Almost all extensions will weaken your security posture. In fact off the top of my head there are basically only two kinds of extensions that could improve it:

• ad blockers
• (maybe!) password manager integrations

Anything else is questionable at best. Maybe you could create browser profiles where you install extensions somewhat more liberally, with decreased expectation of safety.

I’d argue this counts as dog-sitting. The dog is around people in every panel, and actual sitting (i.e. doing nothing else) isn’t required.

You could always try NixOS.

Arch may not be particularly easy to use, but it’s a simple system, in that you can build a mental model of your entire setup with a fraction of the effort and time that you’d need to expend with other systems. It gives you the standard Linux experience without fuss, or handholding.

Nix, however, gives you several capabilities that other systems won’t, but you’re paying for that through its learning curve.