Mac Vs. Windows

I'm buying a new laptop / hybrid. I have come to dislike MS big time over the years and its covert hijacking methods with the "Get Windows 10" crap is just the latest example. (BEST NEWS -- MajorGeeks saved the day and a lot of hassle with his GWX control panel! I still think he ought to run for president for developing that!!)

My computing needs are pretty simple and basic: word, email, internet, some video streaming (Netflix, etc.). NO gaming. I'm retiring what's been a very useful Asus laptop after four or five years. It's heavy and clunky and comparatively slow. I'm looking for light weight, good battery and speed mainly, I think.

I've always heard Mac's top of the class (Mac Book or Mac Air, then?); but the Lenovo Yoga 900 is impressive.

I would appreciate your opinions or experiences if you have them.

thanks.

 

There is a lot of hate out there for Windows 10, but, I think that Microsoft has come a long way with improving the security of its operating system. I run Win 10 on two laptops and like it a lot. I'm also a long time Linux user. I think that OS X is an outstanding operating system. My only beef with Apple laptops is that you pay a hefty fee for the hardware that you get. If you don't mind the sticker shock then an Apple laptop will meet your needs as you described them. I own two older Lenovo Thinkpads running Win 10 and Linux. (they're very nice). Have fun choosing!

 

Another option is to buy a PC, partition the HDD/SSD and install a Linux distro on the new/second partition. There are thousands of free software for Linux that will suite your (basic) needs. If/when you need to upgrade/replace the hardware, you won't need a second bond.

 

Further to Eldon's excellent post you can use Windows to safely re-size your hard drive to make room for Linux. Also Linux distros like Ubuntu will safely re-size your HD to make room for Linux. The following youtube tutorial demonstrates how to shrink, extend, and delete partitions in Windows 10.

 

Yes.
Wine is probably the most popular.
https://www.winehq.org/

 

Despite Microsoft's "hijacking" as you describe it, Apple is ridiculously more proprietary and as it has been pointed out what they charge for the hardware IMO is ridiculously overpriced. I would never own an Apple, ever. Not even a smartphone, and I own an unlocked Asus ZenFone 2. It's not every smartphone that has an Intel Atom processor.

I upgraded to Windows 10 last year, and have been happy with it for the most part. Performance is better, graphics are better, and it's not Windows 8 . Like everything, there are always little bugs in something so complex as a modern operating system, but it's not easy to anticipate what every single user will do with their machine.

As far as laptops go, I have owned three Lenovo Thinkpads and absolutely loved all of them including my current one. Their keyboard design was the biggest selling point for me. As far as Word goes, there is a version for Apple but I have seen issues with files created on one platform not working on the other. It does happen.

Whatever you choose, it comes down to what makes you happy. But, just remember few things in this world are perfect.

 

I have a 2009 Macbook running El Capitan. It's not a good guys vs bad guys decision. The folks in Cupertino are just as nosy as the peeps in Redmond.

 

Kubuntu is an excellent distro, I like all of the Ubuntu variants. My Favourite distro is Slackware; it is rock solid, secure and very unix-like. My favourite BSD is OpenBSD; I use that to log-in to my bank website. OpenBSD is secure by default.

 

No one mentioning Win 10's privacy issues?
I am still at 7 as I game and Linux/Mac are behind in gaming. I have friends that love 10 and one was telling me how much faster its interface is. It may be, if you take months to learn 10 that well, or know all the MS command line syntax. I suggest staying with 7, go Mac or Linux.

 

from a disaster recovery view point, macs are so much easier and simpler. you just need an external drive and either super duper or carbon copy cloner, and you can have an exact clone of your main drive that is bootable any time that it is needed. there is no windows registry to get messed up, and installing most programs is a simple matter of drag and drop anywhere you please. also, uninstalling programs, for the most part, is just deleting it. in my mind, macs are just easier to deal with.

 

Windows 10 has so many problems to hate on.

I can give you guys a real full list below way windows 10 sucks.
http://itvision.altervista.org/why-windows-10-sucks.html

This is one of many reasons why i went back to windows 7.

 

This is all so another reason why i did a windows 7 integrated windows up date fresh install of windows 7.

Be cause i have all the windows 7 updates on a windows 7 install that is needed.

And i completely disabled the windows 7 updates for now till they stop pushing windows 10 upgrade.

They have been doing this i had to remove this windows 10 upgrade from my mom's computers be cause windows 7 was working perfectly fine zero issues.

 

I haven't read all the posts on this subject, but I have to tell you, I have both, and love them both. Mac is great and well worth the money if you are doing a lot of video editing or graphic work. PC's are great for word processing and business type things. Both are good for your watching videos. They say "With a Mac, you don't get malware", well guess what! You do. Soon there will be viruses as well. I would say stick with the PC for what you want to do with the computer. It's not worth spending an extra 1200.00 because you don't like Windows. You could always get a Linux based computer and use Libre Office, and other open source software.

 

I have been using windows since beta 1.1 and msdos.

Ah them where the days.

 

Like you as I'm not as concerned about privacy issues with Windows 10. Interesting to note that the founder of OpenBSD (arguably one of the most secure OSs in the world) is very impressed with the mitigation measures put in place by Microsoft.

 

I have a few concerns about windows 10.

Wi-Fi Sense for their PC could potentially let all their friends onto your network, thanks to a new feature that has ignited controversy online.This a breech in security in it self.

Some one could basically hack into your system with out you knowing about it. Wi-Fi Sense is not a good option for your home internet security.

You can turn it off but is it really turned off.????

Unlike previous versions of Windows, Windows 10 doesn't give you a choice about when (or which) Windows updates will be installed on your computer.

Microsoft's use of peer-to-peer networking is a big issue in it self.Your network will suffer with this one.I could tell some thing was up with svchost high cpu usage for no reason at all.

My mmo's only take about 2% of my internet connection to play.

Windows 10 assigning you advertising IDs and performing task to gather more info about you and what you like to see.

Did i for get to say Location tracking Windows 10 can track you when ever you are online.

Telemetry gathers info about how you use the OS.

I think windows 10 top's windows vista as being the worst idea's of ideas.

 

Ah, yes, Wi-Fi Sense. Just _optout for the ssid. MS is just trying to make things easier.

On another note, most apps from apple and android require one to open tons of privacy things in order to run an app properly.

Most post on facebook, twitter, snapchat, etc with no worries on privacy.

In this age, privacy does not exist. Google, bing, etc keeps track of what you search for. Email online is monitored, you get ads based on this.

Windows 7 also uses telemetry.

Did I forget to say location tracking on any modern phone?

I could say more, but what is the point. :|

 

We did not grumble to much about windows 7.I mean sure it has it's own quirkiness to it self like any other operating system.

But it did not have all the spy bots like windows 10.

Windows 7 just had bug issues.

I never used Vista so i can not complain about it like every one else did.

I tested windows 8 and did not like it at all.

Windows 10 can be a great OS if it did not have all these issues to start with.

 

At the moment I'm dual booting Windows 10 with Linux on my Thinkpad, and I also have a HP laptop running Windows 10. My desktops all run Linux. One desktop is dual booting Linux and OpenBSD. My wife needs Windows 10 to tunnel into her proprietary Windows only work PC. I really liked Windows 7. I didn't like 8. I think that 10 is a good OS. I primarily run Linux and BSD.

 

I'll admit that 8 was not that great. But MS fixed a lot with 8.1, so much better.

Luckily we have the capability to turn off a lot of the so called spying. Unlike other OS's.

BTW, if you search through a few apple only sites, you also see issues of spying.

I can't say much about linux, since most that I use are server only, with just term only.

 

The most annoying and most frustrating thing in windows 10 that i found was the very annoying random popup from the task bar.Windows Defender was the most worst option in windows 10 that i could find.Cortana was not even close to be that annoying.

The one thing i found out about cortana is that if you add percentage sign % to the folder for cortana .It will disable it completely be cause the folder has changed.

Can i disable cortana yes you can disable it completely but a fare warning while doing this.

It will completely disable the search bar as well on the task bar and you can not use it at all.I have not figured out a fix for this problem.

The Nice thing i found about windows 7 is the Notification area where you where able to Hide the icon and Notifications.This option i did love about windows 7.And with windows 10 the pop ups for the Notification area would be random things out of know where.

 

My Win 10 media center pops up things like the movie player update - during a movie. But the pop up does not ever get focus so I cannot click, tab or in any way choose to ignore, update, remind later. The popup has to time out.
Rather embarrassing while watching movies with geek friends. I should be able to fix it, but never have been able to.

 

Off topic, but...

Have a look at Option Three.
http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/4111-notifications-apps-turn-off-windows-10-a.html#option3
If you don't come right, start a new thread.

 

I'm surprised reading that some people here are not worried about Windows 10 "privacy" issues.
Microsoft has implemented a huge "spying" engine within its last OS and despite what some other people
here believe they have also injected the same spyware components into Windows 7 and 8 via "Windows update".

Want to know if you are being monitored? just open the Task Manager (CTRL-ALT-DEL) and look after i.e. the process utcsvc
You guys can read here what that process does.
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...s/253fe2ec-fba6-4240-bfb8-2a3bdc801ed1?page=1
You can also read here how "simple" getting a non-spying MS OS is today.
http://techne.alaya.net/?p=12499

This is not about some lack of privacy this is a matter of MS cyber-spying for profit;
how do you think they now supports giving away their W10 OS? go figure.

I have read funny people even say; "well if you do not have anything to hide you do not have to worry"
Well the point is that we all do have something to hide from our competitors when engaging i.e. in
100% normal commercial activity; but there are people out there that know everything about you,
what you say, who are your suppliers, who are your customers, what you code, absolutely everything...
Do not expect Gvt doing much as they are also very interested in absolutely everything you do with your PC because of "National Security" reasons...

Linux/BSD on the other hand do not have this problem; you could get an OS where 100% of the code you run has the source code available
but unfortunately replacing a Windows Desktop with a Linux or BSD alternative is as impractical as keeping your PC completely free of any
sensitive info...

Alternatives? not many... Probably running more than one OS simultaneously with i.e. VMware; web browsing and e-mail done in a Linux/BSD box
while doing the rest (office, compiler, Photoshop) on an unplugged (no-internet connection) MS box; a real nightmare...

Best,
Patrick

 

Hi Dave,
I think Windows 10 is a game changer; it is the first MS OS given for free.
And that's just to avoid the legal consequences of a spying platform that you could've ended up paying for;
this way you freely "opted" for the MS spying OS; big difference.
The grey zone is what happens with those MS OSs that we in fact bought that are now infected with MS spyware?
well they did it one step at the time; they saw Windows 10 legal reactions were not big deal then they decided
going for more; "infecting" all the Windows 7 and 8 out there.

I think we should make a distinction on being traced when we browse internet (Google does it all the time despite which OS you use)
and having running on our own PC, paying for that processing with our own utility bills a stack of MS spyware services harvesting and
sending back home all our personal info.
Not so long ago we were really crazy trying to avoid spyware now it seems we take it as a "normal thing" of life; well, it is not.

I really do not endorse Linux/BSD; as I've said before it is impractical trying to replace today an MS desktop with them and I
agree they can also be tricked but there are Linux/BSD distros without spyware; we cannot say the same today about MS; that's a fact.

I agree location data is not a big deal for me either; but some business people sure won't agree with us; the real problem
is more related to e-mail contacts, the files that we create; etc. do you know that MS has even added
spyware to the applications that we create with their compilers??
https://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/0...secretly-inserts-telemetry-code-into-binaries
That means we pay big money for a MS compiler to create our application but within our just created application it is now included
code that sends info to MS. Not cool at all...

>If we go down the route of the question "if you have nothing to hide" then why are you posting on this forum? we have your data now.. name, email, location, IP
I was in fact mentioning that some people say those things, and you guys having my IP or things like that it is something I can definitely live with;
But I do not know if I'd publish here other personal stuff like my bank account password ...

Finally I think it is not right harvesting personal information by default.
It is very funny how we have the constitutional right to protect ourselves with a gun
but we have no the right to protect our info in our PC.
Something is not right here.

Best,
Patrick

 

Yes i do agree that the location and telemetry where there in windows XP and up.But they where not much of a bother like it was be for.

When you have stuff pre installed like random App's and Windows defender.And they are continuously running in the back round.How do you know what they are processing.Windows defender is one of my biggest concerns with windows 10.

It's still running in the Back-round while you disable it.At lest with windows 7 you could disabled completely with out it effecting any of your resources.

Windows defender can not be removed completely this is why i think windows 10 is spying on you though the Windows defender.

And be leave me i have tried to completely remove Windows defender and it seems to be all most impossible.I have spent all most a month trying to completely removing it from the OS.And i failed at it.Even the service stays active.

 

Well for one it run's continuously in the back round.

I under stand it's running for virus - malware.

But it's a pretty shitty AV scanner as is.

 

But other than scanning for virus or malware i am not sure what else it might be doing in the backround.

 

There is another thing you posted that i don't trust one bit is the Cloud based protection or cloud servers.

Cloud is not really in the cloud but under a mountain.

They hide from public eyes.

 

@DavidGP
I agree "telemetry" is there for long time now but we must make a distinction on MS telemetry uses.

1. The old opted-in telemetry for debugging purposes
2. The new non opted-in telemetry harvesting non-OS specific data

I think the second case should be punished by law (just a personal opinion)

@wile e coyote
KB2902907 is a known spyware patch associated with Defender.
but see here http://techne.alaya.net/?p=12499 there are lot of service related to the spyware engine that can be traced
looking at the Task Scheduler which get triggered when the OS is idle; all of them are bad stuff...

 

Pat i think you hit it right on the nail what i was talking about.

I may be bad at typing but i try to do short and simple answers.

 

How much would you two gentlemen be willing to pay for a Win 10 that meets your expectations of privacy?

 

Ugh, the "cloud" word. It is just another word for another data center.

http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/82765/osx-yosemite-and-security-privacy

 

For quite a while now I have been using opensuse linux and running windows in a VM to get the windows based applications that I need (office, abode creative suite, etc.). The VM doesn't have an internet connection. The networking drivers are not even installed. For this reason, I still use XP as my windows for this purpose. I have an nlite version of XP the is pretty small and doesn't have allot of the MS applications I don't use anyway. Performance is good in the VM. I really don't notice any difference between using office in the VM and on hardware.

I don't know if windows 10 could be run like that, meaning without any internet connection. If you really want to run windows apps and don't want MS to be able to go shopping in your life as everyone these days seems to feel entitled to do, win7 or XP run in a VM might give you what you need.

LMHmedchem

 

@Just Playin
Do you think we should pay premium for getting on the side the natural privacy rights our representatives are not willing to grant??

Coming back to earth, well... there are many scripts out there promising to "purify" Windows 10
https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/3fhy27/how_do_disable_all_privacy_leaks_in_windows_10/
http://reboot.pro/topic/20622-windows-10-enterprise-ltsb-mother-of-all-tweak-scripts/
http://techne.alaya.net/?p=12499
etc, but all of them are heavily intrusive, unreliable, etc, etc.
In the past we fought against spyware producers now the one that delivers
the spyware is just the OS maker.
This is not a fight to be fought with the old anti-spyware techniques...

@LMHmedchem
I've been thinking of a similar approach but it is a nightmare; now I'm evaluating some proxy strategies (also a PITA)...

 

When my current or future hardware no longer supports Windows XP & 7, this is exactly what I will do.

Make that three gentleman...
I'l happily pay the equivalent of $100 which is a lotta money in Africa.

 

I will find away around the Legacy issue like i did with my HP laptop.

It would not support Windows Xp,But it Supported Windows 7.

 

When the motherboard doesn't support Windows XP or 7, it wont install. Roll out the VM...

 

I owned several IBM ThinkPads and only one since Lenovo dropped the IBM logo. Loved the keyboards.

 

I gotta say this is a great discussion. Thanks to wile e and patpat for making my points for me, but I am sorry I missed this thread earlier. MS, Google, AT&T, and hoards of data hosting and cloud service providers all have way too much leverage over PC users. It's paralyzing. I still say that here in the U.S. Congress will eventually have to weigh in heavily on this issue, and I expect we will see hearings sooner or later (within the next 2-5 years if not sooner).

No way is the corporate world going to stand by with the current state of things for very long. I'm looking forward to this and what will happen when Congress finally does open its eyes to this brewing storm. Let's face it. The fact that information grabbing is happening now is not a justification for saying that it's wrong to disagree with it. And there is a distinction to be made between gathering info in XP and in W10. The EULA for XP does not grant MS full impunity to just take ANYTHING they care to from your PC like the W10 EULA does...or at least that's how I have understood it. Same with Windows 7.

BTW. I quit taking updates for W7 about a year ago over this issue. It's 100% true that the updates that were supposedly geared to preparing a PC for 10 were loaded with permanent spyware. I am rid of those and I have all the telemetry options in Group Policy and all the Tasks in Task Scheduler turned off in W7 on 3 PCs here.

Eldon you are a champion. Long live XP, no updates, and common sense. In the mean time, I have grown to really like Windows 7, and I will stick with it as long as I can do what I need to do with it. To all you other guys concerned over this issue. I'm in this 100% with you. Not kidding there have to changes and governmental regulation.

Oh yeah, Congress. When you are crafting regulations, don't forget to regulate the activities of the U.S. government too. SRSLY...THANKS

 

When a user installs a decent security program Windows Defender is shut off. End of problem.