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Windows 10 App Starts Showing Ads, Microsoft Says You Can’t Remove Them

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Mathias:
True.. like with police and the country.. gaining more and more rights to spy on people. - Always of course measures against all and ultra residend trerror everywhere. :> - And you cannot possibly be pro terror... so arguing against these spy measures usually means you`re postmarked being part of the tinfoil hat fraction.. and that it does not matter if you have nothing to hide.

Reading the well known IT news portals reveals the usual thing: Government agencies always say they only use the newly granted spy rights with court order only, and only in really hard cases.
In he end, the same IT news portals lateron bring reports about government agencies step by step lowering the requirements for themselves to make use of the spying on people, without deeper evidence beforehand. And in the very end the IT news portals first, and then mass media broadcasts, the country can now, because of reformed laws, spy on you completely legal and without court order! Yihaww. - What can one do? Nothing. Elect other parties? Wouldn`t work, as they all proved to be the same, once elected.

So.. politics appear to be just the pathfinder of ... of what.. the resident evil? ; )  -Naw.. people with enough money have influence and can buy politicans. Also there was in the news, lobby groups are helping politics with law writing... since "they have the best knowledge on that topic".. yeah sure. :D

It`s all a matter of interests and money. And since the government cannot roll out too drastic law changes, they do it like Merkel always says... Politic of small steps.. - Yes they even say it themselves! : ]

Okay.. the above is going on in Germany, no clue how things are in America. But the tendency with small steps is too successful to be an invention of Merkel alone.. so appears to be international. - Talking with other international friends shows, it`s the same in their countries..

Ben:
One could write volumes on this, but there are volumes on it already.

Any serious student of history is familiar with what is going on on a global scale right now... for it has all be done before, many times.

People always look the other way so that when it's done, they can give validity to their very emotional, (fake), claims that "we just didn't know!"

Milton Mayer's 1955 book They Thought They Were Free interviewing Germans 1933-1945, (How and why "decent men" became Nazis - the life stories of ten law-abiding citizens), is a great place to start, but now as then, everyone looks the other way and pretend they can't / didn't see it.

This is always implemented when the few remaining real men have been reduced to ineffectiveness via the media polluting the minds of the public.
But, like I said, volumes have been written on it so that's where I will leave it.

Doug Bissett:

--- Quote ---Article: Windows 10 App Starts Showing Ads, Microsoft Says You Can’t Remove Them
--- End quote ---

Microsoft may be surprised at how difficult it will be to force ads on people. There are already tools to block that. Try the HOSTS file, from https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts. The one that I have, from 26 November 2019, has a problem. Near the top, it has the line: "0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0", which seems to block anything that follows (at least on OS/2). Put "#" (without the quotes) as the first character in that line, and the rest starts to work. This HOSTS file should be valid for any OS that uses a HOSTS file. See http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm for some good information. In windows, there is Spywareblaster (as well as the HOSTS file). You can also use Ad-Block (various versions, that seem to be not as effective as they were a few years ago), and many more.

Even if the ads do manage to get through, there is the last line of defense. Learn how to ignore them. If nobody ever responded to any of that stuff, it wouldn't last long. Unfortunately, it seems that some people live to read, and respond to, ads. Of course, if nobody responded, and the advertisers pulled their support, a lot of, so called, "free" software would go away (which probably wouldn't be a bad thing).

The "privacy" thing is a totally different bag of snakes. Of course, people don't want their bank accounts compromised, but I couldn't care less if somebody reads my e-mail. I always assume that somebody will do that, so it never contains anything that might be of interest. If somebody wants to analyze what I write, I don't care. They may eventually figure out that most, if not all, is trivial information, meanwhile, they are spending a lot of time, and effort, trying to figure out that I said "Hi". If there is a need for privacy in e-mail, there are ways to do that, but most of them only keep the honest people out.

The one thing, that does tick me off, is that scammers can get away with scamming people, for far too long, before they get caught. Then, they pay their fine (which usually doesn't even cover court costs), and are right back at it again. Obviously, it pays off. It shouldn't be all that difficult to nail them to the wall, and put them on some remote island for a few years, so they can contemplate their future, before they serve a couple of years in jail. Of course, the "privacy" laws won't let anybody look into the problem, so little, if anything, can be done about it. Unfortunately, a lot of that stuff works against the honest people, and for those who take advantage of the situation. Not all countries have a compulsion to protect the guilty, but their laws may not protect the innocent either. It is a delicate balance.

Dave Yeo:
My understanding is that Windows itself ignores the hosts file, and perhaps even your DNS setting. And even browsers are moving to DNS over HTTPS which I understand will ignore the hosts file and other system settings though, at least on Firefox, it can be turned off.
As for the scammers, most of them are in countries that don't care, or worse encourage them or are themselves the scammers. N. Korea has to get money from somewhere.

Doug Bissett:

--- Quote ---My understanding is that Windows itself ignores the hosts file,
--- End quote ---

Apparently not, because it makes a HUGE difference in what I see when browsing. Microsoft programs could, possibly, ignore the HOSTS file, but I make  a point of not using Microsoft programs, as much as possible.


--- Quote ---As for the scammers, most of them are in countries that don't care, or worse encourage them or are themselves the scammers. N. Korea has to get money from somewhere.
--- End quote ---

That may be true, but it wouldn't be difficult for other countries to simply block them. Of course, they would be accused of censorship, if they did. I don't think that N. Korea is much of a problem. India seems to be the main source of the problem, followed by Africa. Then, of course, the US, and Canada, are not far behind, but you don't hear much about that. The main defense is user common sense, which seems to be lacking in a lot of cases.

Not long ago, I ordered some WiFi devices, from Amazon (Smart Plugs). When I got them, the first thing that I noticed, was that they were probing port 6667, on all of my network connected devices. That, in itself, is not really a problem, but a couple of days later, I opened Firefox (which looks at port 6667  - one of the IRC ports), and a program started , repeatedly, abending. When I checked that out, it was a program called HELLO, which is one of those ransomware things. It had, obviously, followed the port 6667 reference to try to infect my system. Of course, it didn't run in OS/2. I don't know if that was planed by the manufacturer, or if they were a victim of the plot. Whatever, I returned the devices, and OS/2 saved my ass (of course, I also had a good backup). The "official" excuse was that the devices communicate with a central web site (probably Google), using port 6667, to do what they are supposed to do. This is obviously some sort of spy mechanism, but it was also a path for ransomware  to invade my system. These devices were from China, which doesn't need to scam people for financing. When I thought about it, there was no need to use port 6667, to do what they were supposed to do. They could have done it without any third party being involved, but that was necessary to spy on what my system was doing. The ransomeware thing was an added extra, and I can't attribute that to anyone. I returned the devices, and I am sure that they got sold to some other poor, unsuspecting, victim. Additionally, whatever it was, did manage to mess with my router, and a "factory reset" was required to correct that problem.

User beware.

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