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Isn't there a dumb / light version of Windows 10 that removes all these anti-features and bloat?

I just want to play games and surf the web with FF.

Windows 10 (IoT) LTSC 2021. It lets you uninstall Edge with just a right-click. And it doesn't have any 'modern apps' and Store preinstalled.

But a normal consumer can’t purchase that version of Windows, can they?

in a non-shady/license-compliant way

I don't know, honestly. But if it's just a matter of reducing bloat, you don't really need LTSC. For example, you can remove preinstalled apps on Home/Pro with a line in Powershell: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/4689-uninstall-apps-wind...

LTSC is cleaner out of the box and has much longer support, but otherwise it's not that different. And Edge on LTSC still does annoying things, such as adding a Bing search box on the desktop, for example.

Checking with MS, unless you’re a registered developer or enterprise customer, you can’t purchase it. LTSC keys aren’t supposed to be sold by the single, so any reseller doing that is breaking MS’s terms.

Yes, it's called Linux (with Steam).

I don’t think a kernel is comparable to an operating system.

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