Hi, welcome once
again and all being good, let’s get into today’s article without wasting time.
Today in this piece I will show you how you can stop windows 11 from spying on you on your pc and
your activities on the net.
There is one thing
that I am pretty sure most people don’t
know about is that, windows 11 talks back to Microsoft and shares data with how
you're using your pc.
Microsoft knows the
exact GPS corners of your pc, the websites that you visit, the music that you
play, the videos that you watch and even the apps that you launch on your pc.
But having said that, don’t get terrified
about you having to share all these your privacy without first having the
knowledge of it.
But the good part
of it is that, Microsoft still believes that, the user should have control over
their data if not all of it. Microsoft
uses all of this data that it collects to make its products and services
better. They use this data collected from users to be able to improve their
products and services for best computing experience and also to help them
identify issues and fix them.
So, by letting
Microsoft collect some of this data you get a better computing experience, but
at the same time you might not care for that and maybe you don't want to share
any data back with Microsoft.
So today, I will tell you how Microsoft even
collects data from you and how you can opt out if you would prefer not to share
your data with them.
Fortunately for us,
Microsoft offer two different tools that show us how our data is being tracked
by Microsoft. The first one is called the privacy dashboard and the second one
is called the diagnostic data viewer.
Let’s start with the privacy dashboard. Log into your Microsoft account
and at the top, you can access the privacy dashboard.
Right here, you can
see your pc location, your voice recordings and the transcriptions that you
make, you can see your browsing history, that's the websites that you visit.
History of your web searches. Your media activities; that is the movies, tv and
music that you enjoy. They are even able to gather information about the
reliability and performance of the services that you use. And one funny
thing, they even keep track of the ads
that interest you.
But the good news that, not only can you view
all of this information but if you want you can clear it and it will remove all
of this information from Microsoft's servers.
The second way that
you can see what is shared with Microsoft is by
using a tool called the diagnostic data viewer. Now, let’s see how we
can access this second tool. Go to settings, click on privacy and security and
then again, click on the diagnostic data viewer. If you turn this tool on, your
pc will keep all of the data that's shared back with Microsoft.
Just below it, you
can also download the diagnostic data viewer if you don’t already have it. Once
you download the tool, you can see all of the different data that's shared back
with Microsoft.
When you open the
tool, you will definitely be shocked that is a whole lot of information you
have been sharing with Microsoft? So, if you look at the information and you
think you’re not comfortable sharing this with Microsoft then the next thing
we’re going to do is to consider ways that you can limit how much data is
shared with Microsoft.
Let’s look at the
first few things we will consider to limit sharing our data with Microsoft.
Here, we’re going to specify what exact data is shared back with Microsoft and to do that, let's go into settings and then click on privacy and security. Here, we're going to work around the major ones you see here.
Click on windows security and here,
click on virus and threat protection. Over here, these two; cloud delivered
protection and automatic sample submission share your pc’s data back with
Microsoft and in return Microsoft will tell you if you're visiting a malicious
website or if you're trying to open a malicious file. This is very important
right? But anyway, if you don't care for that type of protection, you can turn
both of these off.
Next thing to do is to also look at this tool,
find my device. The good thing about this tool is that, if you lose your
device, you'll be able to track and see where your lose device is. But if at
all you don't care for that you can also turn it off.
Now, go back and click on general. Click on
language list and here, windows will share your preferred language with
websites. The benefit of turning this on is that, you'll see the content on a
website in your preferred language. But if you care less about this one as well
you can toggle it off.
Right here you will also see an option for
start and search. Windows can personalize your start menu and search results
based on the apps that you use most often. For windows to do this, it relies on
a service and you have to share data back with Microsoft. You can toggle this
off if you like.
Next thing to do is that, you'll also have the
option to turn on or off, online speech suggestions and also to customize your
inking and typing experience. To use both of these, it'll share data with an
online service and you'll get better suggestions as a result. Better still, you can turn that off if you don't
want to share your data.
Next, click on
diagnostics and feedback and within here at the very top, you'll notice that,
there's a category called required data and there's no way you can walk out of
this. Your pc will send some data back
to Microsoft for example, what type of cpu, how is your computer running and
what security updates you need. This does not contain any personal information
and this is to make sure that your computer continues to run smoothly.
Below here, there's
optional diagnostic data. This contains information like the websites that you
visit, the apps that you launch. Microsoft use this data to make improvements
to their products but you can opt out of this as well.
Going back to
privacy and security, you'll see a category for app permissions and here, you
can choose what should have access to. For example, your microphone, location,
your camera and so on and on.
Click on each of
them and you can decide whether you want to allow access to these apps.
Moving out of the
settings panel, the final way to limit how much data your computer is sharing
with Microsoft is by setting up a local account. Using local account well, everything will be
stored locally on your computer so the websites that you visit, apps that you
launch, all of your files will just be on your computer. If you value your
privacy this may be a very good option.
Having said that,
this option comes with some downsides. For example, you lose access to the
various Microsoft services. That is; you won't be able to sync with OneDrive,
you won't have access to the Microsoft store among others. But you can weigh between what you want to
have and your privacy and make a choice. To set up a local account, go to
settings, click on accounts your info and then use local accounts instead.
Alright, I hope I have been able to give you
the different ways that you can limit what's shared back with Microsoft?
Alright, thanks for sticking out with me and please consider subscribing to Pau-TECtips and
like the video. Until we meet again, take good care of yourself.
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