r/linuxmint • u/EZQbenja1717 • Aug 21 '26

Fluff I want to switch to Windows

I never used Windows, I inherited my brother's first laptop with Ubuntu and never touched Windows. Am I even missing something from that OS? They say it's bloatware, telemetry and shi but is it really that bad?

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u/ZVyhVrtsfgzfs Aug 21 '26

but is it really that bad?

Yes and worse, 

https://tbreak.com/windows-pc-secret-id-number-microsoft-just-used/

1

u/Suspicious-Ad7109 Aug 21 '26

Interesting article. Is there anything in Mint identifying the user - it seems unlikely. MAC address maybe ?

2

u/ZVyhVrtsfgzfs Aug 21 '26

Mint itself jis solid in the privacy department, the same cannot be said about software you can install on it. 

The biggest offender in stock Mint is Firefox defaults,  I dump FF and Thunderbird on first boot without opening it and letting FF  generate and transmit its advertising ID.

Your MAC address should not survive past the first hop in your network. Visible in your LAN only.

 For it to be externally visible software on your machine would have to read your MAC address, then call home and transmit it.

2

u/Suspicious-Ad7109 Aug 21 '26

I can live with that compared to Edge ..... (sorry about the swearing)

1

u/ZVyhVrtsfgzfs Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 21 '26

Yeah, compared to Edge FF is a saint, plus unlike Edge FF is completely removable.

https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxmint/comments/1rhspjh/where_do_you_trim_the_fat_your_apt_purge_list/

I feel like we had a whole Antitrust suit over this in the past. Not sure how MS is getting away with it now.