I use browsers a lot. This is silly, and assumes that personal control over software is a binary state. I am much more independent of corporate megamachines than I would be if I ran Windows.

- My computer asks me before it updates, and it does not send telemetry data about my files and application usage to another company.

- All of my personal notes and organization is managed through org mode, which is much more flexible and portable than OneNote, which I was using on Windows. Emacs is technically available for Windows, but it doesn't work well.

- The majority of Open Source software is designed to be compiled on Linux, so if you want the full benefit of using Open Source (ie, being able to edit the software yourself or use a specific development branch), working off of Linux is practically a requirement.

- youtube-dl means that when I want to save a video to watch later on Youtube, I simply download it to my local desktop. No more worrying that a corporation decides a month from now to take it down. Because I'm on Linux, it's easy for me to script chron jobs that automatically download from creators I'm looking to follow, which further reduces my need to go to Youtube's homepage and look at its crappy recommendation engine. I have plans to locally host my own server that uses youtube-dl as a backend, and then to set up network rules on my desktop to redirect all Youtube video embeds to it instead.

- On the web, I'm leveraging more Open protocols like Matrix to allow me to primarily run free software while still connecting to friends who are on Discord/Slack. Because I'm on Linux, developing and deploying Matrix applications is much easier.

- Also on the web, I use browser automation tools and scrapers (which work better on Linux) to allow me to manage applications like Twitter without being forced to look at their crappy recommendations and ads, and without being beholden to their user-hostile API rules. This kind of stuff can save you a tremendous amount of time and energy, because sites like that are designed primarily to waste your time. I've thought about setting up a similar system for Hackernews, but ATM it still passes the value threshold for me.

- I use Borg Backup (which works better on Linux) and B2 so I have complete control over my own encrypted backups, and I don't need to share the key with a corporation.

- I'm able to recycle old devices by installing lighter, Arch-based distros on them. This helps me avoid the consumerist grind of throwing things away and buying new devices over and over and over again. A significant portion of my home setup runs off of recycled machines.

- Speaking of my home setup, if you're looking to reduce your reliance on the web by building competing or personalized services that you host yourself, knowing Linux is basically a requirement, because at some point you will want to do something outside of NodeJS, and then you'll have to interact with the underlying server, which will be running Linux. Running the same OS everywhere will improve your development time, for the same reason why NodeJS became popular. It's just less context switching.

Switching wholesale to Linux has greatly improved my life in noticeable ways. I spend less time fighting with my computer to do things. I have more control over when and how I connect to the Internet. I feel more confident about the software that I'm running. And I feel like in some ways, I am more independent of the corporate megamachine.

This is not a binary "you're free or you're not." I'm a web developer. I spend most of time looking at either Emacs or a browser. Switching to Linux is still worth it. Could my situation be better? Yeah, and I'm working on it. But people who say this kind of stuff forget just how bad the Windows world actually is right now.