Brave blocks Microsoft Recall by default

You have to opt in to Recall. You must have a “Copilot+ PC” which has an “NPU”. The snapshots are stored and processed locally.

> The snapshots are stored and processed locally.

Even if that's the design, it's a massive new attack surface for malware to try to exfiltrate.

Then don't turn it on?

Oh, I won't, but MS has the unfortunate recurring habit of turning features on against users' will, at best giving the option to "Remind me in 3 days".

Or the old "oops we installed an upgrade and accidentally flipped your setting by on purpose not having QA"

I don't know how many times I've had to tell Windows that I don't want Edge to be my default browser and OneDrive should not open at login.

Locally for how long? You know, all that data how you interact with a PC are just too tempting ...

Better yet, how about not making visual keylogger code part of the OS to begin with.

I’d be pretty nervous about running Windows with this even able to be enabled.

No way the benefit:risk ratio makes the slightest sense in this case.

Opt in for now. Locally for now.

Don't forget that Recall was initially on by default. It wasn't until users were like, WTF, did they make it off by default.

That will last for as long as it takes for the value of privacy and ownership erodes further and then it'll get switched back to on by default.

I have one of those PCs, but I have Linux running on it. Can I use the NPU for anything useful? It seems not at the moment (am using AMD)

This “feature” was made for corporate owned window machines, who will force it enabled via policies.

Even if processing and storage is local, it is just too damn easy to abuse the feature from remote.

Imagine how useful it would be for software vendors (Microsoft included): "We have implemented new feature X, how are our users interacting with it? Let's ask their Recall AI about it".

This could essentially become telemetry on steroids.

In the start telemetry was seen as outrageously user-hostile spying, too. Look where we are now. We are all frogs, at least Microsoft is banking on it.

Exactly, and I think that the real goal is for enterprises (and MS itself) to collect training data for Computer Use AI agents.

My "favorite" tactless Windows update story in recent memory was when an update pinned a Copilot link to my taskbar. I unpinned it, then a few weeks later another update added the Copilot link back to my taskbar, but not as a pinned app. Rather it replaced the god damn "show desktop" button in the bottom right of the screen! They replaced an always on-screen OS navigation button that's been there since Windows 7 with an ad!!

I hope to god that Valve takes the opportunity they have with Steam OS to give us a potential real alternative to Windows that focuses on gaming support. Cause that's literally the only reason I'm forced to continue using this Microsoft adware slop of an OS.

> They replaced an always on-screen OS navigation button that's been there since Windows 7 with an ad!!

That must be doing wonders for the click rate. I can see the pre-promotion powerpoint slide now: "User engagement with Copilot is showing exponential growth"

Promotions all around! Line goes up and all it cost was continuing to make even more of our customers hate our product and our company!

There is currently no policy setting to do this. The available policy settings are "disable Recall and do not allow users to enable it" (which is the default) and "allow users to enable Recall, but leave it disabled by default".