It’s a nightmare scenario for Microsoft. The headlining feature of its new Copilot+ PC initiative, which is supposed to drive millions of PC sales over the next couple of years, is under significant fire for being what many say is a major breach of privacy and security on Windows. That feature in question is Windows Recall, a new AI tool designed to remember everything you do on Windows. The feature that we never asked and never wanted it.
Microsoft, has done a lot to degrade the Windows user experience over the last few years. Everything from obtrusive advertisements to full-screen popups, ignoring app defaults, forcing a Microsoft Account, and more have eroded the trust relationship between Windows users and Microsoft.
It’s no surprise that users are already assuming that Microsoft will eventually end up collecting that data and using it to shape advertisements for you. That really would be a huge invasion of privacy, and people fully expect Microsoft to do it, and it’s those bad Windows practices that have led people to this conclusion.
This other side of the coin, and this is coming from a long time Linux user, is that for the vast majority of its life Linux has focused on functionality and not toward anything the majority of people care about. Only relatively recently is it a fairly good experience for the average user, but it still has some issues that will mean most users won’t even consider it.
I really wish it could become mainstream, but until it fixes that fine tuning then most people won’t consider it vs a Mac or Windows.
Remember the Zune? It has way more features and functionality than the iPod. But nobody cared. There’s a reason it lost.
A lot of us put up with Linux because of our principles or because we’re developers.