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submitted 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) by happeningtofry99158@lemmy.world to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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).

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[-] happeningtofry99158@lemmy.world 1 points 14 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.world 1 points 2 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.

this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2025
17 points (84.0% liked)

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