Author is totally correct to promote ChromeOS as a modern, sandboxed, low-attack-surface alternative. Unfortunately, Achilles heels of ChromeOS are in the usua

Author is totally correct to promote ChromeOS as a modern, sandboxed, low-attack-surface alternative. Unfortunately, Achilles heels of ChromeOS are in the usual places: browser extensions and integrations that can access any web page you view, or do anything they want with your Google account, which can wreak havoc for people with a lot of stuff in there. Now what I will say for consumer Linux distributions is that it's eminently possible to easily reduce your attack service in a few ways: judicious configuration, and strip down all unnecessary software packages! I was sysadmin for a long time before I realized that I was a glutton for apps and I had a tendency to consume them and hoard them without regard for what I really needed to run on a day-to-day basis. I would install software, try it once, and finding it boring, I abandoned it, but it was all still installed. So I began perusing my list of installed software and I'd just remove anything that was obviously unnecessary. I'd even remove stuff that I didn't know what it did, just to see if something broke, but things rarely broke! My position was validated! If you remove unneeded software, you will automatically reduce the number of network services running too. That thing you installed probably started up a server, started listening on local and global addresses, and may have even poked holes in the firewall for itself. Do you need that? Can someone make a lateral move from your pwned router into your desktop machine through your neglected services? Get rid of them. Linux affords much more latitude to a security-minded administrator than Windows. Windows will not let you turn stuff off without causing breakage or it will just gratuitously come back in an update and be turned back on. The Linux philosophy is beyond that nonsense. Yes, Linux out of the box, or Linux in the hands of an ordinary end-user, it's insecure. But it has more potential than Windows. For a while, I pondered whether I could outsource my personal, home IT work to an MSP. But MSPs don't do personal networks, they do B2B. I think Geek Squad is possibly missing a bet here. Not that I would let Geek Squad into my Linux homelab, but it's a thought.