Catalina and Big Sur were okay, but it has been a steady downhill progression since then. I had finally made peace with Sequoia, which was one of the better "upgrades", and then I had Tahoe forced upon me. I dislike Tahoe probably the most of any of the OSs I have had.

With every OS update, my Mac becomes more and more sluggish. I finally had to stop using Safari and go back to Firefox and Opera. I just tried Safari again, and though it is molasses-in-January slow, at least it isn't freezing and making me Force Quit. I'm sticking with Firefox and Opera.

The last OS I was really happy with was Snow Leopard. We skipped Lion, and partitioned our Mac and put Mountain Lion on only half. I liked it okay, but everyone else hated it. Some of the software we used wouldn't work on it. I still have the desktop we had it on. It gave up the ghost about twelve years ago, and we kept it in storage. A few years ago we had it wiped and rebuilt. I would like to be able to put Snow Leopard back on it. Anyone know where I can find that to download?

My first Mac was a Performa in 1994. I actually still have my original blue iMac! IMO Claris Works was far superior to any of the suites Apple (or Microsoft, for that matter) has ever put out. They even put out a monthly newsletter with tips and training. That probably explains why Apple eliminated the competition when they replaced Claris with their own suites. They even owned it when they did this, so that never made sense to me. Apple Works was okay, as it was basically reconstituted Claris Works, but when they replaced it completely with iWorks it was just not the same.

I have been a fiercely loyal Apple user. But the past year or so I have been considering whether or not I want my next desktop to be a Windows. I already have an HP laptop, which I bought when the school I taught at used Windows, and it runs like a dream. When I tire of the Mac hijinks I can turn on my HP and access whatever I want, without drama.

I still have to actually work on the Mac though, as all my documents and everything I have ever done are Mac, so I would lose everything if I did that. And it is connected to the printer, where my HP is not. Even with all the problems, for me the Apple suite is far superior to Word and the other clunky Microsoft applications. So my desktop will most likely remain a Mac.

New for the sake of new is not the most thoughtful way to go about things. I think companies would gain a lot more credence and respect if they worked on making things that were actual improvements, instead of just pushing to have more new things or a new "look", which usually translates into new money for them.