I tested it out bc I thought I’d need it to get teams running for school, but it turns out we’re only using teams’ video calls so Vivaldi works too. Edge is fine I guess? I dislike that it’s chromium and I dislike microsoft but it’s good to know edge works fine, in case I need it for some reason at some point. I still uninstalled it when I realized I didn’t need it.
Normally, I use firefox for normal personal browsing and vivaldi for school (since some sites we use work much better on chromum, and it’s nice to have that separation anyways).
My vote is for mint. If you’ve been a long time windows user it should be the easiest one to get used to. PopOS is also newbie friendly if you’re not into the feel of Mint for whatever reason.
My biggest recommendation though is to spend some time with a few different OS’s and try setting things up different ways. Like if you start with Mint, try something new a month or two later. It’s a good way to get used to the way linux OS’s work under the hood.
I’m not a programmer at all, but if you have some background with computers and are willing to sink some time into learning and setting up a new system you’ll be fine.