No because the traffic is still going through a Microsoft vswitch so it can see what's going on.
this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2026
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Oh, so even if i ditch windows and go linux my tplink router will see whats going on?
Yes, of course your router (that's routing your network traffic) sees the traffic it's routing - although these days almost everything is using https , so the router wouldn't be able to inspect the content.
However, the original question was about windows, and I don't know of any router that uses windows, so I'm not sure if that addresses your actual question.
I'm not sure why you would want to run linux in WSL instead of Windows in KVM.
I run a 100% Linux household for my personal devices. However, work does not allow the use of Linux devices, which is why I have this question. I am permitted to use WSL.
If it's for work, don't worry about it. That's their problem.
not entirely since I work from home 🤣
Just run the Windows device using wired internet on a different (and isolated) subnet from everything else of yours and turn off wifi and bluetooth on it. Use a wired headset or a dedicated dongle like Jabra has for their headsets. That would prevent it from identifying other devices nearby.
Beyond that, just don't do any personal shit on your work device. If you're providing your own Windows work device, then do it in a VM as already said.
If your workplace allows WSL, then the main benefit is you could use more familiar software/tools through it. Your workplace is likely to be doing a hell of a lot more data collection than Microsoft anyway.
That's fair. And probably the only good answer, lol.
there's still the host system
mostly yes. it can even be mostly mitigated without going WSL, since the anti-features can be mostly disabled through group policy and registry hacks.
This would be on a company laptop which I wouldn't be able to tweak much.
i see. in that case wsl is indeed a good choice
Someone recently wrote an article about how susceptible WSL was to hacks and how it was an excellent attack vector because windows didn't check it. It was on one of the cyber security communities on Lemmy.
I dont have WSL but based on that article, I assume you can circumvent a lot of winblows crap in WSL. If you can run GUI apps all the better!