[FirmwareBurner]

Add to that that Windows XP had no antivirus built in, heck it didn't eve ship with a bloody firewall to block incomign connections, so you got immediately pwned the moment you plugged into the internet or a USB drive from school. Then you installed a third party firewall and anti-virus solution and performance went to shit.

Yeah, it felt faster than today's equivalent at similar task, but at what cost.

If I strip out the catalyst, locks, interior and seats form my car, it will also go faster and give me better fuel economy but that doesn't really make it usable for me now.

[M95D]

But that's a plus!

People were educated about cyber-risks in a real-life, non-corporate-bullshit, non-give-me-a-break-eyes-rolling way.

And then they installed Tiny Personal Firewall which was miles better than even current windows' firewall.

[FirmwareBurner]

>But that's a plus! People were educated about cyber-risks in a real-life

No it wasn't, no they weren't. That's like saying that growing up in a rough neighborhood where you can get shot, or getting drafted into war, is good for you because it builds character and teaches you to protect yourself.

A bullshit OS full of security vulnerabilities is no fun or useful for any user or business. Yeah, it indirectly helped me in my childhood better understand security, threats and troubleshooting, but overall these faults were a net negative for humanity.

>And then they installed Tiny Personal Firewall

No they didn't. I did tech support at the time. Most XP PCs has whatever bullshit solution from Zone Alarm, Kaspersky, McAfee, etc was cheaper or more advertised at the time. If they had anything to begin with that is, otherwise they were full of Bonzi-Buddy, Strip-Girl animated spyware that came with your DivX player installation or via the usual 'Eminem - Lose Yourself.mp3.exe' Limewire download.