[theclaw]

They do ignore the hosts file, it’s true - but they don’t ignore windows built-in firewall. I used it to blacklist a bunch of hosts when I had wireshark open to diagnose an unrelated problem and noticed all my keystrokes in the start menu search box were being sent to MS, as well as details about every application I launched. The search box keystrokes were going to onedrive - presumably to show me files matching from there, but I don’t see why they can’t download a list of files and locally search that. Sending every keystroke in that box is unnecessary.

[tor_user]

Very interesting info, but they own the OS and in some cases the compiler: https://www.infoq.com/news/2016/06/visual-cpp-telemetry

Given that, I don't care to engage in whack a mole with them. They have the upper hand.

Safe for visual studio and visual studio code users to assume that the IDEs are sending telemetry too.

In my case the best thing is to avoid the OS. And github and whatever else their malign influence could eventually own.