Its name is legion. Google is one of its names.
Your advice, Stanron, to keep data seperated from the operating system, is good, regardless of which operating system. I find it unbelievable that MS STILL doesn't use a seperate data (documents) partition as a matter of course, but allows users documents to be filed where they will be deleted if the OS is reinstalled.
Another bit of good advice is to set your browser up to delete everything (cookies, passwords, forms etc) that it has stored, every time you close it. The only downside is that you have to log in to mudcat every time you post, or else be named as "guest", and possibly regarded as a troll!