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Comment by alibert | Hacker News Reader

I believe it's a better alternative to Chrome if you are already using Windows.

Edge Chromium still has telemetry data sent to MS but it respects the privacy control and group policy in Windows, so if you have already set Windows telemetry to low, it sent almost nothing. I recommends usage of "O&O ShutUp10" to disable all Windows and Edge telemetry.

It doesn't have telemetry data sent to Google (no contact with Google owned domain).

It also has a third party tracking blocker included and enabled by default which makes it way better than Chrome on that point. On my installation, it even blocks Microsoft tracking...

I use Pi-Hole to keep track of the domains reached by Edge and so far, there are nothing really worrying me (I already use Windows so my expectations are relative).

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What about running on Windows Home which sends much more telemetry?

Also, "almost nothing" is not nothing and I don't believe Microsoft getting all the data is a much better situation compared to Microsoft and Google getting some of the data.

> Also, "almost nothing" is not nothing

True, but OPs question was “better or worse”.

You are right, this was tested on Windows Pro so I can't tell about Home version. Might worth trying ShutUp10 on Home. It might be able to disable some or all tracking...

As far as I know, Home and Pro editions of Windows 10 don't differ in regards to telemetry. They both offer two settings: "basic" and "full". Enterprise and Education editions can go one level below with the "security" setting.

(Edit) The settings are now called "off", "required" and "optional": https://www.computerworld.com/article/3532008/microsoft-elim...

What a time to br alive. I love it that MS now is the do no evil entity. Support linux? Own github? Respects privacy settings?

I respectfully carefully celebrate this information and hope to see more!

Nah, more of the same smoke and mirrors; their treatment of AppGet is the proof in the pudding.

No for-profit company is your friend. Only as long as they can extract value. Not a cynical view. There is plenty of evidence.

Well, it can be a cynical view and a correct view at the same time.

I do question the black and whiteness of the comment. Also, what do you mean by "friend"? An (also cynical) argument could be made that even your actual friends are out to advance their own interests first, and are using you to those ends.

A more realistic and useful statement might be that for-profit companies lie on a spectrum -- none are purely "good" and none are purely "evil."

I imagine that you can probably substitute "for-profit companies" with "humans and human run organizations" and it would still be true.

Thats why i celebrate the move on that spectrum with care :D ... i remember the 2000s.

I just hope the trend continues and gives us more

Or... It's easy to altruistic when shareholders are happy with stock performance. When the stock be a tankin', altruism gets a spankin' (best rhyme I could come up with).

Those privacy settings were introduced after they started seriously increasing the amount of telemetry and personal data Windows collects by default. Its is not an example of "do no evil".

They're not the do no evil entity. There are privacy concerns with Windows 10. Windows 10 also has many dark patterns present to get you to opt into their privacy invasive patterns. There was a hacker news story on here about 2 days ago about them exfiltrating data from firefox to import into edge without user permission.

They're spending billions of dollars to court developer good will, while at the same time undoing this effort through these practices. I for one refuse to use Windows, and do not trust Microsoft.

i think it's because their main line of business is selling software & services (it's not about pushing adds)

they got it that there is more to loose from being pushy - once they were no longer on top of the heap. Doing 'no evil' is a great reputation builder and good for the bottom line (if your business ends allow you to be nice and pleasant, that is). Also reputation becomes very important when you are into selling services (like cloud hosting)

Actually not many established companies of this size are able to make a transition like this one.

Chrome policies also allow preventing telemetry so how is this any better?

Presumably because if you cared about telemetry and are using windows you'd have disabled windows telemetry already. That means you don't have to do anything extra compared to chrome where you have to search up all the telemetry disabling policies. There's also like this[1] that can't be disabled by group policy.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22236106

You still have to disable those policies for Edge too. Firefox also has network prediction and malware detection that sends your searches to a third-party, as well as telemetry.

>You still have to disable those policies for Edge too.

Do you? The grandparent suggests that if you disable telemetry[1] it would be disabled in edge.

>Firefox also has network prediction and malware detection that sends your searches to a third-party, as well as telemetry.

Not sure why you're bringing up firefox here, when this comment chain was talking about chrome vs edge.

[1] presumably https://getadmx.com/?Category=Windows_10_2016&Policy=Microso...

He/She is right. There are some remaining to be disabled either directly in Edge configuration screen or via GPO too.

But I'm assuming that if you are looking for some sort of privacy with Windows, you have already toggled off those or use ShutUp10 which happens to do this all automatically.

Did you encounter any interesting domains?

Not really.

update.googleapis.com for Chromium extension update if you use any.

edge.microsoft.com for updating some feature in the browser like dictionaries, trackers list, etc.

config.edge.skype.com for browser settings (not sure about this one, probably a feature to enable/disable feature on the fly like Firefox Normandy system).

There are other ones like the SmartScreen feature but it disabled on my system. Also I have search suggestion off.

The data sent are really low for my case.

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