I feel like this is provider agnostic. If you signup to a bunch of different newsletters (or anything else really), at some point your email will get out there.

Proton has email aliasing via SimpleLogin which I have found to be really good.

I spent some time in a live ISO and had no issues. Haven’t tried a snapshot yet though.

I booted into a live usb and haven’t had issues so it seems like a driver issue (thankfully).

I’m using a GTX 1660 TI.

Nothing has changed hardware wise for months. Last software update (before today) was 4-7 days ago.

I’m 80% sure I do. I hadn’t updated for a few days (before today) and it had been working up until earlier today.

I booted into an EndeavourOS live USB (just to keep it all the same) and there hasn’t been any freezing. So it seems like a driver issue then.