Are there any open-source tools that allow me to disable telemetry for Adobe, Windows, Microsoft, NVIDIA, AMD, GitHub Desktop, Docker Desktop, VS Code, and other applications? How can I disable telemetry and enhance my overall Windows experience?
Fair warning: even if you disable telemetry on Windows, it has a tendency and history of re-enabling itself after a major update. You shouldn’t expect it to be a one-and-done deal.
Thank you! If I find any script I will run those repeatedly after each update
Between the update happening and you running the script all of the re-enabled telemetry grabs all of your logs and uploads them.
You wouldn’t even make it through login after the update reboot before this happens.
You cannot remove this telemetry and also receive updates. This is by design.
Would SimpleWall or Portmaster solve this issue
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I’m sure that is great for battery life
Thanks. I uninstalled edge webview.
simplewall/Portmaster can completely cut the communication of Adobe, Nvidia and whatever other program you use, so you’d technically look like you are offline to them
Thank you. I believe this is the best option for now. As I don’t use their online service this would work well for me. But I’m not sure about driver updates
Microsoft is also constantly changing how stuff works, intertwining stuff so you can’t fully remove without breaking functionality. You used to get media expansion packs (stuff like av1, avif and webp support) through updates or you could download them from their site or use a Powershell command to install them, now you are forced to do it through the MS Store, and guess what happens if you uninstall the MS Store? (at least, a few months ago when I got a new Win11 install, removing MS Store removed the packages). Probably a lot of Edge removing tools are broken by now too, if you watch your network you gonna see Microsoft Edge WebView 2 calling tons of domains all the time, and if you remove it you kill your internet connection entirely (you can, however, block it on the firewall. It used to be just one service, but with some recent update it’s four different services you have to block now).
https://github.com/ShadowWhisperer/Remove-MS-Edge This still works for me.
Obviously, the most effective approach is to reduce the vector by not using them, or in some of these cases (NVIDIA, AMD, etc) only installing the drivers and not the additional software.
Other than that, the most effective approach I’ve found is analyzing and blocking the traffic at the router level.
Thank you. I use the official website to download drivers, but it seems they only provide packages like AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition or NVIDIA App for installing the drivers. How can I install only the drivers without the additional bundled software?
Also, which on-device traffic blocker would you recommend, and what rules do you use? Are those rules comprehensive enough to block all telemetry traffic?
I’m concerned that if the IP addresses of their servers change and the traffic blocker doesn’t update in time, some information from my device could still be transmitted. Because of that, I have some doubts about relying on traffic blockers alone.
I don’t use Windows or Adobe and things like that (I use Linux and before that I was running a Mac), but for VSCode you may consider using VSCodium instead which is the exact same app (the same source code, running the same extensions) just without MS telemetry.
Thank you!
I’d switch to Windows but I don’t want to use an OS that requires digging through shady online instructions and running random power shell scripts in order to stop it from spying on me until the next update.
I disabled telemetry on Linux(Arch, btw) by not installing enshittified corporate spyware masquerading as an operating system.
Are there any open-source tools that allow me to disable telemetry for Adobe,
Ocular/Scribus
Windows, Microsoft
Linux, Linux Foundation
NVIDIA, AMD
The drivers don’t have telemetry, it’s the software that comes with it.
On Linux you can just install the driver from your package manager without the need for any third party applications.
GitHub Desktop,
https://git-scm.com/downloads/guis?os=linux
Docker Desktop,
docker + https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Docker#Front-ends
VS Code
VS Codium, open source VS Code.
nvim if you want your (programming) life changed
and other applications?
Yes, the sad reality is that Windows is not quite there yet for desktop usage
I disabled telemetry on Linux(Arch, btw) by not installing enshittified corporate spyware masquerading as an operating system.
We have telemetry on linux?
The drivers don’t have telemetry, it’s the software that comes with it.
If drivers are not open source, how can we make sure of that?
Thank you for other suggestions.
There are a couple of things that can be done. Do keep in mind that most of these require some maintenance and checking, since windows updates are notorious for re enabling stuff:
- for windows itself, there are utilities like o&o shutup windows. This usually works quite well to go into the well hidden reg options to disable telemetry
- another good advice is to use such tool to straight up uninstall what ships with windows that you don’t need
- at the network level in your house, having a DNS block level service is great. Pihole and adguard come to mind. This solution is more involved and requires more time to setup, but has tremendous benefits not only on windows telemetry, but overall network telemetry
- if you are not in the capacity to have a network level service, setting up the machine to use nextdns is another good step. It is also a DNS block level kind of solution, but works by pointing the machine to the DNS to be used system wide. Do keep in mind is certainly possible for the system in places to use hardcoded DNS and ignore your options (at network level, you can always force to reroute to your local DNS. The case of DoH is a bit more tricky)
Hopefully this helps
at the network level in your house, having a DNS block level service is great. Pihole and adguard come to mind. This solution is more involved and requires more time to setup, but has tremendous benefits not only on windows telemetry, but overall network telemetry
Are there any on-device tools you could recommend? My laptop won’t always be connected to my home Wi-Fi, and some telemetry could still occur when it’s connected to other networks without my DNS configuration.
Do keep in mind is certainly possible for the system in places to use hardcoded DNS and ignore your options (at network level, you can always force to reroute to your local DNS. The case of DoH is a bit more tricky)
Thank you. I’m concerned that if the IP addresses of their servers change and the traffic blocker doesn’t update in time, some information from my device could still be transmitted. For the reasons you have listed and changing IP addresses of their servers , I have some doubts about relying on traffic blockers alone.
I recently discovered ReviOS. I just did a clean re-install of Windows with it. And its been great for the last few days. No dumb bloatware or spyware. Though not so privacy crazy as to break things. Supposedly it’s changes can’t be rolled back with updates due to the techniques they use. We’ll see
What was it, Glasswire? Tinywall? Them!
GlassWire does not appear to be open-source. In addition to TinyWall, I also found Portmaster.
