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 think Windows 7 was good, and their last decent desktop OS before they started backporting Windows 10 garbage into it late in the lifecycle.
I’m in the same boat as you now. Earlier this year I’d had enough and there was no way I was going from my de-shittified Win10 Enterprise install to Win11. I’m on Tumbleweed for my main PC now.
My job is in the early stages of planning for updating everything to windows 11. I just got my testing VM with it the other day which is my first experience with it and I had an almost physical reaction to how bad the gui looks when I first logged in. I haven’t even done anything with it and I already hate it.
On the other hand the Linux VM I set up at home to test my personal stuff out on has been going swimmingly.