AdGuard joins the Windows Recall backlash party — “Leaving backdoors wide open and hoping Microsoft will always act in good faith isn’t a solid privacy strategy”

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The disputed Windows Recall feature from Microsoft has been criticized by experts as both a public relations fiasco and a potential security risk. During their 24H2 release last year, the tech giant unveiled several cutting-edge AI capabilities, such as Windows Recall, Live Captions, and others.

Yet, the company encountered criticism due to releasing the new feature without implementing robust security safeguards to shield user privacy against complex threats orchestrated by malicious parties.

This AI-enhanced tool, known as Windows Recall, functions similarly to your computer’s photographic memory, taking screenshots of everything displayed on your screen and your actions. The operation is carried out using an on-device neural processing unit (NPU), ensuring it doesn’t require the cloud for any of its operations, maintaining privacy, security, and performance.

It’s important to mention that these advanced AI capabilities are exclusive to Microsoft’s Copilot+ computers, which they are promoting as the ideal choice for upgrading to Windows 11. Given that Windows 10 is approaching its end-of-life, Microsoft has been emphasizing that Copilot+ PCs are allegedly five times faster than a five-year-old Windows device.

In April 2025, Microsoft launched Windows Recall for general use on all Copilot+ PCs. The company emphasized the robust security measures implemented, such as securing it within a “VBS Enclave” (making it inaccessible to third-party applications) and filtering out sensitive data like passwords and credit card information.

Although Microsoft has significantly boosted the security of Windows Recall by implementing stringent measures such as making Windows Hello compulsory, some other platforms remain unconvinced that these steps alone are sufficient. As a result, they have chosen to take independent action.

Example: Signal, a messaging application, recently introduced an update featuring a function to prevent screenshots of the app from being taken by Windows Recall.

Despite Microsoft making numerous modifications over the last year following critical feedback, the updated Recall version continues to pose a risk to content displayed within privacy-focused apps such as Signal. To ensure the security of Signal Desktop on Windows 11, we are automatically enabling an additional protective measure, even though it may impact usability. Unfortunately, Microsoft has left us with no other choice in this matter.

In simpler terms, the private web browser known as Brave has made a move similar to this. By default, Windows Recall won’t be accessible, but it can be accessed by Brave users upon their explicit permission.

Microsoft has announced that private browsing tabs in all web browsers won’t be saved as screenshots. Extending this principle, we ensure that every tab in the Brave browser is treated as ‘private’, preventing Recall from capturing it. This demonstrates how our Brave engineers can swiftly enhance Chromium’s privacy settings to increase user safety on Brave.

AdGuard joins the Windows Recall hate train

Essentially, AdGuard, recognized as one of the most sophisticated ad blockers, is geared towards safeguarding user privacy. Lately, they’ve released an update to bolster this protection against user tracking (as reported by XDA Developers). The newest version of AdGuard for Windows now incorporates a novel feature titled “Disable Windows Recall“.

According to AdGuard:

At present, this technology is primarily significant for individuals utilizing the newest Microsoft Copilot+ computers. However, it’s still beneficial to familiarize yourself with it, even if you don’t currently own one. It’s possible that these devices will become commonplace in our daily lives sooner than anticipated.

Although Microsoft has implemented numerous new security features aimed at making Windows more privacy-conscious, AdGuard asserts that these efforts are not fully sufficient.

Passcodes can be easily broken, and safeguards might miss sensitive material. Relying on the assumption that things will function perfectly, or that tech companies like Microsoft will always prioritize honesty over profit, is not a reliable approach to maintaining privacy.

AdGuard

In other words, this platform is introducing a novel setting called “Tracking Protection” to halt Windows tracking. Users of Copilot+ PCs by Microsoft can effortlessly access this setting and then choose to turn off the function that saves screenshots of all your PC activities under “Disable Windows Recall”.

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2025-07-28 16:09