Dell provides XPS laptop with Ubuntu on it. It works great and Ubuntu can be replaced with other distro ( I did successfully tested Mint and now Debian 11)

Windows... With this only word you already have all the abswers

Well, GIMP is great but uneasy, not sure but Paint.NET on Windows is simpler but very user friendly and may be sufficient for your needs

Totally agree...

Absolutely every website you visit or app you use, if they track such info of course.

Oh, very good points you mention here, definitively few red flags. As for the unusual traffic for your IP I experienced it because I'm using a VPN

Can you tell us why Qwant wasn't a good choice for you? I heard they work hard on respecting privacy while providing good results... So I am curious about your experience

Not worse, but less repeatable. You don't see any difference in typing, it just help reduce fingerprinting

Keyboard is absolutely a thing to be careful with. On Android mobile, use OpenBoard for example. On computer, if you use Linux, also install kloak [https://github.com/Whonix/kloak], a tool that slightly delays randomly your keystrokes to help you hide your typing pattern that can definitively identify you

It's important to distinguish privacy, anonimity and security.

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