I really like LXQt for VMs. It is lightweight and fast enough to provide a very snappy environment, even beating out something like XFCE. With LXQt I get the minimally viable desktop environment with a panel, notification handler, etc.
Though most recently I have been using XFCE specifically because its notification widget gives me more info in the preview.
I prefer public trackers and torrents just because I don’t like gatekeeping piracy. I want those bits to be distributed as far and wide as possible. So anything I get and/or seed will be public.
Even if there are bad peers that don’t give back (which there are many), plenty enough times it’s just people with shitty under served Internet connections. I’m fortunate enough to have a good enough connection where that doesn’t bother me.
Nautilus in general is my biggest gripe with Gnome. I despise it so much that I’m willing to abandon ship to KDE when Plasma 6 reaches my distro.