We are past the stage where the OS has become the virus

[Fulvio]

I spent some time researching the topic (how to make Windows usable, to say it in a nutshell). Finally I gave up..

Windows Firewall is really good and easy to setup.
Set the default to block all inbound and outbound traffic.
Disable (if you delete them they will be recreated on updates) all the rules, except for the "core networking" ones.
After that you have full control of your system and no program can connect to internet without your permission, not even Microsoft's updates, telemetry, etc...
Add a rule for each program (like your browser) to which you want to grant internet access.

[cpeters]

Windows Firewall is really good and easy to setup.
[...]
After that you have full control of your system and no program can connect to internet without your permission, not even Microsoft's updates, telemetry, etc...

But you're trying here at best with an admin-account to limit the scope/rights of NT-Authority/System/whatever is doing, no? Fighting from Windows against Windows so to speak. I would not trust this process to be sufficient (but would filter from outside instead).
Apple did some new perhaps silly things to their firewall (hide processes for application-firewalls) in Big Sur too, but reverted them.

There's a document from a German Bundesamt to 'harden' (just telemetry!) the WindowsOS 10:
https://www.bsi.bund.de/SharedDocs/Down ... onFile&v=1
for me this is highly confusing stuff. SVChost- and Pifts.exe all over the place. The required steps to achieve silence also show that the default-configuration for this monstrosity is beyond sane; I wouldn't want to read through this if I were an eighty-year-old user.
Thank god and the good souls for writing elegant man-pages (jolly entertaing for a senior, highly understandable) of *nix processes and programs! The windows dextop utilizes this with 'msys' now for good.

mclane wrote:

Don't put the chess computers/PCs to the internet. Do internet with another machine.

What do you mean by 'another machine'? If the code can't stand the outside world, what use does it have? If there are vulnerable services/programs running, disable/update them them.
But keeping half-configured (not updated for convinience I understand) shit from the net for a variety of reasons, is generally a good idea.

[ydebilloez]

...
Set the default to block all inbound and outbound traffic.
...

Run windows in a VM on e.g. Mac Os X, and run little snitch firewall on Mac Os X to see what windows is doing. You might be surprised to see that windows even embeds 'calling home' inside DNS queries that are hidden behind some dns names that in fact call to NSA datacenters... No matter what rules you put in the FW, some things cannot be turned off. As long as you use windows, you agree that MS collects or allows to collect all kinds of data.

Android and iOS are no better, Mac Os is a bit better but the only real thing is Linux... (beware ubuntu to some extend)

Even with linux, if you use a browser to navigate internet on the same machine you will still expose yourself. This should not impact your machine and the chess engine as long as you keep your browser closed while running chess programs.

Not posted from Internet Explorer from a Facebook page...

[IanKennedy]

I keep my two fastest machines offline. Main issue wrt computer chess is when you want to run a commercial engine that enforces internet activation. IIRC some will let you manually transfer a license key to a second machine if you register the engine on your connected PC first. Possibly not Chessbase though.

[Modern Times]

Check out this article for two visually stunning Linux distros:

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/ga ... x-desktop/

Garuda and Deepin. The latter is Chinese based so likely to be banned by the U.S. on a whim

[cpeters]

Even with linux, if you use a browser to navigate internet on the same machine you will still expose yourself. This should not impact your machine and the chess engine as long as you keep your browser closed while running chess programs.

One can try to limit active things/harm with uBlock and firejail.
But, sure, if you request a service, you somewhat exposing yourself.

[mvanthoor]

You can. See https://linuxmint.com/release.php?id=39 for a long term stable distro (use the "Edge" kernel version for recent hardware such as Ryzen 4000 laptops). Or if you want a rolling release distro, https://manjaro.org is a good one. Otherwise, you can curse all day through, but as long as you still keep using Windows, you're telling Microsoft that you agree with their practices because actions speak louder than words.

No you can't. The operating system is not the most important piece of software: the applications are. Most users don't buy a computer to run an operating system, they buy it to run applications. Then they choose the operating system that runs most of those applications. In my case, I was contemplating to move over to Debian Linux; I've tried it many times in the past, and always returned to Windows. Not because of Debian or Linux being crap or bothersome, but because of the software I want or need to run. Some examples:

Chess:
- The Fritz GUI. Arena is OK, but compared to Fritz, it feels clunky. (Arena's tournament facility is better though; but for that I use CuteChess.)
- Chessbase. I've tried to use Scid. I really tried. It can be done, and the basics are available, but Chessbase is the standard. If you need to know anything, how to do anything, you can just look it up in the manual, or find it online within seconds. Not so with Scid. (Also on Windows, Scid often leaves the analysis engine as a zombie process, which Chessbase doesn't do.)

Photography and Office:
- Capture One, and Affinity Photo, or LightRoom and Photoshop, if you don't mind paying up for Adobe stuff or need that software, as it is the standard. Darktable and RawTherapee are fine programs, but Lightroom is just more convenient, and Capture One is A LOT more powerful. All of those are (expensive) commercial software packages, but when doing (semi-)professional photography, you need well-supported, standard software. It takes too much time to try and find out how to do X in DarkTable / Gimp, if you can just look it up for Capture One / Affinity or LightRoom / Photoshop. And, in this case, the commercial packages can do things the open source offerings just can't. (PS: You could run this software on a Mac if you want, but a PC is more powerful for the same money.)
- Eizo ColorNavigator, which I need to calibrate my monitor, doesn't run on Linux.
- Some people actually NEED Microsoft Office for collaboration purposes or using Microsoft services, others WANT it. LibreOffice is fine for stand-alone documents (I use it too), but if you need to use MS Services or need to collaborate, it doesn't cut it.

Music and E-books
- Handling FLAC files can be done on Linux, but there are just better GUI's (better maintained, more user-friendly, more functionality) available for Windows; both open-source and paid. Yes, I know streaming is in today, and I sometimes stream radio (and I have Netflix), but I'm not going to give up my massive personal music library.
- Even though Calibre is available for Linux, both Kindle for PC and Adobe Digital Editions (the software to download the e-books) are only available for Windows and Mac. The DeDRM-plugin, to remove encryption from books works in tandem with K4PC or ADE. It can be done with Wine, but it's a huge hassle to get working. (The DeDRM decrypts books: it basically opens the book using ADE's key, reads it, and then writes it back to the hard disk again without the encryption. So, this only works with books you bought yourself: you can't "crack" decrypted books.)

Games:
- Even though there are now (some) games that get a Linux version, and you can run games in Wine, it's just MUCH easier on Windows, especially if you use either Steam or GOG.com: buy, download, install, play. It _always_ works, if your computer is powerful enough and you don't have any weird problems.

Hardware:
- There's still a lot of hardware that doesn't work with Linux. The DGT-board only started working with Linux when Picochess became stable in 2015, and it's basically still the only option if you're not on Windows. (On Windows, the only viable option is Fritz for playing against engines, because the support by other programs is lackluster in comparison.)
- Many Logitech mice don't fully work on Linux, except if you write your own button mappings. On Windows, you just install Logitech Options, and you have 5 million settings available.
- Same with printers... you'll have to figure out Cups, and Foomatic, and stuff... on Windows, you install the driver, select either USB or network, and print. With *any* printer. You don't even need to think if the printer/scanner/copier is supported; it WILL be.

Don't get me wrong. I love Linux. I love BASH. MSYS2/Bash is my main shell on Windows, and before that, I used Cygwin and Windows Services for Unix before that. I abhor Powershell.

The point is: Yes, I _can_ do most things with Linux, but compared to Windows, it is just inconvenient, especially with regard to the user-facing software. Some things I can't even do. Windows is the only operating system that basically runs EVERYTHING, including Linux shells. As I said, with regard to user-facing software, I don't have to think if I can do something on Windows; I can automatically assume I can.

I do have two Raspberry Pi's running Picochess though, and a NUC that runs Bubble Upnp Server to cast music around the apartment. I might even convert the NUC that runs Pianoteq (a virtual piano instrument for connection to my digital piano) to Linux... but when I do, it'll be a hassle to get the external sound module running. On Windows, I just install the driver, plug the USB-cable in, and it runs. So maybe I'll just leave it running as it is now, because the Windows version was paid for (OEM) 6 years ago, upgraded to Win10, and everything just works.

So yes, I'd love to switch to Linux because of the customizability, the fancy capabilities in the desktops (especially KDE), and the massively powerful command-line... but it just can't run the software I either need or want to run. Not on the desktop or laptop, so it's a no-go. I do use Linux for computers that have a dedicated purpose though, such as the Raspberry's and at least one of the NUC's, and that's not going to change.

Linux for software development; yes.
Linux for running servers; yes.
Linux on a computer dedicated to one cause: yes.
Linux for a general purpose computer running a lot of user-software: no. And I don't see that changing very soon.

[Ras]

No you can't. The operating system is not the most important piece of software: the applications are.

And there's a lot of them under Linux. What you summed up basically says that Windows is the best OS for running Windows applications. Well yeah, that's obvious. The question is whether you want to stay on a wagon that has gone downhills and shows no signs of slowdown, and at which point you're so annoyed that you'd take the jump. It's of course more difficult if you've painted yourself in a corner with proprietary Windows-only applications.

Arena tournaments? One game at a time. Great. That's what I have a multi-core CPU for. I'm using c-chess-cli with as many games in parallel as I have logical cores, and the PC doesn't become laggy, i.e. I can keep using it. Chessbase? I've avoided them like the plague for decades because their customer hostile copy protection mechanism got them on my blacklist back then.

Professional software such as Photoshop is a different matter, but regular users don't run Photoshop on their private machines, and they don't need MS Word either. On the other hand, you will have the enterprise edition in a company anyway, and an IT department to take care of the machines so that it won't be your problem.

Hardware? Older printers often don't work under Windows anymore because there's no driver. My brand-new Ryzen laptop worked out of the box under Linux. It has become a lot better, compared to 20 years ago. Actually, I was so lazy during the installation that I just cloned my desktop SSD onto the laptop - and it booted up without issues.

DRM? I don't buy DRM'ed content because digital restriction management is customer hostile. You don't actually own anything.

I have migrated several end users in my family from Win 7 (which was great) to Linux because I find Win 10 just unbearable. Works out nicely so far. Now, it's of course your choice to stay on Windows, but then don't wonder about Microsoft treating you badly. They exploit your judgement that you can't get away from them. This is not like vendor and customer, it's like an abusive relationship.

It will only get worse because Microsoft disbanded a large part of their Windows QA. As Windows Home user, you are now the unpaid beta tester for the enterprise editions. This will not change because Microsoft is shifting their priorities. They don't want to be perceived as "the Windows company" anymore because they have much more profitable areas than that. They allocate their resources rather there because that makes sense from a business perspective.

[mvanthoor]

And there's a lot of them under Linux. What you summed up basically says that Windows is the best OS for running Windows applications. Well yeah, that's obvious.

In many fields, the best, or even only applications, _are_ Windows applications.

The question is whether you want to stay on a wagon that has gone downhills and shows no signs of slowdown, and at which point you're so annoyed that you'd take the jump. It's of course more difficult if you've painted yourself in a corner with proprietary Windows-only applications.

As I said above: there are many applications under Windows for which there is no viable Linux alternative, if you cross a certain level of needed functionality. Chessbase vs. Scid, MSOffice vs. LibreOffice, Affinity / Photoshop vs. Gimp, Capture One vs. DarkTable, Corel Painter vs. Krita... and I could go on, for hours.

Chessbase? I've avoided them like the plague for decades because their customer hostile copy protection mechanism got them on my blacklist back then.

And you're right: Chessbase has user-unfriendly copy protection. I'd love to switch to Arena and Scid (which are the biggest competitors to Fritz and ChessBase), but they just don't cut it. I've used them for months on end since I started working on my engine, and I'm either just missing functionality or finding problems.

Professional software such as Photoshop is a different matter, but regular users don't run Photoshop on their private machines, and they don't need MS Word either. On the other hand, you will have the enterprise edition in a company anyway, and an IT department to take care of the machines so that it won't be your problem.

There, you're mistaken. There are many people who do run Photoshop, LightRoom, MSOffice (including Outlook) on their personal machines. If they actually NEED it, is of no consequence: they WANT it, and refuse to use anything else, often because they use this software at work. It's the same with programming languages. Most people I know that use X at work, use X at home for their personal stuff; I'm one of the few, also at my company, that uses C# at work, but absolutely refuse to write anything in it at home. I'd rather use FreePascal.

Hardware? Older printers often don't work under Windows anymore because there's no driver. My brand-new Ryzen laptop worked out of the box under Linux. It has become a lot better, compared to 20 years ago. Actually, I was so lazy during the installation that I just cloned my desktop SSD onto the laptop - and it booted up without issues.

Yes, it's better, but there's still quite a lot of hardware that people buy off the shelf, without thinking, that won't run (completely) under Linux.

DRM? I don't buy DRM'ed content because digital restriction management is customer hostile. You don't actually own anything.

Easier said than done. If you buy and read e-books, it's almost impossible to buy anything without DRM as soon as you venture outside the public domain. Therefore I buy e-books in formats where the DRM can be removed immediately after purchasing. If it can't be removed, I won't buy it.

I have migrated several end users in my family from Win 7 (which was great) to Linux because I find Win 10 just unbearable. Works out nicely so far. Now, it's of course your choice to stay on Windows, but then don't wonder about Microsoft treating you badly. They exploit your judgement that you can't get away from them. This is not like vendor and customer, it's like an abusive relationship.

I can easily get away from Windows. I can't get away from the applications that are written for ONLY Windows (or the Mac, sometimes), because there are no alternatives that are up to par.

It will only get worse because Microsoft disbanded a large part of their Windows QA. As Windows Home user, you are now the unpaid beta tester for the enterprise editions. This will not change because Microsoft is shifting their priorities. They don't want to be perceived as "the Windows company" anymore because they have much more profitable areas than that. They allocate their resources rather there because that makes sense from a business perspective.

So in that case, we don't have a viable operating system at all anymore.

Linux doesn't run many applications I want to run (except when jacking around with Wine).
MacOS runs only on Macs where you pay €800 for a NUC-like computer that goes for €500 in the Windows world.
And Windows is slowly becoming more junk.

The only way out is if companies realize that MacOS forces users to use certain hardware, and that Windows is becoming junk, and thus they'd need to write their commercial applications for Linux, because that gives the end-user all the options. However... they won't, because there are 50 million Linux distributions, and no company can support that. So they might write their applications for Debian and/or Red Hat (or Ubuntu, god help me), and then they'll be shunned by the open source community as well for not supporting the distribution of the day.

[flok]

As a friend of mine often says: "this discussion has no winners, only tears and broken friendships" (originally in Dutch, it may be lost in translation here).
I think it applies to this discussion.