Do You Need to Worry About Privacy in Windows 10? Answer is NO

If you search about Windows 10 on Internet or if you talk about Windows 10 with anyone, the search or conversation starts with Windows 10 telemetry, automatic data collection and user's privacy. It seems everyone is so much worried about the privacy and is afraid of using Windows 10. But this topic will clear all your doubts and you'll find a detailed explanation of what kind of data Windows 10 collects and sends to Microsoft.

After reading this topic, you'll get the answer whether you should use Windows 10 or not!

First let's talk about what is telemetry and data collection which everyone talks about:

People say that Windows 10 automatically collects users data and sends it to Microsoft. People also claim that Windows 10 connects to several Microsoft servers automatically but they don't know why? People even claim that Windows 10 comes with a built-in keylogger which automatically stores your typed data and sends everything to Microsoft which is absolutely wrong and funny actually.

So what's the truth? What kind of data Windows 10 collects and why?

In today's world of Internet, almost all software collect some diagnostics data to improve software functionality and to add required features in future versions. If you check any software settings, you'll find such kind of options to send data to the developer. Similar to those software, Windows 10 also collects some diagnostics data and sends it to Microsoft servers. But this data is anonymous and only includes statistics and usage data such as which kind of apps are used frequently, what phrases are searched frequently, how do users find regular settings and options, etc. It helps Microsoft in showing helpful app suggestions in Start Menu, better search results in Cortana, latest Spotlight content on Lock Screen, etc.

Windows 10 provides settings and options to turn off data collection. You can control your privacy in Windows 10 by following our exclusive tutorial to apply best privacy settings in Windows 10:

And if you are worried about Cortana Search and modern (metro) apps data collection, you can uninstall/disable them using following guides:

Common guys, Microsoft will never collect any personal information. They are not going to collect your credit card details, your software license keys, your mobile numbers, etc. They just collect some anonymous diagnostics data which is used by Microsoft to add new features in upcoming Windows 10 Insider Preview builds and to improve Windows 10 functionality. The collected data helps Microsoft in making Windows 10 a perfect OS.

People say you can't completely disable telemetry and data collection in Windows 10. That's true, so what? In fact Microsoft also mentions that. 

Microsoft clearly mentions that even if you set the option to allow telemetry to '0', it'll still send some security related data to the company and what does this data contain? Suppose you downloaded a file from Internet and it contained a virus or spyware in it. The built-in security program Windows Defender or SmartScreen filter detected the suspicious item and cleaned the file. Windows 10 will send this information to Microsoft so that the company can add this information to the known suspicious items list and can prevent other people from downloading such files in future. This security data is only collected to improve functionality of Windows Defender and other security features of Windows 10 so that Microsoft can provide a safer environment to all Windows 10 users.

You can also disable this security data collection if you want. 

Believe me, Windows 10 is the best operating system Microsoft ever developed and its safer and more secure than any previous Windows version, so stop worrying about telemetry and data collection issues. Also never use any 3rd party software or tweak to disable/block Microsoft server IP addresses. These software block several IPs and domains via Firewall rules and hosts file which can cause some serious issues as a side effect. 

So the bottomline is that Windows 10 is an absolutely safe OS and you can use it without any worries. Since its free to upgrade to Windows 10 from genuine Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1 OS, you can hurry up and switch to Windows 10 now.

There are reports that Microsoft may add new options to completely disable telemetry and data collection in future Windows 10 builds but there is no confirmation from Microsoft. We can only wait and watch the development of Windows 10 Insider Preview builds.

So go ahead and install Windows 10 if you haven't installed it yet. You'll enjoy the OS, believe me!