As soon as you read the title of this post, there will of course be someone who rhetorically wonders, when Windows wasn’t spyware. But the truth is that as the years go by and the versions of the Microsoft operating system follow each other, everything gets worse in this regard. Windows 11 is therefore the worst we have ever seen.

But that’s not what I’m saying. Or I just don’t say it. But before I get down to business, I’d like to remind you what this is all about spyware, spyware. According to Wikipedia in the introduction to its article dedicated to describing this concept:

Spyware (short for spyware) is software with malicious behavior designed to collect information about a person or organization and send it to another entity in a way that harms the user, such as invading their privacy or compromising the security of your device. This behavior can be present in both malware and legitimate software. […] Spyware is often associated with advertising […]. Because this behavior is so common and can have harmless uses, providing an accurate definition of spyware is a difficult task.

It is worth remembering this, because it is very easy to resort to «spyware it’s software that spies’, because while the description is correct, it falls far short of a problem as complex as this one. And it is precisely “invasion of privacy” that can occur in many ways, and not all of them are equally harmful.

For example, many people agree to lose some of their privacy in order to access products and services for free or for less, and that’s not a bad thing either. For now. But back to Windows, which is what worries us… for the worse, say the experts at UK YouTube channel The PC Security Channel.

The question has become Windows spyware in fact it is theirs and they answer to it and analyzing outgoing traffic from Windows 11 with a freshly installed system when the user does not even open the application. Or as they say, what every user who buys a new computer with Windows 11 will find – without realizing it, of course.

The analysis they perform is basically well known and is based on filtering outbound traffic from the computer. And what is found in the factory Windows are multiple and constant connections to all kinds of sites, from your own to Amazon, advertising sites, sites of security solution distributors… A submachine gun of unsolicited connections, which has no parallel in the history of the system.

The test is interesting because, to illustrate how things have evolved – for the worse, it’s worth insisting – they repeat it with Windows XP and observe how the veteran connects only to Windows Update and a few other harmless services. From night to day go; and while one might argue that the comparison doesn’t make sense given all that’s changed over the years, it does show that we’re getting worse.

You can watch the full video below, but if you don’t speak English, I’ll summarize it for you: indiscriminately connecting to sites that will track you with Windows 11, all with next to no use. Yes, most likely by accepting the terms of use you have given them permission to do whatever they want, but…