If you thought that Microsoft was done with Recall after its catastrophic reveal as the main feature of Copilot+ PCs, you are mistaken.
Microsoft wants to bring it back this October 2024. Good news is that the company plans to introduce it in test builds of the Windows 11 operating system in October. In other words: do not expect the feature to hit stable Windows 11 PCs before 2025 at the earliest.
While Recall may have sounded great on paper and on work-related PCs, users and experts alike expressed concern. Users expressed fears that malware could steal Recall data to know exactly what they did in the past couple of months.
Others did not trust Microsoft to keep the data secure. We suggested to make Recall opt-in, instead of opt-out, to make sure that users knew what they were getting into when enabling it.
Microsoft pulled the Recall feature shortly after its announcement and published information about its future in June. There, Microsoft said that it would make Recall opt-in by default. It also wanted to improve security by enrolling in Windows Hello and other features.
Yet another reminder that alternatives, where your privacy is not for sale, and your hardware belongs to you, actually exist in 2024
What do you recommend? What is the most Apple-like+MacBook like?
Elementary is a very polished and user friendly linux distribution designed to familiar to MacOS users.
With the slightly massive caveat that you can’t upgrade to newer versions without a nuke and pave.
Ubuntu or Pop OS use GNOME by default which is similar to macOS
Pop!_OS won’t use GNOME for much longer. They’re currently developing their own desktop called COSMIC.
COSMIC itself has a similar design to macOS
Zorin is a Ubuntu-derived distro that has multiple desktop managers built in, including one that mimics macOS.
A lot of the laptops made by Huawei and Xiaomi are MacBook-like in design at least. Framework is much more repairable though as are business laptops from HP or Dell. Dell in particular has made some quite long battery life laptops in the past like the Latitude 7410 and 7400, though those aren’t particularly new they are at least cheap when bought second hand.
In terms of OS you got to go with some Linux flavor as they offer various DEs some of which are mac like. Obviously macOS and Linux terminals are somewhat similar anyway. PopOS is a great option.
I would not, in good conscience, ever recommend a Dell machine to anyone anymore. Not only the design and build quality have gone down catastrophically, but Dell would take literally every opportunity they have to fuck you over.
XPS machines in particular have a solid history of being good on paper, but a nightmare, once you ever need to contact them about issues
XPS aren’t business machines, just premium consumer machines. They aren’t built to the same standard, as would honestly be expected given they cost less. I’ve had my own bad experiences with an XPS laptop and wouldn’t buy one again. Too many compromises in the name of being thin and lightweight.
To be honest I was more suggesting second hand machines where warranty from the OEM isn’t really a consideration.
I think you will find most OEMs don’t really care about customer support unless you are a business. HP, Asus, and friends all have their own horror stories. There are only a few companies like Framework I actually trust.
We’re about to buy a few new laptops at work. My boss is hardcore Dell fan, I need to prove him it’s no better than anything else on the market.
I’m suggesting either Thinkbook (cheap option, comparable specs cost 2/3 of Dell) or Probook/Elitebook which are still considerably cheaper than Dell in my country.
Who thought they were abandoning it?
I doubt they secured it particularly well either, because the nature of proper security is building it from the ground up with security as a core principle, but it was always coming back.
They delayed because “oh shit, people noticed we didn’t even bother with security theater” and to let the backlash die down. They still consider it a major selling point.
By the comments I’ve seen, it seems like no one read their previous announcement where they said they were delaying the feature while they continued work on it. We already knew they were still going to ship it.
Just having it disabled by default is a massive improvement. It’s crazy that they initially considered releasing it with no encryption and it on by default.
It’s less bad for sure. And I can understand, theoretically, the value of “that one think I saw that one time”. I’ve definitely spent way longer than I’d want looking for some random reference I’d seen in the past, and I’m in the process of trying to catalogue all the references in my past nonfiction reading after the fact, and it’s definitely a lot of work.
But man, other users on your PC could trivially see everything you did on your system unless you used the dumpster fire that’s edge in private browsing mode, and the people on the project thought that was OK. There’s no way people with that level of lack of awareness managed to adapt the project to not be a sieve.
While Recall may have sounded great on paper and on work-related PCs,
Ah yes, all those IT people were probably thrilled with the prospect of Microsoft getting sent constant screenshots of their employees’ machines, with all those company secrets, sensitive information, and everything
It never sounded great on paper to me…
Hear me out, I actually had a similar concept in mind, but only for files, emails, calendar entries, bookmarks, that kind of stuff. Things that I actually saved on my computer, not random screenshots of what I’m looking at. This is a huge difference IMO. What I look at should never be saved. Only when I specifically save something, should it persist. I would actually love a FOSS, local and private AI solution that would allow me to simply query anything I’ve ever saved on my computer with a simple search request, without having to waste time on naming my files. Even better if it would understand the context and stuff. This would especially be useful with photos, as they never have proper filenames, just some generic random stuff. Or with code, if the AI search could understand the context of my code and I could just pull it up using a search terms like “the function for handling DNS over TLS requests a few years ago” or whatever, and it would just pull out that one function from the project. Even better if this could be integrated with a separate, generative AI model, that could make small changes to my already existing stuff. I don’t know, e.g. “refactor the function to use LibreSSL instead of OpenSSL TLS library”.
The crazy part to me is a local solution (shadow copy) has been around for ever. Why this is even a thing at all is just insane to me.
They never said they were doing away with it. It’s a feature literally no one asked for, it’s insecure, it’s invasive, a privacy nightmare any way you look at it.
And people who willingly use it will deserve all the shit that it is. And meanwhile, I’ll be enjoying my privacy-respecting Linux operating system.
So imagine you’re on PornHub and then out of nowhere, Clippy shows up and says “hmmm looks like you need some help pleasuring yourself”, then starts flicking through similar nude pictures and videos to what you’ve been looking at before. The idle animation of the AI assistant even changes to Clippy morphing into the shape of a penis and shagging a rolled up piece of lined paper is if it were a fleshlight. You can’t tell if Microsoft are mocking you for being a coomer, nor can you tell whether to find Clippy’s sexual deviancy funny or creepy.
Somehow that hypothetical dystopia of Clippy watching you masturbate is only slightly worse than what Microsoft plan to do with Recall. If the mere thought of a machine learning AI taking screenshots of your desktop every few seconds and learning from your computer usage habits isn’t absolutely fucking terrifying… Then imagine that these are likely being uploaded to a server for the perusal of advertisers, intelligence agencies and any hackers skilled enough to break into Microsoft’s servers.
Even if it was stored locally, all it takes is one dodgy web link for you to inadvertently send all your Recall data to a hacker and have it ransomed.
Linux is just as bad though —
.zsh_historyrecords every command you run!(/s, obviously…)
Actually no… well for zsh I don’t know but for bash at least if you start the command with a space it won’t be added to history. So not every command, you still get to (conveniently IMHO) decide that too!
Right, you can control that behavior in bash with the
HISTCONTROLvariable, and in zsh withsetopt HIST_IGNORE_SPACE:)That’s so cool, how have I never discovered that after so many years of using Linux?..
<Insert how you’ll use Linux> <shit on Microsoft and how you are done> <rest of the population uses Windows because they don’t know shit about tech and how shitty this is> <realize work loves Microsoft and you can’t change that> <destroy all your tech> <become a Luddite hermit>
people not knowing shit about tech is not their fault. I’ve been using tech for 30+ years, and I’m usually the most tech savvy person in my circle of family and friends, except for a friend in IT.
the reason I’m not getting into Linux is no longer gaming, it’s that whenever i see some fuckers talking about Linux it’s completely indecipherable with proper names, commands, and jargon. it’s straight up technobabble, and when it’s not insufferable elitism it’s certainly disinviting.
you think people are going to listen to a bunch of nerds talking about distros and shit, using 40 different acronyms within two sentences, and think “ah this is my new home” … like do you fucking hear yourselves at all‽ you sound exactly like a character from the hackers, and not in a good way.
if anything is preventing people from switching it’s Linux users, and probably developers as well. if you make it look like people have to have a degree to get into your shit, they’re not gonna do it.
Even more annoying is how many people in the Linux community often recommend distros that are terrible for beginners. People who constantly try to tell newbies to download base debian or arch should be removed from the conversation instantly.
That’s a lot more prevalent online than in-person.
If you ask a Linux user in-person about Linux, they’ll likely oversimplify, but if you ask 2-3 Linux users at the same time, you’ll quickly get into jargon. That’s not a Linux problem, that’s a problem with pretty much every niche interest, people really like to one-up each other in whatever that is. Just try it sometime. Ask someone about their favorite board game, what camera to buy, etc, and you’ll get a simple answer. Then repeat, but with a group of people who all like that thing, and you’ll get a much more complicated answer.
As with any hobby, there’s always another level of depth you can go. The trick is to corner one nerd, and only one nerd.
dude where do you think I’m hanging out that I’m gonna find people who use Linux in person
We’re not some rare breed, you’ll find us at grocery stores, bars, on the bus, etc. We’re pretty good at hiding though, and we get startled when approached.
If you want to attract a Linux nerd, put a Tux sticker somewhere. Don’t do anything distro-specific like an Ubuntu or Fedora sticker, because that’ll attract the wrong kind of attention, just a cute Tux sticker. It may take a few days for us to sense it’s not a trap, but you’ll eventually get someone asking about the sticker, and it’ll be a bit quicker if you happen to be a girl (but if you’re really cute, it’ll take longer).
Linux night isn’t Mondays at your local hole in the wall?
https://youtu.be/CPRvc2UMeMI?feature=shared
Relevant part at 5:15 but it’s all on point. There’s a better version somewhere but this was the top hit…
It’s not like people need the Linux community to install Linux, they didn’t need a “windows community” to use windows.
that’s because windows is beginner friendly. too much for my taste, but that’s how you get people to come aboard. by making it easy for a dumbass to use. simple terms, familiar words, relatable metaphors, graphic interface, installers that do the work for you…
you don’t need a windows community to figure things out on windows. i was like 6 when I started using windows 3.x and i did fine because it was either intuitive or it taught me how to do things.
with Linux you do need to refer to communities to even know where to start, and even then the community is fucking indecipherable. nerds don’t know how to speak human.
If you started using Linux with 6, or mac for that matter you’ll probably find that more intuitive than windows.
Sorry but the graphic interface of windows is jack shit, you have different types of system configuration and legacy menus all over the place, for anything more serious editing the Registry is not what I call intuitive.
I’ve a friend that had constantly BSOD while playing certain games and he only found the solution in a russian forum suggesting to rename a .dll file in system, that was in 2015-2016. That’s not intuitive. The biggest difference is the amount of time that people need to do that in windows vs in linux, in any case people without more knowledge in PCs are completely lost and need assistance.
sounds like you’re having trouble understanding the difference between troubleshooting for specific cases vs entry to the OS.
if anything is preventing people from switching it’s Linux users, and probably developers as well. if you make it look like people have to have a degree to get into your shit, they’re not gonna do it.
The thing is, I agree with you, and unfortunately it’s actually a common misconception how difficult Linux is to use. You can easily install a beginner-friendly distro like Ubuntu/Mint/PopOS and get started that way, it doesn’t have to be daunting. It’s free to try out and you have nothing to lose by giving it a try, you could always go back to Windows.
It’s free? Like you can put it on your current computer simultaneously with windows for free for free, or you have to buy a new computer to put it on but it itself is free for free? Because if it’s the first one I should give it a shot. Problem is I’m already learning so many new things currently I’m already a bit overwhelmed as it is but one of these days I absolutely have to because I’m getting so sick of windows’s BS.
You can generally install Linux on any computer you want, entirely for free. You don’t need to buy a new computer, you just install it like any other operating system.
Also there’s often live USB environments where you can boot from the USB but try it out before dedicating to installing it on your SSD/hard drive. You could technically even dual boot but that can have its own problems.
As always, back up your data when trying out things.
For basic things like web browsing, watching videos, and reading emails, Linux is excellent. It’s when you start getting into more power-user type stuff where you have to learn more about how things work on Linux.
Hmm thanks for the info. I really do need to tackle it eventually. Problem is I do a lot of art stuff, modelling, animating, music production, painting, etc. I know a few of the programs I need are probably fairly easy to get working but there is just so much in my workflow that the thought of having to work through each and every one of those programs trying to get them set up while also under the stress of the actual work I need to be doing with them is nightmare fuel. I wish microsoft would just stop being wankers but I know that is never going to happen.
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proving my point. Linux users are worse than Mac users in this aspect. but keep wondering why Linux barely finding 4% market share is big news.
Nobody cares what OS anybody runs except for people that are selling OS’s.
Linux is nice and private and as complicated as you’d like to make it.
Linux is also the main operating system of “the cloud”
Thus that’s the thrust of my joke.
But yeah, rah rah Big Corp important to my personal identity! I am EXACTLY the strawman you need for your argument. Tell me more about my motivations and concerns.
funny you mention strawman literally in the middle of your strawman argument. is that lampshade hanging?
you’re right, i shouldn’t.
Work is the only reason I still have windows in my life, and thankfully, they will be trialing linux as an option for employees in the next month or two. I signed up so damn quick lol.
I got lucky that my last 3 jobs have all let me use Linux on a work laptop, but I guess it’s not too surprising since I work as a web developer and production always runs on Linux lol
This tool stinks of management requesting a better way to spy the employees. It has little to no benefits for the user.
I’m not sure any company wants to have recordings of their employees screens feed to Microsoft servers. It could never happen at my company because of the amount of private information we deal with. Privacy laws, NDAs, you name it. There’s no way we could enable this without a shit storm of risk.
MS: Here’s a cool new feature!
Users: That is spyware bullshit, fuck off!
MS: But muh ecosystem!
Users: Nobody fucking wants any of that. Now STFU and run my games, grandpa.
MS: sniffs This isn’t over, you little shits.Another day I’m thankful I don’t work for a company that uses microshit anymore
Not a problem for me, since I plan to stop using Windows in 2025.
Much like Chrome forced me to Firefox, Windows will force me to Linux. It is inevitable.
I recommend at least dual booting before then, so you can get a feel for what the alternative is capable of. You don’t want to switch, run into a hiccup, then have to decide whether to push through whatever incompatibility that is, or switch to something terrible. Work through those problems at your own pace in a dual-boot setup, and once you’re ready to ditch Windows, everything is already ready.
Yeah, that’s what I actually did on my secondary computer (laptop), where I dual booted Windows 10 and openSUSE Tumbleweed, before switching entirely to openSUSE.
I am planning to do the same for my main PC, but instead of doing different partitions for each OS, I will most likely give Linux (probably openSUSE as well, but I might try Fedora Atomic this time) an entire SSD for it’s use.
Yeah, on my desktop, I have a separate disk for Windows and Linux, and since I haven’t booted into Windows in over a year, I’ll probably repurpose it as a data drive or something (or maybe upgrade my NAS boot drive).
I use Arch Linux… btw
Seriously, the alternatives are there… It’s time to take the leap and never look back.
Of course it is coming back.
So based on the requirements, it sounds like a lot of PCs just can’t run recall anyways?
