Anything that’s cheap and reliable, nothing over $200

Why do I have to explain why I don’t want WiFi built-in? What difference would it make exactly?

That’s what I ended up doing and it worked. I think I used like FreeDOS or something like that.

Yes, yes, and no.

The creators of MullvadVPN or their identities are not prominently disclosed, which means you have to trust them. For all we know they could be working with Swedish law enforcement or other nations and you’d never know.

I’m pretty sure Startpage got sold out to an ad company. I think the best option is just to use SearxNG

Source?

“My BIOS is password locked but proprietary (due to compatibility issues).”

“I use full disk encryption, multiple disks, and a second layer of encryption for specific important files (NSA style)”

I recommend switching to Libreboot, I’ve recently helped add support for the Dell Optiplex 9020 MT, and will soon add support for the Dell Precision T1700 MT. Libreboot allows for full disk encryption, including the automatically encrypting the /boot partition during installation of an OS. I use RAID 0 with 3 disks (LUKS and LVM) on my desktop, with my /boot unencrypted stored on a SD card so I can easily toss it whenever.

For gaming, I’ve had success using Proxmox to play games like GTA V and Rainbow Six Siege through a VM, even passing through NVIDIA drivers (though I plan to switch to AMD). Although, currently the Haswell boards (9020MT and T1700MT) can’t use IOMMU correctly so I recommend using the T1650 for passing through your GPU to a VM. Beware though, the T1650 board can’t be freed entirely in the BIOS I believe.

Also, updating your CPU microcode can help avoid potential performance issues. If you’re concerned about security, consider GPG signing your kernel with Libreboot GRUB for an additional layer of verification at boot.

BTC --> XMR --> BTC is the simplest method to achieve anonymity with Bitcoin, or you can just purchase Monero directly via cash by mail.