I'm curious to see what your thoughts are about the controversial new feature coming to Windows 11 soon? Do you think it's a breach of privacy and wide open to abuse? Or do you think it's something that could be useful to you, if so please explain why!
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With Co-Pilot are they getting rid of Cortana?
No idea on that one though I don't see why they'd remove it as it sounds like a separate feature.
i will change the voice and bring back Cortana.
I'm voting for the 4th option: I don't care about Copilot. I have no plans to get rid of it, and no plans to use it.
I see no reason to worry about it unless you store your passwords in plain text (which you shouldn't) or you intentionally paste them into Copilot, there’s no way for it to extract them. The only exception is from sites that don’t use HTTPS protocols (which, again, you should avoid).
As for privacy exposure - cmon, we live in 2024! Kinks and diversity of all grades won't shock anyone. And if you are still shy - use tor, dVPN and similar tech for your secrets.
Personally I use the free version of Dashlane for my passwords, it's pretty solid! Only an idiot would store them locally (though, I still don't trust what data Microsoft may or may not be collecting).
Whilst those who are tech savy are gonna be able to mitigate most of the issues co-pilot may present, there are people who are going to be much more vulnerable to the pitfalls. Like the elderly who might not know any better.
If it can be PERMANENTLY turned off then I don't have so much of an issue with co-pilot as a feature. But Microsoft's website suggests it can only be temporarily be turned off, this for me is a much bigger issue. We shouldn't be forced to have new features that we can't disable if we feel they are unnecessary or present too much of a risk, but then Microsoft aren't exactly known for giving Windows users freedom of choice.
Elders should use Linux-based OS, like Ubuntu. Windows and the internet in general render much greater real threats than MS copilot.
Dashlane free is not very handy, 1 device, 25 psw limit lol (according to their site) even Lasppass is better.
Check Bitwarden, the free version even allows you to have everything Dashlane Premium has, plus an organization, which is ideal for sharing passwords with a partner. Another good thing about bitwarden - its open-source, meaning you can even host it yourself, and the whole codebase is auditable. Migration is easy too
Good luck convincing elders to switch from something they're familiar with xD My old man switched to MacOS recently. As he was using his PC as a workstation for music production he was fed-up of unwanted Windows updates always causing issues. As for my Ma, it's a job getting her to make a change from anything she's used to, like a new phone or teaching her very basic time saving features (which usually leads to arguments), let alone figure out linux.
Something you or I might find intuitive and easy to use, like vpns, different operating systems and other encryption technologies because it's second nature to us, but might be a real challenge for someone older to overcome. Which may leave them vulnerable to things they don't have any technical knowledge of or know how to avoid or simply turn off. Totally get where you're coming from, but I don't think it's that simple.
Dashline has been fine for me tbh because I only do anything sensitive with the one device, except for mobile banking witch is biometric anyways. I'll definitely have a look at Bitwarden though, always open to checking out other options. Appreciate the recommendations!
I read about it as part of the new "ai" pc's otherwise known as the new ARM powered surface devices. Basically sounds like a security and privacy disaster waiting to happen and I don't understand what use anyone could possibly get from it. From what I understand it's going to be exclusive to their surface devices, but if it does come to base windows then it will be another thing like teams, widgets sidebar and all the other junk that needs to be disabled.
I see it as just another crappy software to clog up my system. I dont use any kind of "help" feature beyond a basic search function so if im given the option, it will go right in the bin. Theres enough things on the Internet trying to steal information, I dont need one housed in my laptop aswel.
No matter the minute benefit you might get from it, the risks of the feature simply aren't worth chancing it. Microsoft has been so dreadfully poor with its Windows 11 updates that even if it's supposed to remain local, I don't trust them to keep out or patch vulnerabilities as they appear. Your device is almost always connected to the internet, so it's almost always at risk.
I've been using a version of Co-Pilot at my job for the last ~6 months. I say 'version' because it is Co-Pilot, but there are some security restrictions put in place as part of the agreement as none of our information like that is stored.
The actual use of it is pretty handy at my job. Many of our internal processes are long and difficult to navigate. I can use it to more easily locate what I need or have it summarize what the process is. It's still an early version, but I find it nice to have the option to use it.
For my personal PC, I will not be using it at all. We won't get the same protections corporations will get and I'm not gonna mess with that.
This is an awesome perspective! Thanks for sharing it. Can you share any details on the protections that corporations get that home users won't? If it won't get you in trouble.
We were given very limited information as just the worker bees, but we were told nothing is stored and only errors are provided to microsoft. I was told statistics on usage are also provided to them, but that was 'unofficially' shared with me. I'll happily go back through what we were given when I'm back at work tomorrow and see if there is any other info, but I don't think there was much else.
EDIT: I read through the FAQ they gave us and there's nothing really more than that. lots of generic corporate speak, lol
It can't do the features I would want from an assistant, so will be disabling it as I don't want software or tools on my PC which I'm not using.
Co-pilot has been greatly annoying at my work whenever I tried to give it a fair shot and wanted to use it. It gave incorrect information, and has a manner of speech which make me want to smack it, I'm an IT professional, I don't need to be patronized thank you XD
Also a programmer friend told me she was fixing someone's code the other day and the person told her "well I shouldn't have trusted that thing and should have just come to you straight away". So even if you are trying to use it for stuff which would be actually helpful (unlike the search results it throws at you when you ask something) it will be often incorrect.
My boss was experimenting with it asking about dice rolls and it constantly gave numbers which was incorrect (like if you rolled 2 dice one of them would always end up being a 6.... WTH?)
I was also testing it by asking stuff for which I knew the answer was it's not possible, and instead of giving me the straight no as answer it pretended that what I want is possible, and then gave me a lot of unrelated stuff.
So to put it short, it's useless and annoying. And as for generative AI I won't be touching one... ever... I'm team "it's stealing from artists" and someone is still yet to convince me successfully that it's not the case.
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