Don’t matter, no one was watching 
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Well perhaps you should, Linux has a back door which anyone with the password can use - something Windows doesn’t have
We are already living in the dystopian future
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Which backdoor might that be?
What makes you think MS does not have such a thing?
Any device that has an update service is gathering information on the state of the system or programs being used. I use Linux Mint sometimes and know how many updates it receives. It gets them far more frequently than Windows does. How will the Linux Mint servers know what updates are needed without looking into the system?
Anyway, it’s the browser and our Internet usage that profile us more than the OS does. Although tracking around the Internet can be limited by various measures, it’s never certain that it has been completely stopped.
A Firefox extension called ‘Lightbeam’ can show this. Install it and then install a favourite anti-tracker extension, even multiple ones. Browse the Internet for a while and then look at the graphical representation of the tracking that has taken place. I couldn’t block it all no matter what was tried. Even if successful for a while, some trackers eventually popped up.
If only one or two trackers/data gatherers aren’t blocked, they all ‘talk’ to others anyway. The Lightbeam extension won’t show that activity because it happens in the background away from your computer.
Stop blocking for a while and Lightbeam shows how many do communicate with each other. If even one of those is not blocked by an anti-tracking extension, it’s probable that it ‘talks’ to many of those trackers that have been. If that is the case, what is the point in blocking any of them?
Overall though, I find any lack of privacy and/or the amount of data gathering has little or no effect of life in general. I’ve never had anything untoward happen to me because of it. One comforting point might be that to the trackers/data gatherers/cookies we are only an IP address, not a full name and address. No tracker is likely to be interested in attempting to find out what that is.
There are all those places we have given our names and addresses to voluntarily. They could do a bit of communicating with other places I suppose.
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This one:
Correction.
Ref. Where it reads. “Microsoft Start”. S/B “Yahoo’s Home page”
‘Senior Mo’ 
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Thanks for clarifying the browser start up. I use Microsoft Start, and haven’t seen anything pertaining to astrology. I am well into astrology daily, and never had this issue. 
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Clearly A Discrete Lady. 
Just imagine, how saturated your inbox would have been.
If AI. Got their greasy hands on that, And Intelligently Art-ificialed it.
All the way >> X
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And it would have been a ‘pinup’ on my workshop wall…
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Ah yes I remember. This was indeed a huge surprise. Luckily the backdoor was found and removed. On my local machines I have incoming SSH connections disabled.
After all it seems I do not have to worry about MS spying on me.