For me specifically, the setup and config oftentimes is what I’m doing with the computer, the learning and knowledge gained from the practice is what I’m after, which is good because it’s significantly less fun than it used to be.

Admittedly mine is probably a non-standard case and it ties in with other things in my life.

Condolences on your loss.

Depends on how you define ‘cost’ I suppose, but seems like the trade off isn’t worth it for you, which is fair.

Some might value the perceived benefits much higher than you do.

What if the life I’m imagining I’m protecting is one where I have the option of choosing a platform/application that isn’t scraping the absolute dregs of the barrel to squeeze out that last bit of profit margin.

That’s a win win right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVhlJNJopOQ

I don’t think there’s any data Microsoft can get through you using edge that they can’t also get just by controlling your OS

I’d put mid-level money on that not being true. There are a lot of things going on in a browser, a lot of which aren’t particularly easy to access from the outside.

Not to say it isn’t possible.

There are valid reasons to use windows and if you’ve gotta use it anyway they’ve already got your data from the start

To a degree yes, but assuming they aren’t pulling nefarious shit in the background, there are in theory many things you can turn off or somewhat neutralise using the options in the OS to reduce the level of data collection.

They are slowly removing those options but they still exist for now.

Again, i fully understand people not wanting to go to the trouble to achieve a goal they don’t care about, but that isn’t the same as there being nothing you can do if you wish to.

There shouldn’t be any of the Googled parts of Chrome in Edge, just as there aren’t any Googled parts of Chrome in stock Chromium.

There are at the very least googled parts of chromium in it though : https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium

Unless google have significantly changed the way they package and build chromium recently there are still google web service dependencies and i believe binary blobs (though they may have changed the closed source blob policy iirc)

Of course, you are now giving your data to Microsoft instead of Google, which isn’t really a win or a lose. If you’re not paying for the software, you’re either using FOSS, or the software is paid for by selling access to you and your computer.

Indeed

If you’re using windows you’re already giving Microsoft data so may as well

While technically correct, to me this sounds like “You haven’t managed to stop some of the tracking, why not just give them everything?” which is personally not my approach.

Not to say that my approach isn’t effort and is even effective, but I’d much rather limit the damage in the ways i can rather than give up entirely. I can see why someone wouldn’t want to put in that kind of effort though and i don’t fault them for it.

Edge uses chromium not chrome, I would hazard a guess there’s much less data harvesting going on in base chromium given it’s open source and people can see exactly what they collect

Open source yes, but not necessarily free from data-harvesting.

The fact that un-googled chromium (and others like it) exist implies that straight up chromium being open source isn’t a guarantee they aren’t doing consumer-hostile shit anyway.

Though, yes, it’s almost certainly less than full-fat chrome.

I’m having trouble parsing this so i might be commenting on something that isn’t there.

Current edge is a chrome re-skin with some addons, I’d put good money on it not being google free.

If you care about data going to nefarious places you probably shouldn’t be using either.

To clarify , there is an aurora client for f-droid. https://gitlab.com/AuroraOSS/auroradroid

The OP mentions aurora store by name so they are probably not talking about the f-droid wrapper. Also if f-droid breaks rule 4 AuroraDroid almost certainly does.