Free software isn&#x27;t in competition with non-free software. Free software is 100% up-side. It&#x27;s not either-or, unless you see a reason for it to be.<p>I need to support Windows for a paycheque, but I use Linux and free options wherever I realistically can, and it has improved my quality of life drastically. Even before I cared about privacy, I grew sick of the constant licensing treadmill. The privacy concerns, however, have long-since passed my tolerance, and I now consider proprietary software itself to be a backdoor. If I must run proprietary software for some practical reason, I will use tools like firewalls, virtualization, and proxies, to limit its potential.