A PR disaster: Microsoft has lost trust with its users, and Windows Recall is the straw that broke the camel's back

lemme in@lemm.ee to Technology@lemmy.world – 1639 points – A PR disaster: Microsoft has lost trust with its users, and Windows Recall is the straw that broke the camel's back
windowscentral.com

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.

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TL;DR:

  • Windows Recall, part of Microsoft's new Copilot+ PC initiative, has sparked major privacy and security concerns.
  • The feature uses AI to capture and store screen data locally, allowing users to search for past activities using natural language.
  • Despite assurances that data is not uploaded to the cloud or used by Microsoft, user trust is lacking.
  • Microsoft has a history of practices that have eroded user trust, including obtrusive ads, ignoring user preferences, and requiring Microsoft Accounts.
  • Users are skeptical, fearing future misuse of the collected data for advertising or AI training.
  • Windows Recall reportedly stores data unencrypted, making it vulnerable to access by third-party apps and potential malware.
  • The open nature of Windows amplifies these risks, unlike more secure systems like iOS and Android.
  • Users have compared Windows Recall to spyware, with many threatening to switch to other operating systems like Linux or Mac.
  • Microsoft's attempts to keep the development of Windows Recall secret did not help build trust.
  • Windows Recall will only be available on new Copilot+ PCs, requiring specific hardware not present in existing PCs.
  • Users will have the option to disable the feature, but there are concerns about it being enabled by default.
  • Despite security issues, the feature is effective in helping users find lost or forgotten data.
  • It could improve productivity if trust and security concerns are resolved.

Windows Recall does NOT require NPU hardware to run. Currently Recall has been tested on Windows 11 with only a CPU and it seems to be fully operational. Of course performance is not as good as with an NPU. I believe Microsoft will try to push AI to local computing by only enabling on computers with NPUs to begin with. In the future it will most likely be able to be enabled on PCs which does not have an NPU but with a warning of bad performance in front of it.

In the future most CPU's will prolly have an NPU built in. We already seeing it with ryzen