Are You Tired Of Windows Spying On You?

Well, it's a new year and what better way to start the new year than to stop your computer from

spying

on you. That's what we're going to do today. Stay tuned. Did you know that from the moment you turn on your computer, big technology is

spying

on you? It's a little creepy for you, I mean when your neighbor does it with a pair of binoculars you'd probably call the police and no one would blame you either so why do we accept it when it comes to Big Tech and what they are? Do it in the first place, well the answer to that question is money, believe it or not, your data is valuable, advertisers buy it so they know the best way to advertise to you, yes, the government buys it too, which is another level of chill.

You may have heard people say that if you're not doing anything wrong you shouldn't worry about it, yes that could be true but I still don't want the police following me when I'm late for an appointment and I definitely don't want them to have Unlimited access to my personal data. I want to speak to you in the center of Rees, where Waring is. Either way, today I'm going to show you how to limit what you get, but first I have to pay some bills, so check. Today's sponsor is your copy of Windows 10 disabled, well it doesn't have to be because with today's sponsor vipd key you can get a valid Windows 10 license for less than $20, stop dealing with that stupid watermark on the desktop, the valid license for Windows 10.

Additionally, with an activated copy of Windows 10, you can upgrade to Windows 11 for free. Simply go to the link in the description below and get a valid Windows 10 license key during checkout. Use the code Cyber ​​CPU to get a 25% discount once you have your key, go to your activation settings in Windows 10 and click on the link that says change product key, enter the product key you just purchase and press activate now, you don't have to deal with that stupid watermark that comes with the running, non-activated copy of Windows. 10 now let's continue with the video so that we all know that Windows is spying on us;

In fact, big tech probably knows more about you than your spouse. If you are not married, simply replace your spouse with whoever is your closest friend or relative. However, what they do is watch pretty much everything you do on your computer and if you're carrying a cell phone then you're pretty much carrying a tracking device in your pocket that has the ability to listen to you, unfortunately nowadays we're really only going to focus On Windows, however, Windows isn't the only vector in which big tech collects telemetry about you; in fact you are watching this video on YouTube and probably on Chrome considering it is the most popular browser on the market and you know it is spying on you too I usually get a lot of comments from people claiming that everyone should switch to Linux because Windows just spies on you , but most of these same people are on YouTube with Chrome on Linux, which probably collects more data than Windows, but I digress, but on a positive note, it was comments like that that gave me the idea for this video , so I hope we can make Windows as private as Linux, at least close today.

Let's harden the Windows operating system so that it can't get data from At least you can't get that much without wasting more time, let's jump over to the computer and I'll show you how to do it. We're doing this on Windows 11, but Windows 11 collects almost as much telemetry as Windows 10. There really isn't a big difference between Windows 10 spying and Windows 11 spying, it's pretty close, so most of the settings you'll need I'll show you how to change you can do it in Windows 10 as well, but To start, we're going to go into our settings here, so go ahead and open up your settings and the first place we want to go is privacy and security here and then we want to go to General here and then to General.

The first thing you need to do is disable all four right here, let the app show me personalized ads using my advertising ID. Well, let's get rid of that completely, allow websites to show me logically relevant content by accessing my language. list now it's none of your business, let Windows improve startup and search results by tracking app launches, um, how about not and show me the suggested content in the settings app at all? I don't care, I don't mind, so now that we've turned on those that are turned off, we're going to go back to privacy and security and the next thing we're going to address is just under general, which will be the speech right here and mine It's already disabled, but I would recommend disabling it. because why would we want Microsoft to record our speech?

Yes, it's probably not a great idea, but if you have Alexa or an Android phone and Google and Amazon are already doing it anyway, then it doesn't really make much difference, but at least we can activate it. It's disabled in Windows, so let's go back to privacy and security. The next one we're going to get into is right under speech, which is writing and writing customization. Go ahead and click on that and right here where it says custom handwriting. and typing dictionary, let's go ahead and turn it off now. The next one we want to go back to is privacy and security and we want to go to Diagnostics and feedback now.

Once we get in here, you'll notice that they have required diagnostic data that needs to be sent. I don't really agree with that, but what we're going to do now is go ahead and turn off the optional data and then the feedback rate, which is low. here at the bottom it says automatically, we're going to say how about never and then we're going to go ahead and press this button here under delete diagnostic data, go ahead and press delete and all of your diagnostic data will be deleted. on your system, however, this is not where we are going to stay, we have one more configuration that we have to do as well, so we are going to go ahead and click on the start button, we are going to type reg edit go ahead and open the registry editor here and then once it opens, where we're going to want to go, we want to go to the local machine, then we're going to want to go to the software and then from the software, we want to go down to the policies. here and then from policies we want to go to Microsoft and then we want to choose

windows

and then from Windows we want to go down to where it says data collection, now in data collection what we're going to want to do is We're going to want to create a dword name here, so right click go to new and we'll want a 32 bit dword value and then just type allow telemetry and then go ahead and hit enter and then from there If you want to open this up and then just change it to zero, it should be Zero of by default and then go ahead and press OK now at this point for these settings to take effect you will have to restart your computer; however, once you restart this.

The section here where it says you're sending the required diagnostic data will be disabled, so it will disable all diagnostics and feedback, so instead of restarting now, we'll just go ahead and go back to privacy and security and then we want to go down to the activity history and then from activity history we want to go ahead and disable both settings. Mine, the second ones send my activity history to Microsoft is already disabled, however, storing my activity history on this device We're going to go ahead and disable that and we're going to clear the history as well and then in the next point we'll come back to privacy and security, we'll go to search permissions and then from search permissions, I want to disable Microsoft and work accounts right here, honestly, you shouldn't be using a Microsoft account anyway, in fact, That should have been my first tip, if you don't want Windows to spy on you, the first thing you should probably do is not use it. an online account on your computer because I can't help you there, you know, so I would convert your Microsoft account to a local account and do it from the beginning and then once you scroll down here where you have the history, I would change delete history here and clear the device's search history and then we want to scroll down here to where it says more settings where it says show search highlights it says see Contex suggestions in the search box, go ahead and disable that one as well and then from here We're going to go ahead and go back to privacy and security and we're going to go down to our location right here and at this point we're going to talk about all of these different settings that we have here from the location. to the camera to the microphone, these are all here, so first let's jump to the location.

Now, one thing you can do is turn off location services completely, but if you're using an app like, for example, if I'm getting the weather because the weather is nice right now. I personally haven't turned it off, but you can turn on location data for your weather if you want to have localized weather, but if you don't care about any of this here, what? what you could do is go on a case by case basis and turn off all these different permissions here or you can just turn them off in general and if you go back to privacy security you can do the same for the camera. and you can say which games or which apps you want to have access to the camera or you can just turn it off now.

I think some of the biggest ones would be the placement of the camera and microphone now for this one here when it comes to camera and microphone. I highly recommend turning them off completely, especially if your privacy concerns you because you know that companies like Facebook and others listen to your microphone for ad suggestions and to be honest, I don't. I want companies to hear me when I'm on my computer, so I prefer to disable the permission completely, but you may need to have the camera and microphone permissions turned on if you are using any type of program like Skype or Teams or any type program where you need to have permissions for your camera and microphone, so keep that in mind as well and when you go through this you can go down and access any of these different sections that you want, like voice activation. and you can turn it off as well, but for the most part the most important ones to keep in mind are location, camera and microphone, so now what we can do is go ahead and close the settings and then the next settings we go to . to play will be in the registry and this will disable search results when you click start menu here or when you click search here.

How you got a lot of information available on the Internet, such as whether you should look for the registry edit, which is something we will need to run. In fact, you can search the web for the registry edition. We want to use this only locally on our computer. We want to disable any type of search or search history. results from the start menu, so let's go ahead and open up the log edit right here and then the log edit should start at the last place you were and since we were in the data collection key, so let's go ahead and go back to the beginning here and we want to go to the current user and then from there we want to go to software and then to policies and then from policies we want to go to Microsoft and then to Windows and then to this point.

We need to create a new key called Explorer and this already has it created, so we can enter from this point and from here we are going to want to create a new 32-bit dword value and we want to name it. value disable search box suggestions and then from there we want to go ahead and open this and change the settings to one and then go ahead and hit OK and then at this point we need to restart Explorer for it to actually take effect so let's close the registry edit, we're going to right click here to go into our task manager and from the task manager you just want to find Explorer in the list here so go ahead and scroll down until you find Explorer and here we go and we're just going to click on restart task and try again here, okay, we're doing good, so now we can close this.

If we click on our search box, you'll notice that there's no Bing power or anything like that anymore. if we search for reg edit we only get reg edit and we don't get any internet search results so I will continue and for the next step we need to enter our task scheduler so go ahead and click start. and look for task scheduler and it will be right here and you won't notice internet results, something nice, um, now we want to navigate to our task schedule or Library, go to Microsoft and then from here we want to go to Windows and then what what we're looking for is the application experience here and then if you come down here, we have the customer experience improvement program.

These are the two folders that concern us. Now you can review them here and open each one. one or more clickright on each one and just press disable so you can review the list, not export. You can go through the list and just disable them like this and sometimes you may not have permissions to disable them so this is one of the problems you may run into being able to disable some but not all, if you can't disable them, you can also right click and just delete it and by deleting it that disables it and if you go to this one here you can do that. same thing, you can just right click it, you can disable it or remove it, it's your decision, whatever you want to do, however, Microsoft can re-add these things at different times or re-enable them, so by removing them you may not find them. recover, but you know you'll probably end up getting them back, so this is something you'll probably want to keep an eye on after running Windows Update from time to time, just to make sure these things are gone for good, the problem with these tasks is that there is a good chance that when you run Windows Update or especially when you do a build update, these tasks will be put back into the task scheduler, so you will probably have to stick with this and do it again from time to time. from time to time just to make sure these tasks are actually disabled or deleted like you did in the first place, so keep an eye on them hopefully they won't show up but they probably will.

I'm not going to do it, but that's all you can do, so in the next point we're going to go ahead and close the task scheduler and we're going to go into our services here, so go ahead and open the start menu and just type services and then from this point we'll continue and the service we're looking for we'll just go down until we see here the connected user experience and telemetry and as you can see with mine, it's already disabled. to disable this you can always open it up and right here where it says start type it will probably be automatic on your system and if it's set to automatic I would just set it to disable it press the stop button and then press OK and it should disable it for So at this point all we've really done is change the settings.

I mean, we have made some registry modifications to disable certain features from Windows, however, one of the disadvantages of doing this is to protect your privacy. Windows is that it is not permanent when you go to update Windows and especially when you create updates, many of these settings can be turned back on and many of the little registry tricks that we did can be reverted, but there is one thing that we can do is much more permanent and that is modifying the host file to block all Microsoft servers because you know that if they can't connect to your computer, it doesn't really matter what your computer collects because you will never be able to access them. let me show you how to do it, so this will be really easy.

All we have to do is go ahead, open our browser and we want to go to GitHub. I'll go ahead and leave a link in the description below where you can find this list, but once you get to this page, you need to go to here where it says Microsoft Windows Office and MSN and we want to go to the link here that you have under hosts here because These are all going to be formatted a little bit differently, like if you just click on domains, all you're going to see is a list of domains that we want to block that won't be useful to us.

I mean, it would be, but it would be a lot. More work if you click on the line that says hosts right here, you'll notice it's formatted differently; it actually has 000000 in front of the domain, which will make our job easier, so with what we're going to do, you can go ahead and Ignore all the stuff at the top here, all we want is here where the hostnames start , so we'll go ahead and click here and highlight all of these different names here and once they're. We are highlighted, right click and press copy and now that it is on your clipboard we can move on to the next step and that will be to open Windows Explorer and we want to go to our C drive from there we want to go to Windows. we want to go to system 32 from system 32 we want to scroll down until you see drivers and then we want to go to Etc and then from here we will see a file called hosts now you cannot modify this file in its current location unfortunately but what you can do is grab it, drag and drop it onto your desktop and then from there go ahead and press continue and then you should have your host file right here on your desktop and then when you double click on It'll ask you how you want to open it, we'll just open ours in a notepad and then from here, as you can see, our hosts file is essentially empty, but if we go down to where it's blank here, right click and hit paste, all of those different hosts have appeared in our hosts file right here and all we have to do is save the file and then go ahead and close this right here and as you can see our host file now if we open up You'll see it has everything that we just did and at this point what we're going to do is to take this host file and drag it back into our folder like where we were.

I took it before, go ahead and press continue and it will copy it. Now it's a little unfortunate that we have to copy it and then copy it again, but if you don't, it won't let you save the document. after modifying it and at this point you can go ahead and turn this off and you can restart your computer and it should be pretty private at that point. One thing I want to add to this right here if you modify your host file. and you use Windows security as your antivirus, you will notice something interesting if you click on your virus and threat protection, you will notice here that you have a possible host file hijacking, well what is happening here is that Microsoft in a way of trying Prevent people from adding their own telemetry servers to the host file.

Actually, they started detecting it as a host file hijacking, so they will try to revert your host file so they can continue spying on you all. what you have to do is go ahead and click allow on the device and just ignore it, so unfortunately this is going to be a downside of using

windows

security, which is an antivirus that I actually recommend using, but it's kind of a way clever way Microsoft uses it. to prop up their own interests rather than the interests of the people who are actually using their software and don't want to be spied on.

Now there are some downsides to many of these settings that we just changed when it comes to privacy. a balance between privacy and convenience I mean I wish there wasn't but unfortunately that's the world we live in for example I don't even know how I lived my life without Google Maps but using Google Maps Google literally knows where I'm. 100% of the time and don't think for a second that they aren't selling that information to anyone willing to buy it, so many of the settings we disable are also tied to conveniences, for example we disable personalized advertising.

We will still see ads, it just won't have any bearing on anything we care about, considering the fact that most of us completely ignore ads anyway, it doesn't really matter, though, you might want to watch the weather, but if you want localized information. weather information, then you have to tell your computer where you are, that is private information that you are giving to Microsoft for the convenience of them telling you if it is going to rain tomorrow, so everyone has to make the decision for themselves what they are going to be so extreme. go with your privacy settings and you should also do this keeping in mind that even if you go to the most extreme measures possible, your computer is still spying on you, there is no way for it to completely eliminate data collection, the reason why it's because data collection is literally the extent to which technology makes money if it wasn't for data collection there would be no Facebook, there would be no YouTube.

Windows would still cost $100 for each new version instead of being a free upgrade, the reason so much of the internet is free is because you are the product, remember if you are not paying for the service, you are the service, the companies Those who provide these services to you for free collect your data and sell it to everyone from advertising agencies to the government. You are purchasing this data, so it is important to be in charge of your own data and you should limit the amount of data that is collected if you can. Hopefully this video helped give Big Tech a little less opportunity to spy on you, but with all that said, even services you pay for can sometimes treat customers poorly.

I talk about that in this video where I analyze whether or not piracy can be justified without defending it. I understand why people do it like you guys always have. a great day