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I am looking for a tool to configure the various privacy and related settings in Windows 10.

It should allow me to configure all the various options for sending data or "phoning home" that windows 10 has, as well as the various annoyances, such as automatically installing promoted apps like "Candy Crush Soda Saga"

  • ideally it would have some short plain language explanation for each option, and the possible negative consequences for disabling them

  • ideally it would allow me to configure options that are very hidden or not available at all trough the normal windows GUI (I.e. the candy crush setting is only available through the registry)

  • it should obviously itself be spyware-free and not send any information to the internet or install unwanted software

  • It should not get broken in future windows updates, or break future windows updates. Since it is hard to predict the future, this probably means some sort of active development team that tests and reacts to windows updates.

  • price is a minor concern. It does not have to be free.

I found several tools that proclaim to offer something of that sort. Some look promising, among them:

I am a bit worried that trying out all of these tools would break something, and I don't know how to verify how well each tool actually works.

I am looking for a recommendation from someone with a deeper understanding of these issues.

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  • A simple google search on a feature in one of the listed programs would probably give you the results you want. Also you don't even know what you want. Something that you consider an annoyance might be very useful to someone else, so there isn't a program that fixes annoyances.
    – jan
    Commented Jun 17, 2016 at 19:31

1 Answer 1

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I have literally used all the above tools myself, and I would recommend Win10Privacy(and WinAero Tweaker as an add-on).

The reason being their robustness and portability, and they are less likely going to mess up with your system. In addition these tools are regularly maintained thus ensuring compatibility even after Windows updates itself.

The GUIs are quite user friendly as well, and as I said they don't mess up or break up some functionality as far as I am concerned that's why I have been using them till date. It's quite easy to block telemetry address, fine tune privacy settings and similarly WinAero Tweaker has a functionality of disabling recommended apps like Candy Crush and they are free as well.

Just as a safety precaution, be sure to always create a restore point whenever you wish to change any privacy settings, but I haven't seen any complications even when I didn't perform a backup prior to usage.

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