Price is probably #1.

Bit of speculation here with no real sources ; There was a boom in late 2022 through 2023 when people could finally reliably get parts again. I’m guessing many who wanted to upgrade already did in the past 2 years. Anyone who got a new computer in 2020 onward should be fine for at least a few more years. I think the average is around 7 years.

The market will probably see a surge between 2027-2030 as people begin replacing their “covid era” computers.The market right now is mainly seeing anyone with a pre-covid computer who bought a nice top of line machine for about 1k. They’re looking at current pricing and choosing to go with today’s mid-low teir, which will outclass their old 201x top of the line computer.

Another factor could be AAA gaming hasn’t exactly been pumping out hit new tiles the last 5 years. People who wanted to play cyberpunk or Eldon ring already upgraded by the time Wukon came out.

With less new games requirng the latest and greatest means the need to upgrade is going drop too.

Again all speculation…

Na, that’s a total valid point. In school you could tell anyone who’s note book was a giant yellow soggy mess was not going to adjust well to adult life.

Must have been made by the same author of the windows file copy dialog.

I’d just play it safe, avoid anything that could remotely be considered “suspicious”.

If you can bring your own media, bring a few offline shows and movies, books or what ever else you like.

Otherwise stick to nonral websites.

Survay is anonymous and takes 1-2 minutes.

Everyone fill it out, don’t care if your on iphone (its not like google cares about your privacy), just fill out the damn thing.

Don’t check everything, check a few random things to make it look legitimate.

Let’s all be honest and not fill the survay with bull-shit data that helps 3rd-prarty launchers, that would be imoral. Remember google’s old motto, don’t be evil.

Ignoring the virus part, for the sake of conversion.

The programs on secondary drives might be okay. I’ve found some programs will survive a “system swap”, and others won’t. Part of it depepeds if they have any dependaccies that are also installed during installation (such as one of the dozens of “microsoft visual code” versions that always end up on an old system).

Another factor my be a programs reliance on the registry. A clean install would wipe that, so the program woundn’t have the necessary data.

There’s also user appdata folders, a program might survive, but if it was storing user data there, you loose what ever config you might have had.

You’ll also have to manually re-add them to the start menu folder, windows doesn’t scan or anything like that, the start menu is just a folder of shortcuts added during a program’s install.

I’m not much of a cyber security expert, but I’d be cautious with the old files.

As other said, unplugging those drives while you reinstall will ensure no mess ups can happen (typically a misclick when selecting the drive/partition). Yes the OS drive will be wiped. For “clean” reset, I’ll usually just let the OS installer wipe everything. When it asks to “keep data” say no (at this point you’ve unplugged your actual data drives).

What the nature of the compromise? Was it limited to some online accounts, or was there an active virus on the computer?

If the computer was infected personally I’d boot up a linux live boot and run them all drives through an anti virus or two and painstakingly only keep personal data that can’t easily be re-downloaded. Yes, it’ll probably take a week. The theory behind this is, if something hid it self on the other drives, you reduce the chance of coming back. I am not aware of this actually happenning, but I’d play it safe as reasonable. A truly parinoid person would just throw out all the drives and start over - but that’s not practicle.

If it was only some online accounts, I’d be a less anal about copying data over, but would at least run a scan or two over it.

Finally, I hope part of your password reset included a password manager and using long random passwords on everything, as well as set up 2fa wherever possible.

If not, bit warden (self-hosted) or keepass are popular choices in the realm of you have control of the data, not relying on someone else’s cloud to keep it all safe and backed up (backing up the keepass file to a cloud drive is recommended for off-site back up, and to sync between devices if you don’t use something like syncthing).

Ramsey has some views that don’t align with everyone. The important thing to keep in mind is that America is so diverse, your neighbor could be a different religion and most of us (despite what media will lead you to belive) don’t give a fuck.

If I were to re-work the advice to be less extreme, I’d say don’t put your self in a finacial struggle trying to help your parents.

There’s a lot terrible articles with clickbate titles too. A lot of the articles I’m interested reading are either clickbate/ragebait or way out of context or just completely false.

I’m not aware of major downsides to using a different luncher.

The biggest incovience is initial setup and putting your home screen apps back where they belong.

Spend a few hours to escape to some of google bloat and set your search bar to use Firefox (which has ublock support).

You can change it on other launchers.

Personally I like neolauncher.

https://github.com/NeoApplications/Neo-Launcher The search bar can be set to immediately directly open Firefox search, or you can pick form a list of various engines.

There’s a dozen other launchers to try. Lawnchair is a more popular choice, probably better for someone switching from pixel default. There’s a few very specific features it’s missing for me.

If you search Lemmy for “Nova Launcher” you’ll find some threads listing a dozen alternatives due to nova’s downfall.

The feature exists on desktop, works great, but the setup is convoluted. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-remove-switch-firefox-profiles There’s a way to make desktop shortcuts to easily pick profile, but I don’t remember how, it has been a few years since I needed profiles.

Wish they had something for mobile too, that would be huge. I use my phone for both work and personal stuff all the time, not my desktop.

I’ve started ignoring random posts about it.

Its the equivalent of telling your little sibling about it and having to listen to them shout “I lost the game” for next 5 months. It gets old quick.

Now if I think about this post and comment later on my own, then sure I’ll have lost the game.

I tried, and tried to like it. We all work differently. I like widgets on the home screen, swipe up for apps. I guess it’s the “start menu” mentality.

I hope that’s a good thing…

Good luck. It is a bit weird getting setup at first with the way they do profiles, but once its set you dont have to think about it if you need to make a new alarm.

“Alarm Clock for Heavy Sleepers” also known as AMDroid Alarm clock.

Yes it can shuffle music.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.amdroidalarmclock.amdroid

Downsides; Not FoSS and not free, however it is a cheap one time purchase, no subscriptions. free version ads are just unobtrusive banners. I have Netgaurd blocking WiFi and cell with no issues.

Features: (no idea what’s paid and not)

• Incredibly customizable, I never knew there could be so many alarm options - but there are.
• you can make different alarm profiles, so you only have to set up each “type” of alarm you want once. From there, you just set a time and pick a profile with your settings. Everything from this point on is profile specific.
• pick any sounds on device (or a folder for random picks), set volume, vibrate, ingnore do not disturb, ignore headphones plugged in, etc.
• Calandar integration. If you have a schedule that varies, you can set it up to follow that instead of set-days and times.
• One time skip and one time adjust buttons. Need to wake up an hour early one day, got tomorrow off? Just use these to make the adjustment, next day the alarm will back to normal.
• optional post alarm “are you awake?” notifications. Dismiss the alarm but fell back asleep? After a few minutes (user set time) it will ask if your awake. With no response, after some time the alarm will go again. (With a different sound or volume if you like)
• snooze timmer can decrease each time you use it. First snooze 10 min, next is 8, then 6 and so on.
• various optional challenges that I don’t use. Easy things like type out this text, to the WiFi signal must be higher than X (go stand next your router to shut off alarm).
• location based settings - for example, morning alarms only go off at hone, break alarms only go off at work.
• the list continues for some time, but I’ll stop here.

Guys this a fake review from the zombies! Never let your gaurd down.

Thank you for your suggestion.

Having just tried it, it is not for me. The categories is there, but having the search/app drawrr on the top won’t work me, especially with these stupid large phone everyone makes. (I’m guessing theres a way to change it, but I didnt get that far)

The ultimate reason its not for me is how widgets are a scrolling thing. It’s a different idea, but I like the widgets on my home screen where I can passively see them.

If there’s a way to change that, I didnt see it. I didn’t even find a way to get rid of the big clock at the bottom.