Microsoft using Outlook as a data scraper

/e/OS Foundation & Community Tech News
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It was brought to my attention on a different forum that Microsoft has been extracting data from emails and passing it on to companies who want to promote their products to the sender of the email. I did want to add something on the thread about Windows 11 now closed. A former Microsoft employee who has a YouTube channel, “Dave’s Garage” explained that with the advent of Windows 10 it was no longer the product, you the user were. In fact my local Linux User Group informed me that even Windows 7 would be spyware. Clearly Windows 11 is clearly designed to gather data and I disagree that Co-Pilot has to be acted upon when I found a web page on how to disable it when youngest wanted to upgrade. I had also put Q4OS on a separate Drive and made it look exactly like Windows 11. People should be aware that there is an endof10.org website giving information on organisations that can install GNU/Linux now that 10 has ended. I am also proud to be affiliated with it. My website is:

Regain your privacy! Adopt /e/OS the deGoogled mobile OS and online services

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My windows 10 still works and gets security updates, just have to use the correct version. Need LTS version.

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Excellent work! Linux made computing so much fun again for me. Many fantastic options, Q4OS you mention is a great one I have also used on older converted chromebook. Like many others, wish I had jumped the MS & Google ship long, long ago.

Privacy focused OS and privacy focused phones. Feels good.

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I was running Windows 7 Pro 64-bit until recently. That received a security update about Russian characters not being properly displayed but installing it would screw the system. I was primarily using it for Website creation software and ditched it for my hosting services Website Builder and it is a vast improvement on my old Website. As the person who I installed Linux Mint for said, “I did not think it was worth paying for another 12 months of security updates only to make the choice of moving to [GNU/]Linux in 12 months time.”

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Like I said I have an LTCS version of Windows 10 that will get security updates without payment.

However I type to you from my dual boot PC from Linux Ubuntu. I only ever us Windows when totally forced to, 95% of the time I am on Linux. I hate MS… As well as (you guessed) G…

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Well the downside to Ubuntu is its failure to acknowledge GNU. Linux is the kernel, GNU is the OS. I am afraid I treat Ubuntu with the same disdain I give Microsoft. I took particular umbrage when their boot screen announced Ubuntu with Linux. People have become lazy by just saying Linux. Stallman wrote the OS GNU at the beginning of the 80’s and was trying to create a kernel for it when in 1991, Linus Torvalds had written the Linux kernel which allowed GNU to run. So whilst GNU’s presence has shrunk to 8% we still need to acknowledge that without GNU (GNU is not Unix) Linux would not exist, especially without the GNU C library. My other issue with Ubuntu is it too has become a closed system with its insistence of snap packages over APT and competing with Red Hat’s adoption of flatpak, who after forcing both the inferior init system of systemd and pulse audio (both written by Poettinger who laughably now works for Microsoft), tried to also make this the norm and Ubuntu responded with snap. If a distribution has either of these I remove them and gnome-software and just use Synaptic Package Manager.

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Hi, I made a couple of videos about Q4OS Plasma and 32-Bit Q4OS Trinity:

Both created as VMs inside Q4OS using virt-manager.

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And for a longer time still, but you paid for the LTS license already to have longer support.
I think it’s worth to point out some details in this context because it’s pretty interesting, but LTS Windows is more of a business/volume licensing thing, so many users are unaware this even exists:

Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021 is planned to get security updates until January 13, 2032.
(As an Internet of Things Windows, it’s not licensed for an allround home or business computer, but apart from that it’s a normal Windows 10 without the Microsoft Store, so it will install and run just fine, that is if you want to bet on nobody ever checking whether you really run an IoT appliance or a kiosk display with it. Genuine, valid licenses are costly, though.)

Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2019 is planned to get security updates until January 9, 2029.
(The same IoT licensing constraints apply.)

Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2019 is planned to get security updates until January 9, 2029.
(A normal Windows 10 Enterprise stuck on the 2019 feature set, but with longer security update support.)

Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021 is planned to get security updates until January 12, 2027.
(Seems contradictory, but Microsoft switched to a shorter life cycle here, so the 2021 version indeed has a shorter support timeframe than the 2019 version.)

So the sweet spot for businesses or home enthusiasts hell-bent on running a correctly licensed Windows 10 for years to come will be Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2019.
Anyway, we’ll still see Windows 10 in use for years, and if correctly licensed there will be no reason to freak out because it’s Windows 10, the optional reason to freak out will still be because it’s Windows.

Regarding paying for one year of security updates extra … Microsoft introduced options to get the extra year for free (at least in the EU). You “just” need a Microsoft account, but you need that anyway even if you want to pay (to continue to login with a local user account without remembering to login with a Microsoft account every 60 days at least) because the payment is done via a Microsoft account, and you (or family/acquaintance/whoever manages your Windows computer) should have a Microsoft account already when using halfway current Microsoft Office products such as Outlook (← cunning topic title reference) because you need a Microsoft account to license/install a locally run version, or you are using Microsoft’s 365 cloud offerings.
Once you register for the Windows 10 ESU (Extended Security Updates) program, the registration is valid for up to 10 computers (!).
https://www.microsoft.com/windows/extended-security-updates

As for Windows in general, the best time to switch to Linux is always now, unless you are running obscure, Windows-only hardware or software, or you are a business and have workflows hopelessly trapped in the Microsoft universe.

Or you know all that, and you are just lazy, like me.
(To be fair, I wasn’t lazy when Windows 7 ended, but I had a TV card which I couldn’t get to run on several Linux distributions with hours and hours of testing and tinkering … and now I don’t use the card anymore, but now I’m consciously lazy :wink: . But the switch will come somewhen, I guess.)

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I wouldn’t recommend switching to linux directly anyways but rather use a dual-boot and try to login to linux as much as possible to get a feel for it, try to use it productively and then only use Windows when absolutely needed. Its kind of mind boggeling how much windows shares in telemetry data when analysing my network traffic. But sadly, Office-software with Linux is still kind of a pain.. But other than that I feel like I have everything on Linux that I need.

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@swarfendor437

Thanks for the history lesson regarding GNU, I was not aware.

Also worth noting the default Ubuntu browser is Firefox, with a default search engine “Google”.

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Well my first customer last week took to their Linux Mint Debian Edition like a duck to water. Fortunately they had the wherewithal to have been using Open Office so having and using LibreOffice out of the box pleased them greatly. Next up emails. They had been using Outlook. Solution? I installed Evolution, and were extremely pleased. Lastly, the only issue for them was Ecosia, the Browser is only made for Windows and Mac. Solution? Installed Mojeek (mojeek.com) search engine. Why? Because it is the only search engine that doesn’t censor your searches, unlike DuckDuckGo. If mojeek does not come back with what you are looking for you can access all the other Browsers’ search engines, even Ecosia which got bookmarked, so removed Google, Bing search engines once mojeek was made default. As for finding your way around, I have written unofficial manuals for Zorin 12, Zorin 15, and Zorin 17. I don’t use Zorin as my daily driver as I prefer distributions that don’t use systemd, so use PCLOS Debian Plasma.

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I personally use a fork of Firefox, zen browser, and looking forward to ladybird browser due to be released next year. You can change Google for mojeek. See my reply to @AnonymerUser

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I change my search engine to Startpage and then delete the Google and Bing search engines and sometimes DuckDuck go. I haven’t really looked closely at DucDuck yet. I know I can get it in the F-Droid store for android so I am thinking they can’t be too bad DuckDuck.

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You can add mojeek to your android browser too. I stopped using DuckDuckGo when they introduced censorship on searches.

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Sure, you can do it that way. But consider that most people are dependent on one particular software, which is not easily replaceable with an open source alternative. Its all a case by case basis and going full in will result in people (without external help) drawing back to what they know works in their daily life.

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True there are issues like that but a businessman in our city had an issue with CAD Lathe software at his engineering company when the then latest release of Windows would not run his software on the new version of Windows at the time. He’d had enough of Microsoft. Solution? He put Fedora Workstation on his computer and ran the old version of Windows as a VM. Problem solved.

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I have recently switched to Linux, but I still read Windows news. In fact, I am quite okay with Windows from a purely technical point of view, and I have no productivity problems when I use it at work (where automatic Bing searches etc. are deactivated).

Oddly enough, it seems that MS is not really interested in private consumers anymore (Xbox as the last consumer-focused exception). MS obviously tries to sell Office subscriptions etc. to private individuals, but the focus is on business costumers, i.e., “where the real money is”. Private customers are an afterthought - MS tries to make money with them with the current state of Windows and Office, but does no longer really try to cater to them. This is at least the general state of the Windows ecosystem that is expressed on the MS news sites I read.

Fair points. However, I often install applications as flatpaks - my distribution sometimes just does not offer a recent version of an application, or does not offer it at all. And my distribution (Fedora) is not some obscure one.

And while I appreciate your point of view, and I think that such discussions can lead to valuable outcomes, I also fear that they can slow down the focus on the primary goals of the Linux community. I am reminded of the sewer fight in “Life of Brian”: “Flatpak is bad!” “No, Snap is bad!” “Stop! We have to focus on our common enemy!” “systemd?” “No! Big tech with its locked-down ecosystems!” “Oh, shut up!”

But again: I get your points, find them valuable and respect them.

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Ah well, Fedora has its uses but I never really got a feel for it, and that even back when it was Fedora 2 or 3. My preference is for Debian based distros. The next bad thing that Inux is doing is rushing forward Wayland at the expense of users who need accessibility elements that only xorg can offer. That said I am going to give Artix a try, and a community spin offers XLibre. I’ve tried it as a VM. Need to install it o bare metal next.

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I helped out a friend who had bought a new Windows 11 laptop. However, she lives in a very remote location with a dreadful broadband speed of 1-2 Mbps and Windows 11 with all it’s telemetry and updates simply wouldn’t function at all. So, I installed Zorin 18 for her and she really likes it, in spite of being in her late 80’s and only ever having used Windows. I installed both Thunderbird and Evolution for her to try as she mainly used her computer for email but, she quickly decided that she preferred Thunderbird. I also installed her own ancient version of MSOffice 2007 but, recommended that she transitions to using LibreOffice asap.

The lack of phone calls indicates to me that she is getting on very well with it.

I have never installed Linux on a brand new “designed for W11” laptop (Asus Vivobook) and the WiFi card was not supported. I just bought her a TPLink WiFi USB adapter that works really well. Even if I could have got the driver for the built-in card working, a future update might have deactivated it again, and because of her remote location, I didn’t was to take the chance.

All in all, it was a successful transition and Zorin seems ideal for people who have always used Windows. My 2nd choice would have been LMDE as this is what I use. But, I also dual boot to a 2nd drive with Zorin now in case she has a problem and I can check things on my own laptop.

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I am currently writing the unofficial manual for Zorin 18. There is a lot I don’t like about the way Zorin is going, Wayland as default compositor, flatpak and snap packages (give me APT and Synaptic Package Manager over Gnome Software every time). Gnome Devs have been caught out by calling low-vision and blind users as ‘concerned trolls’ by complaining about Wayland which makes Accessibility nonexistent. Additionally, Gnome Devs disregard users and developers by insisting their way is the best, another Microsoft inspired Desktop Project. Give me Plasma every time. The only upside to Zorin 18 is that KDE Plasma available is 5.27 the most stable plasma ever released. For noobs I would recommend Q4OS or LMDE 7 over Zorin 18 if I am honest. The weather app does not work in Zorin 18 unless you live in a major city or live in the US.

Check out my website:

I prefer SoftMaker Office 2024 Professional over Libre Office as it is only Office Suite fully compatible with MS Office. I used the GNU/Linux version from lockdown until I retired working from home as my job was enlarging texts and converting text to Braille for print-disabled students.

What Zorin 18 should have looked like: