Yen was just a bit of irony in reply to that idiotic drawing posted earlier. That's all. If you accept it you should accept a "reaction" as well.. And yes I think that using a "linux for dumbs" is almost pointless. The power of linux is (was) its way to make the user think and learn, not just because the spying treats Nowadays 90% of the spyoing things comes from the browser. Use Chrome on linux and you are likely in a worse position than a person who uses Opera12 one W10. That's the point.
No busy person uses an operating system "to think and learn". Most of us actually have things to do and a life, we want something that works easily, and does not spy. I do not think in terms of "linux for dumbs", I think of it as "linux that is user friendly and efficient". And there are only a few distros fitting that bill. The best in my opinion is Mint. I tried others like Elementary and Ubuntu, they each have their problems, one laggy/buggy and one spying. If you use linux to do things the hard way, you must be a computer whiz or an unemployed with too much time on your hands. And if you think iphone users are dumb, did you know just about every rich busy person uses it, they do not get rich and busy by being dumb. Your thinking is all flawed. About browser spying, why use Opera12 on W10, when you can use Firefox on Linux to eliminate most of the spying? There are many excellent Firefox addons to stop spying elements.
So eat the precooked kitchen and not blame MS. Freedom privacy and whatever has a price Again that phrase sounds like we want natural food at MacDonald. Usually those things are mutually exclusive. Whenever you left that someone (or something) else decide for you, you gain time, you lose freedom/privacy/power I'm just a conscious user I invest time on the things I like and on the things I think will pay back I have still to encounter an iphone user that's not dumb. And be sure I know a bunch of them I find FF disgusting (and unsafe). Opera 12 ruled on window linux and the other OSes, now we have Vivaldi and Otter. Not yet on par with Opera 12, but surely way better than FF or Chrome How did you find them? You must be a computer wiz or an unemployed...
It is not mutually exclusive to get user friendly OS and privacy. The answer is Linux Mint. There are no spying elements detected in the open source. And user friendly, once you set it up, you can use it like Windows, clicking everywhere without opening terminal. I admit there are occasional bugs, that make me search the problem, and perhaps try to fix it by terminal cut and paste. But I do this without needing to learn the whole OS and understand the terminal commands. It still user friendly. Using Linux Mint does not make you lose more privacy or freedom than using text based Linux distro. All my bosses and executives use iphone, they might not be smart in technology so they pick the most user friendly phone, but they are smart in their job. Smart people do use "dumb OS". Similarly people using easy graphical Linux distro like Mint, can also be smart people. Do all the tweaking for firefox privacy, and you are safe. I do not touch vivaldi and smaller browsers, the idea of web privacy is to blend in the crowd, users of small browsers stick out and are easy to flag and track. You lose your privacy by being too smart. I found the firefox tweaks by doing a 1 minute search online, it is enough, I did not spend days learning the firefox coding.
The topic might be interesting but the OP is rubbish. It's practically impossible for me to use Linux instead of Windows because there are some Windows-only programs I really wish to or even have to use (and Wine emulation is either very impractical or not even possible). These usually require an up-to-date version of Windows as well (including the main version and the updates). Otherwise, I use Gentoo on every other machines I have but I don't use for things which mandate Windows. This is probably one of the "hardest to use" mainstream Linux distros but I prefer this.
"Avoid Microsoft spying"? Remember when you first connected to internet? Few minutes later it was late to avoid "spying". Registered to Google Mail, Facebook, Outlook Mail? Using GPS and Wi-Fi on your smartphone? "Avoid Microsoft spying"? Are you serious?
So google, facebook and outlook have the same access to your OS as your OS, are U serious. Have some more on me
Google? Yes , they do have access to OS telemetry since they make android and google chrome books(if you use those OS's).
I am following this thread for quite a while now and I am still annoyed by some folks with their pseudo arguments like "I have no time" - there will always be an excuse for not doing something. 1) No, Linux is not 100% safe 2) No, Linux is no free Windows - it's a different system 3) No, you can't use everything from Windows on Linux, you have to look for alternatives or... -> 4) 4) If you can't fully get rid of Windows, use dual boot or a VM or Wine or just stay with Windows 5) Learn about Linux and safety concerns. Just using Linux doesn't create perfect safety. You see I'm strongly advocating Linux - but it's only for people who WANT to change and WANT to learn.
Its seems its more a bunch of mines better then yours here like everyone back in high school. There are some very nice working alternative OS's out there but the simple hard truth is none have yet mastered the three basic's. Ease of use..features and support from the major hardware vendors. The later of those three would come is a cutting edge easy to use OS was put out but linux is crippled by its strongest point which is a wide support base. That very base means there not always focused development and when there is it tends to be customized to a limited use. The limited use tends to happen because the work tends to be done to the desire and needs of a limited group which is perfectly understandable. This has always been the true reason for linux never making it to the big time and not because people don't want to learn. If the community can ever come together there may be a OS that's better then anything out there but tell then we got what we got. Ubuntu is at this point the closest we come to at a community effort and it merely hints at what could be.
I was basically pointing out that they don't collect as much data that windows can and send, also talking about social media, no one posts their secrets, I'm pretty sure that people only post what they feel is public, there's a difference. Just because people post on facebook doesn't mean they post things they don't want people to know. As for GPS, out in the world people have a public face on, not a private one, they also know that people are watching. Don't think people have a concern that their provider knows where they go. All in all, I don't see your point about social media and win 10. You can also stop any of these sites you posted from tracking your history and knowing who you are, very simple, online personality and onion, and block google track. There are the people who don't care, and that's their right, which privacy is also. Just giving you my one cent.
I buy'd a old netbook for my mom to use. It had Windows 7 starter, but since the netbook was underpowered thanks to Atom CPU and 1GB RAM, it ran horrible, even when droping in 2GB. So knowing so much about Arch and the *buntu's, i decided to just drop 'Mint' with 'Mate' since this basically runs fine on 512MB and a even slower CPU. She loved it, works on that netbook for already 2 years for everything. Now all her old systems run Mint with 'Mate' and her somewhat stronger ones 'Cinnamon', no complain ever. Basically is about what are your needs and/or if you miss Windows interface since you used to work on it for years. If you simply need to browse the web, need office tasks or photo editing it is all there. If you have a specialized Windows written software, you can try PlayonLinux (Wine wrapper) install and if works be done. I dare not to install Arch for her (even if it runs best) since i want her to be able to upgrade and maintain little stuff by herself and not have to fix bugs later on (bleeding edge rolling release and KISS). Ofcourse if you need games and your system has just that VGA card which has one of those horrible written drivers from Nvidia or AMD, you could need Windows to run the game properly since Wine is not mature enough in that side (although pretty close).
Huh? I never ever talked about social media. Who knows if google collects more data than ms, but a lot of their services does collect user data. But Google does have access to OS level data with chrome and android OS. I do remember reading a couple years ago Google was the biggest user data collectors in the world.
Windows compatibility is not a problem for linux itself, go install a Virtual Machine software on linux, install Windows on the virtual pc, run your Windows-only programs there. Can use windows only software on linux that way, and avoid Microsoft spying if disable internet on the Windows virtual pc. Like I said in post#1 it is impossible for most people to use Linux because it is too hard to do many simple tasks compared to Windows. People give up trying to fix a problem when they see a wall of text with command lines. It took me days to get over this hurdle, time most people don't have the luxury of.
Google and Outlook mail spying only see your emails, facebook only see what you decide to put there. GPS and Wifi can be turned off. Microsoft spying can see everything you do on your computer. It is different and far more dangerous.