Home Assistant is open source and self-hosted and doesn’t require internet to operate. The z-wave devices connect directly to the device running Home Assistant. If you want Home Assistant to be private it absolutely can be.

I use Your New Morning Alarm by Marc Rebillet

I mainly block accounts that seem like they have an agenda. Usually new accounts they post a lot about one very controversial topic. Likewise, I block accounts that are concern trolling or arguing in bad faith. There are so many bots and bad faith actors on the internet I feel like you should be blocking them because they don’t deserve our attention.

I just use Brave on iOS. It works fine for YouTube.

My state has this for unemployment benefits. At peak times it can take hours to get through.