Do you use Windows by any chance? And cherry on top, an AMD GPU? That wouldn’t surprise me because that’s the worst combo possible. Unfortunately, I can do nothing more than empathize with your issue, it’s indeed a pretty big deal considering it shouldn’t be an issue in the first place, whether you game on your PC or not. I use personally Linux and I’ve never had any problem for drivers, whether it’s Nvidia or AMD, since I use it, which could explain our difference of experience.

When I was talking about “battery charging”, I meant using an app to limit the charging at a certain level: look for “acca” or simple “acc” which is the module/daemon to manage that. You have to be root to do that and there is no way around. For the rest, sure, but that’s for GrapheneOS, I was talking in general, most ROM not having what GrapheneOS has and considering GrapheneOS is exclusively present on Pixel phones unfortunately…

Chromium doesn’t need Chrome to exist either: it’s a separate project and if Google doesn’t want to support it anymore, someone can easily fork it to continue having Chromium-based browsers. That’s the property of open source: anybody can inspect and fork it.

Sure, you’re obviously more likely to have problems like driver issue on a PC than on a console, but in my experience, those kind of issues (or any kind of issue for that matter) are so extremely rare, it’s totally negligible in front of what bring a PC to you and it certainly won’t make me want to switch to consoles for a waste of 20 minutes of my time over a year because of some program or piece of code that didn’t run as expected.

Honestly, I think it’s great: if it annoys people enough, they will move out from Chrome and install Firefox (or one of its forks) with good extensions for blocking ads on YouTube. It seems to be the only solution to break the monopoly of Google on browsers. So go Google, I believe in you!

Edge and Chrome are both closed source and owned by companies, so your comparison is just not valid. Using AOSP is certainly not supporting Google’s monopoly: AOSP is totally open source, was bought by Google a long time ago and they don’t own it due to its license (aside from the name maybe). Meaning you can still flash Android on a system without paying or using Google’s services or products.

It’s like saying you contribute to Google’s monopoly because you use Linux and Google (also) used it in its Chromebooks.

F-Droid isn’t the only one: I also like Neo Store, which has more than just the F-Droid repository and I think has a better interface. However, I think not all repo are 100% safe because F-Droid verify all the apps they have while Neo-Store doesn’t because it simply list known repos, which you can activate however you like in the settings.

Root can be useful for plenty of reasons: there are many apps which use root access to increase privacy, customize the system, restrict apps, manage battery charging, enforce firewall for apps and system, block trackers, backup the system, etc… I currently have 8 apps (if I don’t count all the lsposed modules) using the root privileges to do all of that but I also use it for other things like automation.

The only kind of security I want to have is privacy from my own apps installed on my system, something root privilege allow me to have. For the rest, I just don’t install any random program on my phone and I didn’t have any problem for years.

(and no, I can’t do any of that with shizuku or adb)

Ok but I don’t see any reason for you to consider it “easier” to play on a console when you already have a perfectly functional PC next to you, able to handle the game: there is no extra step or steps that require more time or energy once the PC is set up, compare to the console. So I really don’t know what you’re talking about when you mention the “ease of use” of console over an already set up and ready-to-go PC. Maybe the settings have to be configured but you already have the default settings and either way, the PC simply gives you more options, so you just interpret the choice given to you as something time consuming, which it’s not, if you don’t want to bother choosing.

People Do complain. Have you not read a single comment under this post? Claiming they don’t is just your way to be able to dismiss the argument without addressing the issue. My point is you have no reason to complain when you have alternatives but you don’t want to choose them because… because why exactly? I’ve never heard a single convincing argument to not have a PC when that same person already complains about the very nature of console, that is being a closed system which can force whatever it wants on you. If you have no problem with consoles, I also have no problem with you using one. But don’t complain over it doing exactly what it was made for.

And you certainly don’t need an internet connection to play a solo game on PC or to install the OS. You need one to download the game, at most.

The people you’re talking about only account for a pretty small minority of players. Those kind of players are the ones who usually don’t spend a lot of time on video games, own very little games (or only from the same series) and mostly play with other players, in the same place, so they rightfully consider it doesn’t worth their time. Most players own several games, solo and multiplayer, and spend enough time on them to not be bothered by having to spend some extra time to set up a gaming PC to then benefit from it. So it doesn’t explain why those players are still on consoles and don’t want to bother switching to a PC.

But even aside from that, I hate hearing people complain about how consoles scam people and always try to find ways to milk their customers, yet still buy and play on those same consoles. Like, if you don’t like what they’re doing and don’t like having to use such restricted environments which very much allow such greed and control, don’t reinforce those companies in their ideas by continuing to buy from them. And I don’t want to hear that that there are no alternatives: we’re not in the 1990 anymore where consoles were the only way and weren’t very diverse.

You have to give them a reason to get interested in the OS and the programs they’re using. I gave Linux a try because I was concerned about privacy and I wanted to use more ethical and user respecting OS and software than what I used at that time. Linux and the FOSS world was an obvious choice for me. Custom ROM on Android was sort of the bridge which allowed me to transition. If it wasn’t for that, I would still be on Windows and I wouldn’t learn that much on how an operating system works and what differentiate them, aside from the look. The fact they’re kids or that they play games have nothing to do with it: a lot of adults don’t know either what type of OS they’re using, despite it being in their best interest. The problem is that we don’t give or show them the reason they should be interested, or at least be curious about it and most of time, before people get a degree, we end up killing their curiosity.

As they play Minecraft, you can advise them to switch to Prism Launcher instead of the minecraft launcher, especially if they mod the game, it’s much better for that. It could be a good start.