Bliss OS is where the Android x86 developers went. It's fussier than Android x86 and won't run in many of the emulators that previous port could use. I think it requires KVM in Linux. But that's a technical detail that may change from one release to the next.

I do agree with the OP complaint about the trend towards forcing everyone to use smartphone apps (either iPhone or Android) to interact with businesses. I've not encountered the banking restrictions talked about, yet, but now I am worried. I hate the idea of having access to all the critical details of my life on a portal device that I may have to carry around just for safety. You need a phone to get help on the road if your car breaks down, for example. But then you've got your entire life on that little device where ever you go and can potentially lose it and control of your life right along with it.

Retrieving it manually is a pretty clumsy work-around. They should have the repositories working. And it did work later in the day when I tried again.

Yes, I'm aware of /etc/apt/sources.list.d already. What I'm not certain about is the data files downloaded from those repositories. Deleting the text file under apt is surely not going to remove the data from that source? Or does Apt do that automatically?

Please post what tweaks you made here? I've tried setting up Proton VPN according to their directions, but I'm not sure how 'generically' useful their setup might be.

Now I am seeing warnings in some other Chrome installs. I have multiple disks with different distros and even, *shudder*, Windows 10 on them. Plugging them into my machines and updating them this weekend, I am finally seeing something happen in Chrome. There is a list of 'extensions that may not be supported soon' showing up. In the list is uBlock Origin, of course. But also NoScript, and Decentraleyes (!) ... This makes no sense. Decentraleyes uses a static list. All it does it replace 'free' resources that are also used to track browsing with local replacements. The agenda is pretty clear when something like that is included in the purge.

It's odd that the one VM just deleted uBlock but the other systems are giving advance warning. I wonder if there is some sort of 'gradual' process being implemented with random selection of certain installs to get the purge at different times. They are probably trying to prevent the backlash that a sudden mass shutdown would provoke.

Since this is going forward, it looks like I will have to be very, very selective in the future. Literally running Chrome only for sites where it is required and staying away from it for anything and everything else.

Version 126.0.6478.182 (Official Build) (64-bit)

That is currently running on a Devuan 4 VM that I use. Searching Google itself for the latest version, I get:

126.0.6478.182/183 / 16 July 2024

Looks like Google doesn't care about what Chromium supports. But again, the weird thing is that the ad-blocking extension is still in place, though it was deleted in a Devuan 5 VM.

Does this ηMatrix browser follow Chrome's customizations of HTML closely? If not, it's less useful than Firefox. At least Firefox has a lot of legacy support. Chrome is now dominant, and with some sites you just have to use Chrome to get access to the content.

But I spoke too soon. My copy of Chrome in a Linux VM deleted its installed uBlock Origin when I started actually visiting sites. Had to go get uBlock Lite with the new restricted powers.

So yes, Google has done something or other. With no announcement. It just deletes the ad-blocker with no warning or notice.

But those sorts of extensions are about to be severely cut back. Chrome will not allow effective ad-blocking in the very near future when the new "more secure" extension standards are enforced. I haven't seen the 'warnings' yet, but I think they are coming soon.

This is quite powerful for a laptop. You could install whatever you like best, as all versions of Linux are lighter and smaller than Wind'ohs...