Windows 10 Collusion complaint / class act

[DonJuane]

Victor David - I do agree that you do not have to upgrade if you don't want to, but this assumes a) you don't use a browser and b) you don't use anti-virus and c) your hardware will never fail.

In fact I have a 10" Windows 7 laptop that I use as a hand-held Nikon DSLR control. A few years back it had actually stopped working to the point that each task was taking 5 minutes to load when it used to take 30 seconds. I removed the AVG anti-virus and the speed returned to again make the device usable. As I loaded the multiple browser updates and security patches over the years, the browser also became too slow and sluggish to use, taking sometimes several minute to navigate from screen to screen. So technically I do use it without a browser and without antivirus and therefore I am not forced to upgrade as long as the hardware holds out. When the hardware fails, I will be forced to upgrade this unit too and Windows 10 devices will be all that are available unless I buy a used device on eBay which I will assume there is a strong possibility will also fail shortly after.

The forcing of Windows 10 is due to the forced increased demands of software we must use and not our old standbys that remain good enough for us. For example I use a very old version of Corel (11) that is fine for my skill-set. I make posters and banners with it and as I age I'm never going to need some of these contrived new improvements that really don't affect me. Same for photoshop, there is a set of features and I can't seem to escape using the same old techniques even when I've tried newer versions. So I am set with my poster making, photo editing and occasional Premiere video editing. Well speeding up the video editing would be nice but not worth a few grand to make it happen.

Still the thing I can't control first of all is the browser. Don't upgrade it and more and more websites start flagging features you can't use because you need to upgrade. I personally rate the browser as 90% or more of my daily computer activity. I also have to use the anti-virus for the most part unless I want to lug around a ton of external drives to do my backups. Again I can't stay back-level or the device becomes more and more open to the daily plethora of attackers and new and more clever ways they use to get into my machine. And traveling and security wise, no thanks to any cloud backups especially with my being on metered cell data 50% or more of the time. And with each update of the browser as it becomes more sophisticated and as the anti-virus becomes more powerful, yes you do have to keep replacing the hardware if you use either a browser or anti-virus and I would imagine that a majority of computer users use both of these exponentially growing pieces of software so in effect, yes you are forced to constantly upgrade if retaining a reasonable working speed is of importance. If you can wait for 3 minutes or so for a browser screen after paging forward or can walk away from the system while it takes 2-3 hours to scan for viruses, or wait for 15-30 minutes for it to boot up, well then you may very well be able to continue to use what you have and not need to upgrade.