>>45533
No shit, Windows has been used as a botnet since Windows 7 came out, and even before when it was decent to use it was still backdoor'd to hell and back with co-operation with US intel agencies. I can use an older de-bloated Windows OS just fine today for standard office use and ripping media, but as far as using newer operating systems Linux would be the way to go.

As far as Linux goes, I'd still be a bit cautious with the most popular platforms like Ubuntu, I've heard they adopted a shitty forced "auto-update" policy just like Microsoft which is something I would never adopt. If I can't boot my machine completely offline when needed it's an automatic rejection from me. There are plenty of other alternative Linux operating systems at Distro watch:

https://distrowatch.com/