I don’t know why one would use Windows these days.
Found this on Vox Day’s site. Turns out, Microsoft turned off the International Criminal Court prosecutors stuff, so France is divesting itself from Microsoft:
France just banned Windows from 2.5 million government computers. The reason is terrifying. The US sanctioned the International Criminal Court. Microsoft locked the chief prosecutor out of his email overnight. One switch and an entire institution went dark. Europe realized any government running American software is one executive order away from losing access to its own data.
France ordered every ministry to ditch Windows, Teams, Zoom, and all American tech. 2.5 million computers moving to Linux. Denmark dumped Microsoft Office. Germany moved 30,000 PCs to Linux. All 27 EU members signed a digital sovereignty charter. The US CLOUD Act lets American authorities force any US company to hand over data stored anywhere in the world. That’s why they are leaving.
It’s not just that they spy on us, you can be shut out of your stuff due to badthink. Keep in mind, OneDrive is on the cloud, so is their email if you use it, so are your office apps if you use MS Office. There’s no way around it. Google is the same way. I lost trust with these two years ago and divested myself of their stuff for most of my needs. I still use it for work, I have no choice. I have a and an old PC running Windows 10 that runs my laser etcher. I’m too lazy to install the software on my Mac. I need to. Once I do that, I’ll install Linux and use it as a storage box.
Even at work I had MS jam me up. The way the server I was working on was set, it wouldn’t let me install our own software. I farted with this for a few hours. Didn’t make sense. The old version installs fine. One version year later, nothing. It was trying to check the mothership whether it could install or not, and wasn’t. I had to untangle the settings to let it install. With Windows, you literally are one update away from misery. I’ve lost count how many times something I use failed because of a Microsoft update. I spend way too much time untangling this sort of things. Windows 11 is an abomination, far as I’m concerned.
The article has a number of steps to take. First for me, always, is to use a mail provider that I pay to use. I don’t do free with apps or services I use. In this case, I’ve been on Proton for years. I tried the free version and liked it, so I paid for pro. Worth every penny. You shouldn’t use Chrome or Edge. Both dime your actions to momma. I use Brave on all my devices. By the way, a paid Proton account comes with ProtonVPN. That’s super handy.
Far as the PC goes, I bought a Macbook a few years ago. Sure, they’re in that league as well, but they work differently. The apps are on the computer. I can decide where my stuff goes. And where that is would be my NAS and a usb drive. I use a tool called Beyond Compare, where I can compare folders and update them. I have a ThinkPad running Linux as well. That’s the box I bring for presentations and whatnot. I don’t pay a yearly fee for my office apps. I think I pay $5/month for extra iCloud storage. I hate being an annuity for tech companies, and Microsoft is the worst of them.
You need to control your data. Denniger had a great piece the other day about a PBS station that lost all their stuff from a cloud provider. He’s right. It’s stupid. Even commercial grade storage isn’t all that expensive, compared to the cost of losing your stuff. You can get decent gear for cheap. So there’s no reason not to have your own backups.
I have Buffalo 4T NAS that I installed after my old one, a Seagate BlackArmor got old and became troublesome. I liked the BlackArmor. I inherited from my company. But they are way more expensive than decent, similar options. I also use a USB drive for more important stuff as well as an Ironkey thumb for really important stuff.
I used to use Dropbox, but that was with Windows. I found that I haven’t really accessed anything on it in years, since the same data can be found on my NAS. I need to look through it and cancel the account. It’s one of the subscriptions that surprises me when I get my credit card bill.
Practice some digital hygiene. It’ll pay off.
Far as MS goes, this can’t help. They’re already a pain in the ass to deal with. They deserve everything they got coming their way.
Inspected By Pat 