Wow, that sounds horrific. Glad that this was a temporary thing.
The standard version of Linux mint is with Cinnamon. Desktop environments are basically how your desktop looks. Cinnamon looks similar to Windows, and Mint is newbie friendly, so you will have no problem moving.
It's a white child, don't you see? /s
A lot of us understand that if you type anything in a computer it is assumed to be on the public record either easily found or through a few hoops to get it.
The problem is that nowadays your medical documentation, banking and other sensitive data is all transferred through a computer. And it should be protected and private.
I've looked into ecosia and they store IPs for a week to "protect ourselves from spammers". They encrypt your searches, use Bing for results and ads, but they filter the "annoying" ones. I think they are pretty good overall.
Don't they take search results from bing?
Edit: Correct me if I'm wrong
Try ReVanced it doesn't have the shorts button, and you can remove shorts from your home feed.
If you are buying a smartphone why not buy the most secure one?
If you don't want to change anything major in your phone or go into the technical stuff, iPhone is better, but the best phone privacy-wise is a Pixel with custom (privacy oriented) ROM installed, since Pixels have the best security features among Android.
Is it an app or only a website?
The biggest problem is that average people are used to the tech big companies provide, and lazy so that they won't move to overall better alternatives. This means the companies don't care about consequences of their actions, because there is NONE. Looking at it from the company's perspective, why not make more money from people that won't leave the site anyways?
May I ask how would the "Kids Online safety bill" differentiate between an underage user and adult? I'm not from the US so that's why I don't know