Have never noticed this thread before - interesting reading. I subscribe to a magazine called Computeractive, which appears to target our age range and demographic - some excellent advice, tips and reviews there. Oh, and I buy the paper version so's I can have it open while following instructions; I'm not the best at flipping between browser pages.
FWIW, I switched to Windows 11 on my last 'puter (which just about made the specs required) and moved it seamlessly over to the current one which is coming up to 2 years old. Followed some instructions from the mag and am delighted with my slimmed-down Windows, relatively-bloatware-free. In similar vein, I switch between Brave and Firefox as my main browsers - ditched Edge, bing and whatnot ages ago.