What is your opinion on Application Telemetry, i.e. applications sending anonymous data about their usage and alike to their creators? I know this is a very personal subject but I'd like to know your opinion. I think it is fair to say that the answer can probably depend a lot on the circumstances and what data are collected. So for the sake of this question assume 1.) the collected data are reasonably selected only to help improve the software, 2.) have no marketable value, 3.) and are anonymous, not just pseudonymous, that is 2 reports from the same machine can not be identified as coming from the same machine.
I make sure full telemetry is "off" in Windows 10, but since I run Insiders Beta builds on Windows 11, it has to be the "optional" or full diagnostic data (Microsoft-ese for full telemetry). I don't run Edge anyway.
Telemetry sucks, but if you really think you need this data then make it opt-in. But then I will always wonder if this stuff is truly disabled. On second thought, it's best not to implement this in Sandboxie.
Well first of all in open source software you can check yourself if it is off, second, to ensure it, it would be implemented as a telemetry.dll so when in doubt delete telemetry.dll
99% do not even about some telemetry, but it can be a tremendous help, when enabled. Those, who have unique setups, should be able to turn it off completelly, because their system would only mess up the data anyway, plus privacy.
I believe that Windows sends some machine identifiers thus it does not meet assumptions from first post. In other words Windows telemetry is out of topic. I've chosen "Opt-out Telemetry is fine (on by default) and I'll leave it on". It probably depends on circumstances and case-by-case basis though if I would leave it on. Trust to software developer/company is important factor (open-sourceness of telemetry implementation is important for that), but also other factors. For example I leave most of telemetry in Firefox on, because websites collect some data about my system anyway, so I don't really see a point in disabling Firefox telemetry completely for the Firefox profile that I use the most. I also think that opt-out solution must be sound. It must be an realistic option to disable telemetry before first batch of data is sent. Consider postponing it 24 hours since second run of a program (installation does not count as first run, although last installation dialog can trigger first run of a program by some checkbox)? Developer should also have automated tests in place that check if opt-out in older version of program is still valid after an update. I don't know how to configure it, but I really think this should be covered by some automatic quality assurance of upgrade process by CI/CD pipeline. Last, but not least, user should be presented with a visible disclaimer on install and at least first run of a program that program do send telemetry data and there is an option to turn it off. I also think this pool can be substantially biased. Wilders forum members are not representative of general population and even then some member not caring about telemetry won't even look at this thread.
I voted "All Telemetry is Evil" as I personally consider it to be spying / snooping and violating a users trust regardless of all that nonsense companies use of "it is all in the EULA" like 95% (or probably more) of people never read that. If people want to provide feedback on x software then they should have a choice to manually report back instead of spyware embedded in software, reporting back whatever data to whoever.
Well solving problems is a good thing, preventing them to appear in the first place is how ever even better. And that's the idea when i wonder if doing a particular change, for example blocking access to a particular resource that is better of not being accessible, I could either. 1. block it, leave a setting to unblock it, release it and see how many will complain that their software now is crashing. 2. add some telemetry code to tell me which software if any is accessing that resource, then in the next version I can block it in general while adding compatibility templates for the software that still needs it. Option 1. is disruptive to the users, that is not a great experience. Option 2. requires Telemetry, some people (me included) don't like it, others don't care and just want their software to run smooth. Its basically: guessing and observing the result vs. being able to make an decision based on hard data. Example: some time ago diversenok found a nice exploit using symlink object creation, not the once in the FS but the once in the NT namespace, and well that exploit shouldn't be left open, and who would use symlink objects in windows normally anyways, so lets block it completely, problem solved. Well apparently there is software that uses this like MinGW and this was now broken, solution add full name virtualization and filtering. With the sys call telemetry this issue would have been noticed and no user would have to deal with broken software. As it will probably be implemented that would be the wrong thing to block, you would only block update check, I think in the end it will be a stand alone SbieMetry.exe, perhaps together with a SbieMetry.dll to block in FW you will need to block SbieMetry.exe and to disable the functionality completely just delete booth files. That is if you don't trust the off switch in the UI.
OK cool, if you can simply delete this dll file without breaking Sandboxie, then it wouldn't be a huge problem I guess.
The problem with telemetry is that once allowed, it tends to increase not decrease. Once it's goal is reached, it tends to move on to a bigger goal. It may start out as benign, but it seldom (if ever) stays that way. I fail to come up with one example where it was used, the intended results were obtained, then it was discarded. It is the 'proof' that the slippery slope is no fallacy, logical or otherwise.
I don't care about Microsoft's and Apple's OS and apps telemetry and I let them to do their job in that regard. As for other third party apps I'm careful which app is allowed to collect anonymous data, data to improve app etc.
My problem with telemetry is that even if data is collected in a benign fashion, the improvements are never there. Say a typical Android smartphone. By default, there will be device usage telemetry and gboard telemetry, both of which you can turn off. But that's not interesting. What's interesting is that recommendations made when you type aren't that good, and this is after years and years of data collected from billions of devices by the most capable telemetry-capable [sic] company in the world. So if they can't translate telemetry into an amazing end user product, then there's no reason to collect it. I've also not seen any quality improvement in usage as a result of telemetry in any user-facing desktop product, ever. In fact, over time, the quality of most desktop products has gone down, and continues to go down. The only thing one could conclude is that telemetry is used to optimize profit and not necessarily application usage in any sensible way, or that there's so much data no one can do anything meaningful with it, despite all these AI/ML buzzwords. The ONE exception to all of the above - kernel crash dumps and analyses - Windows and Linux. This is the one thing that I know for a fact has helped improve the stability of the operating systems, and has been used in a good way. But it's done way below the user space, which could also cynically explain why it's actually effective. Mrk
