When I had reddit (deleted a few years ago), I posted a screenshot of my android launcher, and someone pointed out that I was using google apps, and said "protect your privacy", he gave me some resources and that's where it all clicked for me. What a nice guy.

Linux mint is in my opinion the best distro for a new user, but you may personally not be fond of the UI.

I don't know how to write a guide for you, but if you have more specific questions feel free to ask them, best of luck!

Sad to see it finish so soon :(

Opera is just chromium with extra spyware and shit. Firefox is mentioned a lot because it is foss, and my favorite browser for that matter.

You pay and you're still the product, they continue with all the tracking they do.

Home Manager on a NixOS flake, it's a rabbit hole but I've been loving it since last week!

I would love it on Piped, they already have sponsorblock

I love that Linux allows us to do this, but why

my eyes

I'm deeply sorry, but I had to mention i2p torrenting, it might become more popular soon.

Sidenote: I2P torrenting doesn't require a vpn or port forwarding, and is indeed more private.

No ads, no tracking, just donations. The model proved itself when twitter went to shit and a big influx of users came to mastodon, it all worked out.

I was going to suggest the Pinetime, but it is far from close to what you're asking. Have you looked at the Bangle.js 2 watch? It has GPS at least.