Back in June, I posted my reasons for not upgrading to Windows 10. Apparently, I'm not the only one thinking along these lines, because TechRepublic posted their own five reasons today.
Their list is a little different than mine, although it includes many of the same points, but I really liked the way they broke down the privacy concerns:
By default Windows 10 collects more data than many users are comfortable with. This includes information about how Windows and Windows apps are used, what you type, your contacts, your location, calendar appointments and more. If the virtual assistant Cortana is enabled, this data extends to web browsing history, voice commands and even more information about your activity.
Users of Home and Pro versions of Windows 10 can only reduce this data collection to the "Basic" level. On this setting, Windows 10 collects information about security settings, quality-related info (such as crashes and hangs), and application compatibility. Microsoft describes this information as being essential for maintaining and improving the quality of Windows 10 and says that only "anonymous identifiers" are transmitted.
However, questions remain about the information that Windows 10 sends back to Microsoft, even when you turn the data gathering settings down a minimum. Tech website Arstechnica found that even with the virtual assistant Cortana disabled, Windows 10 sends a request to www.bing.com that appears to contain a random machine ID that persists across reboots.
Similarly, even when Microsoft OneDrive cloud storage was disabled and Windows 10 was not tied to a Microsoft account, the OS still seemed to be sending information to a server connected to OneDrive. While Microsoft stressed there is no query or search data being sent, Arstechnica queried the inclusion of a machine ID.
ZDNet's Ed Bott has said the very basic telemetry data collected by Microsoft is anonymized and doesn't reveal anything more than very high-level information along the lines of an unidentified Windows 10 user ran a particular app for half an hour.
However, for some users, even the gathering of anonymized usage data is more than they're willing to put up with.
They also give some good points about Update control:
Windows 10's update process happens both more frequently and less obviously, with Windows Home and Pro users automatically receiving updates when they're available.
Windows Home users have less control over how long they can postpone updates for, and less easily-available information about what changes these updates will make.
The lack of control that Home users have over when updates are applied led to a group of users petitioning Microsoft to let them delay and refuse these downloads. Their reasoning was that since forced updates can crash machines, for instance via bad firmware or driver updates, all users need control over how updates are applied.I still like my list better, but theirs it worth reading.