mr-r3b00t-go-darker/README.md

Windows Telemetry & Browser Privacy Tools

Two single-file, dependency-free PowerShell 5.1 scripts:

Script	Scope
Manage-WindowsTelemetry.ps1	Windows 11 telemetry / diagnostic-data settings, services and scheduled tasks
Manage-BrowserPrivacy.ps1	Privacy / telemetry policies for Edge, Chrome, Firefox and Brave

Both share the same UX: a color-coded status view (Enabled = collecting, Disabled = hardened), interactive per-item toggling, one-shot -DisableAll / -EnableAll, -Report, and CSV export. Both are ASCII-only, BOM-free, module-free, and run in stock powershell.exe on Windows 11.

Disclaimer: Changing telemetry, service, task and browser-policy settings alters system behaviour. Review the scripts before running them, test on a non-production machine first, and consider a restore point. No warranty.

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1. Manage-WindowsTelemetry.ps1

Views and controls Windows 11 telemetry / diagnostic-data settings, services and scheduled tasks from one place.

Quick start

# View status only (read-only, safe anywhere)
.\Manage-WindowsTelemetry.ps1 -Report

# Interactive menu (run from an ELEVATED PowerShell to change HKLM/services/tasks)
.\Manage-WindowsTelemetry.ps1

# One-shot hardening: turn all telemetry OFF
.\Manage-WindowsTelemetry.ps1 -DisableAll

# Restore Windows default behaviour: turn everything back ON
.\Manage-WindowsTelemetry.ps1 -EnableAll

# Export current status to CSV (exits after export)
.\Manage-WindowsTelemetry.ps1 -Csv .\telemetry-status.csv

# Report to screen AND CSV
.\Manage-WindowsTelemetry.ps1 -Report -Csv .\telemetry-status.csv

If script execution is blocked on your machine:

powershell.exe -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\Manage-WindowsTelemetry.ps1 -Report

Semantics

Term	Meaning
Enabled (yellow)	The telemetry / data-collection behaviour is ON
Enabled (default)	No override present; Windows out-of-box behaviour (ON)
Disabled (green)	The behaviour is OFF / hardened
Not present (gray)	Service or task does not exist on this system
* suffix	Requires Administrator to change (run elevated)

Two design rules worth knowing:

1. "Enable" restores the true Windows default. For policy-style registry values (where the Windows default is no value at all), enabling removes the policy value instead of writing one. This avoids leaving the machine in a "Some settings are managed by your organization" state after an enable/disable round trip.
2. Services are restored to their real default start types (DiagTrack = Automatic, dmwappushservice / WerSvc = Manual), not blanket Automatic.

Interactive menu commands

Command	Action
<n>	Toggle item n (Enabled <-> Disabled)
e <n> / d <n>	Enable / disable item n
E / D (uppercase)	Enable / disable ALL items (asks for YES confirmation)
r	Refresh the view
c <path>	Export status to CSV
q	Quit

The menu is case-sensitive where it matters: a bare lowercase d/e will not trigger the ALL branches.

What is covered

Registry (policy and per-user)

Area	Items
Core telemetry	AllowTelemetry (policy + non-policy), feedback notifications, LimitDiagnosticLogCollection, DisableOneSettingsDownloads
App compatibility	Appraiser telemetry (AITEnable), Inventory Collector
Error Reporting (the modern successor to Dr. Watson)	WER on/off (non-policy + policy), DontSendAdditionalData, consent level (DefaultConsent)
CEIP	CEIPEnable (SQM Client)
Cloud content	Consumer Features, Tailored Experiences (policy)
Activity history	Publish / Upload User Activities
Per-user privacy (no admin needed)	Advertising ID, Tailored Experiences, Feedback frequency (SIUF), implicit ink/text collection, Typing Insights (TIPC), online speech recognition, linguistic data collection, Search box web suggestions (Win11) + legacy BingSearchEnabled

Services

Service	Default start	Note
DiagTrack (Connected User Experiences and Telemetry)	Automatic	Primary telemetry service
dmwappushservice	Manual	Disabling can break provisioning-package / MDM enrolment
WerSvc (Windows Error Reporting)	Manual	Runs WER report submission

Scheduled tasks

• Application Experience: Compatibility Appraiser, ProgramDataUpdater, StartupAppTask
• CEIP: Consolidator, UsbCeip, Autochk\Proxy (kernel CEIP)
• Feedback (SIUF): DmClient, DmClientOnScenarioDownload
• Windows Error Reporting: QueueReporting
• DiskDiagnostic: DiskDiagnosticDataCollector

Known limitations

• Home/Pro diagnostic-data floor: AllowTelemetry = 0 (Security) is only fully honoured on Enterprise/Education/IoT SKUs. On Home/Pro, Windows treats 0 as 1 (Required), so a small baseline of required diagnostic data may still flow even when everything here shows Disabled.
• Some items are refreshed by Windows Update or feature updates; re-run -Report after major updates to verify state.
• BingSearchEnabled is a Windows 10-era value kept for completeness; the effective Windows 11 control is DisableSearchBoxSuggestions (also included).
• Changing WER/crash-reporting settings affects local crash-dump collection behaviour, which you may want during debugging.

CSV output columns

Name, Category, Type (Reg/Service/Task), State, AdminReq, Note

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2. Manage-BrowserPrivacy.ps1

Views and hardens privacy / telemetry-related policy settings for the browsers installed on the machine. Browsers are auto-detected (via App Paths registration); only installed ones are shown unless you pass -IncludeAll.

Quick start

# View status only (read-only)
.\Manage-BrowserPrivacy.ps1 -Report

# Interactive menu (ELEVATED PowerShell required to change anything)
.\Manage-BrowserPrivacy.ps1

# One-shot: harden every detected browser
.\Manage-BrowserPrivacy.ps1 -DisableAll

# Restore all browser defaults (removes the policy values)
.\Manage-BrowserPrivacy.ps1 -EnableAll

# Export status to CSV / include browsers that are not installed
.\Manage-BrowserPrivacy.ps1 -Csv .\browser-status.csv
.\Manage-BrowserPrivacy.ps1 -Report -IncludeAll

The menu supports the same commands as the Windows tool, plus b <browser> to harden a single browser at once (e.g. b Edge).

How it works

All controls are policy DWORD values under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\... (the official enterprise policy locations each vendor documents). Because a browser's true default is no policy value at all, Enable always removes the value rather than writing one - so an enable/disable round trip leaves no permanent "managed" residue.

Two things to expect:

• Policies apply on the next browser start - restart the browser after changes.
• While hardened, browsers display a "Managed by your organization" notice on their settings pages. That is Chromium/Firefox correctly reporting that policies are active, not a malfunction; -EnableAll removes it again.

What is covered

Browser	Policies
Edge	Diagnostic data, personalization reporting, user feedback, search suggestions, Bing address-bar provider, Shopping Assistant, Rewards, Web Widget, Spotlight recommendations, Do Not Track, navigation-error web service, alternate error pages, network prediction (prefetch)
Chrome	Metrics reporting (UMA), search suggestions, Safe Browsing extended reporting, URL-keyed data collection, cloud spell check, alternate error pages, network prediction, feedback surveys, Privacy Sandbox (prompt, Ad Topics, site-suggested ads, ad measurement)
Firefox	Telemetry, Firefox Studies (Shield), Default Browser Agent (daily Mozilla ping), Pocket
Brave	Rewards, Wallet, VPN, Tor windows, search suggestions (Chromium policy)

Notes:

• Chrome's Safe Browsing itself is left ON; only the extended reporting (extra data to Google) is hardened.
• The three Chrome Privacy Sandbox ad policies require the Privacy Sandbox prompt policy to be Disabled as well - the tool includes it.
• Brave sends comparatively little telemetry by default; its entries harden the bundled feature surface (Rewards/Wallet/VPN/Tor), each of which contacts Brave services.
• DNS-over-HTTPS policies are intentionally not touched - DoH is a privacy gain in most settings and is better configured deliberately per network.

CSV output columns

Name, Browser, Installed, Policy, State, Note

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Files

File	Purpose
Manage-WindowsTelemetry.ps1	Windows telemetry view + control
Manage-BrowserPrivacy.ps1	Browser privacy view + hardening
README.md	This file

Both CSV exports are useful for fleet auditing: run with -Csv on multiple machines and diff or aggregate the results.