notes on startup / shutdown times

On a machine with dual boot,

Time taken for Windows 7 to boot, open firefox and open youtube.com - 3:30 minutes.

Time taken for Linux Mint 18.3 to boot, open firefox and open youtube.com - 1:15 minutes.

Similarly, Windows takes 40 seconds to shut down, while Linux shuts down in less than ten seconds.

Equivalent of Hotspot Shield, if you want to watch something which is blocked - have installed PureVPN extension for both Chrome and Firefox...