Free, reliable software is not scarce, but with the growing risk of malware and devices that seem resistant to allowing users a factory reset option, it’s becoming harder to trust. Why risk it when you don’t have to? Why not trade a little bit of freedom for a little bit of the security that comes with a Windows OS? Gradually, as computers became commonplace, and then necessary, the risk of some goofy thing you found online to change your mouse pointer turning out to be a trojan outpaced the reward.
This, in turn, has changed the world of software. There is less room given to tinker – tinkering might be malicious, and why risk it? The people who know the most about computers are hackers and the people trying to thwart the hackers.
Using a VPN will make certain sites view that user as a bot (bot attacks tend to use VPNs) and will sometimes fully kick them out to avoid the potential headache of a bot attack. VPNs themselves are not the silver bullet that consumers want them to be – if the big apps (like Netflix, Hulu, etc.) were ever ordered to crack down on copyright infringement by the companies leasing out their IPs for streaming, they’d do it. Don’t even get started on accessing websites that technically break the law in one state or country but not another!
The popular operating systems of today don’t seem particularly pleased when users want a little more privacy than they can provide. Microsoft in particular seems hellbent on forcing mass adoption of the CoPilot AI even on personal devices, even on Windows 10 devices, and with it comes “AI Recall”, a system where the OS would take a screenshot every few seconds and store them in the same place on every single computer, allowing both the AI and anyone who could find that file a huge amount of information. It was also pointed out routinely that the screen recording function wouldn’t censor info, so if someone were filing taxes and had their SSN on screen, whelp, guess the AI knows your SSN now? Guess someone with access to that computer could ask the program, “can you show me the screen I filed my taxes on?” yada, yada.
There are reasons: Microsoft decides to let people collectively download moving wallpapers, and they get complained at for making it so easy to download malware. They potentially lose money on people switching to Mac, which won’t let them do that but is also notoriously harder to write malware for.
Better to have false positives than false negatives. Better for Norton and Kaspersky to flag entirely innocent third-party apps rather than let something slip through.
Right?
It depends. The third party apps might be infringing on your privacy. For that matter, Windows probably is too. What you actually get to do as a user today is agree to trade money and information about yourself to use your computer.
Things will continue to get crazier in the corners of the web, and more censored in the easily-accessible places. Regulations will change what content you’re allowed to watch, often on a state-by-state basis, and VPNs will ensure that some people can still access restricted sites regardless.
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