If I recall correctly, the European Parliament doesn't have the power to introduce new legislation on its own. Instead, they can ask the Commission to present legislative proposals. This might be what's happening here...
I consider all forms of advertising that distract me from the content I'm looking for bad for me. I don't want flashy colored banners telling me what I should buy. There's already plenty, plenty of distractions already, and advertising is one of the poorest forms of it. I don't think I'd mind if advertising, in its current form, died.
The article doesn't portray a realistic view of crime rates in Italy - they say "violent death is commonplace", but I don't think that's ever been true, and it certainly isn't now.
Be careful, as always, but Italy isn't an especially dangerous place. Some regions have higher crime rates than others, but even then, I wouldn't worry too much about it.
Just switch to Firefox. This kind of stuff is why we need plurality in the browser space, and Mozilla is one of the few companies that takes - or has to take - a pro-user stance on many issues.
For those who are more interested in digital painting rather than image editing, I found Krita impressive in its capabilities and progress: https://krita.org
I'm just an hobbyist, but I like having FOSS alternatives to Photoshop.
What I would find interesting is not just the positive\negative ratio of comments for successful projects, but also a comparison with less successful\failed ones.
Do successful projects receive more positive comments?
I use elementary OS Loki daily and am pretty satisfied with it. It has a few things that I'm not totally happy with, but it's my favourite OS right now.
Nothing can replace anything, but if you're looking for Photoshop alternatives, check out Krita. It's mainly focused on painting, but I've found it to be much nicer than Gimp.
You don't necessarily need a walled garden to solve that problem - package managers on Linux distribution do the same.
It needs the appropriate user experience for non-technical users.