Which company’s devices are you using if you are skeptical of your ideas/data being stolen or misused by the respective company? do you also worry that you may be secretively spied on? Which mobile device, laptop and cloud do you have for personal use? Is Apple ethically better?
Microsoft has a government cloud and you can get g1/g3/g5 licenses. If its secure enough for the US government for top secret clearances then not much to worry about.
Nothing on the internet is “secure enough for the US government for top secret clearances.” Not even secret, for that matter. Only traffic classified as confidential traverses the public internet. Everything secret and above traverses a network which is entirely physically separate from the internet, meaning an internal network of government owned network devices which don’t touch the public internet at all. I can tell you this from experience.
Is Apple ethically better?
You’re asking if the company that employed cheap Chinese child labor for years to build their products right up until mainstream media started making a deal out of it is ethical? The same company that you could not even buy a standard power cable for at a normal store, but had to go to a registered Apple reseller just to get a power cable? That’s the “ethical” company you’re referring to?
Google you are the product though. Their customer is advertisers. Apple sells products and services to their customers so it’s very different. There’s a reason Siri sucks compared to other assistants and it’s cause they aren’t using all your data to improve it. They anonymise it and privacy is a big thing with Apple. It holds them back but I prefer it. You have to pay for things that others offer for free then monetise your data.
curious to know which company’s devices/services do you use?
I prefer Android devices that were NOT manufactured in China. Chinese vendors will embed a lot of BS onto chips that you can’t even get out of a rooted device. The reason why I favor Android is because it’s much more conducive to the open-source ecosystem and you can readily get apps, like firewall apps and such, that will block all of the BS Google traffic. I am actually a developer, so I even do custom builds of open-source apps myself for mission-critical functions just to be extra cautious. But really, good network security is multi-factor/multi-layered. So, it’s securing everything from your browser itself, your operating system, and then securing the network you’re connected to, as well.
I think your concerns are justified OP, I would go with linux if it supported the software I use.
If you’re that concerned why don’t you just keep your sensitive info on an airgapped device and everything else on your normal device of choice?
I use the Microsoft Surface.
If you are that paranoid don’t use the internet on your work device.
Personally, I have more important things to use my time on than preventing companies from building an (often incorrect) ad profile of my ip.