It would be great if Mint or Zorin had an atomic version so a failed update can be switched back in seconds and it is essentially impossible for the user to break anything outside of the home folder.

And make sure it is a 3.0 stick in a 3.0 port. USB 2.0 is barely even 5400 RPM speed.

You said "Firefox derivative" so resistFingerprinting may be enabled and WebGL blocked. If you're talking about Librewolf, you should turn those off, then use Jshelter to get the non-breaking protection back.

A standard Firefox is not private and is easily fingerprintable. Those settings give you good privacy but won''t make most captchas fail.

It should work if you use a Firefox based browser with tracking protection set to strict and resistFingerprinting disabled, then use Jshelter with the following settings.

• Locally rendered images: Little lies
• Locally generated audio: Little lies
• WebAssembly speed-up: Enabled
• Everything else including Fingerprint Detector disabled

Then visit fingerprint.com in a normal window, then visit it again in private mode with a VPN or with a dufferent server selected. You will see that the ID is different both times which proves that you're protected.

As for the adblocker, just use uBlock Origin with the Quick Fixes list disabled as it may shadowban YouTube comments because their bot protection is silent.

Bitcoin isn't a scam; it has value because of supply and demand and the fact there will only be 21 million ever mined, however anyone is allowed to use it.

You should replace the TCL with a Google TV model. They have a basic TV mode which doesn't require Wi-Fi and lets you just use HDMI and antenna inputs.

That was a suggestion for when you do decide to upgrade. Google knows that some people don't want their OS and has explicitly accomodated them unlike Roku.

If you haven't done so yet, you should set the clear motion/action smoothing setting to custom with de-judder and de-blur set to 0, and turn off the noise reduction stuff.

The blur and AI generated look those features cause on their default settings is even worse than home screen ads for me.

I can't wait for free movie site levels of ads.

How do you do that, and do you get full control of picture settings?

They're on the home screen in a banner on the right when you select an app, as sections on the left, in a banner on the bottom left, a banner over the movie in their Roku Channel app and so on.

You may be in a country where they are not serving many ads. They also use ACR on TV models which have it that sends fingerprints of what you watch to a server for personalised ads.

The problem with the internet is not the internet itself, but the big tech platforms.

By using sites like Mastodon and Lemmy, using a browser with uBlock Origin installed, and disabling Web & App activity, personalised ads, etc on your phone, you are taking a stand, and routing around the bad stuff exactly as intended.

There is this blocklist:

https://github.com/...

This is not TikTok. You can say paedophiles.

The thing about Linux is that you have choice. You can put Xubuntu on a laptop with a Core 2 Duo and 4GB of RAM and it will fly.

What is wrong with them?

You can get good Bluetooth earbuds for under $50 and a USB-C to AUX dongle for under $15.

The average person is fine with Bluetooth earbuds or an adapter, and audiophiles would not find the inbuilt DAC/amp on a phone to be adequate.

You can add PhotoGIMP to change the layout to be similar to Photoshop.