No, they really are. No doubt they do plenty of stuff at the behest of the NSA, but they are also a deeply disfunctional company with conflicts between departments and bare minimum funding for security, since it’s seen as a cost centre

Ehhh i that’s likely enough, but Microsoft is also just shit at fixing things

Idk (I’m not op) but I think when people say “can I install Linux on this” everyone knows they mean gnu/Linux. Yes, if I’m picking a container base image obviously alpine is also Linux, and if we’re talking about kernels then Android is too. But if we’re talking about desktop OSes then I think it’s close enough.

It’s a credit card/payment processor thing, i.e. ultimately it’s visa/mastercard, but it’s up to the bank to offer to individuals. It’s often available in other anglophone countries if your talk to your bank but I’m sure in some places they wouldn’t do that. But yeah, years ago is too long anyway.