Some like IT hot, but surely not their USB drives

If you've been wondering why your USB drive has been doubling as a thumb warmer, Dick might just have the answer

- Dick Pountain

I've been watching the rebellious mood that’s growing among Microsoft Windows 11 users with a degree of (not very nice) complacent amusement, as someone who dumped Windows in favour of a Chromebook more than eight years ago. My defection was as much an accident as an act of prescient wisdom. When Dennis Publishing moved to new offices, then-CEO James Tye took the quixotic decision to deploy Chromebooks to all; I took the opportunistic decision to borrow one and, being totally brassed-off with Windows 8.1, immediately became hooked.

The Asus Chromebook I then bought for myself still works well and has been a source of great pleasure but for one problem - Google stopped supporting its version of ChromeOS about a year ago, and I soon started encountering apps that demanded an OS update I couldn’t procure. So I splashed out £230 on a new Asus CX3402 Chromebook Plus, which has a better screen, twice the memory, an 8-core Intel CPU and ten years of guaranteed updates.