In the continuing war for your data, and amidst increasing privacy concerns regarding Windows 11 and some of its more controversial features, there are some who continue to dedicate themselves to undoing what has already been done. Amongst the numerous guides and applications designed to stop Windows from continuing to gather telemetry on its users, DoNotSpy11 stands out as a popular and somewhat comprehensive solution, and with the latest update it just became a whole lot more powerful.
DoNotSpy11 is an anti-tracking utility designed to target and disable just about every data tracking and advertising setting within Windows, and now with the latest 1.2.0.0 update (via Tom's Hardware) it's capable of disabling Microsoft's latest AI addition, Copilot, with a mere check of a tickbox. Given that Copilot has only been released for general usage in the past few days, this is perhaps reflective of some of the unease surrounding the feature as a whole.
When we took a look at the public release of Copilot earlier this week the utility seemed limited, and some have expressed concern at the idea of an AI chatbot sitting at the heart of their OS and what this might mean in regards to the security and privacy of their data. While it's possible to disable Copilot manually with a bit of fiddling in the registry, simplifying the process down to an all-in-one utility makes addressing those privacy concerns a lot easier for your average user.
This latest update also adds a large number of options to disable various features in Microsoft Edge, including Text Prediction, Compose for Writing on the Web and some Discover and Search Suggestion settings, along with some further Start menu notifications and Tips and Tricks settings on the lockscreen. While some of these features may seem relatively innocuous, and many can be disabled easily enough already, utilities like DoNotSpy11 aim to give easy and comprehensive access to them all, so you can pick and choose which might or might not matter to you.
While Microsoft continues to add more and more telemetry tracking and ad-suggestion features to each iteration of Windows, it's somewhat reassuring to know that utilities like DoNotSpy11 are keeping pace, and making it relatively straightforward to disable them at your leisure. AI features in particular are something that is likely to inspire hot debate, and it comes as no surprise that some would be more comfortable if it was disabled in their OS entirely.
