Essentially my parents didn’t explain to me what sex is at all and all the kids comming into this world are brought there by a … stork. That’s why i later on (thanks to schoolmates) thought that it’s a blowjob to learn later on (by reading it up on web) what actually it is.
Anyway, i’m sorry for your trauma
For an average user i would recommend Firefox
For someone tech-savy and privacy focused - LibreWolf
Why? Some websites will not work properly on LibreWolf because of how hardened it is (not extremely, but just enough to break some things on websites). I don’t mean it’s bad, it’s just not for everyone atm since many people want things to just work™
f you find yourself in a position where you can work inside the beast and slow it down or fuck it up.
In this scenario, although the best, people would risk jail time (or other significant punishment). It’s easy to say it, but so damn hard to actually do it.
So leaving is actually a great decision that doesn’t give (any) risks
If your friend is not tech savvy person, i would go with Mint XFCE (maybe Zorin OS Lite). Surely, it will be not as lightweight as Debian, but it will be much more user friendly for him
If he actually feel comfortable tinkering with OS - along side Debian maybe Bodhi Linux or antiX? I tried both of them on one of (in)famous Intel-based netbooks with 512mb RAM and they worked quite well.
And in some cases, even better experience than on Windows (f.e. older games compatibility or higher FPS alongside smoother gameplay)
Tbh, about a year ago i checked the price difference between various laptops with Windows preinstalled and without any OS. The difference wasn’t actually a flat amount of money, it was like +10% (price of the laptop 500$ — ~ +50$ for Windows | price of the other laptop 1000$ — ~ 100$ for Windows).
So because of the actual state of gaming on Linux (and overall experience) i wouldn’t pay that 10% to play games with rootkits built-in, but rather spend it on other things