When I was new to the Linux desktop world (late 90s to 200x) I tried lots of different distros and (X11) window managers and tools and whatnot. Changed themes a lot. And so on. And I think there’s value in all that, because it expands your horizon of what’s possible on the desktop, how different UI/UX paradigms work out in practice for you, and you learn how to use different environments.
On the other hand, there’s also value in having a consistent, well-integrated desktop environment. It can mean less “pain points” in various circumstances, and it’s also efficient when multiple programs share the same libraries or code base instead of having separate tools all around.
In the end, it comes down to what works best for you. But this might also change over time. For example I’m really considering switching to Cosmic once it’s mature. I’m also considering taking a look at Niri because it seems well thought-out. But currently I feel cozy using Plasma at home and Gnome at work because Plasma is currently the least-annoying and at work I still use Gnome because it’s been historically more stable than Plasma for me. I’ve tweaked Plasma’s hotkeys so they work more like Gnome’s and since I also need to use a couple of Windows-based systems at work I’ve also configured common Windows shortcuts like Super+L, Super+E, Super+R so that they all behave the same everywhere.
Oh, and my distro is Arch everywhere because I’ve used it for ages now and I like its technical simplicity, stability and modularity. It’s the one distro that gets in my way the least.
I think one should learn enough to be flexible and be able to use everything, while also not being too narrow-minded and just focus on one solution too much. What works best for you now might not be the best choice for you in a couple of years.
So unfortunately websites routinely and carelessly lie about basically everything related to data protection stuff. This already begins with the term “technically necessary cookies”. No cookie is truly technically necessary. What they usually mean by that is “we really really want to put this tracking cookie from our ad partners like Google into your browser, and we don’t care whether you want that or not so we just claim it’s technically necessary”. But even if you refuse a cookie prompt, often your choice isn’t respected at all and cookies are created regardless. In fact, many cookies are already created at the very beginning before you make any choice in any sort of cookie banner. Basically this whole ad/tracking industry is a complete mess and no one really cares and it’s just best to completely ignore what sites claim and use technical means to protect yourself at least a little bit because you cannot trust ANY site’s claims regarding that. Most of the time, even the phrase “we value your privacy” is already the very first and biggest lie. Don’t trust what websites claim. It’s pointless, and nothing happens when they violate their own rules or data protection laws anyway. Which they do almost all of the time anyway. This illegality is routine and almost omni-present. Cookies are also far from the only thing that sites can use to track you. They’re just the most well-known method, which is probably why we have these near-pointless laws requiring sites to put up near-pointless banners to annoy visitors with.
So as a user, you should just ignore any of that and completely rely on technical means to protect yourself from any or most kinds of shenanigans websites can do to you. Most privacy-respecting browsers have features that limit what sites are able to do with you, such as cookie isolation which prevents other sites from being able to read the contents of cookies belonging to other sites. Or more general, isolation of any website data, not just limited to cookies. But not every browser has these types of protection. If you use very common browsers like Chrome, Edge or Opera, then it’s likely that you have none of that because the developers of those browsers are companies which profit from the user being more easily trackable through the web.
So the easiest solution as a user is to use a privacy-respecting, well-pre-configured browser like Librewolf or Mullvad Browser, and use uBlock Origin as the only extension with several enabled filter lists. This alone makes you a much harder tracking target. And of course you can safely ignore or block any cookie notices, it doesn’t really matter what you select in them most of the time anyway. Although your IP address is still always a liability with ANY browser, because it can be fairly easily linked to your person and you will expose your IP address with any regular browser, so if you want to browse anonymously you should use the Tor Browser (with mostly default settings and no additional extensions). That means that you won’t have ad blocking protection, but at the same time the site and any ad servers don’t know who you are anyway (you’re just some random person from a random country for them), unless you make a mistake and log into a personally-identifiable account or so. The Tor Browser also contains the most amount of anti-tracking and anti-fingerprinting techniques possible. For casual anonymous browsing you should absolutely use the Tor Browser, because with it it’s highly unlikely that a website is able to identify you. Its main disadvantages are that it’s slower, some sites block that kind of browser, and since you shouldn’t add any other extensions you will see ads with it, but your identity still remains protected unless you make a mistake. Still, it should be your go-to browser for anonymous browsing. Switch to your regular browser for when you want to log in to an account with personal details.