What if I were to tell you that I bought my very first brand new personal computer for the first time in my life, when I turned 60 just a few days ago?
I have never had the pleasure of unboxing a new computer system that gets to stay on my desk before, even though I’ve been involved in many cooperate computer roll-outs where hundreds of new systems would get unpacked and set up for others!
During the previous four decades I was happy with systems assembled from bits and pieces that I would put together for myself, but I can’t do that anymore!
So basically I had to say bye-bye recently to my trusty win7 box due to concurrent motherboard and video card fails and purchased a new win11 box, as I have finally run out of old computer parts… and I never thought this day would come!
I still have some bits and pieces lying around the workshop/office/man-cave but nothing that would offer a nice compatible machine of my liking.
So yeah, it’s been a sad period for me at the realisation that henceforth I would have to actually BUY computers... and I absolutely hate the feeling!
Alright, so with this came three major software changes (sacrifices) I had to make:
1. Ms Office has been replaced by LibreOffice because I’m not into online software.
2. Ms Outlook has been replaced by Mozilla Thunderbird for the same reason.
3. My 2nd (mostly for testing) browser was Firefox but I’m now happy to use the pre-installed Ms Edge in its place… it’s pretty much the same crap!
My main custom browser works like a charm so I’m happy there.
What you should extract from this post is that if you’re ever in a similar dilemma where you’re not happy with Microsoft’s 365 online crap, you can always use LibreOffice (office suit) combined with Mozilla Thunderbird (email client), as alternatives.
Both of which fully install on your personal computer and there’s no online monkey business involved… you don’t need to be on the Internet and signing up accounts to use them.
Btw, Thunderbird was amazingly easy (super-automated) to set up and start sending/receiving emails unlike Ms Outlook.
On the other hand, importing Ms Outlook contacts and mail into Thunderbird is a little trickier so I’ll do that some other day in the near future.
As for LibreOffice, it replaces Word, Excel, Publisher, PowerPoint, Access and more, is very easy to use plus it opens all of Microsoft’s file formats! So far so good...
Back to Windows 11, where I went through all the pre-included Microsoft apps on the new Win11 machine and the deal-breaker was that if it fires up asking to sign in to some account it gets removed!
Yup, they all got removed… they’re garbage anyway!
Next up was to disable EVERYTHING that I considered unnecessary or part of spying… tons of options disabled! You should go through *everything* yourself in Win11 and turn things off.
I could give you some good tips on how to set up your win11 to be super-private and efficient but I don't know if we have an audience in here capable of following tech instructions.
Anyway, that’s it for now boys and girls... now you know one of my many secrets, and for just $9.99 plus vat i'll tell you another!
Ta-ta!
