Edge sends images you view online to Microsoft, here is how to disable that
www.neowin.net
Microsoft Edge has many convenient features to improve your browsing experience. However, some of those features raise privacy concerns. One, for example, sends images you view directly to Microsoft.
  • altz3r0@beehaw.orgEnglish
    22·
    1 year ago

    If you think Edge is a bust, I got news for you: if you are using Windows, pretty much everything spies on you now days. :)

    • chaorace@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      15·
      1 year ago

      Every year that goes by, the less my colleagues give funny looks when I talk about being a Linux user. These days it’s more often envy – my default browser never changes, I can put my start menu wherever I like, my hard-drive never spontaneously encrypts itself, my user account never deletes and replaces itself with an always-online doppleganger. These statements are somehow impressive brags and that amuses me greatly.

    • reka@beehaw.orgEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      To anyone who used Linux once upon a time and got scared off - try it again. Nowadays so much works without any config, driver support is so much better and, at least with my last year using Fedora, it’s incredibly stable.

      And if you get stuck, ChatGPT is so good at helping you through the experience. Also, IMO, once you spend a week or so to get used to Gnome desktop environment it’s better than both windows and macos.

      • interolivary@beehaw.orgEnglish
        4·
        1 year ago

        I really wouldn’t tell anyone to rely on ChatGPT for technical support. It’s fine if you already sort of know what you’re doing, but it has a tendency to “lie” very convincingly and come up with either broken or even potentially harmful solutions

  • scheissberg@feddit.deEnglish
    12·
    1 year ago

    “Never enhance images for these sites:”

    Shares list of sites to never enhance images for with Microsoft

    Parkour!

    • Feydaikin@beehaw.orgEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      Never did. I am reminded of the whole “Embrace, extend, and extinguish” tactic they use(d).

      It’s pretty brutal.

      • reka@beehaw.orgEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        Well, in MS’s unwarranted defence, they’ve moved strategically well away from this under current leadership which has been much more profitable for them. The current strategy is to get into every single technology vertical, become a dependency for every single other company.

  • honk@feddit.deEnglish
    8·
    1 year ago

    I shouldn’t have to be a lucky mf that stumbles upon an article by coincidence that explains how to configure his web browser to not send pictures I look at across the atlantic ocean without my knowledge. WTF is going on.

    • ramskulls@beehaw.orgEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      I adopted Edge when it started out as a more lightweight Chrome. After that I eventually just got used to it, like a frog being slow-cooked? And now I find it hard to leave, even though it’s gotten more and more bloated. Edge has a really nice text to speech feature with natural voices that I use a lot. I’ve read a lot of books in the two years I’ve been using edge. If I could find an alternative with that feature that was also cross-platform I would gladly switch in a heartbeat.

    • aMalayali@beehaw.orgEnglish
      4·
      1 year ago

      Edge is/was(have read that windows fixed some defender issue) slightly faster than firefox.

        • aMalayali@beehaw.org
          1·
          1 year ago

          I’ve used Chrome(Haven’t yet tried Ungoogled Chromium on PC. Have used Bromite in the past). It didn’t seem much faster.

          Chrome generally felt faster on google services like Meet tho.

          • realslef@fedia.io
            1·
            1 year ago

            Not much faster, no. Still the same core, just fewer compulsory extensions like this Snoopy one.

    • ResidualBit@beehaw.orgEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      I think it is a lot of the latter at this point, tbh. Non tech-savvy folks that don’t even think about the browser software at all, let alone know there are other options or seek them out.

  • benad@beehaw.orgEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    It’s only in the Canary version for now.

    Although the feature sounds exciting, recent Microsoft Edge Canary updates have provided more information on how image enhancement works.

    • nulldev@lemmy.vepta.orgOPEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      IDK about that, there are many claims from users of it being available on stable. I believe it’s another one of those A-B test things so it’s only available for a subset of stable users.

      • benad@beehaw.orgEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        I’ve only seen it on some “insider” builds for Windows 11, so unless it was pushed publicly in the past few days you shouldn’t see it.

        This post’s title is misleading anyway. It’s not enabled by default, and only sends URLs of “large images” that don’t require any form of authentication. Considering where I work, I can’t say much more than that. If you knew where I work, you’d trust my word over some other random people on the internet.