"Back in my day" if a platform or service would look at all your messages and sell the data it would be called active spyware and we treated that like the antichrist.
this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2026
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Software peaked around 2008. And that's a looong time ago now.
Yes there has been a few improvements since then, but nothing that can really be said to compensate for the massive enshittification of performance, basic quality control, UI, UX, pricing as well as the anti-user practices that have become commonplace.
Sad I never got to experience it.
The 2008 financial crises rendered me homeless through my teenage years and my early adult years. I went from experiencing Windows XP/Mac OSX 10.4 straight to Windows 8.1 (I just missed Vista and was quickly introduced to Windows 10).
You missed Windows 7 because you were homeless? Bruh.
Hope you're doing better. At least it's the golden age of Linux right now!
Yeah, ditched Windows 10 as soon as I could. Most of the tools I use have Linux native versions.
I've a friend who uses chrome on Windows and absolutely refuses to switch to Firefox for ublock. His kid is three and already knows what ads are.
I don't get it.
It’s because most people do their browsing on their phone and so when they use a computer browser the internet just looks “normal”
Yeah those people are absolutely frying their children's brains. I can't imagine not protecting kids against constant notifications or ads.
I think the worst is when parents give their children a phone, but do a really shitty job vetting what apps they install. Like, why did you let your small child install 150 "free" "games" which show two ads every 75 seconds? Are you insane, stupid, evil or all three equally???
My god I am so triggered.
I guess Firefox is some sort of outcast in their eyes, or something like that.
That's the thing: that's still true, it's just that Windows, Chrome and Facebook/IG are all malware, and people (of all generations) seem to fail to process that undeniable fact.
What ads? uBlock, Sponsorblock and an automatic cookie decliner and the Internet experience is only hindered by log ins.
Also change your DNS and if you can use a VPN and a faked user profile like user agent switcher.
Sites these days collect all the data they can, that includes your screen size, system data like sound drivers and operating system or your language and IP Adresss which sites you visit at what times (that is where the DNS comes into play).
But yeah, the Internet has changed a lot and for the worse. So far there are ways to mitigate them.
gen-z and alpha don't know anything about computers.
frankly, i have no idea how anything is even maintained. it's probably on the backs of millions of first and second-gen immigrants.
some of these dumbasses i work with can't even navigate basic windows features--and these are college bound young adults.
I read comments like yours and always thought it was hyperbole, then I became a bioinformatics teacher.
Not hyperbole. iOS and Android destroyed future generation's ability to understand traditional computing.
They can't unzip a file, they can't navigate a directory hierarchy deeper than one level, they can't reply to an email without replying to all recipients.
A class about BLAST had to become a class about how to install a program on Windows.
wait... how to install a program on windows? you mean download the installer, yes, yes, next, i agree, next next next, done?
The main installation method young people run into nowadays is the Steam or phone app store experience: search for the thing in the store, click "install," wait briefly, click "open." Installing a program from a website or physical media is not as common an activity as it used to be — other than installing Steam itself or similar, for example, which is a quickly forgotten inconvenience.
o. o wild, i hope the kids discover the joy of installing independent software on their machines
It's asking for a "path to install"? I don't want to go for a walk
gen z here, you're thinking of young gen z or gen alpha. us old gen zs have a lot in common with milenials, as in we're the ones doomed to export to .pdf and "fix the wi-fi please"
Hello friend, welcome to the next ten years of explaining to people that being 29 and being 39 are not the same
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I don't think you lot know how old gen Z are, older gen Z are turning 30 next year
I just want you to ask yourself, does putting that information out in the world make anyone's day better. Cmon friend, no one wants to see that.
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get this man a true
Life was easy back in the day. People asked me to fix their computer. "I installed Firefox 3.5 and ABP. Life should be good for you now."
Come back years later annnnnnd they have been goaded to use Chrome and have trillions of bullshit apps. Was like "sorry, you have to actually pay me real money to fix this, people in this industry are actually very well compensated"
I remember installing all the stupid search bar add-ons in the 2000s. How naive I was back then! Got to learn things the hard way I guess
Wearing browser search bars like a general with those little flat medals
Still the case. Except now the malware is from the OS/hardware vendor.
Well these days the OS is the virus
Advertising is the most prolific form of environmental pollution wrought by commerce.
It needs to become as socially acceptable as smoking, and every instance of it must be exhaustively scrutinised and required to be justified.
Completely agree. The worst are maybe the nonstop ads for various prescription medications. Those used to be illegal.
Thank you. People use power usage against cryptocurrency but their eyes glaze over when I ask how much of our resources are wasted serving constant ads to every screen in existence.
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If you see that many ads you still have malware, we just call them apps now.
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Listen, I'll admit I've never experienced a virus download automatically and rarely experienced a virus from a sketchy file.
But nearly all of gen Z remembers the free internet. Even up to 2016 it was still possible to view every major website without an account.
Every time I disable my ad block, or I see Internet Archive fail to save a webpage, or I'm forced to download the app for the privilege of scrolling down a thread; I get mad at what was taken.
We didn't realize how brief the era of mostly reliable and always verifiable universal information access would be. Now we can't trust any video because Sam Alton threw gasoline on the AI fire to make a failed Tiktok clone.
The whippersnappers think that as long as the ad is coming from someone hot and it's in their FYP, it must not be an ad.
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Me being on the family computer running XP and finding porn for the first time around high school age. Learned a lot of things immediately after.
Got caught and lectured.
- So I learned to wipe history and cookies.
- I honestly don't remember anymore how adblockers work back then or it exists. Probably does. But fuck all the fake Download buttons and X to close buttons.
- I learned how and where from to torrent safely eventually.
- became the tech support cleaning all the stupid toolbars. FML
Banzai Buddy says hello, old friend!
OMG I remember browser toolbars! One time I used my relatives PC and there were like 6 toolbars stacked on top of each other... I was like what have you been doing with this?!
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