The first portables I had, were netbooks, and the one I am writing this on, while called/sold as a laptop, is closer to a netbook, IMHO.Originally Posted by Stephanie B
You could try Linux on that old laptop, and still use it online.
I am typing this on a Thinkpad 11e, running Linux, from I believe 2014. More then fine for surfing and word processing.
As one of the early adopters of Windows 10, this point cannot be overemphasized. I was still having issues with 10 a year later. Now that everything is working as it should, I am waiting until the bugs are found and fixed in 11 before trying it.
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I very much like Windows 10 and really have no need to take advantage of 11’s improvements as of yet. I’ll also echo what others are saying in that early Windows OS releases are more full of bugs than an Indiana Jones move. I would wait a few months at the very least. Usually these free upgrades have some time limit before they expire (and there are exceptions to that), but I’d hold off as long as you can unless you absolutely need some of 11s functionality.
My advice is to jump to Apple. They take privacy seriously. They can because OSX is UNIX based and very difficult to hack. I ran for years with no antivirus at all but now run Sophos just because shit happens. I fretted for years about spending that kind of cash everytime my computer got too slow for my tolerance level. I'd price shop and find I could buy two decent Windows boxes for one nice Macintosh. So I would grab the latest Windows box and fret about it being outdated as soon as I turned it on, which it kinda was back then, not so much an issue now. I was buying a new machine or reinstalling from scratch about every 1.5 years or so.
I finally bit the bullet and bought a 27" iMac. I used that thing for almost 10 years, went through at least 5 FREE operating system upgrades with it until it finally got to where it wouldn't upgrade anymore and it was on High Sierra. It was a 2011 model and started on Lion, so how ever many installs that was. The thing went multiple months at a time without being rebooted or logged off. It was still running fine when I got divorced and I let my wife have it. She probably sold it, but it was still just fine for most normal people things. I used Excel on it extensively but also downloaded and stored a metric shit ton (courthouse records) of images which I work from on a 4TB external thunderbolt drive. Several years into the it I did upgrade the HD to a SSD but that's the only hardware that was ever touched. Also ran a second 27" monitor because I need the real estate when doing my work.
I'm still running a 27" iMac that I just bought refurbed off of Amazon, a 2014 model. It has a 5k display that is gorgeous. I run Windows 10 for a few minutes at a time occasionally just because I have Quickbooks for my business and it's a Windows version. I hate their pricing scheme for the Mac version plus I don't want to convert the data. If it weren't for that AND the whole damn world running on MS Office I'd have zero use for anything Microsoft.
My advice:
- My a used/refurb Apple (if money is a concern)
- Run a Linux version on said notebook
So what's the rush? Of all the things that can go wrong by 2025, Windows 10 or 11 is the least of my concerns.
"Gunfighting is a thinking man's game. So we might want to bring thinking back into it."-MDFA
Beware of my temper, and the dog that I've found...
Windows is currently the biggest privacy risk. It's at the forefront of operating systems that are increasingly turning users into the product. Go down the rabbit hole of learning about Win10 telemetry and how to disable it to see what I mean.
Macs are currently a "safer" bet, but that won't last. It's still a closed ecosystem. Also, the company has demonstrated bad ethical behavior many times in the past, often making decisions about your devices without your knowledge. "Batterygate" is one example. Planned obsolescence is another. Think about what that level of control over users' devices means when they decide to do something you don't agree with. First they came for... and all that.
Linux is better from a privacy and control standpoint, but not perfect. Ubuntu or Linux Mint are two of the easier options for people to ease into. Be aware that Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, has also made some questionable and unethical decisions in the past. There are at least dozens of other Linux flavors to choose from, though many descend into power user territory and aren't so user-friendly. For off the shelf Linux systems, System76 and Purism are two good options.
The BSD realm is one of the last refuges of the operating system world, though nothing the average person could ever get into unfortunately. If FreeBSD and OpenBSD ever fall, the OS game might be over for a very long time.
At the end of the day, the OS and browser market is downright depressing. You have 2 or 3 dominant players in each who have a total monopoly on the entire worldwide market.
I'm considering replacing my gaming rig with an up-to-date win10 system to avoid 11 for as long as I can. Even though it's only a couple years old
Honestly 99% of what I do can be done on a Chromebook. ChromeOS will stop updating at some point, I think Google guarantees 4 years from when the model is released. I'm currently running CloudReady on a 2011? model. Works for browsing and light google docs work.
CloudReady
CloudReady claims to work on older PC and Mac hardware too, and if Google already knows everything about you anyway, it might be a worthwhile option. Cloud Ready has been acquired by Google since I started using it.
For me, the privacy ship has sailed, but I can at least try not to give it all to someone who doesn't already know all my secrets...
PS: Chrome's spellcheck recognizes 'Chromebook', but not 'ChromeOS'
'Nobody ever called the fire department because they did something intelligent'
Have you tried using a lighter-weight browser?
https://techviral.net/best-browsers-for-slow-pc/
On the list, I can personally vouch for Pale Moon. It will do most internet things to include current video sites like Youtube/Odysee and has a decent selection of security settings while still going relatively easy on system resources and being decently quick. As an example, I'm posting this on an even simpler browser with Pale Moon as an occasional step-up for some sites it won't render.
If you do decide to take the advice to put Linux on that computer, Linux Mint with the Cinnamon desktop environment should be pretty user-friendly and similar enough to Windows as a learning environment. It can even be run off a USB stick to try before committing. Linux would take a massive load off the computer and likely allow full-on modern browsers like Brave.
Isn't the issue for windows 7 and online use that it hasn't had a security update in years and is basically compromised/a liability?
There's lots of talk about the wonders of the numerous forms of Linux/Unix (no, I don't know the difference) but for the majority of regular users, people just want to use the apps and not need to learn the nuances of a new OS or struggle with a less than obvious UI. I get that that sounds lazy but I just don't have the time (and for me personally, the main app I run on windows isn't available for any OS other than macOS and windows).
There are legitimate security issues but most are just Microsoft push notifications about nothing and the conversation generally leaves out legitimate security issues in browsers themselves, any availablepatches, and the to-be-reported issues in new systems.
As for Linux, there are a lot of distributions out there and many use graphical interfaces like Windows/Apple. On some, the terminal command prompt stuff is just for downloading things behinmd a very simple command with modern package managers and even most fixes for the occasional bug are, if anything, easier than Windows. Rather than sift through a blog post of screenshots for Windows menu navigation to find the magic button, just Google up the text to copy-paste into the terminal and move on with life. Even using the terminal commands for downloads is often easier than Windows. Rather than visit the program website, find the download page, find the button/hyperlink/icon/clickable image that actually loads the program, click the download bar tab icon or find the .exe in whatever folder it landed in and opn, go through the entire set-up prompt, re-boot or maybe not, find icons, start program dance in Windows, Linux is just "*command for package manager* -S *programname*" hit enter key, move on with life. That Linux can be run off a thumb drive to try before you buy is a bonus before even talking about how long old computers can be kept in full service with real use as real PCs when Linux gets installed.
But I'm the freak who has the family computer running Haiku as an operating system and is generally first to admit that Linux, especially with the more common versions, is far less inherently secure than most users want to admit. Leaving Windows should be less about malware concerns and more about hardware compatability and how much one hates big tech.
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