These are all great suggestions. I have a lot of thoughts about the Linux issue, but everything you've said is correct: Microsoft is not your friend and Windows is spyware at this point. Am I switching to Linux tomorrow? No, but it gives me food for thought on how much computing I actually need to do and on how many devices.
One thing that I would emphasize is that its essential to understand your own information footprint. What's available about you online? Chances are, the answer is "everything," but if you are aware of specific information you can work to get it taken down.
How to find your information footprint (and a few things you can do about it):
Rather than try to provide an exhaustive list of resources and invariably get things wrong, I'll just advise that the Electronic Frontier Foundation makes a living, nay, a pursuit of helping people protect their privacy. Their website Cover Your Tracks has a ton of interactive tools to help you understand how insecure your browsing is and how you can secure it better: https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/
If you want to look at a resource that very nearly is exhaustive, consider the Awesome Privacy List on Github for privacy focused tools:
https://github.com/Lissy93/awesome-privacy/
And comparably, the Awesome OSInt List for 1,001 ways to find info about yourself online:
https://github.com/jivoi/awesome-osint?t...me-ov-file
There are many resources online for victims of doxxing, which also may be of use to you. Here is one such page from City University of New YorK:
https://www.cuny.edu/about/administratio...c7e57-2bcc
And as a bonus, Opt Out Guides from Delete me:
https://joindeleteme.com/blog/opt-out-guides/
One thing that I would emphasize is that its essential to understand your own information footprint. What's available about you online? Chances are, the answer is "everything," but if you are aware of specific information you can work to get it taken down.
How to find your information footprint (and a few things you can do about it):
- Google - Search all variants of your name, family members' names, and address on Google. Then search it on Bing. Set up an alert at https://alerts.google.com for these sensitive search terms. I've had mixed results with Google Alerts, but it's better than nothing.
- Results About Me - Use Google's Results About Me too ( https://myactivity.google.com/results-about-you? ) - This tool will not only find information about you online more reliably than Google Alerts, it also gives you a one-click option to request removal from Google's Search Results. The information will still be online, but if Google agrees, it will remove it from results at least.
- Consumer Reports PermissionSlip - Consumer Reports released an app called PermissionSlip that automates marketing data opt outs for you (deleting your data from Home Depot for example). PermissionSlip is still free to install, they've had some confusing marketing about their move to a freemium model, but I can personally confirm that as of this month its still doing its job and offering free opt out services: https://www.permissionslipcr.com/
- FastPeopleSearch - There's a thousands data broker websites like this that sell access to your address history and phone data. Fast People Search is one of them. Search your name here: https://www.fastpeoplesearch.com/ -- Opt out here: https://www.fastpeoplesearch.com/removal/search - Do your entire household or this is pointless.
- Whitepages - White Pages is another data broker. Search your name here: https://www.whitepages.com/ -- Opt out here: https://www.whitepages.com/suppression-requests
- Opt Out Prescreen - From the website, "OptOutPrescreen.com is the official Consumer Credit Reporting Industry website to accept and process requests from consumers to Opt-In or Opt-Out of firm offers of credit or insurance." -- https://www.optoutprescreen.com/
- DMA Choice - Opt out of direct mail marketing online using this service: https://www.dmachoice.org/
- Network Advertising Initiative Consumer Opt Out - https://optout.networkadvertising.org/?c=1 This page adds a bunch of cookies to your device, but they're special cookies intended to opt you out of personalized online advertising and monitoring. It does no less and no more than that. Does it work? Who knows, couldn't hurt at this point. Repeat this process on every device you use, possibly with every browser you use.
Rather than try to provide an exhaustive list of resources and invariably get things wrong, I'll just advise that the Electronic Frontier Foundation makes a living, nay, a pursuit of helping people protect their privacy. Their website Cover Your Tracks has a ton of interactive tools to help you understand how insecure your browsing is and how you can secure it better: https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/
If you want to look at a resource that very nearly is exhaustive, consider the Awesome Privacy List on Github for privacy focused tools:
https://github.com/Lissy93/awesome-privacy/
And comparably, the Awesome OSInt List for 1,001 ways to find info about yourself online:
https://github.com/jivoi/awesome-osint?t...me-ov-file
There are many resources online for victims of doxxing, which also may be of use to you. Here is one such page from City University of New YorK:
https://www.cuny.edu/about/administratio...c7e57-2bcc
And as a bonus, Opt Out Guides from Delete me:
https://joindeleteme.com/blog/opt-out-guides/