I have not any experience with WatchGuard, but it from some quick searching around it seems to not be far from the easiest to set up for linux. dual-booting is probably the easier solution.

I hope you find a solution to what sounds like not the best life situation, and may you have an otherwise have a nice Linux journey.

Then all I can do is welcome you and wish for you to have a nice journey

1. There is a workaround for installing win 11 with local account, it's still horseshit
2. the fact that they think that just because they still show ads it's ok in any way shape or form to collect any personal information is insane
3. don't forget they are also trying to screen record 24/7 and then store it in the cloud (yes they store it "locally" in you appdata, that they then decided to sync with OneDrive)

Upgrade to win11 or change to Linux?

Without prodding too much into what VPN you work uses

Most VPN solutions run on linux just fine, even Microsoft PPTP VPN solution works fine. I would probably check with your IT department what protocol they use and any connection caveats (like machine certificates used for authentication) and look into the different VPN solutions (some examples; WireGuard and OpenVPN are very well supported, IPSec (libreswan or strongswan are options here) depends on setup, PPTP/L2TP should work with most setups (I have to admin I havn't touched those enough), vpnc works with Cisco base IPsec setups and openconnect works with most SSL VPN connection)

Unfortunately this is true for advertisements/sponsorships everywhere. Not sure if there is a true one size fit all solution for fixing these products other than individual channels actually vetting/checking who pays them money.

There are some good channels that unfortunately just take whatever sponsor deal they get. I ended up using sponsorblock for the most part, and then support those channels I care about on patreon/ko-fi

edit: just changed some phrasing to not make my rambling as rambly

They are Canadian based, which is a very important distinction.

It advertises on multiple platforms, so it must be evil?

I don't understand this mentality, just because a youtuber is sponsored by a product, the product must be bad/malicious/acting in bad faith.

There are many channels on youtube that aren't morally corrupt or soulless. If a company sponsors a channel on yt, it just means more people become aware of the product. which is the whole point of the sponsorships.

Spotify is getting worse as well, at least on desktop.

"we are moving the album to a right sidebar, it now only occupies more of your screen"

"we liked the right sidebar so much that we are moving the queue over there as well, we're also removing useful info like album and artist"

I shouldn't have to use spicetify just to get basic features back

0

is bigger than

1

but my

2

is bigger than yours

Well you see. 1905 never happened, and we are all under Sweden still. /s

Norwegian government loves windows, so yea, I really doubt it. (by it, I mean the government using Ubuntu thing)

Source: I used to work for the Norwegian government

edit: added explanation to "it", so not to be as confusing to what I refered to.