I was sick of paying the "Australia tax" for new releases that took longer to reach us than most of the rest of the world.
Exactly this, except I actually stopped for a long time when Netflix first came out and wasn't geo-restricted.. then the enshittification started.
When I, rarely, need more advanced features like window splitting and session management I also use Zellij
Konsole does window splitting as well, doesn't it?
To be specific..
Install something from the main repo:
$ paru -S package
Install something from the AUR:
$ paru -S package
To search for a package, in the main repo or the AUR:
$ paru -Ss search-term
With the search results, it clearly labels if something is from the AUR or extras or the main repo, and you can make it show AUR results first or last in the config.
https://github.com/Morganamilo/paru
I don't actually use pacman directly at all, I use paru for everything and it's seamless.
Not sure why noone has pointed this out but if you use paru or yay instead of pacman, installing/searching the AUR is the same as if they are in the main repo. It does all the building etc for you.
btop is awesome. RIP htop
I really like the Mint Y icons, they're kinda round with soft colours.
I'm not suggesting it's bad, I just don't use it much and it's always preinstalled.
When I need an office suite, Libreoffice is the one I use, but it's so infrequent that I reinstall writer or whatever part I need at the time and then uninstall again.
The main reason it bothers me is I will see it being updated frequently (and they're not small updates) - and I've probably never ran the thing since the last OS install most of the time.
I don't know about OP but when I use a VPN, it's on all the time, not selectively enabled because I'm going to a particular website.