You see the problem is that without even intending to, ye have piled up Windows knowledge and become accustomed to it.
Unlearning the Windows way takes time and determination.
You have to wean yourself off it gradually and you have to want rid of it.
Took me a couple of years to finally get there.
For me it was definitely worth it.
Benefits for me are:
Free as in open source (and free as in beer) software galore
Repository system
Free updates, upgrades and LTS (Long Term Support)
No anti-virus required
Updating process runs in background with no slowdown
Much fewer hardware upgrades required
(since I went full time Linux in 2008 I haven't had to buy a new computer)
After many years and upgrades still runs as fast as when installed
NEVER hangs or crashes
Etc etc etc.
Thunar = file browser application
"native network file browsing" = the application needs no fiddling with to look at shared drives, locations etc. its strictly point and click within the application itself
GUI = Graphical User Interface, the normal way of accessing information on a computer other than by CLI (Command Line Interface)
Xfce = A lightweight desktop environment
https://www.xfce.org/ (fairly light on resources so lets your old hardware run very nicely)
By comparison to a typical Xfce or Lxde distribution, standard Ubuntu is a big fat bloater of a thing.