While there is a lot to love about Windows 10, there are also issues – including privacy and telemetry. There are a seemingly endless number of settings you can change, registry entries you can tweak, and policies you can put in place to bring things under control, but this is far from ideal for the average user. Change the wrong setting or registry entry and things could go horribly wrong, and you need to know what you need to be changing in the first place.

This is where Spydish can help. This is an open source project – you can see the source code on GitHub – that helps you to take control of your privacy in Windows 10. The program presents you with all of the setting relating to privacy in one place, so you don't need to hunt across numerous areas of Windows 10. In just a few clicks, you can boost your privacy and block the telemetry that may be spying on what you use your computer for.

This is a portable app that is available for both 32- and 64-bit versions of Windows, and when you first run it there are already a number of privacy-enhancing settings activated. Among these are things such as block the appearance of "suggested apps" in the Start menu, disabling location tracking, and blocking data collections by various Windows components.

You can stick with this core set of privacy policies and leave it at that, but you can also take things further if you like. Spydish has a lengthy list of other options such as disabling Cortana, removing the Windows Store apps that Microsoft installs by default, locking down app permissions, and preventing Edge from synchronizing data between.

If you take advantage of all of the options available in the app, you'll end up with a system that's not only more private and more secure, but also lighter – and possibly faster running. For anyone who is concerned about their computer spying on them, this is an essential utility.