Sorry for the late response, but yes, I believe you can. There is an option in the config called allow_public_upload which can be changed to true or false.

Also worth mentioning: osu!lazer has a native Linux build, whereas osu!stable still requires WINE to run on Linux. That’s something I was very glad to see.

Use Mullvad, unless you absolutely require port forwarding.

As another commenter said, it’s not possible to verify. You’ll just have to take each instance’s word for it.

Instance lists for some privacy front-ends will point out additonal info, such as if each instance is using CloudFlare or not (this may or may not be useful depending on if you distrust CloudFlare), some other services (like Rimgo, a private Imgur frontend) lets the instance hoster customize the privacy policy. But once again, this is all relying on the instance host telling the truth.

I think that is completely normal. I run Arch on my main desktop, OpenSUSE Tumbleweed on my laptop and Debian on any and all servers I host. And I think they all work wonderfully. Even outside of these distros, I can still see the use case for many other distros. I think many popular distros each have a specific goal in mind and they execute it well.