pipes

They are usually separate things. Cookies are produced/saved locally, to be read in the next visit (by the same website or maany websites basically forever unless you use firefox containers or at least clear them once in a while). There's also local storage which is different but can also be used to identify you across the web. Ads, trackers, all of these categories are often made of many small components: you read a single article on a "modern" newspaper website, hundreds of connection are being made, different tiny scripts or icons or images are being downloaded (usually from different subdomains for different purposes but there's no hard rule). It's possible to block one thing and not another. For example I can block Google Analytics (googletagmanager) which is a tracker, but accept all of Google's cookies.

Or lock me out when I just had an accident in the yard

I don't use a VPN but still had to assign a port interval or something to Soulseek from the router; other software maybe picks a more sensible (lower) port number?

Most people give their real full name, phone number and email for any loyalty card wothout batting an eye, plus even with anonymized data it's useful to the owners to track correlation of purchases, time, location. Definitively what you said too, we all make mistakes (some more than others), every needless complication of a system is a disadvantage to the customer.

Should have turned on the ThinkLight at least

Just needed to remake a Z-lib account recently (without an account you can read but not download I think), and an alias from simplelogin worked. With temp-mail services I wasnt getting the confirmation email. And I ain't gonna use my domain for pirating, sorry :)

There are free services that allow you to create countless emails, one per site is ideal, just like one (different) password per site. Addy and Simplelogin have a generous free tier, last I checked the first one allows for unlimited receive-only addresses (when shopping it's very rare you need to respond), the second gives you some two-way addresses.

If you get a domain, many registrars include free mail service, and have mail forwarding, or "redirecting", which basically will allow you to create countless addresses (that can also send/respond) for your one account (You add these "email forwards", or "Identities", to your app of choice, like K9-Mail for android). You don't necessarily need to buy their separate email package (although the interface might be more convenient). I'll give you one example which includes email: OVHcloud, one of the largest clouds in europe.

If you can afford it there are all-in-one services like Soverin with easier interface.

It might be wise to start a slow process of migrating (or maybe deleting and creating again) accounts, and saving all this stuff in a password manager (like KeepassXC) if you aren't already.

I've been surprised by the ease of use and stability of MX Linux, they also maintain a repo with some key packages updated, like Firefox. It's Debian Stable with a few tricks up its sleeve.

Debian stable + flatpaks is a great combo. Sometimes I still wish some packages were more recent (not fun when yt-dlp starts breaking), sometimes I've been let down by their oldness in Debian Testing, and even Unstable (wanted to test Plasma 6 for instance). Overall I'm happier that there's way more stuff in the official debian repos I would have to use AUR for otherwise.

Yep. Loads of unorganized (and some organized) files uploaded over decades via FTP 😅 a mess full of gems

Apparently the issues are mostly with the outgoing download links from libgen.rs and .st (passing through libgen.lol), including the IPFS links which were being problematic in the past few months already.

Instead I just tried something from libgen.gs which is the one for comicbooks, and it's downloading fine from the direct link.

Thankfully most if not all content should be backed up on Annas-archive!

There are many encodes floating around and even a full bluray copy (criterion collection) on ygg.re... but I'm curious, how come it's at the top of your list?