I don't like anything that has a screen and doesn't need one (e.g. smart fridges) and I get paranoid around Google Home and Alexa devices. Also, why does everyone on the internet pretend to be Lain now? We can't all be Lain. Some of us have to be Kururu.
I use Firefox and am quite happy with it. It does what it needs to do.
Put your tinfoil hats on -- I don't trust the cloud. It's a joke to pay a tech conglomerate a stupid amount of money when you could just go to Best Buy and get a flash drive for at most about $15. I have a movie drive, a game drive, and a code drive, and I much prefer that system over getting conned by some billionaire.
I use VSCode and it works fine. I learned on Code Blocks and boy is it nice to use a text editor that doesn't make it feel like I'm on an elementary school library computer.
Adobe Creative Cloud is the biggest scam on the entire internet. They go out of their way to maintain their monopoly over digital creative programs to the point that it seems ridiculous and petty. They run on a subscription service, much like every other program that exists these days. Oh, you need Photoshop and Illustrator for college courses? Pay us $389 a year ($289 with a student discount!) and forget about all the other expenses that come with being enrolled in a university. I've tried using Inkscape and GIMP but unfortunately they just aren't up to snuff, as much as I would like them to be. Nine times out of ten, Adobe's products don't even work. I'm desperate for a free alternative to Adobe products that doesn't blow.