Cortana Can Not Be Turned Off In The Windows 10 Anniversary Update

[Kherm]

59 minutes ago, JoeyDM said:

inb4 @GoodBytes and @AluminiumTech try to defend asinine garbage that just takes choice away from users. 

 

I believe that you can't turn Cortana on if you don't have a Microsoft Account linked to the PC. So f you have a local account, no Cortana for you. On the other hand, if you have a MS Account linked and you don't want Cortana, you can either use that group policy stuff or unlink your MS Account.

 

That said, I don't know why'd they do that. 

 

EDIT: The fact that it's still an insider-only feature set as of now may explain why you can't turn it off. That's most likely the reason.

[Squirrel724]

I like how nobody seems to have an issue with Siri or Google Now but Cortana might as well be the devil.

[Sauron]

54 minutes ago, Centurius said:

No kidding  I've considered trading it with a regular 4770 with people but I like overclocking too much so it'll just have to wait until I do a systems upgrade in like 2 years.

you could dual boot, it doesn't take long to reboot if you have an ssd

[GoodBytes]

8 minutes ago, JoeyDM said:

Ah, I got some at Trader Joe's that was pretty good, haven't tried putting any sugar on it yet. I should do that... 

Sadly, I live in Canada, worst, Quebec, so and we don't get the cool stuff here, because not only Canada is a small market, but extremely few companies wants to deal with the forced French language by Quebec laws, not to mention the MASSIVE red tape here.

[Notional]

I wonder how many people whining about this has an Iphone?

 

For most people this will never be an issue. For the few people who doesn't want this, they can disable it by other means than a tick off box. FFS you need to write 30 lines of console code to do anything in Linux.

[Centurius]

9 minutes ago, Sauron said:

you could dual boot, it doesn't take long to reboot if you have an ssd

That's true, there's just something slightly more convenient about switching via a vm for a seamless experience.

[Sauron]

Just now, Centurius said:

That's true, there's just something slightly more convenient about switching via a vm for a seamless experience.

Oh sure I get it, but since you're stuck with no vt-d it's better than nothing ^^

[Centurius]

1 minute ago, Sauron said:

Oh sure I get it, but since you're stuck with no vt-d it's better than nothing ^^

Haha fair enough, when I get some more time later this month I will look into it.

[LAwLz]

37 minutes ago, super_skank said:

renaming the following folder will stop cuntana from doing anything on your PC, only downside is that search will no longer work on your taskbar and start menu.

That's a very big downside in my opinion.

 

 

35 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

thanks. Now i can report this and make it so that it won't work in the future.

Why would you do that?

"Oh shit. People found a way to regain some control over their computers!? But Microsoft knows best! Better make sure everyone does what Microsoft wants!"

That's what you sound like.

 

 

38 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Interesting find:

https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement/

 

Testing this:

<picture>

 

This disable Cortana voice recognition. The rest, you can turn off everything under Interest (and clear anything that is stored, if used) and Search settings (Click on the search box, and click on the gear icon).

 

From what I can see (at least visually) Cortana itself turns into a standard search box, with web search enabled (Bing, of course), with integration of Windows 10 features such as reminders (which doesn't use the web, beside syncing them between your Cortana installed/enabled devices) and notifications on them.  This also seem to have disable my notification from my phone being displayed on my desktop.

That does not sound very "disabled" to me.

 

 

15 minutes ago, Notional said:

I wonder how many people whining about this has an Iphone?

 

For most people this will never be an issue. For the few people who doesn't want this, they can disable it by other means than a tick off box. FFS you need to write 30 lines of console code to do anything in Linux.

What bothers me is that Microsoft are removing options for no reason other than to make it harder for people to get away from privacy intrusive things in Windows 10.

They are not acting in the interest of their consumers, which is a very big no-no in my eyes.

[SansVarnic]

13 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Why would you do that?

"Oh shit. People found a way to regain some control over their computers!? But Microsoft knows best! Better make sure everyone does what Microsoft wants!"

That's what you sound like.

I am pretty sure that was a resounding /s.  

[samcool55]

24 minutes ago, Squirrel724 said:

I like how nobody seems to have an issue with Siri or Google Now but Cortana might as well be the devil.

Well if i don't want google now i just install a custom rom and byebye google now.

Android itself is a great OS and you can change it however you like.

 

With W10 it's completely the opposite. You can't just take W10, remove what you have and install that on your pc.

And they are actively stopping people from tweaking W10 to what they want.

 

An example of this are themes. With XP custom themes were just amazing, they could change the OS like a lot and nothing would die.

W7 same story, there are awesome themes for it and they work perfectly.

 

But since W10 everything keeps breaking, since build 1511 they blocked a lot of the custom theme stuff because they changed a stupid irrelevant thing that messes stuff up completely. Since then custom themes are basicly dead and i don't see it being a thing again anytime soon.

There are still customized W10 versions available, i'm not going to deny that, but apart from some basic changes and a fancy icon pack it's nothing special.

 

And at least i know what google keeps about me, i have absolutely no clue at all what MS exactly has about it.

Google collects a lot but at least they do imo a good job of giving you the option to disable everything and see what they have about you.

 

[Trik'Stari]

2 hours ago, JoeyDM said:

inb4 @GoodBytes and @AluminiumTech try to defend asinine garbage that just takes choice away from users. 

As well as weakening the security of the OS overalll.

 

That "PSA" By GoodBytes, the tone was entirely pro-microsoft. How is he still a moderator when he writes stuff like that?

[Nowak]

2 hours ago, AlexTheRose said:

Predatory and sociopathic business practises will spell the end for Microsoft if they continue.

Google's been at it for well over a decade (extremely predatory, privacy-breaching business practices) and it hasn't spelled their end yet.

[Unhelpful]

2 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

As well as weakening the security of the OS overalll.

 

That "PSA" By GoodBytes, the tone was entirely pro-microsoft. How is he still a moderator when he writes stuff like that?

Because he still moderates the forums quite well... His personal opinions (the fact that he's a fangirl) has no impact on that.

[Trik'Stari]

3 minutes ago, JoeyDM said:

Because he still moderates the forums quite well... His personal opinions (the fact that he's a fangirl) has no impact on that.

It doesn't look good. Is all I'm saying.

 

Not questioning his job as a moderator, it just looks bad. Also, you can't argue with him like you would any other regular forum member, because he's a moderator. You're always going to be worried about the fact that he's in a position of authority over you. Whether or not he'd actually abuse his authority.

 

It has the appearance of impropriety.

[Voldy21]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

Why would you do that?

"Oh shit. People found a way to regain some control over their computers!? But Microsoft knows best! Better make sure everyone does what Microsoft wants!"

That's what you sound like.

 

That was pretty obviously sarcasm on AluminumTech's part

[grayperview]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

That's a very big downside in my opinion.

 

 

Yeah, you just learn to work around it, you get used to it pretty quickly though.

 

I'd prefer it running, but it  was using 10% of my cpu for hours at a time, seemingly doing nothing, so it had to go.

[Nowak]

1 minute ago, AlexTheRose said:

Microsoft’s quite a lot closer to home than Google is tbh. As Barnacules outlined in his video, he expects a level of personal authority and control over his PC that he does not expect out of a phone. Call it stupid or hypocritical or whatever, doesn’t change that he’s far from the only person who feels that way.

 

Not that I really buy into either of them, though. The most you can nab me on is using YouTube, but Google has no control over my smartphone and neither does MS over my PC. I can agree with you that both are bad, but many feel different and also two wrongs don’t make a right.

Well, if you really care about your privacy, regardless of your OS I'd suggest not using Chrome anymore because apparently Google will begin selling browsing data for ads.

 

May I take the opportunity to shill Vivaldi?

[LAwLz]

1 minute ago, Daring said:

Well, if you really care about your privacy, regardless of your OS I'd suggest not using Chrome anymore because apparently Google will begin selling browsing data for ads.

 

May I take the opportunity to shill Vivaldi?

I thought this was already happening. I am very surprised Google haven't used the data collected from Chrome for ads since day one.

It is opt-in though, which is nice. So unless you actively say "yes Google, use my Chrome data for advertising purposes", it won't use it. It probably saves it even if you don't say yes though, which is pretty much just as bad.

[Nowak]

Just now, LAwLz said:

I thought this was already happening. I am very surprised Google haven't used the data collected from Chrome for ads since day one.

It is opt-in though, which is nice. So unless you actively say "yes Google, use my Chrome data for advertising purposes", it won't use it. It probably saves it even if you don't say yes though, which is pretty much just as bad.

Knowing Google, it probably does still save browsing data and send it to Google.

 

So, basically, Google, Apple, Canonical and MS all suck for privacy. That we can all agree on, right?

[JoeCoke]

This is one of the main reasons I haven't switched. I hate shit being forced on me, I hate Microsoft's practices. Their Windows 10 nag windows, forced ugrades,updates, etc.

 

I'm not giving in. When it's time to leave Windows 7 it's off to Linux Mint with me.

[Sintezza]

There exaly is a solution for this.

Its called Windows10 Enterprise LTSB.

 

- No cortana

- No Edge

- No app store

- No Metro apps.

 

Thats what Windows 10 should be.

But telemetry tracking is probably still in there.

[LAwLz]

4 minutes ago, Daring said:

Knowing Google, it probably does still save browsing data and send it to Google.

 

So, basically, Google, Apple, Canonical and MS all suck for privacy. That we can all agree on, right?

Not sure about Apple and Canonical, but I agree with Google and MS sucking.

 

 

4 minutes ago, AlexTheRose said:

I don’t use Chrome, and haven’t since before I stopped using Windows in 2014. Stopped using Chromium a few weeks ago as well.

 

The one thing I dislike the most about these business models Microsoft and Google are realising is that they all boil down into advertising, a.k.a. the manufacturing, distribution, packaging, and marketing of bullshit. Big businesses trying to sell me useless junk that’s overpriced and doesn’t work; trying to get me to spend money I don’t have on things I don’t need.

 

If that doesn’t describe MS/Google’s ultimatum enough, George Carlin describes it quite beautifully:

<video>

If I want your product, I’ll look for it on Amazon. I don’t need advertising. I don’t tolerate advertising. I don’t like it. I don’t see it. And if I do, I laugh at it for about a minute in a half before attempting to gfto of there.

The scary thing about advertising is that even if you think that it doesn't affect you, it subconsciously does.

Repeatedly seeing the same thing will subconsciously make you feel more familiar and at ease with that product. So if you constantly see commercials for soap brand X, then you are more likely to pick that brand when giving the choice between brand X and brand Y. You are more likely to pick a brand you have seen more often than a less familiar brand (even if the product and price are the same).

[Unhelpful]

28 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

 

It doesn't matter. He is a good moderator.

 

You can argue with him as much as you would any other member, just follow the Community Standards (as with other members). Hell, I've been calling him a fangirl and a shill for half the day!

 

@GoodBytes just because I don't like talking about people behind their backs.

[Arty]

3 hours ago, JoeyDM said:

inb4 @GoodBytes and @AluminiumTech try to defend asinine garbage that just takes choice away from users. 

it can still be turned off via group policy editor.