Windows 10: How do I get my privacy back? Windows 10 may have started my issues

Exactly 2 months after updating my computer's Windows 10, my privacy was up for sale. Credit cards, eBay and now someone's trying to hack my Xfinity. All in one month. The only thing I recall doing that could have assisted in this is that update. I already posted about my issues after that update (screen blanking every 30 seconds, cursor out every 30 seconds, no PDFs allowed, and the last straw, no printing. I finally wiped the thing and started clean over. Those problems are gone, but now, the illegal selling of my private things.

Now that my computer is fresh, it's booting up crazy fast and there are few problems. I'm not adding back all the apps I used before; someone suggested that the update may not be compatible with certain outside apps. I can agree with that. I have spent too much time on all this and I'd like to be compensated, but I don't see that happening. Are other OSs any better? How do I get my privacy back?

:)

 

Windows 10 Creators Update to Feature New Levels of Privacy Control

Just a tiny step closer before I'll upgrade to windows 10....

 

Windows 10 Tweaks

As you may already know, Windows 10 (as well as Windows 8) allow you to log in with a valid Microsoft account, instead of creating a local account that only works on your machine. However, you may prefer to keep a local account for privacy reasons. If you do, though, some Windows 10 features—like Cortana—may not work. Despite the default behavior, the Windows 10 Store is not one of them. You can still log in to your Microsoft account for just the Store without switching to a full Microsoft account. The process, however, is not terribly obvious. To do so, follow these steps:

• Launch the Store from your Start menu.
• Click the user icon next to the search box.
• Click “Sign-in” from the menu that appears.
• Choose “Microsoft account” and log in like normal.
• When the “Make it yours” box appears do not enter your password. Instead, click “Sign in to just this app instead.”

from Lifehacker

 

Windows 10 Tweaks

Privacy tweaks...

• Turn Cortana Off. Bring up the Start menu and start typing. Click on the notebook icon in the left sidebar and choose Settings. From there, you can turn off Cortana.
• Search online and include web results. When you turn off Cortana, you’ll see this option appear. You can turn it off if you’d rather not get web search suggestions from the Start menu, which log your typing and send it back to Microsoft so you can get live-updating predictions, just like you do on Google.com or in Chrome and Firefox.
• Getting to Know You. In Settings > Privacy > Speech, Inking, & Typing, you’ll find a feature called “Getting to Know You”. This is probably the most sweeping privacy setting on the system, and even after turning off Cortana, you’ll have to disable this setting. Just click the “Stop Getting to Know Me” button to turn it off.
• Cloud Info. Turning off Getting to Know You removes info from your device, but you’ll have to remove it from the cloud separately. In that same window, click “Go to Bing and manage personal info for all your devices” to clear the Getting to Know You Data from your Microsoft account.

• If you head to Settings > Privacy > Feedback & Diagnostics, you’ll see two settings:

• Feedback frequency: Windows will occasionally ask you for feedback so you can send Microsoft your thoughts on Windows 10. If you’d rather it not bug you with such things, you can change it to Never.
• Diagnostic and usage data: This feature can send a lot of data back to Microsoft, including how often you use certain apps, which apps you use most often, and memory snapshots (which can inadvertently include parts of a document you’re working on if something crashes). You can change this to Full, Enhanced, or Basic. You can read more about what each of these to here.

Microsoft doesn’t let you turn off diagnostics completely, except on Enterprise versions of Windows. The Basic setting, they say, is data that is “vital to the operation of Windows”, including Windows Update and malicious software protection.


some may be duplicated. I found this info on Lifehacker, if anyone wants the full article.