Everyone knows OS and software, browsers, etc all use way more RAM than they used to, and arguably more than they rightfully should. Bloatware, etc.
I saw something recently that alleged MS puts a lot of shit into PCs that say they are doing one thing but are really doing another.
It would be wild if they are basically using the PCs of the world to do something like crunch numbers, mine bitcoin, etc. Oh, hey, this guy has 12 gigs of ram and is only "using" 4, that's 8 for us to sap.
If you have even an ounce of knowledge of how your PC works, it would be extremely easy to spot this.
For the record, I trust Microsoft exactly 0%. Windows 10 will likely be the last Microsoft OS I'm ever forced to use, and only because Visual Studio is still the best IDE out there.
That said, even process monitor will let you know if your computer is doing something other than idling. Your fans will let you know if your computer is doing something other than idling. If your computer is doing heavy number crunching or bitcoin mining, you will know it because it will sound like a leaf blower and performance will be shit.
So yes, they're absolutely spying on you; probably every damn keystroke. But no, they almost certainly aren't using your PC as a Beowulf cluster node.
I don't know. I have two miniPCs of the exact same specs, one runs linux, one runs Windows 11 (for multiplayer games with cucked anticheat only). the Windows machine is constantly spending its fan up and going into fighter jet mode when I'm doing nothing on it. the Linux machine only does that when I try to load the flatpack store.
This is correct, open up Windows task manager, add the CPU time column and sort by CPU time, look at the processes on the top, most of them are background crap, and that is just the stuff that doesn't end the process after days.
NGEN and CompatTelRunner totally spin up the fans (NGEN especially if you are a .net developer). CompatTelRunner is literally Microsoft running a benchmark on your CPU before and after every Windows Update. NGEN is just a poorly optimized thing that searches for every single .NET executable on your computer and runs an optimized AOT compile on it, go into task scheduler and disable that crap.
The XZ Utils backdoor was a lot more subtle than this, and it was still exposed in about a month. I do have my suspicions that the Recall feature is spyware - I don't trust Microsoft to process screenshots of everything you do into a compact digest and not to exfiltrate that digest - but that's a process that makes no secret of what it's doing that is 90% of the way to being up to no good.
Debian Sid is clearly marked 'unstable'
Was patched about 2 years ago
I have a laptop I never use because it manages to run at 100% ram and CPU when I'm doing nothing. Windows 10. I've tried uninstalling stuff and ran a half dozen malware detection programs that found nothing. All I can assume is that it's the OS hogging up my resources, but no clue what it's for. Even the task manager doesn't make sense, because it will just say that the usage is some random program, like a single open browser window, on it's home screen.
And yeah, it sounds like a leaf blower at all times. I never considered Microsoft was using my resources for anything external, but I had never really thought about it either. Is there something else you thing it would be?
You could have caught a virus that mines crypto. I doubt microsoft is mining bitcoin - their market cap is higher than all the world’s bitcoin. They have too much to lose if they get caught
RAM usage isn't (generally) anything to worry about. 100% CPU on the other hand is a problem.
It's difficult to really go into all of the surgery that you'd need to track down what malware or misbehaving program/driver might be causing it, so my suggestion would be to reinstall Windows. If you're getting 100% CPU usage when doing nothing, you've got a problem.
Okay cool. Thanks for the info man. I think I'll be dusting it off this weekend, and give a reinstall a shot.
Did you buy it new or used?
New
sounds like a potato that shouldn't be running w10
It was a decent gaming rig that came with w10 from the start
Reinstall Windows. It tends to clog up over time. A friend of mine had serious performance issues in games because she never once reinstalled it in 7 years. Once she did the problems were gone. Also best to install it without all the bloatware crap via an autounattend file.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDEZDD_gEbo
Or better just go for Linux. CachyOS or Bazzite are pretty good. I personally use CachyOS. Runs 10x faster than Windows, haven't encountered a game yet I can't play and I have less shit to deal with than with Windows.
Cachy and Bazzite are both flavor of the month, but heck if you don't need what they offer Ubuntu or Fedora give you long term stability or Arch gives you full control.
If you want someone who just wants a working operating system with which he can game to tweak Ubuntu and Fedora for gaming or God forbid build his own Arch system then yes Cachy and Bazzite are merely flavors of the month.
u/70thLike Also laptops usually come with even more bloatware than just the Windows bloatware.
Ubuntu based distros are usually pretty good. I like Ubuntu MATE.
My fallback is still Debian ---- not quite as beginner friendly, but it's getting a lot better.
So far I'm happy with CachyOS. Might try out different distros in the future but for now I'm too lazy to do it. Although I could just try one on a different hard drive I guess. Either way there is no way in hell I'm ever installing W11. I wouldn't even go back to W10 if Microsoft would keep supporting it.
I think I'll give Linux a shot. Much appreciated, friend
If that was the case then there wouldn't be botnets.
Yes, there are botnets, mostly on the PCs of people who are clueless about how anything works.
If Microsoft tried anything like that out-of-the-box, at least one or two of their hundreds of millions of users might notice it and say something.
Except, if everyone idles "hot" because everyone uses Windows 10 then everyone will think their hot idling is actually cold idling.
The only way to really test it is compare Windows idling to Linux idling and if your PC components are slightly more utilized under Windows than Linux, it is possible that difference is due to MS doing something for their benefit with your hardware.
Regardless of what they're doing now, the end goal is to control everything.
"You will own nothing and be happy." (They don't actually care about the happiness though.)
There will be shutoff switches and other control mechanisms in everything; cars, computers, fridges, toasters, and your very electricity. If things progress far enough...you. You will have a killswitch. That's what they want.
Yes, this is my bigger concern.
If they get their way (not just Microsoft; all of big tech. Apple has been doing this as much as possible since the iPhone), you will not be able to run any software that they don't allow. You will not be able to develop your own software without a proper license controlled by whoever built your OS and/or hardware.
I'm assuming future OS ToS will include their right to use your unused computer resources for their own processing needs.
If only they were that competent. Shit is slow and uses lots of ram because everything is a chrome browser now. The start menu is react. The notifications popup is an electron app. Any time they draw a box on the screen they're loading another instance of a full browser.
There is an alternative. There are many flavors of Linux that don't have the bloat and spying aspects. Plenty of well supported distros out there that are beginner friendly.
Or if you want to go in knowing everything that is needed to have a functional PC installing Arch from scratch is a painful, but amazing experience. You will choose and learn each package your system has installed from the kernel to UI.
I like dpkg/apt (debian package manager) based systems.
The beauty of this packaging system is the clean removable of packages, while maintaining dependencies ----- it doesn't leave a bunch of shit lying around.
Linux relies on shared libraries ---- so a new application doesn't have to re-invent the wheel, it just uses what is already there.
Ian Murdock (debIAN) did not kill himself with a vacuum cleaner cord --- he was a threat to Microsoft.
Most people would notice when the fan goes brrrr when you arent doing any heavy tasks.
So long as it's done slightly, then you may not even notice. I think it was PS3's that had apps to analyze DNA or something during idle sessions. Millions of consoles working slightly equalled a lot of processing power.
By the comments here though, I reads like they dug too deep, and found things that should have remained lost.
You had to opt in for folding@home and it was eventually discontinued for the PS3 because it was bricking consoles. f@h hasn't achieved much in general even with much more powerful hardware than the PS3.
Good to know.