OS2 World Community Forum

Public Discussions => General Discussion => Topic started by: eirik on July 28, 2015, 06:36:55 pm

Title: Windows 10 and privacy
Post by: eirik on July 28, 2015, 06:36:55 pm
There are growing concerns about privacy protection due to new software.  A recent piece in the Financial Times provides some interesting comments: see http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0d4a3880-3470-11e5-bdbb-35e55cbae175.html  (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0d4a3880-3470-11e5-bdbb-35e55cbae175.html)for details.  It is particularly the commentary field that contain many interesting view points.

So, where is the opportunity for eCS (OS/2) in this context?

I have previously argued we need to attract more ordinary users (like me) to make eCS (OS/2) be more than an interesting option for the select few.  Privacy concerns related to Win10 may provide us with some interesting (and unexpected) opportunities.
Title: Re: Windows 10 and privacy
Post by: dbanet on July 28, 2015, 08:23:47 pm
I'm absolutely convinced this is a very rare case when OS/2 can fit the requirements of an ordinary user.

Either we are super-duper-lucky, or a user uses OS/2 just for the sake of it, like I do.

When talking about ordinary users, GNU/Linux nowadays does not even remotely convey that inconvenience as OS/2 does: unlike OS/2, each and every PC use case of an everyday user is absolutely possible and common with GNU/Linux. And even considering professional use cases, it already is mostly the subject of, yes, comfort level, productivity, convenience and habits, but not general impossibility. Regarding the user interface differences, the transition between an old Windows UI and Windows 10 and higher is merely of the same impediment level as of that is of to any GNU/Linux window manager (some of them will resemble the classical Windows interface in many ways, and some of them, like Unity, will go the Mac OS way, and pretty well).

Hence my point of view is that although I would absolutely agree with the immediate necessity of calling new users into the world of OS/2, I reject the "ordinary" part: it is just a no-go. Without user's itself desire to use this very operating system, it ain't no gonna work.
Title: Re: Windows 10 and privacy
Post by: Martin Iturbide on July 29, 2015, 07:37:56 pm
Hi

It is an interesting topic to read about since today's OSes are getting more dependency on the cloud.

I was reading this article about it: Windows 10: Here are the privacy issues you should know about (http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2015/07/29/wind-nos/)

Regards

Title: Re: Windows 10 and privacy
Post by: Andy Willis on July 31, 2015, 12:08:28 am
When talking about ordinary users, GNU/Linux nowadays does not even remotely convey that inconvenience as OS/2 does: unlike OS/2, each and every PC use case of an everyday user is absolutely possible and common with GNU/Linux.
Possible yes, but older hardware is not supported by newer Linux distros as well as OS/2 supports it.  When I say older, think of a T400 thinkpad laptop.  I have one with an ATI video that is not supported via the ATI drivers but runs with VESA on Linux from even a couple of years ago as they dropped the "old" video support (Fedora, Ubuntu anyhow).  Panorama is much faster on it than Linux runs.  Yes, you could run a Linux distro from that time but it is less supported than OS/2 at this point and doesn't allow for newer application installs via the package manager.
Title: Re: Windows 10 and privacy
Post by: dbanet on August 01, 2015, 12:29:16 am
When talking about ordinary users, GNU/Linux nowadays does not even remotely convey that inconvenience as OS/2 does: unlike OS/2, each and every PC use case of an everyday user is absolutely possible and common with GNU/Linux.
Possible yes, but older hardware is not supported by newer Linux distros as well as OS/2 supports it.  When I say older, think of a T400 thinkpad laptop.  I have one with an ATI video that is not supported via the ATI drivers but runs with VESA on Linux from even a couple of years ago as they dropped the "old" video support (Fedora, Ubuntu anyhow).  Panorama is much faster on it than Linux runs.  Yes, you could run a Linux distro from that time but it is less supported than OS/2 at this point and doesn't allow for newer application installs via the package manager.

Agreed. You've made a point. OS/2 may be a justified choice for old hardware. I wouldn't call T400 "old" though. :)
But now I would really argue old hardware is not compatible with modern everyday users.

My not really very old A31 (now you can estimate what's "old" for me, lol) had been running OS/2 relatively well, but wireless troubles with more than a half of hotspots, one half probability of being stuck at video reinitialization after a resume, bad support of Ultrabay and no support of Dock II are the most vivid and really non-arguable issues (i.e. we're not talking about software absence, etc) with it. I've really tried. My conclusion: no way if you want to make use of all of the coolest hardware features of Thinkpad laptopts (otherwise why Thinkpad then?).

This, in a much lesser essence, but still, does apply to GNU/Linux. It is just too frustrating to have capable hardware you can't use.

Title: Re: Windows 10 and privacy
Post by: Dave Yeo on August 01, 2015, 02:39:04 am
On the other hand, my T42 runs OS/2 very well but won't even boot Linux as most distros have dropped support for the Pentium M (could compile a kernel I guess). While not the fastest, it runs SeaMonkey at a reasonable speed, attachs to most hot spots and fails the same way on XP on the few places such as the local library where it doesn't connect. Sleeps well and I understand would hibernate if installed on C:  I also have a newer Toshiba Satellite with decent ATI video, it crawls under Linux as support has been dropped for the video. Never tried OS/2 on it as I'm pretty sure the wireless would not be supported.
Title: Re: Windows 10 and privacy
Post by: dbanet on August 01, 2015, 03:34:52 pm
would hibernate if installed on C:

Only if the system volume is formatted in FAT, and if running some older kernels.
Title: Re: Windows 10 and privacy
Post by: Andi B. on August 02, 2015, 11:34:57 am
Quote
and if running some older kernels
T42p hibernates successfully with 14.104 kernel. Not tried latest 106er. But it takes about 1'25'' to wake up with 1.5GB RAM.
Title: Re: Windows 10 and privacy
Post by: dbanet on August 02, 2015, 12:05:27 pm
Quote
and if running some older kernels
T42p hibernates successfully with 14.104 kernel. Not tried latest 106er. But it takes about 1'25'' to wake up with 1.5GB RAM.

Interesting. What system version do you run?
Title: Re: Windows 10 and privacy
Post by: Andi B. on August 02, 2015, 01:28:11 pm
Quote
and if running some older kernels
T42p hibernates successfully with 14.104 kernel. Not tried latest 106er. But it takes about 1'25'' to wake up with 1.5GB RAM.

Interesting. What system version do you run?
Some eCS with most updates available. Base was eCS1.2DE or 2.1DE but don't know anymore. How to find out?
Title: Re: Windows 10 and privacy
Post by: Joop on August 02, 2015, 04:31:07 pm
Some eCS with most updates available. Base was eCS1.2DE or 2.1DE but don't know anymore. How to find out?
I'm not sure if there is a better way (see all the other comments that I'm wrong(?) etc).
Go to the "\ecs\install" directory. With a bit of luck you find a file "previous.gps" with possible contents;
"GPSCRIPT
Data = PHASEDATA, 2;
Data = PREVPHASEDATA, 83, 72, 72, "eCS 1.2", 0, 149, 8, 0;"

May be there are other files, didn't have searched for it, but this one can be read. On my system it has the install date of eCS 1.2Dutch which is 3 August 2005. So tomorrow I can celebrate the 10 years ;-).
Title: Re: Windows 10 and privacy
Post by: dbanet on August 02, 2015, 05:00:01 pm
Hm I thought you cannot anymore install eCS on FAT, can you?

Anyway, that is off-topic.
Title: Re: Windows 10 and privacy
Post by: Andi B. on August 02, 2015, 07:51:57 pm
Hm I thought you cannot anymore install eCS on FAT, can you?

Anyway, that is off-topic.
I never installed any OS/2 on FAT. Ever used HPFS and since years JFS for boot volume. But my first primary partition on the first hard disk usually holds a DOS system which is on FAT.

String in PREVPHASEDATA is "eCS" only. In \os2\install\syslevel.ecs there is 1.2. But on newer installs there is no 2.1. So no clue how to find the correct version. But it is heavily updated anyway since installation.
Title: Re: Windows 10 and privacy
Post by: Andi B. on August 02, 2015, 09:57:57 pm
Hm I thought you cannot anymore install eCS on FAT, can you?

Anyway, that is off-topic.
I never installed any OS/2 on FAT. Ever used HPFS and since years JFS for boot volume. But my first primary partition on the first hard disk usually holds a DOS system which is on FAT.

String in PREVPHASEDATA is "eCS" only. In \os2\install\syslevel.ecs there is 1.2. But on newer installs there is no 2.1. So no clue how to find the correct version. But it is heavily updated anyway since installation.
Title: Re: Windows 10 and privacy
Post by: Roderick Klein on August 02, 2015, 11:54:49 pm
Hm I thought you cannot anymore install eCS on FAT, can you?

Anyway, that is off-topic.

You can't. From what I can remember FAT installation in eCS has never been possible in eCS.
Anybody welcome to correct me.

Apart from that you have no long file name support. So some programs will not work.
Just one quick example I could find in Firefox: plugin-container.exe.
Now maybe you can rename it to 8.3 file names. But you are bound to run into some software maybe needing file names longer then 8.3.

Apart the above pretty limiting factor. I also think that in terms of reliability FAT would be the wurst off in terms of when you get a crash... Then again not that weird as the FAT is the oldest file system. around...
With HPFS, JFS and FAT I have had system crashes. But FAT certainly gave the most damage. Its true HPFS and JFS can also blow up and CHKDSK can then "repair" your partition. But by far most blown up OS/2 installation for me happened on FAT volumes.

Lastly the performance drain you would have with FAT. While I know some people still using HPFS.
JFS also has the large file system  cache... A few months ago I did see Firefox load from a HPFS partition...
It works but its certainly putting your computer back in first gear, instead of making it work snappy.

Roderick
Title: Re: Windows 10 and privacy
Post by: Dave Yeo on August 03, 2015, 12:43:50 am
I don't see why you couldn't install the base eCS on a FAT partition. The FAT driver is in the kernel, I do see that sysinstx.com is missing but could be added. Looking quickly there is some documentation that uses long names, some *nix utilities and some drivers that could be renamed. Of course you'd have to install applications on a drive that supports long names or be very limited in the programs you use.
As you point out, FAT is a horrible file system to use as your main boot partition. I did have a bootos2 install on FAT for maintenance for a long time, updated to 4.5+ level (including LVM and JFS support) and it worked fine for what I needed it for.
Title: Re: Windows 10 and privacy
Post by: Alex Taylor on August 03, 2015, 05:35:27 am
FAT installation of eCS was not officially supported (except possibly in version 1.1).  However, it does work, at least as recently as (IIRC) version 2.0.  I'm not sure about 2.1; ISTR it will no longer work in 2.2 because some required components with long filenames are now installed on the boot drive.

(FWIW, I wrote the relevant parts of the eCS installer and I put considerable care into making sure that FAT installation was still possible up until the last version or two; it just got too hard to do eventually.)

The eCS installer will not let you format the boot volume as FAT. However, if it's already formatted as FAT then it will still let you install to it (at least pre 2.2).
Title: Re: Windows 10 and privacy
Post by: ivan on August 03, 2015, 12:20:22 pm
Quote
it will no longer work in 2.2 because some required components with long filenames are now installed on the boot drive

Alex, are you saying that there is now a move away from the idea of a small boot partition that can be easily imaged and restored should a problem arise to the windows idea of 'put everything on the boot partition and hope'?

I have always used the small boot partition idea with separate partitions for programs and data which makes backing up data easy.
Title: Re: Windows 10 and privacy
Post by: Alex Taylor on August 03, 2015, 02:47:18 pm
Quote
it will no longer work in 2.2 because some required components with long filenames are now installed on the boot drive

Alex, are you saying that there is now a move away from the idea of a small boot partition that can be easily imaged and restored should a problem arise to the windows idea of 'put everything on the boot partition and hope'?

No, I'm not.
Title: Re: Windows 10 and privacy
Post by: Pete on August 03, 2015, 04:27:50 pm
Hi Andi

Some eCS with most updates available. Base was eCS1.2DE or 2.1DE but don't know anymore. How to find out?


Very simple: Open [BootDrive]:\ecs\ECS_INST.FLG in a text editor. It should contain (only) 1 line like this:-

eComStation 2.1 EN_US Thu May 12 07:09:48 pm 2011


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: Windows 10 and privacy
Post by: ivan on August 03, 2015, 07:04:44 pm
Thanks Alex.  One less item to worry about.
Title: Re: Windows 10 and privacy
Post by: eirik on August 04, 2015, 09:46:12 am
The Financial Times has yet another story on privacy in Win10: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fdaddc18-39bc-11e5-bbd1-b37bc06f590c.html (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fdaddc18-39bc-11e5-bbd1-b37bc06f590c.html).  I will not comment on this, but leave it for your own judgement.

Otherwise, on privacy in FireFox I keep tracking cookies to a minimum (no automatic acceptance), occasionally manually clean my cookies, and have ticked off for not providing sites info on my tracking preferences.

On the other strand of info. under this topic: Partitioning  of the disks (a bit on the side from the title, but given the existing posts).  I have a small JFS partition for the operating system (on D:) and separate JFS partitions for programs and user files.  That way, making clean upgrades or reinstalls (formatting the partition to get rid of old stuff that may mess up the system) become easier and faster.  With the amount of disk space I have, three eCS partitions + a Win7 partition (can't escape Win completely) and AirBot boot manager, this works fine for me.
Title: Re: Windows 10 and privacy
Post by: ivan on August 04, 2015, 07:17:03 pm
Just to add fuel to the fire there is this http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/03/windows_10_privacy_defaults/ (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/03/windows_10_privacy_defaults/) from the Register.
Title: Re: Windows 10 and privacy
Post by: Martin Iturbide on August 04, 2015, 07:23:29 pm
Similar one at Ars Technica :Windows 10 doesn’t offer much privacy by default: Here’s how to fix it (http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/windows-10-doesnt-offer-much-privacy-by-default-heres-how-to-fix-it/) 

Regards