BURIED WINDOWS 10 PRIVACY SETTINGS

Deny apps access to your camera, mic, calendar and more

Windows 10 apps are incredibly hungry for data and will seek permission to access anything from your camera and microphone to your contacts list and calendar.

To control exactly which apps can access which information click the Start button, Settings, then Privacy. In the left-hand column, you’ll see a list of options. Click Camera and you’ll see a list of apps in the ‘Choose apps that can use your camera’ section. Click the sliders to allow or deny apps access to your camera. What you do here depends on how you use your apps. For example, we decided to block access to our camera for everything except Edge so we could continue using Skype in the browser (see screenshot above right).

Go through this process for all categories that require app permissions – Microphone, Notifications, Contacts, Calendar, ‘Call history’, Email, Tasks, Messaging, and Radios. If you do find an app stops working properly after you make any changes, you can undo them at any time. If a category doesn’t display any apps, it means there are no apps installed that require access to that particular area of your PC.

Stop Windows requesting your feedback

Besides snooping on how you use your PC, Microsoft constantly bugs us for feedback on how satisfied (or otherwise) we are with Windows 10. To stop this, click the Start button, Settings, Privacy, then scroll down the left-hand menu to ‘Feedback & diagnostics’.

In the ‘Windows should ask for my feedback’ dropdown menu we suggest you select Never. In the ‘Send your device data to Microsoft’ dropdown menu, you should opt for Basic (see screenshot below left). This will ensure that Microsoft stops nagging you for feedback and can only access the information it needs to (such as the names of your PC devices) in order to keep your PC working properly.

Choose what Windows 10 syncs across devices

If you have more than one Windows 10 PC you may have noticed that the settings you apply on one apply across all of them. This is because Windows 10 synchronises your settings across any PC that you’ve logged into using your Microsoft account. This means your PCS will behave identically whether you want them to or not.

To control which settings are synced across multiple computers click the Start button, Settings, Accounts, then ‘Sync your settings’. If you want to disable syncing altogether, turn off the ‘Sync settings’ slider at the top of the screen.

Alternatively, use the ‘Individual sync settings’ sliders for more nuanced control. Most sliders are self-explanatory. Note, the Passwords slider determines whether passwords saved in Edge and Internet Explorer will sync across your PCS (we left this on). The ‘Other windows settings’ slider lets peripherals (such as your printer) work across your PCS, and also syncs any minor changes you make to settings, such as increasing your cursor size.