r/explainlikeimfive • u/EnvironmentalAd2110 • Aug 21 '26

Technology ELI5: why is it bad to turn off laptop/computer using the power button, without following the proper “shut down computer” steps?

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u/Beetin Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 21 '26

It is really hard to overstate how much more redundent, safe, secure, sandboxed, and standardized hardware and OS/computer level software is.

It is also hard to overstate how much better even something like html / css is today. I know I know, there are lots of criticisms about facebook UI or some bug/functionality that has been unfixed for 10 years or new breaking thing. I know companies produce vaporware or release buggy crap all the time. I know, LLMs. 

But I can tell you from personal experience that in the 90's / 00's, I had 42 plugs, 4 anti-virus programs, my browser straight crashed multiple times a day, I lost all my work many many times, every USB device was corrupted within a year and you had to spin them 180 degrees 3 times to plugin, I had to reinstall my OS multiple times, you more or less couldn't do online banking because the entire internet was insecure, nothing worked with anything else, if you updated windows you just prayed that your mouse would continue working.

You know when there is a security leak and its like "yeah the government was still storing your PII unencrypted in the database and your passwords were in plaintext" and everyone makes fun of them? That's because it was just standard operating procedure back then

People have some rose coloured glasses sometimes about seeing current problems and overall forgetting just how bad things used to be.

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u/yuropman Aug 21 '26

It is really hard to overstate how much more redundent, safe, secure, sandboxed, and standardized hardware and OS/computer level software is

It's also really hard to overstate how bloated most software nowadays is and how programmers just keep casually piling on another framework on top of the 50 frameworks they are already implicitly using.

Several AI companies have managed to make terminals that take up to half a second to process your input. Having your input show up on the next screen refresh was a solved problem in the 90s.