QubesOS – A reasonably secure operating system

I personally daily drove QubesOS for about half a year when in school, and personally, I loved it. When I first tried it out, I fully expected it to be a nightmare to use, given that's how it's usually advertised by non-users. But in using it, I really enjoyed its workflow and the seamless compartmentalization of applications on a computer.

Program isolation is honestly a feature that other distros should use more often. The idea that programs can only access networks, USB devices, files, and X windows of programs that it's been explicitly let to access is an extremely useful tool that isn't just for people who are worried about government surveillance.

I personally enjoyed having about 5 different Firefox apps that each led to their own VM with its own files, browser history, cookies, and extensions, and even networks that automatically put traffic through a VPN at times. Chrooting and Firefox profiles only help so much, if you can even set them up to be as seamless as Qubes.

I'm of course not getting into the security benefits and all that of Qubes, but its where I feel a lot of people don't realize the benefits of an OS like this. The workflow improvement is just as inspiring as the security improvement from the system.

Sounds like you abandoned it after half a year? Would you mind to elaborate on the reason (s)?

My laptop broke and I had to buy a new one. The new one was intel 12th gen, which was unsupported at the time. Why haven't I come back to it? I now often use programs that require hardware acceleration for optimal use, which is unsupported by Qubes due it being a potential security issue. If you mainly use your laptop for non-intensive tasks though, I still highly recommend.