Windows market share has been declining for some time now.

https://www.gizmochina.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Deskto...

Linux is absolutely ready to spy too! The infrastructure is all in there and non-removable: dbus broacasts anything happening in the system, systemd starts background services by it's own and auto-updates are the norm. Last time I tried Ubuntu, it had popularity-contest installed by default. Apparently the scandal was big enough they removed it. [1]

[1] https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2020/07/ubuntu-popularity-contes...

It seems Ubuntu is made exactly for these moments, to dismiss GNU/Linux as another spying OS.

If you leave Windows to retain the control for your computing, choose any other GNU/Linux among many. I chose Debian.

I do use Gentoo currently, but it's so very hard to keep programs from monitoring what happens in the system via dbus and the only firewall for outgoing connections, OpenSnitch, hard-depends on it. Running every major program in a container is NOT a solution.

So far Linus has kept these things outside the kernel, but he won't live forever.

This is why my daily driver is Qubes OS.

OMG, that's even worse than containers.

By which measure?

Storage occupied, memory, CPU, config complexity, startup time, data transfer, take your pick.

Indeed, security has a price. However the storage requirements are minimal, since different VMs can share the root filesystem.

Popularity contest comes from Debian. Although I see nothing wrong with it. It asks you on install, whether you want to use it, and you can uninstall it at any time.