Is there a process to USB connections?

About 10 years ago i messed up an old WD hard drive because I didn’t unmount it before unplugging.

Now I have a WD Passport Wireless Pro and plug it in via USB as well sometimes. Is this issue still present? I use Ubuntu, not officially supported, and don’t see an option to unmount the drive, so I just unplug it. Curious if Windows/Mac is the same or not.

https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-help/files-removedrive.html.en

pretty much