Sick of Windows spying on you? Go Linux

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[h=1]Sick of Windows spying on you? Go Linux[/h]From ZDnet
By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
http://www.zdnet.com/article/sick-of-windows-spying-on-you-go-linux/

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I can’t seem to settle on one distribution, but this week its Fedora 23 with Cinnamon.

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I am now using Linux Mint as my main OS and I bounce to Windows 10 when I want to play and see what’s new and exciting. Like many others, I am greatly concerned about how Microsoft is intruding in every corner of my system. I just can’t trust them anymore.

While I keep playing with other distros, and have found many that are excellent, I keep coming back to Linux Mint. Version 17.2 even handled my Kodak printer which Kodak never supported in Linux.

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Linux Mint +1

I still like Win7 and it is supported until I think 2020.

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I started with Ubuntu several years ago for my home theater (HTPC). My main desktop is still Win7 with Windows Media Center as an available backup to running MythTV on the Ubuntu HTPC. (and MS is having some serious problems running WMC in the past few months, it may be dead already – MythTV just works)

I find that web browsing on Ubuntu with Firefox or Chrome is a bit clunkier than Firefox or Chrome on Win7. Firefox seems pretty stable but Chrome seems to have a few bugs that nobody has any urgency of getting fixed for Linux in over a year. Web videos just don’t run as smoothly in either browser and multiple tabs just slow the browser to an unbearable crawl (for example I don’t know what scripts are running on Amazon or Huffington Post front page but whatever it is, it’s heavy). The most recent updates last week are causing Youtube to crash my browser periodically and if running full screen, it takes the whole PC with it.

Sure, some of these problems may be related to my video drivers but it seems to me that finding the right video card to be compatible with the right Linux drivers is a crap shoot. (AMD better then Nvidia or the other way around? Open Source or Proprietary drivers? Pretty sure none are 100%, you pick which 95% you can live with.)

For interoperability, it seems that almost every other revision of Samba works with no real issues. However the in between revisions seem to introduce various problems. Ethernet speed for file copying drops to 1/2 in one direction only for no apparent reason (half speed on a wired gigabit network is still fast but half speed on a multi gigabyte movie file is noticeable). Mapped drives won’t stay logged in. You think problems are behind you but the next revision there’s some new bump in the road. You can make it work, it’s just not smooth. (caused by MS on purpose?)

Overall, I am satisfied with Linux for HTPC service. Win7 WMC is prettier when it works while MythTV looks older but works better. For desktop service, I feel a little better with Win7. Personally, I will stick with Win7 until most MS software just stops working (I feel confident MS will find a way to break most legacy browsing experiences in a few years just like they broke WinXP and Win2000). Then I will either switch over to desktop Linux with a virtual Win7 as a legacy reserve or if MS gets their act together and corporate compatibility requires it, maybe Win10 with a virtual Win7 legacy reserve.

I am in no way an expert but however I look at it, Linux is a workable substitute. Windows is not automatically better.

PS. I am not sure, but last time I looked, money management programs for Linux were hard to find. Don’t know if those types of windows programs would work inside WINE. Money management could be a reason to stick with Windows if you don’t like virtual PCs.

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[h=1]Sick of Windows spying on you? Go Linux[/h]From ZDnet
By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
http://www.zdnet.com/article/sick-of-windows-spying-on-you-go-linux/

Rubbish! Win10 sends back “technical” data about your use of the OS, not personal details. SJVN is not the most unbiased Windows writer, and anyway, articles such as this have been corrected by deeper, more recent inspection of the telemetry Windows 10 reports. However, it is a “form” of spying, but not in the personal information aspect.

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