Change affected a "small subset" of users and has (thankfully) been reverted.
Sharing here because of the post from 14 hours ago.
In my case, I thought I could survive a few weeks on a Surface with a fresh Windows install because I'd been planning to sell it. Now that it's turning into my daily driver with no real end in sight (and with all my thumb drives packed away), I have Yet Another Flash Drive™ arriving this evening so I can go back to KDE precisely because of this sort of bullshit.
Okay, they are probably offline install ISOs with all the software included right?
On Linux its also a little different, as uninstalling "bloat" is just one command or GUI button. On Windows you need shady external software for that and it doesnt feel like its meant to be at all, with all those cmd windows popping up etc (BCU)
they are probably offline install ISOs with all the software included right?
yes they are, but when you install them you'll see they're removing lots of stuff that's not needed for your hardware to function
What I hate the most about Windows isos is not the size, although it's most likely just bloat and spying programs, I hate that they don't let you download them if you ... As they say
leveraging anonymous or location hiding technologies when connecting to this service is not generally allowed
Yeah, right... Is it unlikely they're getting your real IP to associate it with that Iso, so they have one more data point that get added to that profile they built about u ? maybe I'm just overthinking
On Windows you need shady external software
No, not necessarily you can use Foss debloaters but they won't magically make windows ethical