Congrats! Keep going!

Yeah, they should, but they don't.
I admit I tried Ubuntu and Linux Mint but I didn't like them. Either those things have become really bad through the years, or I've changed a lot (probably the latter. Openbox really messes your head up),  Fedora I've been using (and loving) since the end of CrunchBang!. It used to work out of the box.

The 2 problems that pissed me off the most (and ultimately led me to abandon F34 and F35) were the screen blanking up (and locking up) every 10 minutes, regardless of what you did to it (I changed the power settings on the xfce-settings-manager (which used to do the trick in earlier versions), plus I followed several suggestions from the Fedora Forum, and many others from searches. Nothing worked), and VLC (and other video players) sound continuously breaking up while I was using it (again, I tried a gazillion ways to fix it. Nothing ever came close to make a difference).

Then I moved to Mabox and Manjaro, and both distros ended up getting their repo lists corrupted, making updating impossible. Now, I know Arch fans may see that as "fun", but I don't. I install an operating system to be able to work with the computer, not to have to work endlessly on it.

Now I installed Open Suse. We're progressing: before, VLC audio broke up, now it doesn't work at all. I'll try fixing it over the weekend, but it looks like I'm gonna have to keep on looking...

Just finished reading it. Damn, that's difficult! Gonna have to read it again.

I think a big part of the problem may have been I was using an older version of Firefox, and a version of Fedora that had reached its end-of-life a while ago. I just installed Open Suse Tumbleweed (hope it works), and, so far, everything's going smoothly.
Yeah, the reason I discovered (or started suspecting) I was being attacked is because my computer started running slow, which prompted me to check Conky (you can see it in the screenshot above, in the top-left of the screen), and CPU usage was through the roof. Right now I still don't have conky installed (I have to configure it), but I will soon enough. I just can't live without it.

I seem to have heard in another movie (great information sources ) that's how most criminals are caught: they plan everything up to the fact, but they don't plan the aftermath.
Then again, from what I read about the girl, she's far from a genius.

As far as I'm concerned, this tells me a few things:

1. US law is relentless. No matter how many years have passed, if a crime is unresolved, it's unresolved, and it stays open. That's exactly the way it should be. I kinda remember a case a few years ago, that was solved after over 80 years of being perpetrated. I wish we had that kind of law in Argentina...

2. I was told a long time ago "when a secret is known by two people, it stops being a secret". The guy wasn't such a genius, but the girl is as stupid as they come, continually running her mouth, rapping about the whole thing, taunting the authorities. If you break the law, keep it to yourself, you don't need to broadcast it.

3. As little as I read about it, the cops seem to have already seized most of the assets. It doesn't look they have much to offer on a negotiation.

4. what I don't understand is how you "get caught" trying to launder stolen crypto 5 years after the fact. I mean, all they had to do was buy a privacy coin, like Monero, and they're clean. What's so difficult about the whole thing, that may take you 5 years to do?

Thank you all.

Lovesmayfamilis I don't have that in my settings. It may be part of the newer versions of Firefox...  
I did try Fedora 34 and 35, and Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Mabox, Manjaro, and a few others. There are several things that just don't work (like the screen blanking out every few minutes regardless of your settings, VLC losing audio (yeah, I did try several other video players), or the repo list just getting corrupted, making it impossible to update), and nobody in their respective forums seems to have a clue. That's why I came back to F30, it just works. The downside is I have no security patches.  

O_e_l_e_o: right now it seems to be behaving, but I'll try that if it goes haywire again. Either way, I'm planning to install Open Suse Tumbleweed on another drive later today (let's hope it works), so I should be able to get a newer version of firefox (and all security updates! ), so maybe I can fix the whole problem right away...

NeuroticFish: I haven't tried Opera. I might.
I will be trying Open Suse today on another hard drive, and if it works I will have this hdd available to try other stuff. I'm not using it as a cold wallet because it's getting a bit old, and I'm a bit afraid it might quit on me, but a second "spare" OS could be a good idea...

To make things worse, Virtualbox is not working properly (probably because I haven't been able to update it in months), so I can't test different distros on it. Oh, well...
The thing is I have been using Firefox (with this same exact settings), for years, even on this same computer (yeah, it's an oldie), and never had an issue.

ETFBitcoin: right now I'm not using either. In any case, when I was using them, they did work together without issue. In a future install I think I'll go with Ublock though, as it seems to be a lot more aggressive than Adblock plus.

I am trying to get a new distro, but most seem to be having issues I can't fix, and not having internet access at home makes everything a bit more complicated...

Lucius: I've been (not really "playing") with faucets for over a month, and this issue just showed up in the last week or so. I'm still using Cointiply today, and I'm under 9% CPU usage (not the best, but I'll take it).

Stompix: at the time I posted that, either browser was doing it. Today, Firefox seems to be doing ok.
I am using whatsapp, and have been using it for a couple of years now, as it pays the bills. Hopefully I will stop using it altogether soon enough, but we'll see...
In any case, I didn't have any issues with it before, and I'm not having any issues today.

I'm starting to think it may be because I had a lot of tabs open on firefox, showing prices on binance pairs. Those tabs keep running in the background even when you're not looking at them (which may be the reason why I'm seeing ~10% usage now, instead of the usual <5%, as I still have 4 pairs running).
 

I can tell you that Exodus is not open source, I tried to use it for storing BTC and it provided an "invalid BTC address", and since I read the forum and using it is "not recommended". Search on the forum, you'll probably find a lot more info on each of your suggested wallets.

Thank you all.
I have closed most of the tabs on Firefox, and it seems to have helped a bit. CPU usage is still too high, but it went down a bit. 


Here's top:



It shows "web content" for the highest CPU loads. Right now I have Firefox and Chrome open, So I don't even know which one is hogging so much CPU. Right now I have no working extensions on FF. I have installed Adblock Plus and Ublock, but had to disable them a while ago.
My biggest problem is Fedora stopped providing support for F30, so I have had no updates for a while, and finding a replacement has proved difficult.

Incidentally, I looked at about:config. Both strings are set to true.

Thank you both. 

BlackHatCoiner (or anybody else): ask away. I'm ready. 

I haven't installed any program (other than electrum) for months. The computer is strictly mine, I have a 30 character password made of letters, numbers and signs. Literally speaking, this laptop has never been touched by anybody else but me, not even to wipe it off. I'm running Fedora 30 with Openbox and Tint2.
Right now, for example, after rebooting the computer, I'm typing this reply and seeing CPU usages of up to 50%, which is way too high for only using Firefox, especially on a forum.
I do have a lot of tabs open (mostly Binance, I'm checking prices), but haven't touched them since I restarted the machine.

NeuroticFish : well, I answered that question above...
A few months ago, there was a bit of a scandal because a customer found the ISP (Fibertel) was injecting malware in people's computers to mine crypto without consent (or knowledge). The company issued an apology, Starbucks issued another one, and they changed the ISP. But now (as in the last week or so, I've been coming to this store literally for months) I'm finding this problem.

I opened Firefox's task manager, but it's not showing anything out of the ordinary. Incidentally, what makes me even more suspicious is that I close Firefox and wait, and CPU usage stays near 100%. 

I'm, as of now, using the wifi connection in a Starbucks store near my place. At least for now, that's the only option I have.
I'm running Fedora 30 (hope to upgrade soon), and using Conky as a system monitor. For the last few days I've been seeing my CPU usage go through the roof for no reason, so I'm suspecting my laptop is being used to mine crypto while I'm working (there was a reported incident not long ago for the same company).
Normally, my CPU usage hovers around 5%. The absolutely HIGHEST I've seen it go was about 30-35% when I was running Freecad and VLC at the same time. Right now, I'm seeing CPU usage in the upper 90% only on Firefox, which makes no sense.
Memory usage seems to be ok though, at around 15%.
I ran ClamAV, and, unsurprisingly, didn't find anything.
Should I be worried?
What can I do about it?

Thank you  all in advance. 

Yeah, I imagined it would...

I'll PM you in a few days. Thank you for understanding.

More than 20 years ago, a friend told me "the best thing about working for a salary is you know how much money you have to starve for the rest of the month".
There's nothing wrong with starting on your own. Beginnings are always rocky, but in the end, you can only get better. Don't quit. Ever.

Thank you. It upsets me to drop off like this when I had committed myself, but I really can't do it.

I didn't want to go into detail, as I didn't want to appear judgemental. I know this is said a lot ( ), but it's really me, not you.
Initially, I'm very exact and detail oriented, so any inaccuracies become major issues with me. Just to name one off the top of my head, the IBM PC was brought to market in 1981, not in 1975.
Besides that, the whole "oppression by the government" thing not only goes against things I know, but also against my personal experiences having lived almost 13 years in the US.

Sorry. I wish I could be more open minded...

Thank you, that's what I'm talking about!
For now, I'm taking a short break from crypto courses and whatnot, as I'm more focused on finding and installing a more suitable OS (I'm currently using Fedora 30, and it's way too long in the tooth), and later trying to learn python to program a bot, but those links are pure gold!

That is just beautiful!

GazetaBitcoin: I've been working on the translation to your "Bitcoin: The dream of Cypherpunks, libertarians and crypto-anarchists" thread, and, to be honest, it got to a point at which I can't, in good faith, push on people something I so fundamentally disagree with.
I thought I could do it. I even put a disclaimer at the beginning, saying I didn't agree with what was being said, but I keep on opening it just to translate a few words and quit. At this point it's gonna take me years.

I should've read your thread first. I apologize for wasting your time, but I'm gonna have to jump ship. Sorry.

5W-KILO: you didn't make a mistake. You learned, and it came at a cost. Sorry that happened to you, but it's in the past. Start looking forward.

I advised on anther thread not to ever get discouraged. If you quit, you made a mistake. if you keep going, it was just a learning experience. Keep at it.

Remember the first rule of investing: "Don't invest what you can't lose".
You don't need 1200 bucks to start investing in crypto, you can start with 10 bucks. I started with 5. Just don't wait. Get your 5 or 10 bucks (or whatever you can get without getting a loan, and start moving!

Lovesmayfamilis: I just now realize I didn't even pay attention to  your initial question. Why do I reject participation in subscription companies? Well, because until now, I didn't have a clue they existed... What are they?

aysg76:  gonna have to check him out. All I hear about him are good things...

Maus0728 and hatshepsut93: you're both right. Now I realize, with the enthusiasm and my eagerness to finally post something remotely useful, I ended giving bad advice. I will edit my OP as soon as I finish typing this.
It's true that I've been a TPB "customer", probably since 2007 or 2008 (don't remember), and never had an issue. But it's also true that I run Linux (which, while not perfect, it's a huge difference, security wise, from Windows), and it's also true that, for  some reason, (I don't know, call it dumb luck) I haven't touched TPB at all since having my BTC. Thanks for the advice, it's greatly appreciated.

maydna: thank you, I will add it to my OP.

Cubans have a saying that would translate to something like "that who lays down with skinny dogs will wake up with fleas".
I agree with it to a point. If I have to choose between providing high quality at a high cost, and providing inexpensive stuff at the expense of quality, I'd choose the former. But if I have to choose about running an elitist business and one with a much wider customer base, I'd definitely choose the latter, even if I get less income on a per customer basis. There are a lot of billionaires that followed that business model, from Jeff Bezos to Bill  Gates.
I guess my limit would be quality: I would be embarrassed to offer something like Microsoft Windows, and I would definitely not go to the lengths Facebook or Google go to squeeze every last penny out of their customers. 
I guess I'm old school, but I think the first commandment for a successful business should be to have your customers satisfied, no matter how rich or how many they are.

Bitmover: thank you! That's what I'm looking for. I'll check it out.
Yeah, right now, 10 bucks is a lot for me. Maybe I'll start looking for a hardware wallet soon enough (hopefully...), but, as of now, I have to make do with what's available to me...

Thank you all for the replies. I couldn't get connected yesterday (another rainy day in Buenos Aires), but reading you all today was a blast.

Odusko: absolutely! There's a Latin saying, fairly popular in the US (not in my country, unfortunately): "Scientia Potestas Est" (Knowledge is Power). Especially in something as technical as crypto, I'd say knowledge is essential.


Definitely. And it's very easy to get discouraged (or otherwise turned off to crypto) by all the BS going around. But we're alive, there's always time. We just have to keep at it!


Thank you Maus0728, but I'll have to disagree on this one. Of course, I'm far from an expert when it comes to online security (and that worries me. A lot), but I've been a customer of The Pirate Bay for more than a decade, and never, ever, got a problem with their stuff.
Even in the old times, when I was running Windows (and XP to boot, which could be considered an open door to viruses and whatnot), I used to scan every torrent I got, and never had a single threat.
Of course, it would be better to have a dedicated PC, just for crypto. In any case, I've heard most problems come from downloading porn. But I have downloaded software, ebooks, videos, movies, and never had an issue.


Yeah, I did get a bit creative on the title...
However, the title was the result of the extreme levels of frustration I've been feeling for these last few months, seeing that absolutely everything I tried took me nowhere.
Yeah, it was greed, definitely.  
I love technology, but cryptography is something I have always kept at arms' length, as my proficiency in math is sorely lacking. I would definitely like to know a lot more about it, but, so far, I don't.
And don't worry, I won't take it as criticism.  

About the forum, yeah, I agree you have to be careful. Everywhere, actually. But this forum has a feature I like very much, which is the "trust" thingy. Of course, there's always gonna be people who learn to "navigate" such measures for their own purposes, and you always have to keep an eye out.

Lovesmayfamilis: let me see if I can explain myself a bit. Incidentally, I know I'm "complicated", so don't worry much about it.  
I'm 56 years old. I live in a country where 20 y/o people have a really hard time to get a job. I have been literally job hunting since mid 2015, and as of today I got a grand total of "1" interview, and that ended in nothing.
I'm not some ignorant guy that's useless to work. I'm an electronics technician specialized in digital and industrial electronics. Been into programming in the '80s, used to program microprocessors in HEX. When high level languages started to become mainstream, I got turned off to it. High level programming languages just lack the elegance HEX had.
I also have several other skills, unrelated to computers. In any case, my point is nobody gives a damn what I know. All they care about is, for every guy like me, there's a gazillion young guys that will do the job cheaper.
3 months ago I started this journey. After fighting tooth and nail for what felt like an eternity, I had nothing. Then I started the whole faucet thing. I didn't join "a faucet", I joined almost a dozen of them (yeah, I'm hyper  ). Most of them ended up being scams, or at least a waste of time. However, Cointiply delivered. Sure, you can say I'm worth more than 5 bucks in 8 1/2 days, but the fact is, had I kept on dreaming, I'd have nothing, and it's not like watching videos and doing surveys is such a hard job.
Today, I have 5 bucks on BTC. That's nothing. By the end of the day, or maybe by Monday, I will have 5 more bucks. That allows me to start trading in Binance. I understand is not much, but it is what it is. Maybe in a couple of weeks I will be able to join a signature campaign and this 5 bucks will become just a funny story, but, right now, they're all I have.

EDIT: sorry, I forgot about the Antonopoulos thing. I don't use youtube for crypto, ever. I prefer Udemy's courses, and definitely this forum.
Over the years I have come to the conclusion youtube can be great (and I use it a LOT) when you already know your stuff and are looking to improve, but there's a lot of people selling "pee powered engines" and other dishonest shit like that. So, at least for now, youtube is really not an option for me.