Italian here (Veneto) How do you say it in your dialect? The ball bearing one. I really can’t translate it myself into something that could make sense to me.

Same thought. I just said to people close to me that I don’t want gifts neither for christmas nor for my birthday and I’ll never want them. As a kid it makes sense, getting something you really want from someone else because you don’t really have a serious job or money at all so it’s one of the few chances to get something. Now if I want something I just buy it, otherwise I just don’t want it. And if I can’t buy it because it’s expensive why would I want someone else to spend that kind of money? Plus all that thinking about what would be a good gift. And if it’s about “showing you care about me” then really, just say merry christmas or happy birthday.

Other than dedicated extensions there is a filter to enable in ublock origin under the annoyances section for cookie popups

This. I remember that one video by LTT where he tried searching for a flight and he got a way higher price on the standard browser compared to the one with no personal accounts/cookies.

If I use search engines, be it to find opinions on a topic or as you said an insurance, I want those sorted by factors like the date it’s been created and maybe the reputability of the source. Not what the algorithm thinks I want to see or I should see in “its” opinion.

Personally I feel more easy minded because I know that whatever I do online leaves as little trace as usual. If I go out by myself say for a drive and I get back home I expect no one to ever know that I went away and where unless I decide to say so. Same goes for online activity. I would expect nothing to be tied to me and whatever I do to go unnoticed unless for some reason I agree with sharing such data. It’s often said though that with privacy comes less convenience and that is true: not having app features ready before you even ask or easily paying or doing other things online so I see how wanting convenience over privacy can be preferable. For me though, the point I made in the beginning is stronger and motivates me.

Also on a side note I watched a video from Louis Rossman where he talked about some kind of police radio going stolen and the authorities went ask google for people in that area that searched that specific model online to help track that person down so… yeah, I’m already not a fan of leaving traces I don’t want to leave. Let alone those that might make the authorities mistake me for a criminal.

Personally I’m trying to be as offline and anonimous as possible. I’m moving away from cloud storage and if a service can be used with a client without an account where I can locally save and back up things I like then I’m using that. The biggest challenge right now is youtube as a platform with that huge of a content and a decent algorithm for suggestions is yet to be created.

I have around 5k€ left to pay for my car, for the rest I just spend what I know I can. I have a credit card but I just keep it there for emergencies or to pay in installments when the seller doesn’t allow it, everything else goes to the debit card.

Edit: for context since I just read “in the US”, I’m italian. My school was 150€/year so I saved myself the school debt thing.