, they are mostly independent.

Let me know if I'm correct, because from this perspective your comments make a lot more sense to me (except the "Windows is secure and private" statement, but our definitions might differ here).

[deleted] why don't you just stick with the stock, I can't see how Graphene can help you here, if anything it only complicates things for you and confuses others (those who truly care as much about privacy as well as security). What are you even doing here I ask?

[deleted] it is not my intention to push Aliceoff out of here. This is an open community and they're just as welcome as everyone else. Having a security-only threat model would be no reason to exclude someone, especially since GOS is the most secure mobile operating system out there in my opinion. From what I can see Aliceoff makes a lot of good points and is very active, I would rather have someone like them stick around.

Let's try understanding each other better to avoid confusion when it comes to details and semantics, that is all I want.

N1b Excuse me, you don't my point. I am not trying to push anyone out of here. Now that I have finally found sort of solution though to privacy invasion, I won't take no "Google is good for you" for an answer. I hope you can forgive my insolence.

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

"Friedrich Nietzsche"

And with that said I wish you sweet dreams

N1b It's important to understand that your anonymity or privacy depends on what you do with your applications. Even open source software can't protect your privacy if you share your personal photos or reveal your identity. Indeed, a program's security comes first. And yes, the ad-supported funding model is the most invisible and viable for a developer, and don't forget that the information collected is anonymized. Most people here are in favor of a donation-based funding model, but who donates except the fervent defenders of free software? Of all the people who downloaded the signal following Elon Musk's tweet, how many made a donation? I don't know anyone who does that. Do you really think that only Google and other gafams are pumping out your data? But I die laughing when I read this kind of thing, the entire web is pumped by security agencies, even if you use tor or proton or whatever. But if you feel safe with free applications and think your privacy is protected, good for you, but you're wrong.

[deleted] I use grapheneos for security reasons. Just like Google or any other