tmpod

Yes!! Mordin's arc is beautiful <3

The last major update was in 2017, bots started plaguing casual mode around 2018/19, and ever since the game has seen anastonishingly tiny amount of updates outside ofhthe usual summer, Halloween and Christmas updates (which just shove community made content from the Workshop into special gamemodes and crates); apart from the recent 64-bit version and the VScript addition a while back, nothing of interest has happened in the last handful of years. F2P lost their ability to call medic and the bot crisis is completely unsolved.

It's sad. But as another user pointed out, at least we have e community servers (and good ones).

Great comment, cheers!

While this may be a good end goal, these comments are really more harmful than anything else. Removing your dependency on some proprietary service can be very far from trivial, or even doable, there is a wide-range of internal or external factors preventing you from ditching it.
For example, part of my work and a bunch of good online friends of mine use Discord, so I keep it around. If you do any social gaming as well, you'll also most likely find it hard to ditch the platform, as it's grown deep roots in the community.

Anyway, it's better to take small steps in the right direction than trying to make a U-turn and fail miserably.

I see, that's a good point indeed, it can be a good learning step. From a privacy standpoint, however, it's not that effective.

I've been a laptop-only guy for over 10 years, here's my take:

At first, I wanted a powerful and colorful desktop computer, so I could play all the games I wanted, maybe touch on some 3D software, and overall have a cool setup. However, I couldn't afford it at all (though times during and after the 2009 crisis, in Portugal), so I ended up just sticking with the handful of years old, 17 inch and 4Kg laptop my older brother had given me.
The years passed and I never bought a desktop. The mobility and versatility of laptops was too good to give up, and having poured many hours into configuring my system (first years of laptop-only coincided with first years of Linux, pretty much) I didn't want to have to manage and sync two different computers. I wasn't aware of Nix and similar OSs, but even that doesn't solve the sync issue. Now my work requires me to take a computer with me, so I must have a laptop. I also work from home quite a lot, but I like to work outside, in the porch/garden.

Nowadays you can get really good and mobile (gaming) laptops, like the ones from XMG (and their sister brands) or even the newer Frameworks (which are also great for other obvious reasons). Even XMG laptops are quite reparable, outside of CPU/GPU failures, and DIY is supported by the seller. I'm currently rocking their XMG Fusion 15 L19 (late 2019), and am incredibly happy with my purchase, it's still in pristine shape!

Of course, this doesn't apply to everyone, but I think a laptop is generally a safer bet, if you know where to buy.
Happy to discuss this further! :)

Edit: Just wanted to drop an very nice laptop-focused channel: Bob Of All Trades. It seems they haven't been very active as of late, but they were very informative and had good guides some years ago, when I was looking for a new laptop.

That is interesting to hear, why do you think so?

The Mass Effect trilogy is full of favorite moments for me, but perhaps the most memorable one is when you romance Tali and get(h) to the final push on Earth, in ME3.It's beautiful.

While others have mentioned the great GrapheneOS, I will throw two other options:

• CalyxOS — privacy oriented Android OS. While Graphene focus on security pretty much above all else, Calyx focus on privacy (and usability) more. Both essentially only target Pixel phones and are great choices.
• LineageOS + MicroG — AOSP fork, continuation of the old CyanogenMod, with an open implementatinon of Google Services. This is perhaps the most "normal" OS, seeing as Lineage's core is user freedom and not exactly privacy; however, with MicroG, you get a pretty private system with very few to none of the side effects of deviating a lot from standard Android.

Graphene is a great project, but I think it may be a bit too much for someone that is just entering the privacy world, hence why I'm suggesting these two options as alternatives that are less strict and "cumbersome" to use, so to speak, while not really sacrificing privacy.

In the end, as all things privacy, it depends a lot on your threat model, your tech proficiency and willingness to make "sacrifices" and adapt.

Yes, it is a hard step, but it is perhaps the most relevant one, hence why it's important to get started with it, unless some external factor prevents the change. If you still have other Google apps (including Google Services), then uninstalling Gmail really does very little to nothing.

I meant alternative apps to Google's in general, not to GMail specifically. Ditching GMail is an important step, as you block a relevant source of personal information, but using alternative apps, like MajorHavoc recommended, is another great step. NewPipe is one of such apps (I disagree Tubular is a better pick, but that's something for another post).

K-9 and FairMail aren't a good alternative to GMail. Not alone, that is. GMail is both an e-mail provider and a client, but I'd argue the first point is the most relevant. If you use a FOSS e-mail client with your Google account, nothing is really changing, they will still read all your mail. You have to change providers as well, which isn't trivial for most people.
E-mail is an insecure means of communication, so you shouldn't even use it for sensitive things, depending on your threat model, as usual. I personally use Migadu as my provider, for all the customisability and "vanilla" e-mail infrastructure they have, but Proton and Tuta are good alternatives as well, if you don't mind or don't care about the non-standard extensions.

Exatamente, não sei que sistema vão arranjar... Veremos