Its kind of naive satire that looks silly on second thought. Recall was not bad because of the concept but implementation details, rollout communication and of course the microsoft part. Recall by an open entity with data ownership, security and transparency would have none of those issues and its just a new take on the universal desktop search that is enabled by ai being able to utilise pixels. I refuse to be shamed by e2e encryption freaks that i want to be able search anything I encountered and having universal data control and ownership vs locked in app silos.
I know this is satire, but there is actually one and one you actually control. May be useful to remember who said what and where. It can be useful. Just not the way a megacorp implements it.
For the first time since the 1980's I'm not going to be running a PC with a Microsoft OS on anywhere (I dual boot my main desktop since I use it for work and gaming) but the Windows 11 install is getting binned.
Tired of having to read release notes carefully and make sure I've done just the right things to stop it doing things I never asked it to do.
Good job MS, you lost a customer who's never likely to come back.
Been running windows/linux alongside each other since the late 90's and outside of gaming my computing life is linux (even my TV is connected to a fedora box) so not a hard switch.
I thought this was a serious take for a second (until I looked at microsoft_recall_linux.exe - lol).
Having said that, I would actually be keen for something similar that is both open-source and totally local so that I could use the output as AI fodder (for a local inference model of course).
Mac only but if you want a local only version of this (which has been mentioned in other comments), Dayflow[1] looks decent. I think I'd actually love something like this but can't quite bring myself to run it.. even with local models
I would say do not run it (I only skimmed it), but if you 'wget' the script or grab it in your browser and just read it it's quite funny :) hats off to the developer.
This satire is amusing. Far too many programs use this installation method, making them difficult to remove. Seeing this is an immediate deterrent to installation.
I actually kinda like recall as a feature. I only really use Linux so can't use recall but honestly the only problem with recall is your data being tracked. A big issue, but if it was done with the guarantee that it's all end to end encrypted and whatnot, I don't really see the problem.
Ingenious! Now imagine an M$ ad:
"Are you forced to work with Linux?
Do you miss the convenience of Microsoft spying on you and keeping track of everything?
Fear not! This amazing tool will bring back all those great Windows Recall features that you have been missing: WINDOWS 11"
I know this is satire, but a program that logs what you were doing and when is quite helpful. I have a script that fires every ten seconds and stores the current active window's metadata to a sqlite database. Other scripts log battery level, system load and free space. I use Zeitgeist to store my clipboard history and it's backed up regularly. Another script, run by Audacious (with the "song change" plugin), logs the music I'm playing.
Wonderfull satire.
Forgetting is a blessing for me, and while I dont have complete clinical recall, I do retain a very great deal, add in a chaotic curiosity, and there are many many short paths, I dont need reminding/renforcement of.
Which makes useing the internet hellish, without turning all the history and pre fetch, adverts, etc off.
Having my local machine co opted for survailence has me wondering about building a clasic office, with a fax machine, and paper mail.
Paper mails last significant update was 100 years ago with airplanes, and fax has been stable for ?50 years?
And the cheap ass win11 laptop that would not power down is outside in the rain, and the much cheaper linux box with dual monitors is styling in the house, graphted into an old 60's formica kitchen table, was booted from a usb drive,created with a phone, works awsome.
Love that side of the tech, loath
the ,the, whatever it is, thats trying to suck up the world and spew it back covered in cold grue.
These recall apps disappoint me. They screenshot all the time.
It's not enough data. They should be adding event driven window history reporting, accessibility tree scraping, and filesystem deltas too. I want a better exocortex!
Recall signaled the coming end of networked compute resource usefulness. The writings on the wall. All those fancy shmancy crypto systems developed over decades reduced to nothing. Apart from it having no practical usefulness to the end user and only apparent usefulness to oligarchs and state actors, its offensive the way these schemes are always sold as though they're good for us. Can you call it gaslighting? Mental abuse? I dont know.
I never understood the hate for Recall. The idea is definitely good. In fact I want this sort of feature to work across my devices. I guess people don't trust Microsoft to implement it in a secure way?
Recall for Linux
(github.com)533 points by anticensor 27 October 2025 | 209 comments
Comments
Here it is [unaffiliated, untested by me, unvetted]: https://github.com/openrecall/openrecall
Tired of having to read release notes carefully and make sure I've done just the right things to stop it doing things I never asked it to do.
Good job MS, you lost a customer who's never likely to come back.
Been running windows/linux alongside each other since the late 90's and outside of gaming my computing life is linux (even my TV is connected to a fedora box) so not a hard switch.
Having said that, I would actually be keen for something similar that is both open-source and totally local so that I could use the output as AI fodder (for a local inference model of course).
[1] https://github.com/JerryZLiu/Dayflow
This satire is amusing. Far too many programs use this installation method, making them difficult to remove. Seeing this is an immediate deterrent to installation.
Fear not! This amazing tool will bring back all those great Windows Recall features that you have been missing: WINDOWS 11"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beagle_(software)
It doesn't actually spy on you though, it just says that it does
It's not enough data. They should be adding event driven window history reporting, accessibility tree scraping, and filesystem deltas too. I want a better exocortex!
Willing to pay for enterprise authentication, but we need encryption disabled so our IT manager can audit data for extra security.