Most companies aren’t peddling a toxic product like cigarettes (or social media).

How is it more harmful?

So, you have friends who are as stupid as an AI. Got it. What’s your point?

Well, you know what they say: you can’t buy enough penguins to hide your grandma’s house.

How is it not? Showerheads and refrigerators are technology.

How do OS updates work in Linux? Is there a “Linux Update” program like what Windows has?

Package managers. Linux had this before Windows. Granted, Linux needed package managers, because of the myriad and complex dependency trees that software can have. I prefer to install software through a package manager because it not only takes care of dependencies for me, it will take care of updates, too. I will only install something downloaded from a website as an absolute last resort. (And then, of course, making sure it’s a trustworthy source.)

How does digital security work on Linux?

It’s rather complex, but you probably won’t have to deal with it unless you have to do some kind of systems administration. On a day-to-day basis, the OS might ask you to enter your password to install software or make an update, and that’s the extent of it.

Basically, every file has 3 categories of permissions: user, group, and others, and each category has 3 permissions: read, write, and execute. This is transparently handled by the system for you, though, and I can’t even remember the last time I had to change permissions on a file. It’s a good thing to be aware of if you have to do troubleshooting, though.

Is it more vulnerable due to being open source?

Just the opposite. Vulnerabilities get spotted sooner because there’s more eyes on the code, and they’re often patched quicker because anybody can submit a patch to an open-source project.

Is there integrated antivirus software, or will I have to source that myself?

I’ve never heard of any distro shipping with antivirus software, but I’ve also never heard of a Linux virus. Of course, I’m sure they exist, but I’ve just never heard of one. I’ve been using Linux for over two decades, and I’ve never used an antivirus or gotten a virus in all that time, and I’ve never even heard of a Linux user getting a virus. Part of that is due to Linux being more secure and part of that is due to Linux being less popular. If you’re writing a virus, you aren’t going to try to jump through the insane hoops of Linux security when you could target Windows which is A) less secure and B) has a fuckton more users.

Obviously, use common sense, don’t install from untrusted sources, etc. etc., but viruses aren’t the omnipresent threat on Linux like they are on Windows.

I’ve never had those issues with KDE. I use Garuda dr460nized and Mokka. Both are based on Arch and use KDE.

I wonder how Scribus is doing these days.

Yeah, whenever I hear people complaining about ads, I’m like “You guys are seeing ads?!”

I could understand if you needed to be some 1337 hacker to block ads, but uBlock is one of the easiest extensions I’ve ever used. You just set it and forget it. There’s zero configuration you need to do.

Of course, if there’s some ad that slips past, then you need to do some hacking, but that almost never happens nowadays.

What’s the story with the Turkish protesters?

That’s like saying

“Nazism is a system and just that, it has no moral, therefore cannot be evil.”

or

“The Transatlantic slave trade is a system and just that, it has no moral, therefore cannot be evil.”

What are you talking about? Systems are created by people; they don’t just pop into existence.

How do you literally develop from a cloud? Are jetpacks involved?

Don’t you think they could do more good in the USA, since they’re the ones paying for it?

Vivaldi is closed-source, and it still uses Google’s engine. Good for you for moving away from Google, but you have much better options available to you: FireDragon, Zen, and the rest of the Mozilla browsers.

“College protesters.” I love how they’re just completely ignoring the First Amendment now.

PoE = Portal of Evil which was a directory of weird-ass websites.

What are you talking about?

Where did you get this laptop from? Did you buy it new or used?

The reason why I ask is because it sounds like you have hardware issues.

Yeah, this was my first thought: test your hardware.

You think that people blocking you is “bullying”? Nobody is required to listen to you.