Out of curiosity, what applications were you using that the newer versions weren't available? I don't think I've ever run into that particular problem, and I've been using FreeBSD with KDE as a desktop computer for over fifteen years. Also curious as to what your issues were with NTFS. Did you have to mount NTFS drives on your FreeBSD machine? Why? There are much better filesystems to use with FreeBSD than NTFS...

While it's certainly not perfect, I actually like the Instant Ink service. Am I paying a premium? Yes, definitely. However, the level of service we picked has been working well for us. I also really like that I can just print full colour without even thinking about it. It's a little concerning that the guy got signed up to the service though without knowing what it was... that was not my situation. Went into this eyes wide open, and don't regret it at all.

I can't say I have your interesting local folder structure, but I've had very few difficulties with KMail over the past few years. For me, it just works.

It's not going to be enough to make me switch from KMail (which has had excellent gnupg integration for ages now) but I occasionally use a PortableApps.com USB stick on Windows and it'll be nice there.

So yeah, it's signed with SHA-256 With RSA Encryption. The public key itself, though, is Eliptic Curve (specifically prime256v1 aka secp256r1), and Firefox 67.0.4 is connecting with TLS 1.2, using the TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 cypher suite. I could definitely be wrong, but I think the whole "With RSA Encryption" just means the signature was done with a public key.

Weirdly enough, it works with the useragent set to FreeBSD (which, on my FreeBSD 12.0-RELEASE box, it is by default.) I'm used to websites working oddly with that useragent; this is the first time I've encountered the FreeBSD useragent being an improvement over a Linux one.

Not really sure what you're talking about. I haven't upgraded to 12-RELEASE, but I'm on 11.3-RELEASE. I have LibreOffice 6.0.7... the stable release. I have Firefox 63, just because I haven't updated in two weeks (I like to compile all my stuff with poudriere) and once my upgrade run is done this weekend I'll be caught up. True, there isn't a Dropbox client. Sorry that's a showstopper for you. Otherwise, I've found that oftentimes new versions of stuff will hit the ports collection before the distros update their repositories...

That's not entirely true, if you're in an urban environment in Canada. The CRTC has mandated wholesale access to cable & telephone infrastructure. That's led to competition from folks like TekSaavy and Primus. Myself, I'm on National Capital Freenet (NCF) in Ottawa, and they've been fantastic. I have a 15 down/10 up unlimited bandwidth dry-loop service with a static IPv4 IP for $50.95 a month (plus tax.) Now, in rural Canada, much different story. You're lucky if you can get DSL or cable internet at all. Lots of folks are stuck with satellite or terrestrial internet (ie microwave or long distance wi-fi links).My folks are on a pretty lousy 6 down/1 up with Bell Aliant and it's still the best deal available there.

Isn't running a tcp connection over another tcp connection kinda painful, performance-wise? I don't run a VPN at home (don't have a reason to, personally) but I do maintain an OpenVPN server on my home FreeBSD desktop. Comes in quite handy, and learning how to configure it has been a lot of fun. I mostly use it to secure my tablet when I'm using open wi-fi somewhere. Sure, it doubles the bandwidth going through my home connection but hey, I'm lucky enough to have an unlimited bandwidth account, so why not?

I'm really quite surprised that FreeBSD didn't run on your old amd64 desktop. I started running FreeBSD back around 2003 and I've never yet had it fail to boot on the several, bog-standard amd64 systems I've had in that time. Weird. I currently have FreeBSD running on three different systems: a Dell Precision Tower 3620, an old Eurocom laptop and my homebrew box, which has an AMD Fx-6300 running on an ASUS motherboard with a Nvidia GT-730 graphics card. The only one that gave me any trouble is the Eurocom... for whatever reason if it loads the DRI and DRI2 kernel modules it kernel panics. I just force it to only load the DRI2 module and everything's fine. The two desktops worked flawlessly out of the box. (I use KDE for my desktop. KF5 support on FreeBSD is in a really good place these days.)

My FreeBSD hard drive died on me a couple of month ago, and I haven't been able to replace it yet. I really need to get to that though, because being on Linux for my primary desktop at home has been annoying the h*** out of me. FreeBSD is what I'm used to, it's what I prefer, and I really, really want to get back to it soon.

On average, 3-4 books a month. Sometimes a lot more, sometimes a little less. I also read a lot of comics off of Marvel Unlimited and I'm currently using a 3-month free Texture account (thanks Rogers!) to read a bunch of magazines.

You're correct that FreeBSD doesn't have a Dropbox client. You are incorrect about LibreOffice. I'm currently running LibreOffice 5.3.4, the "enterprise" release. I've been running FreeBSD as my desktop for over a decade. I've yet to find anything that I really needed that wasn't available for it.

The "ever moving target" can definitely be an issue. I'm not a Linux guy primarily (although I do run OpenSuSE and Steam-OS at home.) I'm mostly a FreeBSD guy (currently 11.0-RELEASE). I like the balance FreeBSD has struck. The base system is quite stable and is supported for long stretches of time. The ports system, on the other hand, is continually updated with the latest & greatest. Works for me.

My favourite subscription has got to be Marvel Unlimited. Well worth the price per year. I also like my subscriptions to Netflix and Roll20. The only other subscription I have is to The Mary Sue, but that's more to help keep the site going than for any particular benefit I get from subscribing.