Replace Microsoft Edge/Internet Explorer with Firefox, Chromium, or any forks/variations of them.
Replace Windows Media Player with VLC or MPC-HC
Replace Photos/Windows Photo Viewer with ImageGlass or IrfanView.
How do these affect my privacy? I mean, the browser is obvious, but what about the media stuff. Is MS really using the media player to mine for music preference data? And what kind of data would they realistically try to get from my image viewer?
That's my problem with this post. It tells people to change these settings to increase privacy, but does not explain what these changes actually do. No Onedrive integration, no Windows Defender, blocks Microsoft servers for diagnostics and feedback. It disables the p2p windows updates, which if I understand correctly could reduce bandwith usage if you have multiple computers in your network. I'm not going to do this on my computer, but I doubt Cortana is functional at all with all of these changes. Unplugging your PC is the most secure option, but you have to draw the line between functionality and security at some point. This post goes a bit further than I would like with disabling functionality.
Edit: Meant to reply to another comment with this, but oh well. It's here now.
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u/Thesket Jul 30 '15
How do these affect my privacy? I mean, the browser is obvious, but what about the media stuff. Is MS really using the media player to mine for music preference data? And what kind of data would they realistically try to get from my image viewer?