And you can just… Turn them off. No questions asked. DuckDuckGo is a great example of how an advertising company can be both financially viable and respecting of user-choice.

Google could let users choose to opt out of seeing any ads across their network for free today and still be one of the most profitable companies in existence. A huge percentage of users wouldn’t know or care to turn ads off, another percentage actually wants them, and for advanced users they could offer more advanced, useful features for money.

But try pitching that to stakeholders and upper-management lol

I’m assuming one would still be able to switch to a local account after installation, but you really shouldn’t need to. What a shit show.

You’re right, my bad.

I would agree way this, with one caveat: Does OP plan to game on Linux?

Gaming on Linux has come very far, but it’s not perfect and not something you can really get a feel for in a USB live environment. At that point rather to dual boot and try sticking with Linux for a while.

Nah, I’m on free and don’t get anything. I don’t remember unsubscribing from anything, but I signed up a couple of years ago, so may just have forgotten.

You're using Linux. It took me about an hour to create a script that will upgrade all packages, Snaps, and flatpaks, complete with flavor text. The fact that I could do that, with total control over how and when to run those updates, is still a killer feature to me.

In other news, water is wet.

Tbh if I'm making a quick purchase that doesn't matter much to me, I just get the one with the highest purchase number or whatever is cheapest. If I'm purchasing something pricey or that I care about... I'm looking for actual reviews elsewhere before buying anyways.