You’re comment I came looking for. You get a standing ovation or something.

Yup on 4. Mess at all with the hostfile and Windows Defende won’t stop harassing you about a threat. User autonomy is a threat to Windows.

Oh so much better. I’ve relegated Windows only programs to a virtual machine. I haven’t touched it in a long time but it’s there just in case.

About a month ago Windows 11 started forcing ads for apps and services I didn’t need. Immediately installed a popular Linux distribution to have some peace of mind. There’s every flavor of desktop out there. I picked one for work and games (pop_os). It’s out of my way most of the time and it’s not trying to sell me anything. I recommend it, specially, if you’re someone that doesn’t fiddle with settings too much, it just work.

Oh boy. That thing is the steering wheel of the Windows system.