I was managing with virtual box on the work machine. But following win 11 the performance under hyper v is so appalling that I gave up.
In the end my solution is a 2nd hand ThinkPad off FB marketplace that I use for work.
Browser apps cover all the word/excel/outlook/teams requirements.
Winboat is covering the very limited set of other apps.
Everything else I do works better in Linux, or at least better on a device I have admin for.
Yes I am out of pocket but not significantly, and not having to deal with windows has been completely worth it for me.

When you say it doesn’t work in Firefox, does it not work in Firefox or does it say it doesn’t work in Firefox? In the later case and sometimes in both, I have found that just changing the user agent string to something chrome based is sufficient to get it working again.

“combined with a new, lighter story” so they’re obviously changing stuff but I mean, what do they put in it’s place? Or do they just ignore it?

Depends on your definition for autonomous driving which mainly depends on your ODD but they’re not the only ones. Honda ,Volvo and GM have something. Others (i.e. BMW) have stuff next year but they’re all going with more accurate names. CoPilot, PilotAssist, Super cruise, Traffic Jam Pilot. Makes it clear that these are drive assists, not drive replace.

Depends on the urgency. Usenet, indexer and something like sonar is effective if used in a fire and forget style. Episodes will be downloaded when they are reposted but that may be months or years later.