If the only thing you are missing is youtube download ability, why not use one of the many options to do that from a handset? Newpipe or Spottube are on fdroid. https://invidious.io/ allows you to do it from a browser.

Your ISP can see torrent packets unless you are using a VPN. The other alternative is to setup a VPS and a torrent client on it. Then you download the completed files.

Newpipe found on fdroid.org is also great.

Notice that your if’s are not part of this arrangement. You cannot opt out, and you do not get a cut of the opportunities created. The lawyers are Google ensure they get the benefit, and not us.

That is a greater good argument, but who really benefits here? In a somewhat best case scenario, some big companies and their equity owners gain all the data and perhaps develop proprietary solutions only they can prescribe. We then sacrifice our collective health privacy for some people who might benefit if they pay an uncompetitive price for the treatment. In a worse case situation, no cures or treatments are ever found, but these companies benefit from the surveillance and knowing what existing drugs and treatments they should invest money in to profit from, allowing them to game the market.

If this data was held in the commons and the benefits such as cures or treatments were not patented, we might have some incentive to provide it. In this case, everything is privatized for the benefit of a few.

As others have stated, you are mixing search engines with metasearch engines here. If you employ browser isolation and obscure your IP address, you can be anonymous with any engine.

Yacy has potential, and I run an instance. It relies on us operators to index sites. You will find results to be incomplete in many areas, but it can be great for researching controversial topics. When I want uncensored and not manipulated results, I also use Yandex.com and Brave.

Fairphone should provide you sufficient privacy and security and give you ethical points. I have played with many OS’s. GrapheneOS is hands down the best. I have used it for years. If only it would run on a fairly built device such as Fairphone, it would be stellar.

Yeah we all move on in life to other things. He provided a great information service to many of us. I am happy to see he is well.