Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

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Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

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Advice on cleaning bloatware off of a new PC (www.bestbuy.com)

submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

42 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I helped my 77 year old mother purchase a new laptop, and I want to be sure to get all the bloatware off of it, and set her up with with some better privacy options. I am aMac guy at home so I haven't done this kind of thing for many years. (I use Windows at work, so I'm quite familiar and capable, but obviously I have to rely on IT knowing what they are doing (they don't)). I did make sure to get the pro version of Windows 11. I'm going to set her up with Proton mail I think. This is the computer that is coming:

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/lenovo-thinkbook-16-g6-abp-amd-in-16-touch-screen-notebook-amd-ryzen-5-with-16gb-memory-512gb-ssd-gray/6565272.p?skuId=6565272

(Forgive me if this is not the correct place to post)

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Keeping new versions of Windows secure is a fool's errand. Sure you can uninstall the bloatware, disable the telemetry, etc., but there's nothing to keep Windows from using an update to put it right back on.

If you want your Ma' to not have to worry about any of that, then it's time to switch to Linux. Mint is a good variety for people coming from Windows.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I am totally on board with this, but I cannot convince her to learn something new at this stage of the game. I have tried.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Mint looks quite similar, and if she asks "Microsoft applied an update and now the start menu looks different."

If all she does is browse the internet and read emails, she'll never know the difference. You could even set up the splash screen to display the Windows logo or just disable it all together.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

She Blogs on WordPress also

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Automatic updates can also destroy her work in case she happens to fill an online form or edit a document without autosave. The active usage time thing is there but ehh you can't set all 24 hours as no-reboot time unfortunately

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Windows asks you a few times to update now or later, gives you a timer of three hours and offers you to open the closed documents again without having to use autosave.

I don't like the forced updates either, but if you lose anything to them it can be classified as "on purpose ".

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

With the right settings on Pro, you can get it to give you a week's warning before an update is forced, with multiple subsequent warnings if you don't restart in the meantime.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Never heard of a timer or opening documents. Maybe it's a new feature idk