Is Homeschooling Dangerous in Windows XP and Firefox?

My dad gave me his old laptop because of Corona, but my computer science teacher thinks Windows XP is dangerous. But there's no other way because my parents work from home on the other computers. What should I do?

Well, in that case it is dangerous because there are no more updates and no security gaps can be closed.

Is just as dangerous as normal internet use.

Windows XP has not been supported by Microsoft with security updates for a few years, so there are known security gaps, which are no longer closed.

Depends on what you want to do with it. If you have a good firewall and a decent anti-virus program installed (which is also regularly updated!), Not much can actually happen in normal use.
Many programs no longer support XP, so it will be difficult to find any freeware.
For pure surfing it will be enough, as long as you don't cheekily click on every link… Shouldn't be done either way.

The current Firefox is no longer running on XP and it will be difficult with other current software too!

It only becomes dangerous if you exchange files with him on a massive scale, but then do security-relevant files or actions for the others! However, that means writing an email or logging into the school account, because the password could then be quickly read out!

The best tip: install a small Linux with Skype, Libre Office and FireFox.

What is linux

Why don't they make any more updates?

My dad installed Avast against viruses

Because they can't last forever for updates that nobody actually uses and shouldn't be.

Your teacher is right. Another problem is that most programs will not work.

The laptop probably has very little performance too. You can possibly install Ubuntu as the operating system, but you have to have a little knowledge of computers. Isn't there a way to borrow a computer from school?