Were third-world countries better off colonized?

If someone waltzes into your house, sits in your spot, fucks up all your shit, but replaces your TV with a better one - only they control the remote now... it's a a bit shit.

Certainly every African country has made a mess of their own making, since the colonialists have left. Death by disease, starvation and genocide are common there and stable governments that care for the population are very rare in Africa. Many of the Caribbean countries are struggling to survive without the support of the UK, though the French islands are doing well, but they do not have independence.
Haiti, the second oldest independent nation in this hemisphere (only 24 years younger than the US), has not managed to feed, clothe or house even a small percentage of it's population in many, many decades, even with massive aid efforts from other countries and the UN.
A very few countries have thrived since the colonials left, but they are the exception. So, the answer to your question is an unequivocal yes; they were in fact more stable, productive, the populous better fed, clothed and housed and much more peaceful when ruled from outside.
I guess freedom ain't all it's cracked up to be, when you and your children are dying of disease, genocide and starvation.

Honestly, I think colonizing third world countries was history's biggest mistake.

Call me an idealist, and I know it would have been harder to progress and that technology would have been slowed significantly, but I think making our own people work would have eventually led them to demand work for an honest living and considering that there would have been no slaves, unions would have been formed leaving employers desperate enough for workers that they would have had to negotiate wages and give in.

I think we should have just left people in third-world countries be and find our own means to produce products and services. Things would be more expensive, surely. Technology would have moved more slowly, surely. Both outcomes are not certain but I am sure of them. Now, we are having to feel guilt and take responsibility for the hardships of those people where they would have been of no mind to us had we left them be to either enter the greater world arena on their own, live as their own societies or all die of AIDS.

If someone has a more educated and better opinion, I am all ears. I'm serious. My education in regards to history is about the amount my General Ed requirements made me do for a Psychology degree. I sincerely invite other opinions. Educate me.

Depends. I think that my country would have been better off if we were still British. Better education, better career prospects, entering Europe would have been so much easier. *sigh*

Depends on the country, depends on the colonisation (invasion & occupation).

There's no simple 'yes' or 'no' answer to such an ambiguous and subjective question.

depends on who you ask. generally, the colonizers think it's great as well as those who profit off of it. but those being colonized...it isn't as great.

Weren't they already colonised by the people who, you know, lived there?

Meddling in the affairs of other races was and is the biggest mistake Whites have ever made. Very many non-Whites (namely Blacks) are now essentially entirely dependent on us anyway; it's a nightmare.