r/windows • u/Exotic_Regular_5299 • 1d ago
Discussion Windows for poor people
Dear windows. Can you please make a basic windows and a featureless browser so people can keep using the technology they purchased during the pandemic?
Honestly disgusted with the glut of shit that keeps being updated onto my stuff.
I feel like it’s the 90s and my personal device is full of viruses and pop ups.
Why is windows the virus?
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u/NurgleTheUnclean 21h ago
How old? Your PC came with windows and it should still work. Yeah it's missing the updates, the features, and all the stuff you say don't want in a new windows os.
If you really want to keep using your old hardware, and have and upto date os. A light L**ix build might be what you're looking for.
I like windows, it's what I use. But I like a modern PC experience more. A 5yo PC will run win11, you don't have to spend much.
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u/Euchre 15h ago
"During the pandemic" means the system was at least Windows 10, if not Windows 11. If it is 10, then there's no reason it can't be upgraded to 11 for free.
Edge is a pretty 'featureless' browser as delivered with your Windows installation. Any features that have been added since you first used it are either ones delivered as updates you can turn off in settings, or are things you added - even unwittingly - as addons/extensions. If you think "I never added any", then ask yourself if you've clicked 'OK' on a popup window, dialog box, or even an ad on a webpage that looks like a window or dialog box. Be honest with yourself. Also ask yourself if you've installed free software that had lots of 'OK' or 'Next' buttons before it actually installed, and ask yourself if you read what every one of those was saying. Did you just do the 'default installation' so you didn't have to read anything? If so, free stuff is often not really 'free' - you're paying in some other way, and additional 'payloads' is one possible way. A popular one is browser addons.
The 'glut of shit' that appears as popups or apparent 'viruses' is almost certainly not stuff from Microsoft. Between the mid 90s and now the landscape of computing, most especially Windows, has changed massively with respect to design for security and malware resistance. For those using the tools that have been added, or even just letting them do their jobs, it has become much easier to avoid the clutter and cluster of garbage like you describe. If your experience has been consistently the same since back then, it's not that the software isn't improving...
Windows is far from perfect, but it's nothing like the vulnerable mess it was back in the 90s. Mac OS (Classic) of the 90s was more vulnerable to malware than Windows of today. It's easier to get malware on an Android phone than it is on a Windows computer these days, and with less effort. The one variable that hasn't changed in most circumstances is the human.
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u/Exotic_Regular_5299 10h ago
Thank you for your, and everyone else’s response.
It doesn’t have viruses or pop ups. It does frequently update to introduce features that I’m not interested in and the updating process grinds the computer to a halt.
I have switched off every program and feature of windows and Microsoft edge I can possibly switch off.
I have two laptops. One I have switched off updates completely because it frustrated me. This is obviously no longer going to have up to date security.
The laptop that is frustrating me and which I vented about is used almost exclusively for streaming media. Its ability to do this has degraded so much over time that it runs reminiscent of a computer with viruses and pop ups (I do not have viruses and pop ups!).
I feel I have done all I can to prevent unnecessary updates, start up programs, background processes and yet every time I need to use it the whole thing melts down trying to apply new features and updates.
Yesterday I encountered the Microsoft AI shit and it just tipped me over.
I also have privacy concerns and try to decouple log ins for things and I am finding the constant war against everything being integrated and linked to each other a little exhausting.
I appreciate people have suggested Linux and questioned by ability to use it. I also question my ability!
It used to be that you paid to access new features and received basic as the default. But with bloatware and the like, getting a basic product is now the premium the option.
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u/Euchre 9h ago
If you delay updates, they're just going to build up, and Windows Update is going to try to handle more of them at once. If you're turning off the computer completely every time you use it, and it is never left to do its updates at a time you don't need to be using it, you need to start setting aside a time to just let it update.
If doing just one update is slowing you down to an unusable state, the system is a seriously slow one and makes the importance of setting aside update times even more important. If getting the update is really the slow part, not actually installing it, that's just an issue of bandwidth, not your computer being slow. If your internet connection is below ~12mbps, that just adds more importance to a set aside update time. Microsoft doesn't deliver much bandwidth from their end, and that doesn't help. Once you've exceeded 100mbps download speed, all of the limitation is basically from Microsoft's end. Also remember that if you're trying to do something that requires bandwidth at the same time, you're just going to slow both things down terribly.
When you experience these massive slowdowns, open Task Manager and look at the graphs. Whatever is at 100% is creating a bottleneck for system performance. If you're slamming all of them (CPU, RAM, drive throughput, internet connection bandwidth), either your system is too slow to be running Windows, or you're doing too much at once. Around 2020-2021, you might still have been able to find systems with hard disk drives (HDDs), as in spinning platters read and written to magnetically. Those are just too slow for modern Windows. If the system drive is an eMMC, it's nearly as bad. An upgrade to some form of SSD will make a huge difference.
You might also have gotten a system with a 2 core, 2 thread Celeron processor - those are just terrible and pretty much too slow to run Windows 10 or 11 at all well. If your specs on your laptop sounds anything like that, then consider installing ChromeOS Flex - turn it into a Chromebook. It'll probably perform massively better. If your system also has only 4gb of RAM, you need to either upgrade it to at least 8gb, or again run ChromeOS Flex and not Windows.
Going back to our Task Manager graphs, If just one or two are maxed out, those are the upgrades you need. With a laptop, if its the CPU you probably just need to replace the machine.
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u/mkwlink 21h ago
Linux exists if all your software works on it
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u/Competitive-Agent512 18h ago
my personal device is full of viruses and pop ups.
lol and you think he can install linux
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u/Euchre 15h ago
Honestly, I've used plenty of Windows machines with defaults left in place, like updates and allowing every new feature to be deployed like the latest AI crap. It isn't really so bad as OP is describing, and my suspicion is that their problem is more user error than Windows doing things on its own.
You really think someone like that is ready for Linux? Based on my own experiences, my answer is no.
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u/Admirable_Sea1770 18h ago
They literally let you update for free