Microsoft’s controversial Windows Recall feature is coming back in October

lemme in@lemm.ee to Technology@lemmy.world – 789 points – Microsoft’s controversial Windows Recall feature is coming back in October - gHacks Tech News
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If you thought that Microsoft was done with Recall after its catastrophic reveal as the main feature of Copilot+ PCs, you are mistaken.

Microsoft wants to bring it back this October 2024. Good news is that the company plans to introduce it in test builds of the Windows 11 operating system in October. In other words: do not expect the feature to hit stable Windows 11 PCs before 2025 at the earliest.

While Recall may have sounded great on paper and on work-related PCs, users and experts alike expressed concern. Users expressed fears that malware could steal Recall data to know exactly what they did in the past couple of months.

Others did not trust Microsoft to keep the data secure. We suggested to make Recall opt-in, instead of opt-out, to make sure that users knew what they were getting into when enabling it.

Microsoft pulled the Recall feature shortly after its announcement and published information about its future in June. There, Microsoft said that it would make Recall opt-in by default. It also wanted to improve security by enrolling in Windows Hello and other features.

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Yet another reminder that alternatives, where your privacy is not for sale, and your hardware belongs to you, actually exist in 2024

it's for corporations to deploy on all their worker drones' workstations

I wish they would do a much better job of distinguishing corporate workstation versions of Windows and Home versions of Windows. Put all this MS ecosystem garbage on the workstation version, and make the Home version a stripped down to the essentials OS. Which is what most of us try to do with tools like ShutUp10, anyway.

Ironically, in reality it's the exact opposite. The home version is pumped to the brim with this dogshit, while the Enterprise version is stripped to the bare necessities. They likely know that other corporations have the balls to sue them for all kinds of reasons

I get ads on my workstation. Its fun. I cant remove them without getting permission from the IT department. Meanwhile my home computers have no ads at all.

i'll do you one better: all PCs at my job are running win10 LTSC, which was meant for specific use cases like running neon signs and shit

How long before there’s a discovery request for all recall data for a time period and companies start screaming about the risks with recall?

companies start screaming about the risks with recall?

this comment veers pretty close to implying that upper and middle management know a single goddamn thing about tech or cybersecurity OR that they listen to their IT guys

Agreed - if I were evil, I would use this data to look for long periods of static/unchanging desktop screenshots to look for inactivity and employees lying about being there or away.

Honestly this is just an arms race. If the above happens (and if I can come up with that use case think about what will come up when someone actually smart thinks about it.)

The response? I’d make a tool that presses alt-tab every 15 seconds a random number of times - to both keep the computer alive and change the desktop view, maybe move the windows around a bit for variety. A usb rubber ducky would be perfect for this.

Agreed. But if big brother really wants, they can detect a weird program running, a weird hardware being on it, or just that someone is tabbing around without actually doing something.

Remember folks, a tool that you control serves your interests. But if someone else controls it, they serve their own.

That's a really good summary of the degradation of software throughout time and the path to recreate software for the people. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks - I love that video and I share it all the time. It gets across the whole idea of why Free (libre) software is important without preaching, and (as you point out) with a reminder that it wasn't always this way.

What do you recommend? What is the most Apple-like+MacBook like?

Framework

Which OS to go with it?

If you want "Apple-like" look and feel, KDE Neon, Ubuntu, or Pop_OS! are good first Linux distros to start with.

I think Fedora is pretty great. It offers a lot of packages and ships updates quickly, has good performance, doesn't include much crap, is pretty good security-wise and lets you choose between many desktop environments. There are even more stable and secure immutable versions like Fedora Silverblue, Kinoite and others, along with forks of it like Universal Blue and the distros that are based on it like Bazzite, Aurora, Bluefin or Secureblue.

Framework only officially supports Fedora and Ubuntu. And Ubuntu is the only distro that I will tell you not to use so...Fedora.

Use Gnome DE to get a Mac-like UI.

You can fix it instead of buying a new one, it's not like Apple

Elementary is a very polished and user friendly linux distribution designed to familiar to MacOS users.

With the slightly massive caveat that you can't upgrade to newer versions without a nuke and pave.

Zorin is a Ubuntu-derived distro that has multiple desktop managers built in, including one that mimics macOS.

A lot of the laptops made by Huawei and Xiaomi are MacBook-like in design at least. Framework is much more repairable though as are business laptops from HP or Dell. Dell in particular has made some quite long battery life laptops in the past like the Latitude 7410 and 7400, though those aren't particularly new they are at least cheap when bought second hand.

In terms of OS you got to go with some Linux flavor as they offer various DEs some of which are mac like. Obviously macOS and Linux terminals are somewhat similar anyway. PopOS is a great option.

I would not, in good conscience, ever recommend a Dell machine to anyone anymore. Not only the design and build quality have gone down catastrophically, but Dell would take literally every opportunity they have to fuck you over.

XPS machines in particular have a solid history of being good on paper, but a nightmare, once you ever need to contact them about issues

XPS aren't business machines, just premium consumer machines. They aren't built to the same standard, as would honestly be expected given they cost less. I've had my own bad experiences with an XPS laptop and wouldn't buy one again. Too many compromises in the name of being thin and lightweight.

To be honest I was more suggesting second hand machines where warranty from the OEM isn't really a consideration.

I think you will find most OEMs don't really care about customer support unless you are a business. HP, Asus, and friends all have their own horror stories. There are only a few companies like Framework I actually trust.

We're about to buy a few new laptops at work. My boss is hardcore Dell fan, I need to prove him it's no better than anything else on the market.

I'm suggesting either Thinkbook (cheap option, comparable specs cost 2/3 of Dell) or Probook/Elitebook which are still considerably cheaper than Dell in my country.

Not until Linux comes pre-deployed on gaming laptops for sale. That's my market.

Before you ask, I don't have the know-how to boot into Linux, and I need the portability of a laptop. As well as enjoying gaming to an extent. Pretty niche.