The fact that formatting your computer brings it back to "the medieval ages" shows how important third-party software is.
A full-format/reinstall of your desktop OS is almost identical to resetting your phone. It wipes everything, and restores the machine back to "factory defaults". It's exactly the same level of control, only you lose all of that valuable software and customization.
The problem of trojans and malware is orthogonal, since virtually all that nastiness seems to be confined to a single platform. That's not a "computer" problem, it's a Windows problem.
A full-format/reinstall of your desktop OS is almost identical to resetting your phone. It wipes everything, and restores the machine back to "factory defaults". It's exactly the same level of control, only you lose all of that valuable software and customization.
The problem of trojans and malware is orthogonal, since virtually all that nastiness seems to be confined to a single platform. That's not a "computer" problem, it's a Windows problem.