It's not as simple of just removing IE. Windows explorer still uses IE even if you remove it. You have to shell swap to the 95 interface. Which requires OS modification and files from 95 to do.

🤣 98 always runs with unlimited security privileges and can never be secured. At least XP can be locked down. And blaster effected 2000 too. 100 million 9x computers were effected by Chernobyl.

I love how people complain about big corporations and the social media while using Google, Youtube, Windows, Twitter and smartphones at the same time.
They'll always have something to complain about.

people complain about stuff as long as they think it helps them, and if something doesn't effect them they are silent regardless of how it effects others, becasue it makes their life easy. It's the woke mindset.

Golden era of internet was the time where the internet had only porn and dancing hamsters, still no popup, and you downloaded music from Napster.

Golden era of easy functional operating system was late Windows XP.

But the golden era of computers in general is so personal.

Someone says that its the 70s and 80s, but I say, that I do not want to load half an hour a program from a cassette tape, and then if I want to do something else, I have t do it again, that is called hardcore single tasking.

Maybe the late 80s early 90s when the floppy was in mainstream, hard drives were still a luxury.

And lets be honest the best media device is a USB stick.

And I can run almost anything from my modern computer.

But yes it all boils down to nostalgia, and that's why I hoard DOS computers. I know that Amiga was the king, but when I tried it in the 90s, I already played Doom from a hard drive. And before that we had those Famiclones everywhere. So really those clunky old Spectrums and Commodores just do not do nothing for me. And i can run NES/Famicom games from absolutely everywhere. By the way they loaded instantly, even back in the day 😁

Miphee wrote on 2021-04-05, 05:05:

I love how people complain about big corporations and the social media while using Google, Youtube, Windows, Twitter and smartphones at the same time.
They'll always have something to complain about.

I don't use social media, my search engines of choice are DuckDuckGo and Startpage, Protonmail and Tutanota for email, youtube only through FOSS clients (desktop: FreeTube; smartphone: NewPipe), I only use Windows on retro PCs, otherwise Linux, no Twitter (also that's social media too), LineageOS on smartphone and thinking about transferring to CalyxOS.
Did I earn the right to complain?

RandomStranger wrote on 2021-04-05, 06:54:

Did I earn the right to complain?

Complain all you want, that doesn't mean that it's the universal truth. Some people think that big corporations are evil while others think they are a blessing because they drastically improved the quality of life. To each their own. But using their products while calling them bad is just hypocritical. It happens way too often.

Miphee wrote on 2021-04-05, 07:10:

RandomStranger wrote on 2021-04-05, 06:54:

Did I earn the right to complain?

Complain all you want, that doesn't mean that it's the universal truth. Some people think that big corporations are evil while others think they are a blessing because they drastically improved the quality of life. To each their own. But using their products while calling them bad is just hypocritical. It happens way too often.

Evil is really a matter of definition, but they are definitely not "your friend" and they absolutely don't have your best interest in mind.

As a footnote.

I deleted my Facebook account 5 years ago. Some corporations might be your friend depending on how woke you are.

RandomStranger wrote on 2021-04-05, 07:19:

Evil is really a matter of definition, but they are definitely not "your friend" and they absolutely don't have your best interest in mind.

They don't have to be my friend to supply me with a decent service. I'm too old to care about corporate politics and secret intentions.
I'm the dumb user who is happy to take advantage of these services if it improves my quality of life. Light speed internet access that saves time, information at my fingertips anywhere I go, cheap media content in near-perfect quality, cheap computers and mobile devices that can be bought online and shipped to my house in a day, keeping in contact with friends and families 100% free, cloud services, free market places and many more.
I guess I care more about the advantages than the disadvantages so the golden age for me is always the present.

And you don't have to abandon all tech companies to earn the right to criticize their anti-consumer practices.
Also, some of the positives are not related to them, they just adopted those and others are just natural progression which would came to be whether these giants exist or not.
Like there are several alternatives for free market places and the Facebook Marketplace is not the first of them as there are several 100% free messaging apps (that don't sell you out to keep themselves "free").
Some of them are very good examples of corporatism ruining things. Skype was one of the best end-to-end encrypted messaging app before Microsoft bought it because it was outcompeting MSN, WhatsApp's story is very similar and content creators constantly complain about Youtube and the only reason they don't abandon it, because there is the user base ("the dumb user who is happy to take advantage of these services").

This "dumb user who is happy to take advantage of these services" who's "too old (I'd rather say indifferent) to care about corporate politics and secret intentions" is the reason of all the problems of the current age of computing/internet. That's why these companies get away with everything. Whatever they do there is no backlash.

1989-2008 from my observation.

Prior to 1989 it seems nobody but the tech inclined or business/education justified had a computer at home. Prior to the Amiga, PowerMac, and 80486 I almost never heard anyone talking about computers at home. This also seems to be when every school in our system got a computer lab.

The rise of Windows, Multimedia, the Internet, and more immersive gaming with network support really started to take off around that time.

I'd say the peak was 1998-2004. That's when pretty much the current lexicon started to emerge as we know it. Windows NT, Mac OSX, multithread multicore CPU, pay to play games with DLC, broadband internet.....

2006 onward had been a mild decline that evened out sometime in the last decade. Most people I know own a laptop between 1-13 years old for daily use for a PC, and most hardly use it in lieu of the phone. Those who do still use their PC to any great degree are playing games or working.

RandomStranger wrote on 2021-04-05, 08:18:

This "dumb user who is happy to take advantage of these services" ... is the reason of all the problems of the current age of computing/internet.

Or they just don't give a single shit about all that because the service is more important than a middle finger to big corporations.
There will always be people who complain left and right about everything but it's still going to be popular with the majority of people. If it's good or bad is debatable. But saying that almost 3 billion Facebook users, hundreds of millions of Windows users, 1 billion daily Youtube viewers are all ignorant because they chose that service is more than presumptuous and I'm pretty sure that they use many of those services anyway. It's like the Linux-Windows argument, the two sides won't ever see eye-to-eye but Microsoft has ~80% market share in the desktop segment and that speaks for itself. The majority of users want easy usage and accessibility and not a fight for control every step of the way. Can't blame them. Smaller companies also use your data they just don't get that much attention.
People also hate ads but if they had to pay for every single service they would want them back immediately. Quid pro quo.

I used the word indifference rather than ignorance, and this is the dictionary definition is indifference. And it is true, indifference breeds ignorance (you won't learn about something you don't care about). Maybe it's presumptuous to call them ignorant, but the overwhelming majority neither cares nor knows so that doesn't make it any less true. This also doesn't mean that the concerns of those who care are any less valid.

If billions of flies like shit, one can't blame them.

Miphee wrote:

People also hate ads but if they had to pay for every single service they would want them back immediately.

People do pay. It's called Patreon. Look it up.

xcomcmdr wrote on 2021-04-05, 09:45:

People do pay. It's called Patreon. Look it up.

The average user doesn't pay for Youtube, Facebook, Google or Android apps. They use the free version. If ads disappeared one day then they'd have to pay for those as well. Everything would be subscription-based because nothing is free, not even a simple news site. Those hated ads are the reason you don't have to pay for every single online service. Places like Vogons are the rare exceptions because they are run by hobbyists who sacrifice their free time and resources for this community. The majority of the Internet doesn't work like that. Then again, you don't have to use any of these services at all so it's not a problem. There are many alternatives.

Imho most of the modern usage of services is not that common just because they are generally important but (maybe) mostly cause the mass of people we know use them all together. If a person didn't use a specific social media some real world friend will ask him/her to use them because "You can't live without it" or in alternative none will answer anymore with the old communication systems or in the worst case it might happen on the work place some services are used so employees must use them too. But couldn't most of the same thing have been already possible in the past? Chat systems existed, forums, gsm/sms communication, were these thing enough "perfect" with its zero latency audio beside their limits? Did we need a 24h/24 continuous chat to talk about pointless discussions with friends like things they've eaten at dinner? I'm sure most will use these for work and important task but still, 90's tech at least the second half already permitted most of the direct communication employees and people needed but casually some modern way of living would have been criticized. Sometimes it feels like we are "reinventing the wheel" while getting poorer when it's strange cause everything should've been "free" when nothing never ever was just free on the market in the history.

I sometimes wonder what regarding computers was actually invented in current century, not improved/evolved? Eg. touchscreens date back to 70s but weren't widespread until current century. Raytracing also existed in 70s and even much earlier as an idea (but the struggle was to enable real-time raytracing). Machine learning as an concept is also very old. Is modern computing purely based on innovation and increasing processing power to make use of old ideas, or are there still some noticeable inventions that didn't exist until current century? Maybe blockchain would be a such example? Or maybe there is much more, but I don't notice them?

jasa1063 wrote on 2021-04-03, 14:37:

You can only have a Golden Age of something through the lens of history. For comic books this was from 1938 to 1956, which was then followed by the Silver Age 1956 – 1970, and finally the Bronze Age 1970–1984. I think we can all agree there was definitely a Golden Age of PC computing. When and for how long is a point of debate and personal perspective in this thread. So this leads to next questions. Have we already had Silver Age of PC computing and when and for how long? I am less sure on this one. You may still be in it. I will leave it up to everyone else here to give their opinion on that question.

I really like this distinction between golden age, silver age, bronze age, etc. And the golden age of PC's being the 90's to the mid 00's largely seems to be the consensus here, a few contrarians aside. For all the reasons that compare well to the example of the comic book ages. For example, just from the wiki on the Golden Age of Comics

The Golden Age of Comic Books describes an era of American comic books from 1938 to 1956. During this time, modern comic books were first published and rapidly increased in popularity. The superhero archetype was created and many well-known characters were introduced, including Superman, Batman, Captain Marvel, Captain America, and Wonder Woman.

Seems reasonable to take a key feature of a golden age being the explosion of creativity that creates monoliths in the industry that stand pretty much forever more. And setting the golden age of PC's during the 90's pretty much matches that. The modern OS, game genres, heck, even a bunch of franchises that are still with us first appeared in the 90's. Moving onto the silver age:

The Silver Age of Comic Books was a period of artistic advancement and widespread commercial success in mainstream American comic books, predominantly those featuring the superhero archetype. Following the Golden Age of Comic Books and an interregnum in the early to mid-1950s, the Silver Age is considered to cover the period from 1956 to circa 1970, and was succeeded by the Bronze and Modern Ages.

So the silver age is mainly characterized by commercial success. And to me this maps onto the observations of every contrarian pointing out that more people than ever own a computer now, and they are easier to use than ever. This is a sign of a silver age, not a golden age.

adalbert wrote on 2021-04-05, 11:59:

Maybe blockchain would be a such example?

I can remember the promises of flying cars on New Year's Eve 1999. I'm begging you: don't mention blockchain as an achievement from this century. 😜

For me, home computers 1980-1991. For PC's 1998-2000