Skimmer

It's an entirely new standard, so no, it won't just be a firmware patch.

Removing the notifications permission doesn't prevent them from being sent. Source

Hard for me to understand how blocking valid email providers like Proton, Tutanota, and Skiff, would actually mitigate any abuse. All it's going to do is hurt the websites with this filter and prevent privacy-minded folks from signing up. Unfortunate to see, hopefully they get some common sense and don't block these for no reason.

If you don't have it on your Sony TV, I'd recommend installing another launcher like FLauncher which effectively does the same thing and gets rid of the garbage.

You can easily change launchers on the Shield, unlike the Fire TV for instance, which actively blocks it, to get rid of the advertising and garbage.

You can easily change launchers on the NVIDIA Shield and Chromecasts. Fire TV's are really the only devices that actively prevent changing launchers and try to force you to deal with their advertising.

Personally my recommendation is generally the Shield, or maybe an Apple TV depending on your use case. Expensive but well worth it imo, you really do get what you pay for.

If you need cheaper, then I'd probably go the Chromecast. Lesser of the two evils between like the Fire TV imo.

Last good version of Windows, RIP 🙏

They said Chrome specifically, not Chromium as a whole.

different distros

Isn't that a benefit of Linux, having all kinds of different distros and different options available? There isn't a "one size fits all". Just find the one you like and go from there.

broken repositories

How often does this actually happen? I can't think of a time I encountered broken repositories within the last few years of using Linux as a daily driver, I feel like you're exaggerating this. I think the repository system in general is amazing and installing software on Linux is so much better than Windows in about every way really.

software that doesn't work on Linux

This is a fair point, it depends on your use case. If anything you need is only tied to Windows, then yeah you don't have many options unfortunately. But I think for average people its probably fine since basically everything is on Linux nowadays, I guess biggest exceptions are like Microsoft Office and Adobe's suite.

proprietary drivers

I assume you mean NVIDIA? You can just get a distro that includes them already installed and ready to go like Nobara, or just use one that makes them easier to set-up like Pop OS, if you're uncomfortable installing them on a regular distro. (Though it really isn't that difficult).

Overall Linux isn't for everyone, but I do think it's improving more and more and about at a point now where average users could probably get away with using it instead of Windows in a lot of cases. But it does depend on your use case for sure at the end of the day. Hopefully I'm not out of touch here though lol.

Yeah, Chromecasts are much better than Fire TV's, due to the more control you have over them and how easy it is change the launcher vs. Amazon actively preventing it. Basically same price and budget as well. Plus Google running a newer version of Android in general vs. Amazon's, etc. Chromecasts are probably lesser of the two evils imo.

Pretty much unfortunately. The good thing is its trivially easy to change launchers on the NVIDIA Shield or Google TV devices, plus you can even go a step forward and debloat them entirely with ADB. Amazon's really the only manufacturer I'd say that forces home screen ads with no choice around it, since they actively prevent changing launchers and such. But Apple is probably the only one out of the box with no advertising.

If you have the money, I'd go for an NVIDIA Shield, or maybe an Apple TV. Well worth the money.

Otherwise, for budget, you could get a Chromecast, which gives you more control over it and has generally less garbage than the Fire TVs do for instance, since you can easily change its launcher and debloat with ADB.