Quote: " Essentially it turns your PC into a zombie host server, wasting your bandwidth and serving updates to other computers.
> This also means Windows Update might be utilized later to spread malware through the P2P system via 0days."
Thanks for pointing this out. I took a look around in the settings and was able to easily turn the option off. I ended up allowing a P2P download for "PCs on my local network" rather than the default "PCs on my local network, and PCs on the internet." I could have completely turned it off, but I think its sort of handy allowing computers on my private network to "share" Windows updates with my computer for faster downloading.
The setting can be found in "Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update > Scroll down and click on "Advanced options" > Click on "Choose how update are delivered."
Quote: "> You cannot turn off "Telemetry" unless you own Windows 10 Enterprise Edition.
> This means your computer will continuously leak unspecified information to Microsoft and there's no way of turning this off."
According to this article Telemetry can be turned off through the registry:
http://winaero.com/blog/how-to-disable-telemetry-and-data-collection-in-windows-10/
Quote: "You cannot turn off "Real-time Protection", aka Windows Defender. Even if you do it will turn itself on again after a while."
It would seem that Windows Defender is actually disabled automatically if you have another anti-virus software installed. I have AVG on my computer, and Windows Defender is disabled. I get a pop-up message when trying to access the Windows Defender settings that says "This app has been turned off and isn't monitoring your computer."
There are still some ways to permanently disable Windows Defender even if you don't have any anti-virus software:
http://winaero.com/blog/disable-or-enable-windows-defender-in-windows-10/
Quote: "> Cortana has zero local storage functionality and does not function unless you have a Microsoft Account connected.
> It will even inform you about this if you try using it on a local account and then shut itself down."
This I do find quite annoying. I would like to use Cortana and have it linked to my phone for things like reminders, emails, etc. However, I don't want my entire computer connected to my Microsoft account simply because there are certain features I don't care to have connected. For example, I don't want every picture on my computer uploaded to One Drive. For an average PC user this would be a nice feature, but as a programmer I have tons of random images, diagrams, sprites, etc that don't need to be uploaded.
I had to disable Cortana for this reason (at least for now). I was a bit confused when it tried connecting my computer to my Microsoft account mostly because none of the other apps do this. The Windows 8 apps were notorious for doing this, so I always avoided using them. However, most of the Windows 10 apps allow you to log into your Microsoft account without connecting the entire computer. So I find it odd that Cortana is the only app that forces the entire computer-account connection. I am hoping they will change this so I can make use of Cortana.
Quote: "Windows 10 start menu will have "Content suggestions" which are on by default, which means you'll be seeing ads."
Thanks for pointing that out, I have disabled it. I am curious as to how "ad-like" these "Content suggestions" are or if they are more of a "Recommended for you" apps list.
Quote: "> Windows 10 "Wifi Sense" will be begging for your Facebook account details so it can get to know you better.
> It will also be sharing your Wifi password with all of your Facebook/Skype/Outlook friends, their friends, as well as with Microsoft."
I disabled this feature during installation. I think this feature would be better if it was simply only
your contacts could have access to your wifi network. By allowing "friends of friends" to connect to your network it begins to spiral out of control, eventually tons of wifi connections would essentially become open networks. Furthermore, maybe it could be really simplified so that instead of automatically providing the wifi passwords to your contacts you just manually select a contact to share your wifi password with. That way you could share your wifi with someone that's at your house without having to tell them the password and without your password automatically being given to all your contacts.
Personally, I would recommend Windows 10. Though I would say that right after installing it you should go through the settings thoroughly to turn somethings off and make some tweaks. That being said, I do believe that Windows 10's settings give a good amount of options and flexibility.
It's worth mentioning that you can update to Windows 10 "risk free" as there is a downgrade button (for me it says "Go back to Windows 7"), however you only have month from the time you upgraded to downgrade. I would say install it and give it a try, if you don't like it (I think you will) then use the downgrade button. Downgrade button is located in "Settings > Update & Security > Recovery."
Sean