Did you watch GNs video? They go into detail on numerous predatory tactics. What you say makes sense in isolation but when paired with all the other awful things, at that point it’s a pattern

I know Batocera (which is primarily for retro gaming) has a way to launch Steam games. I wondered myself if there was a way to connect GoG too

If you are “insanely clumsy” I’d say save for the Framework as it’s highly repairable. You’ll save money in the long run rather than having to purchase another laptop if you keep breaking them on accident. Plus you can keep upgrading it over time as you said.

When streaming companies continue to give ads after you paid, raise prices, remove content, remove content from your “purchase library”, force you to arbitration when your spouse dies (Disney), and spy on your network or phone, ultimately having crappy ever changing EULAs, then piracy is the way to go

You can use the Polycentric protocol on Grayjay, though I doubt any creators actually read it.

GL.iNet has a mesh router based on OpenWRT and supports WireGuard.

https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-b1300/

I have the Flint 2 and like it quite a lot but don’t have experience with this other router.

I personally haven’t ever had it that difficult. My laptop has an nvidia card running mint and is dual booting with Windows with no issues. I’ve previously setup an encrypted Ubuntu on an external drive that can be loaded on any computer without issues. I’ve used Bazzite on an all AMD modern gaming powerhouse, and Kinoite on two laptops with integrated graphics with no issues. Also KDE Neon on a crappy old HP Laptop with no issues.

So you may have done something wrong in the process of installation, maybe your USB drive was corrupted, or maybe you tinkered alittle too much while not knowing exactly what you were doing.

Good points

I suggest Fedora Kinoite. An atomic version of Fedora (meaning it’s hard to mess up and easy to revert if you do manage to f things up) and it uses the Plasma desktop. The kernel is quite up-to-date and everything feels modern. I’ve transitioned a few noobs from Windows and they haven’t had any issues besides learning basics that are just different than what they are used to.

Mint with Cinnamon feels outdated and Ubuntu is a thing of the past with questionable tactics and goals.

People commonly reuse the same usernames and passwords with an associated email. All that must be done is check breach data for matching email and username and then try the password from the list. You’ll likely find more than a few will be a match

Why not use another search engine, and still use an adblocker?

The Ride1Up Prodigy V2 step-through CVT. It’s got tons of great tech at great price. USA based company too if that matters to you.

I found the company Ride1Up. They only sell direct online but that keeps their prices down. I like the Prodigy V2 step through for the ease of use and it has a CVT transmission that let’s you down shift while stopped and has nearly no maintenance. I don’t know where your from but it’s a USA based company which I appreciate

I’m planning to get an ebike to commute. It took me awhile but I finally found a nice bike that doesn’t have an app.

I know she doesn’t have the “M” chip, so I’d guess it’s an Intel

Oh I didn’t realize it was like that. I’ll have to re-visit my Mom’s Macbook

I use a VPN with NewPipe, no problems. I’m using the NewPipe repo for the app

Great! I’ve got my Dad on it, just need to get my mom off of her iPad now

You can put Kodi on a tablet and stream on the go. Just be sure to pick a lower quality file or some movies can be like 70gb

I suggest enlarging your current NAS or building one and running something like Open Media Vault, Umbrel, CASA, etc.

For streaming, Kodi is the best value though it’s via pirating. But is pirating such a bad thing when these companies steal your data and revoke movies that you purchased? With a debrid service costing $17 for 6mo you can stream basically anything with no slowdowns. Run Kodi via LibreElec on a RPi5.