# DR-DOS 11 Hacker News commenters recommended DR-DOS and 3 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** People recommend DR-DOS as a capable alternative that is objectively better than MS-DOS. Critics mostly cite occasional compatibility hiccups and a license limited to educational and evaluation use. ## Why people recommend it - Better than MS-DOS (3 comments): "DR-DOS was more than alright, if Microsoft hadn't smothered it the computing world would look very very different today" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47515311)) "DR-DOS and Concurrent DOS seem, at least in a lot of ways, objectively better than MS-DOS" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47520162)) "still superior to MS-DOS though" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49150429)) ## What people warn about - Occasional compatibility hiccups (2 comments): "Much as I loved DR-DOS, it did have occasional compatibility hiccups." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49151605)) "it did have occasional compatibility hiccups" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49150632)) - Blocks Windows and competitor software (2 comments): "artificially blocking the use of DR-DOS to install Windows" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49633130)) "active sabotage of alternative software by intentionally triggering false errors if used with competitors' software" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49708699)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Windows](https://hackerapproved.com/p/windows.md): 1287 recommend - [macOS](https://hackerapproved.com/p/macos.md): 1041 recommend - [Linux](https://hackerapproved.com/p/linux.md): 745 recommend - [Haiku](https://hackerapproved.com/p/haiku-os.md): 115 recommend - [NetBSD](https://hackerapproved.com/p/netbsd.md): 100 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "DR-DOS", https://hackerapproved.com/p/dr-dos/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).