I think that using gecko based browsers like Firefox is the best thing to do in the short term. But having no competition is a bad thing. So supporting new web engines, like Ladybird, is important too: https://github.com/LadybirdBrowser/ladybird
Like Windows, Ubuntu is installed by default on many computers. In my university, all the computers have a dual boot Ubuntu Windows.
Glad to see you use cash. It's often forgotten in privacy advice, despite being one of the most importants.
Apple speaks like overprotective parents that don't want their kids to leave home alone.
I think my first donation would be to GrapheneOS.
But it's clear that Google has a history of building products with RSS and killing the RSS support once it's established a user base.
Not only RSS. It was the same with XMPP, and probably other things I don't remember now. Better don't rely on Google products.
The announcer (the enterprise on the ad) pays to the advertising platform (for example Google) which gives a small amount to the site displaying the ad.
I installed Tubular today. It's a fork of NewPipe with SponsorBlock. Is it the same thing or a different fork?
Is it part of the apps that have been recently sold to a commercial company? If so, you have to uninstall it and download the "Fossify" equivalent to keep the open source version.
This would help them to improve the algorithms and make it worse. An active defense could be to keep the ads visible and boycott the announcers, so that they lose more money when they pay for advertising.
When I see this, the only viable option I see is to close the site and boycott it. Any other choice would encourage more companies to do this blackmail.
Use cash. A card payment allows your bank and the shop to track you.