If you’re looking for something familiar but without the ubuntu bullshit then Mint or Pop! OS are pretty good. You can’t go wrong there.

But if you’re feeling spicy try Endeavor OS, it’s pretty much arch but with an installer and sane defaults. Great community, rolling release. You will sometimes have to get your hands dirty with system maintenance though, as it is with arch distros.

By using a VPN you are essentially routing your internet traffic through another computer and another ISP. So you have one of the VPN provider’s IP addresses. So what they have to do is find out which IP addresses are used by VPNs and block those. It’s very hard, but for the biggest companies somewhat doable.

For all the hate that the EU gets, I really appreciate that they won’t bend over for corporate overlords when in comes to privacy.