Wow, that sounds horrific. Glad that this was a temporary thing.
AlbyEvent
Still better than FB Messenger, that's really popular among the youth where I live.
The standard version of Linux mint is with Cinnamon. Desktop environments are basically how your desktop looks. Cinnamon looks similar to Windows, and Mint is newbie friendly, so you will have no problem moving.
It's a white child, don't you see? /s
I've looked into ecosia and they store IPs for a week to "protect ourselves from spammers". They encrypt your searches, use Bing for results and ads, but they filter the "annoying" ones. I think they are pretty good overall.
Don't they take search results from bing?
Edit: Correct me if I'm wrong
Try ReVanced it doesn't have the shorts button, and you can remove shorts from your home feed.
Yes! Proton mail started to behave like typical corporation :(
You can install an apps which basically display the WhatsApp webpage like an app, if you use flathub at least