There was a lot of hue and cry about Microsoft putting a large number of hooks in Windows 10 to spy on the consumers and see how they are using the new operating system. This usage data collected by Microsoft is then used by their engineers to find and fix any problems or improve the performance of the operating system and it’s various components. However, this means that your data usage statistics in some form or another is being sent to the software giant. We have previously posted about various tools that can disable some of the services and programs responsible for the spying in Windows 10, for example, Spybot Anti-beacon, Ashampoo Antispy, DoNotSpy10 and so on. There is now a new much more powerful tool called DWS (Destroy Windows Spying) available that can also disable all the spying components in Windows 10.
DWS is an open-source tool and available via its GitHub web page. Before you make any changes via this tool, it is recommended that you switch to the Settings tab and make selections as to which items are to be removed. In the professional mode (you have to select the checkbox “Enable Professional Mode” for this), you can make manual selections – otherwise, it will decide for you automatically.
Once you have decided which items you want to be deleted from your Windows 10 PC, you can head back to the Main tab and click on the big button labeled Destroy Windows 10 Spying. You have to wait for some time and may have to restart Windows for the process to be completed successfully.
Although DWS can really disable all the spying components, it can remove some of the desired components as well. For example, it can disable Windows Updates, Cortana, Windows defender and some of the Metro apps that come pre-installed in Windows 10.
You can get DWS from GitHub at https://github.com/Nummer/Destroy-Windows-10-Spying/releases.