It’s a nightmare scenario for Microsoft. The headlining feature of its new Copilot+ PC initiative, which is supposed to drive millions of PC sales over the next couple of years, is under significant fire for being what many say is a major breach of privacy and security on Windows. That feature in question is Windows Recall, a new AI tool designed to remember everything you do on Windows. The feature that we never asked and never wanted it.
Microsoft, has done a lot to degrade the Windows user experience over the last few years. Everything from obtrusive advertisements to full-screen popups, ignoring app defaults, forcing a Microsoft Account, and more have eroded the trust relationship between Windows users and Microsoft.
It’s no surprise that users are already assuming that Microsoft will eventually end up collecting that data and using it to shape advertisements for you. That really would be a huge invasion of privacy, and people fully expect Microsoft to do it, and it’s those bad Windows practices that have led people to this conclusion.
I have a laptop solo booting Ubuntu and a Steam Deck, they’re great. But on my desktop where I’m primarily playing games, many of which wirh anti cheat, it’s not worth making the switch just yet. I think another year of development into Proton and stability will make it worth it. Also, I got a NAS recently with OpenMediaVault and I only have the time to tinker with one thing at a time :P
Any advice on the switch though, or tools you use lmk!
I’m similar except I use Debian, and I just bought a cheap SSD for my gaming computer, knowing that Windows 10 will be well out of service before I retire it. I’ve done a couple of OS transitions before, and I figure not dealing with partition editing or losing files is worth what a 256GB SSD costs in 2024.
I started with Ubuntu, and left because I don’t like how they run things; I think it’s worth trying a few more distros if you haven’t already, to find one you vibe with. Unless you want a project (which some do), finding one that works with your hardware, supports a DE you like, etc is a good time investment imo.
No amount of Proton work is going to fix it, it’s already most of the way there. What needs to happen is for game studios to stop including kernel-level anticheat so that the game won’t intentionally refuse to run under wine