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Could Windows and installed apps upload all my personal files? (lemmy.world)

submitted 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) by happeningtofry99158@lemmy.world to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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Could Windows and installed apps upload all my personal files?

Dear all

I have deleted Onedrive and disabled File system access in Privacy.

I would like to know, which other ways that my personal files could be uploaded in a non-malicious non-hacker way?
Just by using Windows, Microsoft could upload all my personal files to themselves if they would?
Does every installed App / software have full access to my whole drive? How can I found out, how much access it has?

Thank you for your interest and reply

Best regards

@Rikudou_Sage@lemmy.world

Yes, every application has access to everything. The only exception are those weird apps that use the universal framework or whatever that thing is called, those need to ask for permissions. But most of the apps on your PC have full access to everything.

And Windows does collect and upload a lot of personal information and they could easily upload everything on your system. The same of course applies for the apps as well, they have access to everything except privileged folders (those usually don’t contain your personal data, but system files).

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[–] happeningtofry99158@lemmy.world 1 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

what about other program?

[–] adespoton@lemmy.ca 5 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

There are an infinite number of programs that could do this. Will they? Probably not.

Best thing is to install a trustworthy personal firewall, and block all outbound network access for all processes, and then enable as needed. This won’t stop Windows itself, but it will give you a heads-up if something else is trying to send data somewhere and you can make an informed choice at the time.

[–] happeningtofry99158@lemmy.world 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

trustworthy personal firewall

what do you use?

[–] adespoton@lemmy.ca 3 points 6 hours ago

Little Snitch on a Mac.

[–] Geodad@lemmy.world 4 points 6 hours ago

Those are the only ones I'm certain of. I run Linux so I don't have to be spied on by my OS.