Honest question: who would use a non-collaborative standalone spreadsheet in 2025? I don’t get it.

Very useful concrete example of how these changes might be a problem. Thanks.

Exactly. I do it pretty regularly and I’ve been using Linux for 20 years.

And yet people here are still saying “no biggie”. It’s pure status quo bias.

Come on, having a 3-key combo for such a common task is a PITA. There’s a reason people have been complaining about this for decades.

So, a bookmarks list basically.

Prediction: you’ll never actually read most of what ends up on this to-read list.

If you do, then also choose full-disk encryption. It doesn’t make sense to close a small hole only to leave the big one gaping wide open. And yet on Linux FDE is mostly off by default, even in today’s era of encryption, even on laptops. Personally I don’t understand it.

Once you’re encrypted, then Secure Boot (if you even have the option of it) mitigates against the “evil maid attack”. To get access to your encrypted computer, the attacker will need physical access to it twice: first to swap out the bootloader, then to harvest the password you unsuspectingly passed to their freshly installed malware.

For most targets (i.e. you, probably), this would all be far too much trouble. But technically it closes a loophole: it means that you can go to Russia as a spy or a journalist and not have to carry your laptop on your person at all times.

Give it a few years.

I use sway in tabbed monocle mode, i.e. no windows at all, just one thing at a time like on mobile. Never going back to mousey Windowsy 1980s-style computing.

Tiling window manager plus a terminal.

Hmm, say what? No, it looks GREAT.

to open PDFs

mupdf

for selecting the text and stuff

This is what is slowing things down.

In 20 years of using Linux my partition scheme has always been to say yes to whatever the OS suggests.

ITT: lots of generic VPN advice by people who have no experience with the specific problem.

This is the only answer you need to read. It’s a non-problem if you just do this, and there’s no reason not to do it.

By definition an email server is not under your control, so the question of whether or not it runs FOSS is a bit moot and in any case impossible to verify.

In terms of privacy-respecting email hosting, Proton, Posteo, and Mailbox all spring to mind.