Microsoft's 'Recall' feature can't be uninstalled after all

The Elon Musk Maneuver.

They will certainly succeed at driving some people away. I was a lifetime Windows user and I currently don't have it installed on any of my machines now. I think the average Joe is blissfully unaware other than the occasional dialog about a new feature coming their way.

I think they are going to lose more of the hardcore tech community with decisions like these, but I don't know that they care.

To be honest, they probably are. My pet theory is that they're trying to do what do many politicians are doing - drive away everyone but the strongest base electorate that will stay with them no matter what they do. And then, the grift starts. I'm reasonably sure sooner rather than later they'll start charging a subscription fee to use Windows, and people and companies will bend over and pay it...

There was a time when they did try to listen. Since 11 was being imagined, it all was downhill. I used to work for them and all messaging changed once 11 was being worked on

Yeah but I think most of us have already.... We are not many enough to matter though. Microsoft and Google will continue to do what they want with 99% of users.

The problem is like that xkcd comic about experts underestimating the common person's knowledge in their field. Linux is still not user friendly enough for the vast majority of people. Linux users just don't seem to understand that most people are in the "wtf is a distro?" level of knowledge and would absolutely panic at the mere sight of a terminal.

Because they make it easy and do a few cool things.

"Do you want a mic in your home that can record everything you say and do and send that data off to wherever the company chooses?"

"No of course not."

"What about of it will also turn your lights on and off and play despacito on demand?"

"You son of a bitch, sign me up".

Microsoft also wants to use 50 gigabytes of your hard drive space (for the Recall snapshots) and make you buy AI co-processors or their software won't work. They want to use your property to create their own Skynet.

I agree but technology hasn't really been "ours" for a long time. Rooting, jailbreaking, and open source is the only way to take back a modicum of control.

On Arch you can easily uninstall Linux.

The fun part is that there are even legit reasons to do so, the by far most likely one being that you want to use a different package that provides you with a kernel, such as linux-lts or linux-hardened. Definitely know what you are doing in that case though!

Do you tolerate the TPM/fTPM in your computer? Can you deactivate it? Can you query it? Can you tell it to do something?

This is the thing Lemmy nerds don't understand:

For most people, using a PC is a chore.

To most people, using a PC is like mopping a floor, or cleaning a car. It's a boring - even unpleasant - task that you need to do every once in a while. They'd rather be on their phone or their iPad.

When you already view using your PC as a chore, and some Linux user says to you "hey, if you spend a day backing up all your files, creating an install USB, installing Linux, reinstalling your programs (and finding alternatives for those that aren't available), logging back in to everything, moving your data back across, and relearning how to use a PC, it'll be worth it in the long run!", you will just ignore their advice. It's easier just to say "nah, I only occasionally need my PC when I want to update my CV or write a long email anyway. Thanks for the suggestion though!"

They put up with an hour or two of MS's bullshit every few months. They don't like it, but they also don't care enough about putting effort in so that in future, the chore of using a PC only feels half as bad. At the end of the day, either way, it's still a chore, and they'd still rather be on their phone/tablet/doing something else entirely.

In the same way, they also don't care enough about ultimately saving 10 mins every month when they clean their car to go out of their way and do the initial work of claybar-ing, polishing, then waxing it.

I use Linux. I like Linux. But I'm just another Lemmy nerd, not an average PC user.

There is no such thing as a line, it seems to be a long gradient and its about how fast you move on the gradient. If you ever so slightly introduce more and more crap slowly enough, people don't care as they forget how good they had it much earlier.

I agree, I don't think they have any limit. Look at how invasive platforms like Facebook are, and yet they're still massively popular. Mobile operating systems are several times worse than Windows is for privacy and data harvesting, and people clearly don't care at all. They'll even happily consent to ever more levels of it - there's no evidence to suggest that they'll ever stop.

One of the biggest "mistakes" Microsoft made was not realizing how lucrative data collection could be. Back in the quaint old days of early PC computing, spyware was actually considered a bad thing. When Google came along, that philosophy was flipped on its head. Over the past 15 years, Microsoft has seeing what these spyware vendors are doing and salivating because they know that they are still the kings of computing - they still have total control the PC market and there's a good chance that it's not really going anywhere because most people hate change - even though Linux is starting to make inroads in quite a few places.

It would not be surprising if, in a few years, a Windows OS looks like a Google search page, or a cable television channel.

If you buy a PC it has Windows on it. The majority of people are not cocking about formatting a USB stick and fiddling with the BIOS to put Linux on it. They aren't thinking about operating systems at all, and if you need specific software for work, chances are it isn't going to run on anything other than Windows. If you don't need it for work, you've probably just got a tablet by now and store all your photos on Facebook.

Doesn't it say more about the users than Microsoft? Seems to me that people who don't care about computers will accept anything coming from big tech...

It's because Apple products are heinously expensive, and Linux is far more hassle than most people are willing to go to.

There's also Chrome OS, I have no idea if it's any good though.

This is the same false analogy people make as to why Americans drive giant trucks to shift blame... it's not the manufacturers who are pushing these cars to circumvent taxes, it is the users for demanding it.

Very few people actually like these invasive shit Microsoft pulls, but the vast majority either do not know about them, understand them or feel they have another choice. For example, I hate MS, I understand what dog shit this Recall feature is, yet my job will provide a Windows machine with it and I have no choice but to use it.

I am a nerd so at home I do have everything running on Linux. But for the majority of people that would be a unknown option or just an unobtainable one

Lol I misread this as you'd been relying on windows 3.1 and never upgraded but that 11 including recall made you switch to Linux. I need to be more thorough in my reading .

Well done. Mint is the gateway drug, perfect for users like you. Progress and attempts with arch are noble though! Glad it didn't scare you off.

I applaud your bravery with Arch. Have some fun with it and don't worry if you break stuff. Keep your files backed up and you're golden! Even if you switch to a different distro later on, a lot of what you learn will translate 1:1.

Good work getting through arch installer, it can be tricky too. I've been on arch for like 10 years and still don't think anything else is better.

Good choice on Mint.

I have been using Linux exclusively (personal) since 2008, distro hopped for a few years then settled on Ubuntu, until they shot themselves in the foot with 22.04 and the snap debacle; moved to Mint (after trying Pop, MX and a few others).

I have to say a big well done to the Mint devs, it is better than Ubuntu ever was; part of this is newer drivers etc...but it is very polished and it gets out of my way and lets me do my work.

Been working with the various flavors of Windows in a work capacity over the same stretch, in my opinion windows peaked with XP, 7 was ok, and 10 is also ok. But it really has been down hill since XP was retired.

Out of curiosity, which step in the arch install did you have issues with on your first two attempts?

Mint is great.

I use Linux Mint cinnamon on a daily basis, typically with one or two command line terminals open at all times (one normal and one in a docker container), and with some kind of code always open too. I use 4 monitors as well, which the same machine can’t handle when I boot into windows.

No apologies and no regrets. Being user friendly doesn’t mean it’s limited. It uses Ubuntu and Debian stuff after all, just with the controversial Ubuntu stuff removed.

Did mine a few weeks ago. The only part I'm stuck on is OneDrive, which I unfortunately need. I got access to my personal files but not the shared files. The other part is I still need to download all of my mods...which I am not looking forward to 😆 but let me just say it is so nice to have a computer that actually works! It's older so it was getting impossibly slow.

Between Linux and the new IRS software I am feeling spoiled.

Stop threatening. Commit. Take the leap. A lot of us here are already on the other side and we'll help you find your footing.

Do it.

Do it. I made the switch a few months ago and its so much better

Anecdotally it hasn't been that hard. I've had the best luck with Linux Mint just working straight out of the box. I basically only use my computer to game so your mileage may vary if you need specialized software or something.

Also the benefit of mint is that Ubuntu has a huge user base comparatively so you can find a lot of info online for people who have probably already figured out issues that you might encounter.

back up all your shit and move to linux. start with mint, thats the best one for total beginners imo

Try Fedora! I did and love it!

Lots of support already but I made it switch in December last year and no regrets. There's a bit of a learning curve getting used to a new environment but the computer actually becomes a tool you can shape to your needs rather than changing how you work so your computer will do it.

It happens every time....tech companies are not worried what users think because users don't care enough to switch to Linux.

Whoops we turned the heat up too quickly and the frogs noticed. Just turn it back down for a bit then begin heating up again, just a little slower this time.

At that point they said that they wouldn't go forward with Recall in the current state. It was never in question that it would come eventually. The question was in what state?

Ah the ol’ defenestration uninstallation.

Nah, loot it for the magnets at least. Frisbee the platters, save the chassis for the scrap bucket (it's solid aluminum).

Good point. Sounds like the kind of company I want to do business with. /s

Not yet...

Sometimes you have to fight with the OS to make it work but that should be due to a bug (or my incompetence in using it). When it's not working because it's actually working on someone else's behalf you can probably delete the whole fucking thing mate.

Cortana and IE break the OS if you fuck with the registry hard enough. When I deploy W11 to my building I wonder how much GP is gonna need to be setup to fix this bullshit

Malware developers don't even need to have their malware running anymore to grab keylogs and screenshots.

Just enable Recall, schedule your malware for a month from now and it doesn't even have to run anymore.

Windows does have its own command-line package manager. I don't know if it can remove Recall, but last I checked it could remove Cortana. It would just get reinstalled soon after, but that could be prevented with some file-naming trickery. If you give a file the same name as the folder used to have and make it read-only, it couldn't remake the folder and wouldn't reinstall.

I wouldn't be surprised if you can still do that now.

There's always the Microsoft telemetry blocklist in pihole. If you can't stop the computer collecting the data, you can stop MS getting hold of it.

They are doing a lot better about baking stuff in these days. If you uninstall edge on windows you unironically break a lot of systems, can’t even play Minecraft or use teams lol

There is a Mac app called Rewind that came out a couple of years ago that does the same thing. There was also an open source thing for Windows. Everyone is desperate to show that they are hip and can do AI. It looks like someone at Microsoft saw a demo of one of those apps and thought that putting it into Windows would let them brag about how much AI Windows can do. They clearly tried to rush it out in time for their Copilot PC marketing push.

The idea is that you can use local LLM models and image scanning to talk to your computer. You could ask it to summarize your day, ask what you were working on last week, or find those articles you vaguely remember reading last year and can't find anymore. I can almost see the merit, but the security risk is so high.

I wonder if people will eventually stop caring about the security risk of features like this. Those AI girlfriends some people dream about will have access to so much private information. Give this thing a voice and you can market it as a companion who learns the things you like and can talk with you about the things you are reading. Hackers might be able to see literally everything you've done on the computer for the last few years, but you'll get to feel like Iron Man with your own personal Jarvis.

China?

Vietnam? They have their own browser (CocCoc) and IM application (Zalo).

Specially since there's no Microsoft app that has ever securely functioned past a few days. This thing is gonna be hacked as soon as it comes out an we won't know until until there's an investigation into the accidental death of thirty innocent people as passengers in some vehicle somewhere controlled by windows 11 or something... Boeing re-entry vehicle maybe? Nah! You guys are good! Just jump in and come back home already!

Somewhere, some patent lawyers are going to make millions debating about whether or not this constitutes "public disclosure".

If the US government bitching was enough to get the flight simulator easter egg removed from Excel (allegedly), I can't imagine a similar stern glare from the Pentagon would not cause Recall to magically turn out to be uninstallable after all. At least from any US government owned computers originally so equipped.

Anyway, isn't this only going to roll out on "Copilot" compatible PC's with the requisite AI acceleration chips in them? I would be furthermore immensely surprised if it could not be locked out in Group Policy for corporate customers.

I can't wait until the first breach caused by Recall hits the FCC. It's definitely gonna happen.

shouldn't be doing personal stuff on work computer. let the company deal with recall if they don't want their shit leaked.

These labels are pointless anyway. Use tech that respects you as a user. Microsoft is not it.

And no, I'm not being a Linux fanboy

Most of us aren't, we just get labeled as such for not being willing to use an OS that uses and abuses us

That's how it starts. Gabba gabba we accept you, one of us, one of us.

Seems MS hasn't learned from Crowdstrike

[ Insert "I see this as an absolute win!" meme here ]

Does Lemmy not like Linux all of a sudden...?

If only driver support was the same as in Windows, or if windows drivers other than networking ones can be used in Linux.

Yeah the idea is nice but not with Microsoft seeing the data.

And yet - should you have to actively work against the design goals of OS installed on your hardware? It's great that some folks have found a way to successfully disable it, but that doesn't give MS a pass.

Or you just get it over with and just switch to Linux altogether

Enterprise CAD does not play well with wine sadly(im such with fusion). But i locked that local account windows install away on a second hard drive with default boot to Linux.

You do know that many millions of people are given laptops/desktops for work that have locks that prevent new OS's from being installed, right?

keylogging isn't as bad as seeing EVERYTHING including visuals on screen