[BLOG] Windows 10 Creators Edition Available Now - But Keep An Eye On Your Privacy Settings

Post Reply
CrimsonShade
He's Technically Motivated
Posts: 122
Joined: 16 May 2011, 04:14
Location: England
Contact:

[BLOG] Windows 10 Creators Edition Available Now - But Keep An Eye On Your Privacy Settings

Post by CrimsonShade »

This is a blog post. To read the original post, please click here »


Image

The wait is nearly over for Windows users. On April 11th, the long-awaited "Creators Update" will launch for Windows 10, bringing with it such useful features as a new "night light" mode that reduces the amount of blue light emitted by your screen so that you an sleep better; a new Windows Defender Security Center where users can tweak their security options in one place; and a Game Mode for better performance while gaming among lots of other tweaks. People who do not want to wait for the update to be offered to them through Windows Update can get ahead of the game by downloading Microsoft's upgrade tool to apply the update right now - but a recent report suggests privacy-conscious users may want to hold off from jumping on the bandwagon early.

According to an article by Tom's Hardware, which has been backed up by numerous less patient users, Microsoft's Windows 10 Update Assistant may not honour your Privacy Settings if you use it to upgrade to the Creators Update yourself. Instead, the Assistant tries to use default settings - whether or not you choose to upgrade or clean install the new version - meaning that if you changed your privacy settings when you installed Windows 10 and subsequently use the Assistant, you may need to keep a close eye on just what is being set, or you may find Windows suddenly gathering more data about you than you originally intended.


Those default settings encourage you to share your location and provide full diagnostic data to Microsoft to fix issues and improve future iterations of Windows 10. The default options also encourage enabling Cortana and receiving targeted ads rather than generic ones. The good news here is that Microsoft is being much more transparent about the data it collects - and when applying the Creators Update, the privacy options offer up clearer descriptions of what they do and the effects enabling or disabling them will have.


If you're not looking forward to going back through all those checkboxes, however, Microsoft state that when the upgrade is made available through Windows Update some time during April 11th, existing privacy settings WILL be honoured. We'll know for sure if this is the case soon enough - but as always, it's wise to look before you leap.
Image
Image
Post Reply