Cookies do not directly communicate your IP address, they’re just bits of data about your visit. Logging out of LinkedIn and closing your browser should clear them, unless they’re persistent cookies.

Using a VPN to create a new Spotify account maskes your actual IP address. Meaning spotify wont know your home IP address. But, if Spotify uses cookies from your previous sessions or if you log in with the same credentials, it may still serve targeted ads based on your previous activity.

So while cookies don’t transmit your IP address, they still influence the ads you see based on your browsing history and/or account information. For enhanced privacy, it’s usually recommended to set cookies to be wiped when you close the browser. I have a handful of sites I like to keep cookies for, but everything else is gone after each session.

Nobara could be a great choice for your setup. It’s a version of Fedora, made by a very well respected Fedora team member, setup with gaming in mind. It comes with many of the drivers you’d have to download using most other distros. Being Fedora based means you can tinker with anything you wanted to change. I recommend the KDE spin, KDE is known as the swiss army knife of environments. It’s super intuitive too. I’m actually in a bit of an emulator phase right now, I have had zero issues using KDE Fedora while figuring it all out!

I use a few of these and I have no issues with internet speed. I can stream HD video while uploading large files no problem. So I’d bet you’d be just fine, probably won’t even notice unless it’s faster. But I wasn’t aware of hBlock, I’ll have to look into it.

KDE Gear intergrates in KDE software by adding applications, frameworks, and libraries to be used by KDE applications.

I dig the latter part of the statement, but that first half bugs me. Shouldn’t they have a warrant in order to monitor someone to an extent where this needs to be stated?

Legit leaked info the NSA tells their employees…

Incorporating it into your DNS as bizarroland@kbin.social said is a great option. The Mull browser from F-Droid allows uBlock as an add-on but is just browser specific. Setting up both would be a fantastic approach for overall mobile privacy.

Both those fools took tax dollars when they didn’t qualify!

Graphenes PDF Viewer is a good option.

Disregard whatever you’ve heard about installing Linux on the device, find the agreement given with it and see what it says. If no reference is made to doing your thing then returning it with the same setup, I’d say you’re in the clear. I’d bet the agreement covers damage, lost and stolen aspects plus returning it good condition, yet if you reinstall the software like it was provided they’d have to be very explicit about not loading Linux. If they do, you could use linux on a USB without installation. This could get you off the spyware while not breaking the rules if they are in writing.

ATM’s make pulling out cash an option without human interaction, plus there’s exponentially less tracking possible. Seems like a win-win, especially when you take into account some banks are revoking the option to pull out cash.

OSS Weather has decent radar for rain and solid stats in the home screen too. There’s three different sources for weather data you can select, so I’d bet one will be better than the others for radar mapping.

Maybe Orson’s scientific notebook (https://orsn.io/) could work. For basic spreadsheets it’s cryptpad.fr or bust in my book

Mull is basically LibreWolf on mobile, even has uBlock in the add-on’s too!

I don’t think this has been rolled out yet unfortunately. Systray-x or KDocker will make it happen until it’s native though.

If you enjoy KWrite & KolourPaint, give Spectacle a go for screenshots. Works amazing on my end and it’s built into most KDE OS spins along with KWrite and Kolour. While I know the name Flameshot, I’ve never actually needed it as Spectacle is solid!

It’s anticipated to slow things down unfortunately

KDE is your friend in the trenches, Kubuntu > Ubuntu 100%

Regardless of whatever distro, definitely keep all your stuff backed up on an external drive. I had to “restart” my install a few times to get the hang of things. Yet I still keep all my info on an Vegacrypt encrypted external just in case to this day.

My fault, I mistook your statement.

It’s not an A or B choice in any sense, framing anything in the tech space along these lines is equal to Dems vs Reps…There’s vivid documented work arounds for both, both Apple and Zuck deserve to get lost base on what they’ve turned into.