Use Ultimate Windows Tweaker to deal with Windows 10's privacy settings
Still worried about privacy issues in Windows 10? There are a whole lot of settings menus you can go digging through to turn off how much data is shared with Microsoft, or you could tackle most of those questionable settings in one place. The newly released Ultimate Windows Tweaker 4 can supposedly “make your system faster, more stable, personal and more secure with just a few mouse clicks,” according to TheWindowsClub, where you can download it. There are all kinds of UI tweaking options, but we’re mostly interested in the privacy settings.
The 495 KB download contains over 200 tweaks, allowing you to customize Windows 10 to your heart’s content. It allows you to disable certain settings which may affect your privacy such as Cortana, Telemetry, and the Taskbar Web Search.
The major ones we’d recommend disabling are Telemetry and your advertising ID means Windows won’t have access to information regarding targeting you with advertisements. Turning off Windows Update Sharing will stop using your system to help disseminate Windows Update files to other users, so tick that off if you care about every ounce of bandwidth. You can also disable things relating to security such as the registry editor or CMD, though we wouldn’t recommend it.
The tweaker is portable, as it doesn’t need to be installed. If you want to remove the program you just have to delete the program folder. Settings can also be toggled on and off at will, so you don’t have to worry about making any irreversible changes. If you’re interested, the full list of tweaks is available here.
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