[German]Privatezilla (formerly known as Spydish) is now an open source project. This tool allows a quick check (and control) of the privacy and security settings of Windows 10.
I became aware of this development on Twitter via the following tweet. The developer builtbybel has decided to release the software Spydish as Open Source.
Spydish goes open source as Privatezilla!https://t.co/AEp1hC5tP2
Now, you can really trust me
More infos herehttps://t.co/cQafHEmTr1#privatezilla #Microsoft #Windows10 #privacy
— Belim (@builtbybel) August 22, 2020
At the same time the tool is renamed to Privatezilla and made available as a project on Github. The developer advertises that Privatezilla is the easiest way to check (and of course adjust) Windows 10 privacy and security settings. On Github you can find the following animated picture of how it works.
(Spydish, now Privatezilla, Source: GitHub)
According to the developer, Privatezilla integrates the most critical privacy settings of Windows 10 and allows you to quickly perform a privacy check against these settings. Active settings are marked with the status "Configured", indicating that privacy is protected. Inactive ones are declared as "Not Configured". All available settings (currently 60) can be either enabled or disabled.
System requirements
- Windows 10 (supported 1809 – 2004)
- NET-Rahmenwerk 4.5
Download from GitHub: Privatezilla
For advanced users there is also a community package for Privatezilla. This adds support for advanced PowerShell based scripting to Privatezilla. This includes:
- Removal of certain pre-installed applications
- Uninstalling OneDrive
- Unpin Start Menu tiles
- Disable telemetry from third-party applications (e.g. CCleaner, Firefox, Dropbox, Microsoft Office)
- Remove Windows Defender (NOT recommended!)
- Block telemetry via firewall and host files. Rules are provided by crazy-max/WindowsSpyBlocker
Support for All-in-One-PowerShell-Debloating-Skript Windows10Debloater.ps1 - New automation templates
All included objects (templates and scripts) can be viewed on Github.
Reason for the release as OpenSource
In this blog post the developer reveals the reasons for the release as open source. There have been numerous requests for the source code of SpyDish, because the tool is quite popular 3 months after its release. However, the tool was never written for release as an open source project. Since the developer does not want to disclose some parts of his code (he uses them in internal projects), he removed some features he does not want to make open source and rebuilt the core of the tool in the last weeks. In addition, the code was then transferred to the open source project under the name Privatezilla.
