Is Windows 7 safe to use anymore?

Rocks, you have every right to your opinion and you are far from alone.  Indeed I would say about half the public would agree to some extent.  

However, I would like to provide some more insight.

There are two markets for Windows really: The enterprise and the home. 

Enterprises need to protect themselves and their assets because most of them have close to the entirety of their enterprise on those computers.  So what you have said is absolutely true for them.  They have their whole enterprise at stake.

The second market (I would guess half of all Windows installations) is really mom, pop and family installations.  In the vast majority of those cases the PC is used almost entirely for email, web browsing, some games, music and videos.  If that PC was suddenly encrypted and taken over, most people would find that frustrating, but would really not be hurt badly.  Not like an enterprise that would be out of business.

The next thing you should know is that the quality of Microsoft updates took a major hit around about 2016 or 2017.  Since then millions of updates have been applied to computers that have caused huge problems.  In many cases just as bad as had their systems been hacked.  Most Windows Updates are erroneous at the start and are re-issued many times after they first appear.  Another change that took place at the same time is that Windows updates became much more about changing Windows to suit Microsoft's plans than about security. 

Most all enterprises have specialists (called IT) that are fully capable of dealing with the many vagaries of defective updates.  Home installations do not.  Enterprise IT folks have long known about the defectiveness of updates and taken many steps to protect themselves.  One interesting fact is that very few would allow Windows Updates to be installed the day they are issued.  They wait about 30 days to allow the many errors a chance to be corrected before applying.

I look after about 120 Windows 7 systems.  All of them are typical home installations.  Long ago, I decided that the risk to my particular clients systems was much greater from Microsoft misdeeds than from hacks.  I protected every one of them with the best antivirus software available.  I provided each with a system image of their systems prior to data and dynamic applications.  I switched them off IE on to Chrome.  Removed Adobe Flash, Adobe Reader, and Java.

I then applied selected Windows Updates up until June 2017 and reset Windows Update to Never update.  Not one of those systems has had a Microsoft update in 3 1/2 years now.  Not one has had an infection or hack of any kind.  Every one of them runs like stable steady state machines, not unlike a refrigerator.  That is 5000 computer use months.

So, my conclusion, backed up with a great deal of documented experience is that that was a good idea and remains so.  At least for Windows 7.  I know not about Windows 10.

Windows 7 is stable but if you think Windows 10 is unstable then you can try Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 or Windows Embedded POS Ready 7!

8, 8.1 and Windows Embedded does not come for free.

You have to buy it and Microsoft no longer sells it.

And 8/8.1 has to be checked for hardware compatiblity.

And Windows 8 support ended in 2016.

So you are at the mercy of online con artists.

Windows 7 is stable but if you think Windows 10 is unstable then you can try Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 or Windows Embedded POS Ready 7!

Windows 10 is free to update to and if you do not like Windows 10 there is always Windows Embedded POS Ready 7.

Or if you do not 10 jus get POS Ready 7