Forced accounts are evil - including Android. Here’s my Android story:
When I got my first Android phone, my intention was to not have an account - or at least have as much isolation between any account and my actual usage as possible. So I decline account creation when I first started using the phone, and told the phone to only store all contacts locally. That worked, and I was pretty happy with it. But later, I wanted to download a couple of basic apps from the app store - and that required an account. So I created a bogus account to download the apps. …
After creating the account to download stuff, I noticed that the contacts had automatically associated themselves with that new account had automatically uploaded all my contacts and personal info to google to sync with this account. This is precisely the thing I was trying to avoid in the first place. So, I immediately logged into that account via google’s website and told it to not store any contact info, and to delete all existing info. Which it did.
But then some time later… the account again decided to sync with my phone - this time to delete all the contacts from my phone (presumably because I’d deleted them from the online account). So although I’d gone to some deliberate lengths to tell my phone to only store data locally and to not upload it, what i ended up with was all personal data uploaded, and then purged from my phone. I had to try to restore my contacts from an ancient sim-card backup from my old phone.
Since then, I’ve decided that I will not use a google account for my phone for any reason, ever. I’ve use F-droid and the Aurora store instead. (But actually I very rarely use any apps anyway.)
One difference is there was already value with having a gmail account. What’s the point of getting a Microsoft account? The only thing I can see is it makes settings set up/transfer easy between PCs and for reinstalls.
Except, if I’m reinstalling, I can’t imagine waiting to copy settings since one of those settings is probably causing a problem and I don’t want it to be automatically set for me. I also don’t use the Microsoft store so…
Does anyone else actually get value from their Microsoft account? If not, It just feels like it’s only purpose is giving them (more) access to your computer. Why would anyone want that?
…aaaand I will never switch to Windows 11.
But then, I’m a hypocrite, because I have to create an account to use Android.
Forced accounts are evil - including Android. Here’s my Android story:
When I got my first Android phone, my intention was to not have an account - or at least have as much isolation between any account and my actual usage as possible. So I decline account creation when I first started using the phone, and told the phone to only store all contacts locally. That worked, and I was pretty happy with it. But later, I wanted to download a couple of basic apps from the app store - and that required an account. So I created a bogus account to download the apps. …
After creating the account to download stuff, I noticed that the contacts had automatically associated themselves with that new account had automatically uploaded all my contacts and personal info to google to sync with this account. This is precisely the thing I was trying to avoid in the first place. So, I immediately logged into that account via google’s website and told it to not store any contact info, and to delete all existing info. Which it did.
But then some time later… the account again decided to sync with my phone - this time to delete all the contacts from my phone (presumably because I’d deleted them from the online account). So although I’d gone to some deliberate lengths to tell my phone to only store data locally and to not upload it, what i ended up with was all personal data uploaded, and then purged from my phone. I had to try to restore my contacts from an ancient sim-card backup from my old phone.
Since then, I’ve decided that I will not use a google account for my phone for any reason, ever. I’ve use F-droid and the Aurora store instead. (But actually I very rarely use any apps anyway.)
You don’t. Look into degoogled ROMs, MicroG, Aurora store, and f-droid.
Oh sure, sure. My point is that Google asked for the same thing as MS, and I mindlessly gave it to them.
I’ll look into degoogling at some point.
One difference is there was already value with having a gmail account. What’s the point of getting a Microsoft account? The only thing I can see is it makes settings set up/transfer easy between PCs and for reinstalls.
Except, if I’m reinstalling, I can’t imagine waiting to copy settings since one of those settings is probably causing a problem and I don’t want it to be automatically set for me. I also don’t use the Microsoft store so…
Does anyone else actually get value from their Microsoft account? If not, It just feels like it’s only purpose is giving them (more) access to your computer. Why would anyone want that?