# MS-DOS 47 Hacker News commenters recommended MS-DOS and 34 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 32 years (3 owners). **Verdict:** People recommend MS-DOS for its simple, well-organized API, its third-party software and the control it gave users; critics call it insecure and obsolete. ## Why people recommend it - Simple, compartmentalized API (3 comments): "MS-DOS was on a nice trajectory to having complete enough (and reasonably simple and non-bloated!) APIs for everything important" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46232835)) "Easy to understand and well compartmentalized DOS/BIOS Interrupt API, small functions doing small things." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47903661)) "MS-DOS was quite simple if you think about it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47901576)) - Stable and reasonably reliable (3 comments): "we kind of dodged a bullet and had a pretty reasonable experience with DOS 6" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49708360)) "I don't remember DOS 6.22 blue screening on me. Maybe it wasn't so bad." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48964250)) "DOS 5 was awesome. I can't recall a single bug?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49703674)) - Cheap, cloned IBM hardware standard (3 comments): "The MS-DOS world solved the problem by everyone just cloning the IBM hardware down to the disk format." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49721485)) "DOS was priced correctly and there was no exclusivity to IBM" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46600712)) "The PC with DOS was both powerful and cheap." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48647554)) - Full control over your computer (2 comments): "You were in full control of your computer and you decided how it could be used" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47842606)) "it was still the best in terms of giving you freedom to organize" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49351548)) ## What people warn about - Obsolete, missing basic features (5 comments): "MS-DOS was clearly obsolete, but it hung around for like 10 years too long because people couldn't quit it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49151122)) "MS-DOS 2.0 was a huge improvement, the first release didn't even support subdirectories or hard drives." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47014924)) "could not be bothered to update MS-DOS and Windows with some features required in modern computers" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47136570)) - Insecure, virus-prone, poor networking (3 comments): "MS-DOS simply wasn't a good choice for networking, and not just because of the lack of security." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47836255)) "DOS and Windows always remained poor-to-mediocre - buggy, unreliable, messy, not secure" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49038418)) "Yeah, we had viruses and that meant untold bloat with anti-Virus shame-wear." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48048588)) - Kept alive by Microsoft lock-in (3 comments): "forced to use MS-DOS when so many better options were killed off by Microsoft's monopolistic and anti-consumer underhanded business tactics" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48317221)) "MS-DOS was clearly obsolete, but it hung around for like 10 years too long because people couldn't quit it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49151122)) "People would have rather not had DOS either if the IBM brand had just included a ROM OS" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46874002)) - Weak command interpreter and interface (2 comments): "their command interpreter sort of sucks in comparison to what basic could have brought to the table" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48397283)) "You could make the same complaint against most of the progress bars in MsDOS." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46517092)) ## 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, "MS-DOS", https://hackerapproved.com/p/ms-dos/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).