Could Windows and installed apps upload all my personal files?

Dear all

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

  1. I would like to know, which other ways that my personal files could be uploaded in a non-malicious non-hacker way?
  2. Just by using Windows, Microsoft could upload all my personal files to themselves if they would?
  3. 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).

    • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      13·
      21 hours ago

      Buddy, given your relatively basic questions and how you’re posting to every single fucking vaguely relared community, I would highly suggest you do some studying on just… basic computer concepts and how to use them. Not sure what resources are out there anymore, but maybe some basic “these are the parts of a computer, these are programs and how they work” stuff from the 90s. They used to do middle school classes on how to properly use google and other seaech engines to find trustworthy information for citing in research papers. I seriously suggest you start there.

      Then, after you understand the basics maybe you start trying to understand how all of that works in regards to security and the concept of trust in the software you install and run.

      Spoiler alert: Computers are not designed with any sort of “zero trust” architecture like you seem to be shocked that they don’t have. Things are not sandboxed, segmented, or otherwise prevented from accessing other stuff as a general rule.

      This is why one of the bare minimum basics is “don’t run anything you don’t trust”.

      • happeningtofry99158@lemmy.worldOP
        32·
        20 hours ago

        thank you you seem to understand very much about windows and computer. May I ask

        How to run something you don’t trust without performance lost?

        How to restrict software permission with open source software?

        If you don’t want to type please provide videos and articles you read before that address my question

        I’m keen to read

        Thank you

        • BombOmOm@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          9 hours ago

          How to run something you don’t trust without performance lost?

          A virtual machine is generally your best choice. You build a little box around it and tell it to have fun inside that box.

          It doesn’t work well for games (you can do it with games, but it’s generally not worth it), but for smaller programs, it is a very reliable choice with minimal performance impact.