Well, I am in an interesting situation, in that my ISP is HughesNet. I think they must run their system like a giant VPN, because I never see any of the "pinging" from Chinese (and .gov) sources that used to see before. (And if you try to geolocate my IP, it tells you it's in Kansas, 1000 miles from my actual.) I don't go anywhere near porn or music sites, don't even view videos. I do not do any banking online. I do not use Paypal, (which was the source of the last two credit card breaches I had, according to the bank. Those were in 2016, and I haven't had one since.) My email provider is ProtonMail. (I wish that family members would not use Gmail and Yahoo, though.) I do not use WiFi.
Because my Part B insurer won't compile their site to run on XP & FF-52, I was forced to buy a Win 10 machine to manage my online prescriptions. It scares me. I had to give up a bunch of personal info to Microsoft just to get the O/S to start up. I've caught Brave storing my credit card info without asking me. Win10 regularly demands that I back up to Microsoft's cloud. I had forgotten what a PITA the updates from Microsoft can be. Too often this Win10 machine literally will not shut itself down for up to half an hour, unless I pull the power cord and yank the battery.
Lastly, I still use some legacy software almost daily that simply doesn't work properly on Win 10. I'm old enough that I once had to learn UNIX for work, but at 79 I'm fed up with being forced to learn new operating systems. So AFAIC I'm keeping my XP machine front and center until they carry me out in a body bag. /rant
I use a separate Vivaldi stand-alone browser for both,with no extensions and config. not to remember pws, but have used PP to make many purchases on all my browsers in recent years (usually low-cast items, like bike parts) with no thefts so far, thanks be to God in Christ. Pray and press.
I was forced to buy a Win 10 machine to manage my online prescriptions. It scares me. I had to give up a bunch of personal info to Microsoft just to get the O/S to start up. I've caught Brave storing my credit card info without asking me. Win10 regularly demands that I back up to Microsoft's cloud. I had forgotten what a PITA the updates from Microsoft can be. Too often this Win10 machine literally will not shut itself down for up to half an hour, unless I pull the power cord and yank the battery.
I hear you, but did you search how to bypass this? I myself installed W/11 using a MS account, but you should be able to do so without one, as well as W/10.
You can Turn off, disable, or uninstall OneDrive
You should also install MS sanctioned Autoruns for Windows (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/autoruns) which you unpack, and run (best to r. clk. run as Admin) and hit Everything and see what all is loading, which you can deselect.
Also helpful is Process Explorer https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer
Of course, Windows update will often revert changes to autorun apps but if you want,
How to prevent Windows 10 updates
I thank God for such tools. May we use them for God and what is good in His sight.