Blackbird was designed to alleviate spending hours on tweaking your privacy settings by using some known and less-known techniques to fully disarm Windows without leaving behind even the smallest possible footprint.
There are other tools that claim to block Windows spying but they are cumbersome to use and not as powerful or are limited in scope. So the author took Windows apart, piece by piece, analyzed web traffic, system calls, file changes,etc., compared different configurations, designed and built a stand-alone tool and spent hundreds of hours on beta testing so anyone can use it and it gets the job done right.
Block Windows spyware, on both the application and network level, with dynamic filtering and without editing the HOSTS file or firewall settings as well as preventing diagnostic, password, contact, URL, SMS, handwriting, location, and P2P-update sharing.
Features:
- Disables OneDrive
- Disables Cortana
- Disables Bing-integration
- Disables Wi-Fi Sense
- Disables system-wide Telemetry on all Windows versions
- Disables Xbox Live services
- Disables web content evaluation / URL check-in ("SmartScreen")
- Disables Windows Media Online DRM
- Disables Windows P2P Update sharing
- Disables all application metric collection agents
- Disables all AutoLoggers
- Disables start menu ads
- Prevents all location/contacts/handwritting/password sharing
- Prevents cross-device synchronization
- Patches various data-leaks (IE/EDGE/Defender/Explorer/MRT)
- Removes Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA)
- Disables Diagnostic Tracking / "Connected User Experiences and Telemetry" service
- Disables WAP-push Message Routing service
- Removes your unique Ad-ID tracking token
- Removes Windows 10 upgrade setup files on Vista, 7, 8, 8.1
- Removes a bunch of Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 telemetry updates
- Blocks 100+ different Microsoft tracking/telemetry/ad servers (supports IPv6/IPv4, Wifi/Eth)
- bonus (some) Youtube, Skype, Facebook ads blocked
Blackbird can also be used via CMD Prompt with the following switches available:
- blackbird -v > Verbose mode. Displays additional information on all changes as they're being made.
- blackbird -s > Silent mode. No additional user interaction required, good for scripts.
- blackbird -r > Recovery mode. Restores all values changed by Blackbird to default Microsoft values.
- blackbird -k > Kill Cortana completely (prevent searchUI.exe from loading).
- blackbird -d > Disable Windows Defender.
- blackbird -h > Disable Hibernation (deletes hiberfil.sys file).
- blackbird -u > Disable automatic installation of updates / Sets to manual download and install only.
- blackbird -m > Disable automatic installation of Windows Malicious Removal Tool (MRT) updates.
- blackbird -? > Displays help information.
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Supported OS:
Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, 10
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Changelog:
- New, more awesome, logo and icon
- Reduced binary size significantly
- Added support for up to 9 simultaneous command line switches
(Excluding: -r, -std, -scan ; Currently these modes can only be executed one at a time for stability reasons)
- Added full system scan switch (blackbird -scan)
- Added switch to skip update removal (blackbird -noupdate)
- Added switch to skip host blocking (blackbird -nohost)
- Added switch to skip system optimization/speed tweaks,etc. (blackbird -nospeed)
- Added new hosts to blacklist
- Added new update to blacklist (KB3173040)
- Additional P2P-UpdateSharing & WiFiSense registry keys disabled, just for kicks
- Additional Office 2015/16 logging/telemetry disabled
- Disabled Scripted Diagnostics remote server query on all Windows versions
- Disabled Scheduled Diagnostics on Windows 10
- Disabled Error Reporting completely on Windows Home editions and reset consent to zero
- Disabled unattended execution of CEIP and Error Reporting on Windows 10
- Disabled Cloud Experience Host ETW logging on Windows 10
- Disabled Peernet on all Windows versions
- Defender, MRT, CEIP data-leaks are now also patched on pre-Windows 10 versions
- Using external hosts.txt file now skips the internal blacklist (easier management)
- Better registry handling when keys are added dependent on system architecture (32/64bit)
- Improved setting of Diagnosis folder permissions on all Windows versions
- Fixed an issue with IPv6 addresses not getting blocked properly in some cases
- Fixed SpyTask Destroyer output errors when removing tasks
- Fixed Windows Defender data-leaks not getting patched properly
- Fixed duplicate entries in host blocker
- Fixed switches being case-sensitive
- Fixed progress bar errors when removing multiple Windows updates
- Attempt to fix an issue with Blackbird getting stuck at 99% for some users
- Small UI fixes
- Removed -e switch ("eMule LowID fix"), couldn't verify it helps anything
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Home
Version History
http://www.getblackbird.net/documentation/Blackbird_changelog.txt
32-bit Download
http://getblackbird.net/download/BlackbirdV6_v0.9.95-x86.zip
64-bit Download
http://getblackbird.net/download/BlackbirdV6_v0.9.95-x64.zip