Alright. I had to read up again on why this is newsworthy in the first place. Because of the language in their new ToS regarding usage of user data. The article I read, asked why they would only now update their terms despite the California Privacy Act having been in effect for a while now.

I’m very sure, optimistically assuming they are honest and really didn’t change the way they handle user data, that an auditor found the previous wording of their ToS just not clear enough. Working in Quality Management and having attended quite a number of audits, this happens all the time. Company has a process for years, sometimes decades, but then needs to change the wording in a document because a new and overly by-the-books auditor will demand such to have it not only be “correct in spirit” but also “technically correct”. Nothing in the actual process needs to change.

Again, this is me assuming that they really havent done something different in the way they handle data. Isn’t Firefox open-source? Could some savvy code-reader go through it to see if something about the data collection has changed?

That is an excellent suggestion!

I recognise that for almost any one task, Linux has a solution that works better than Windows. My issue is just getting Linux to run not only one specific thing but all the dozens of programs with each having their own dependencies and possible quirks without losing my mind, weeks of my life, data or all three.

If Valve (or really any other large entity capable of handling this for tens of thousands of users) stepped in to act as the guide for setting it all up in a safe manner and such that it just works without constant need for tweaking (unless you want to stray from the “installation wizard”), I could see Linux gain a big surge in users.