It was considered best practice to never install anything
In what universe? You might as well never turn on your computer.
Yeah this post makes a good point but sounds a little like the writer did not experience what they claim to. WeatherBug was buggy slow bullshit and everyone installed it anyway. it was only people who noticed details who saw how sluggish it made your PC. To this day I’ve never heard a single person talk about it getting your location being a problem, until now. That’s a good point I guess but I just don’t think it was on many people’s radars.
I installed all kinds of stuff, but the metric was if it slowed down my PC or especially my games. That’d get me to uninstall, run antivirus and/or anti-malware, or even totally reinstall Windows real quick.
It really feels like the OP didn’t have older people in their life with browsers with 3 or more toolbars that you had to service every other month. 😅
People clicked yes to everything. Just like they do now. Nothing has changed.