https://www.getblackbird.net/ A privacywall for Windows, designed to dismantle built-in data collection and give the PC back to the user. Blackbird is not a realtime security application, it does not run in the background and does not install anything. Run it once and you're set. Internet access is required only to resolve hostnames to IP addresses during the process of applying Blackbird. If access is unavailable Blackbird will still run all local tweaks but the scanner will report [Telemetry = Not blocked] since no network blocks will be set. You may also need to re-apply Blackbird after updating Windows as some updates tend to turn stuff back on.
It's a shame people have to work around blackbox to get things done. M$ should release source code of windows to "give the PC back to the user"
Wasn't there a version of Window 10 for the China market that has all of that disabled? Perhaps users can use that version instead?
Any idea which service it disables that would kill my network discovery? I couldn't access my Samba NAS or see any other machines on the network (Restoring blackbird backup fixed it so no harm trying it) I tried the switches for repairing LAN/SMB and any other network related services but they didn't work, only complete restore did
Nope, none of them did, just the full restore, I mean by opening the backup file in a text editor I could have looked to see what was disabled, but it disables services which rely on others to be restarted, and that becomes a problem trying to work out which service depends on what to run again and it disabled the diagnostics service which I couldn't restart so I couldn't run the troubleshooter to get any hints on what was the problem
readme mention ## 02. KNOWN BUGS & LIMITATIONS ## - Network Discovery: Blackbird disables 2 services, SSDP Discovery & UPnP Device Host, which are required to run Network Discovery on your PC. You need to re-enable (set to auto-start) these services before you can turn Network Discovery back on.
I have just used this and as expected it has turned off XBox features that I need to play Forza Horizon 3. How would I turn XBox features please? I'm sure it's easy enough. I just want to make sure I do it right/completely is all. Also games like Minecraft win10 version and Forza Horizon 3. Would they still update after using Blackbird? I think the updating was a background thing see. Wondering what gaming things are affected. Thanks.
I lose all internet connections and get blocked out of world of warcraft with error 'no realms available' after an hour every single reboot with this. Can't even load facebook. I'll have to avoid this
I suggest trying out O&O ShutUp10. You are not gonna have as many issues, if any at all. I don't know how it compares to this but it works great.
works fine here, applied and reboot, was still able to access my wd my cloud nas. vlans with a linux server on and use steam etc. Actually seems to have made my system a bit snappier with all the junk it disabled. Worth a try for sure.
I might give this a go tomorrow then, only reason I didn't is because the Upnp and network problems. I've had enough problems with win10 and home networks as it is, I'll just try it on one pc see how it goes...
No risk tbf if you run a backup within the app first, can just restore if issue. Its a keeper for me.
Needed to reinstall windows 10 due to this program at the end, some stuff just didn't worked anymore even with restore function.
FYI version 1.0.1 v1.0.1 - Latest - Fixed network/LAN connectivity (incl.NAS/SMB/DLNA) not working after using the /L switch. - Fixed Blackbird crashing at startup in some cases aka. "The 80 Error". - Fixed small OS detection bugs when using non-english localization/language in Windows. - Fixed no warning shown when ran on an unknown/unsupported Windows version.
blackbird -l now fixes my Samba NAS connection but -n does not fix my network access, still completely empty and cannot see any other devices on the network at all, started those two services back up, enabled network sharing again, rebooted, still a no go
To apply the new version do you need to restore then run the new version or just run new version over changes done already?
