I tried looking up stuff about windows spying on users, and most of what I'm seeing is useless (debunked articles, generally clickbait stuff). Is there anywhere I could look to read more about this if true?

I see, thanks! I've opted out of everything you can already, and don't use Cortana, so all I'm sending is some basic telemetry data it seems.

And also whatever you type into the start menu.

It took me several days to root out all of the programs and services in my enterprise windows 10 install which were spying on me or attempting to install software without my consent, had to prevent cortana from running, block windows servers with hosts file, delete scheduled tasks, adjust group policy, disable updates, and firewall my own computer.

All this so that I could have an OS that isn't actively spying on me, and play games on it. Thank goodness valve is making progress on linux...

Even Windows 10 seems much less creepy compared with what Google's become.

The browser is looked upon as the portal to the Internet.

When accessing web-sites over a public network, I sort of expect (not necessarily like or agree) to be tracked and others to know what I'm doing. I'm always in the mindset of "what ever I do within this window, others will see" (regardless of browser).

For what I do on my local desktop? No. Not at all.