alt Hacker NewsEvery thread about Windows on Hacker News includes claims about apps taking 30 seconds to launch, web pages taking 20 seconds to load, simple applications being unusable, and other extreme performance problems. These are puzzling for anyone (like me) who uses Windows at home without all of these extreme performance problems.
That was until I realized how many reports are coming from people talking about their work laptops loaded with endpoint management and security software. Some of those endpoint control solutions are so heavy that the laptop feels like you've traveled back in time 15 years and you're using a mechanical hard drive.
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There's an unspoken rule in corporate America, colleges, etc. Laptops MUST be loaded down with terrible software, no exceptions. My last corporate laptop actually had the paid version of winzip in 2025, and it ran with a little tray icon that I couldn't disable or remove. That was in addition to all the other corporate crap I couldn't remove.
Some of this is not _just_ a corporate problem. Why would Winzip have an auto run application and tray application in the first place? Every single app seems to think they need one, and it's a classical tragedy of the commons. Perhaps on a virgin Windows install, your app with autorun and a tray icon will be more responsive. But when 20 other apps pull that same trick, no one wins.
This is actually one of the reasons I'm not excited at the idea of Linux defeating Windows. If it did, corporations would just start crapping up Linux the way they've crapped up Windows.
I like videogames, maybe more than I should at my age, and I prefer to play them from Steam in Linux through Proton. A couple of months ago I caved in and bought a proper Windows gaming miniPC because a game I want is not stable in Proton.
I use a corporate Windows VDI at work, so the experience is understandably subpar there, but it is still horrible on high.end hardware. Took me half a day just to herd it through update after update, while avoiding linking it to a Microsoft account despite its protests.
It's literally used to run only Steam and Firefox, and it still sucks compared to the ease of install/management of Linux. Ubuntu LTS took me about an hour to set up dual boot, apply updates, install Steam, and every other software and tool I use daily.
Why is Windows 11 still so clunky in 2026? It doesn't feel like the flagship product that many bright minds have improved for three decades. Why are hobbyists and small companies outperforming Microsoft's OS management?
I once worked on a computer for the US Government that felt slow. I counted nine (9) directly competitive and redundant endpoint protection products on it.
Not nine different/only somewhat overlapping pieces of software from companies that were competitors. Nine equivalent products. I guess defender made ten.
Corporate spyware is pretty nasty, regardless of platform. When I was at FB, they had something that forced a kernel module that was incompatible with the next big OS release; and I had accidentally disabled the FB spyware scripts. I set /etc/hosts to immutable because I was tired of them fucking with it ... didn't realize that's why things were better for the next 3 months, until I did the major update and I had to fix things from safe mode ... where everything only barely works.
Microsoft also puts a lot of crap into a default install that you may want to disable. Windows 11 with some judicious policy editor settings isn't so awful.
Outside corporate setting, it is also the fact that most windows systems you encounter are installed on cheap machines by people who just care that their word processor works a few times a month. And you were probably forced to fix it.
At the same time, as someone with a well maintained Windows gaming rig, I don't like spending time in the OS these days. Something about transparently doing stuff that puts money in their pocket while inconveniencing me gives me the ick.
No this is not just an enterprise issue. I waited 10 seconds (I counted.) for a Windows Explorer context menu to open the other day. This is on a fully decked out system with an Ultra 9 cpu and a 4090 and 32gb of memory, and basically no apps running. I think I had 2 tabs in Edge? Windows is a shitshow these days.
Oh yeah no... its still terrible even without all the spyware.
First experience of Windows 11, trying to download a file through firefox caused my 18 core 10980xe to have the entire UI freeze for the full time the download was going.
Reverted back to windows 10 immediately and the problem went away.
Windows 11 is full of spyware from the Mothership
I've said for decades that from a user perspective, malware scanners and prevention tools are fundamentally indistinguishable from actual malware. They intercept file accesses, block you from doing what you want to do, pop things up all over the place, and make your machine slow aand unreliable.
This has always been my experience even just this past week. The system feels so unresponsive.
Like, the UI shows my hovers and interactions live but clicking things just takes time to do the corresponding result.