The best solution right now may be ābuy a Macbook and learn MacOSā, which is so depressing.
Depends on whether you include āmy personal data is sent to the manufacturer of the computer against my wishesā in your threat modelā¦ Apple does many good things for security, and I wish PC hardware makers would take security-related things even just nearly as seriously as them. But I canāt trust Apple anymore either.
(Explanation: the whole iCloud syncing stuff is such a buggy mess. I donāt want it, I donāt need it, so I want it off. But I guess Apple just doesnāt test enough how well it works when you turn it off, maybe they canāt imagine someone not wanting it. The problem is, iCloud sync settings donāt stay off. Settings randomly turn themselves back on, e.g. during OS updates, and upload data before you even notice it. Iām not claiming thatās intentional, I assume itās just bugs. But Iāve observed such bugs again and again in the past 9 years, and Iāve had enough. Still have a Macbook around, but I use it very rarely these days, only when I need some piece of software on MacOS that has no suitable Linux equivalent.)
While a PC+Linux setup can avoid the specific issue of ādonāt randomly upload my data somewhereā, the setup of it all can be a mess, as you say. And then security is still limited by buggy hardware and BIOS/firmware that is frequently full of security holes. The state of computers is depressing indeed (in so many ways, security just being one of them)ā¦
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