Search the Community

I have a theory that in era 2 of stormlight archive we will have computers which run on logicspren

Hi all, I know a lot of people on this forum know more about computers than me and I've been having questions about privacy on computers. It seems to me that both Macs and Windows are taking in more and more information about pretty much everything that is done on them, and it doesn't really seem like that trend will change any time soon. I'm philosophically opposed to that, so I was thinking of switching to linux or maybe buying an old laptop and trying out a few different linux distros to see how that was. So that's my first question, is linux really that much more private than mac or windows? It's open source, but I don't know whether or not it collects data on users. My second question is about internet security and privacy. As far as I can tell there's no way to really use the internet without having some data collected on you. Are there browsers that are better about that than others, or are they all pretty much the same? Also, are vpns really all that helpful? I know there are varying levels of vpn quality, but I'm still kind of trying to wrap my head around what vpn actually does. Is vpn more for security, like protection against viruses and malware, or is it more to prevent sites from taking in data about you? Also if you have any other useful information about protecting privacy (and also security) put it here. To me privacy is more important than performance or ease of use, and it's kind of hard to find helpful information that doesn't go over my head. I don't feel super safe using the internet or using computers in general, it's like that constant question of whether or not the computer is gathering/sending information about me that I'm not aware of Thanks in advance for your help!

I need a bit of help finding something. There are a lot of games I'm interested in playing and I would really like to get beck into gaming eventually. I love rpgs and want to someday get a computer dedicated to JUST gaming, mostly older games. So I was wondering if there is a simple, reasonably-priced laptop that can play older games ranging from DOS to newer games. Even if I would need an external storage of some sort for it, that would be fine, too. Or even an external storage, one that could hold a lot of games for my current laptop: an HP Pavilion, with something that would allow me to play a range of games from DOS to newer. Either one of those would work. I'm not too concerned about memory, I usually keep my computer plugged in anyway. If it's relevant or useful in any way, examples of games I would like to play are the Ultima series, Might & Magic and Heroes of Might & Magic series and other similar games. Mostly those three series to be honest, but they're quite a wealth of games on their own. Anyway, summery of requirements: -Either laptop OR external storage for current laptop -Capable of games ranging from DOS to newer games, mostly older (examples given above) -Battery power isn't much of an issue to me