Server no. But hosted domain email is probably what I will do in the next year. Probably at Fastmail or at Namecheap. I have the domain just waiting.

In a way, I already have a mail server on my VPS, just never installed IMAP. Not what I want for every day though.

For privacy specifically take a look at https://www.privacyguides.org/en/email/ .

For just a paid provider where you are the customer not the product, consider FastMail or a hosting offering such as NameCheap. By hosting I mean the one that is part of their hosting plans not their email specific offering though that is interesting also but quite expensive.

Browsers are very complex and fast moving tech. This means expensive. This implies professional paid staff. Then comes how to raise money. The big companies have revenue streams. Smaller groups have to do it any way they can which is always compromising something.

Mozilla too makes compromises… setting default search to places I would not use. Trying to offer a subscription set of services which is actually not a bad plan but is not exactly to the point. So I trust them more and want to see them succeed but they have challenges too.

Some ways huge parts of tech relies on questionable income streams including the tracking, ad, and personal information broker business. Google of course but Mozilla is funded largely by Google as far as I know. Apple may get similar funding but larger. Microsoft even in Windows installs crapware from partners. So it is everywhere. HP laptops typically do too.

Thanks, I did not see that before.

Other interesting thing is that about:config is disabled on mobile except maybe nightly. Wonder why?

The other advantage of Brave is that it is more secure out of the box. From privacy point of view that should be better at blending in to the crowd depending on user base size. In Firefox I usually add an extension and configure it and some about:config settings. Somewhat minimal but probably quite unique.

I did not find any justification of why they arbitrarily did not considered Gecko browsers in privacyguides. They just made that statement. I am not surprised that certain chromium browsers are more secure simply because Google has a bigger budget, but I did not see any justification for it. Then again the EFF will say that Tor Browser is better then Brave so we can argue about these minor points forever.

Then again none of that minor stuff matters to me. I care more about the goals of the organizations themselves and I am not convinced that any of the Chromium browsers take us down a sane path. So I will be staying with Firefox thank you very much.

This is basically my point. You need a support network. The setup requires technical skill and perseverance, or just buy a system preinstalled like from System76 or Dell. Once the system is setup, it requires almost nothing in terms of care and feeding. But when it does, yes you need a support network. This is all no different then Windows. People usually buy Windows preinstalled and if there is a problem get a friend to help, or take it to a place like Best Buy to fix it. People often do not have the same support options for Linux though. This is why I say Linux is not for everyone.

First if your going to install Linux, install it on clean hardware. Meaning do not try for dual boot. You do not want any storage media you care about in a computer your playing with unless it is fully backed up and you know what your doing. One hint is use a really popular OS like Ubuntu to start. Hardware that is a few years old (not saying way old) works better paired with the latest possible version of whatever OS too. It can take some time to get FOSS support of hardware. The big hardware problem is running new hardware on old LTS support version for example, like when I upgraded the motherboard and CPU in my media center. Sometimes one has to have a newer kernel version then that or specially install some firmware. Both are beyond what a normal person could do. Mostly avoidable by using late version of Ubuntu rather then swapping out hardware with an older version. The other thing you could try is just play with Ubuntu on VirtualBox under Windows. Also web search and Ubuntu forums or Linux Forums are your friend.

I will say something different. Most people are best off with what they know and what the people they know use. It is all about support. I, my wife, and my father in-law all use Linux and Android with a Lot of FOSS stuff. They can because I can support them and my wife can support her dad and we are all local. My mom on the other hand uses Windows. She is half way across the country and my brothers family all know Windows. I do most of the support but they can too.

Advantages. Around 2000 after spending maybe $20000 on hardware and software over the years with Apple and Windows just got tired of the treadmill. Overpriced monopoly software that was basically done still being soaked for meaningless upgrades. I have used Linux ever since

Advantage today. Your not on the upgrade mill, your not the product, better FOSS support, it just works, your contribiting to an open and competitive market place. The major downsides are lack hardware support out of the box, and most people do not have a support network. Also if you want to run commercial software for some reason probably will not run on Linux, use Windows or whatever commercial platform in that case.

At some level it is not that hard. Want to run FOSS, run Linux. Want to run commercial software, use a commercial platform.

Seems like most useful when you have software that must have special device drivers. Otherwise Wine seems more interesting.

Is this still a Russian project? Thought it originally was. Am I wrong?

Not the point. Using a chromium browser is a vote for Google domination of the web. Just no.

3 full backups minimum, one off site. Also handy to grab a disk image occasionally just in case.