There was this list of VPN's that sell your data. It included VPN's that supposedly do not. Many of the popular ones collect, analyze and sell your data. I would not use VPN's because it seems like a false impression of having privacy. Maybe the only situation in which I see them useful is for local websites that deny access to Tor nodes. But otherwise, Tor all the way.
I know that, although I don't know the list of them (not that it would matter much yet). I've used TOR, I didn't use VPN. I don't see real benefits in using VPN, but I may be missing something and that's why I'd like more info in this.
Is an anti virus truly safe? Do they not scan computer files? If yes, does my wallet.dat file not get scanned in the process? Sure, you can add the Bitcoin folder to the list of exceptions. But still, the popular and best anti viruses are closed source. I do not trust them.
They do scan files; some scan only known executable files, for some you can set only certain extensions, or set folders to not be scanned, some will scan all. And most will also sell all the data they can.
It's one of the reasons I use hardware wallet.
You can also use Tails for broadcasting transactions.
You can indeed use Tails. Imho a better use for Tails would be for cold storage (obviously offline) and keep a watch only wallet on your main online PC.
But setting up persistence in Tails is not for everybody; also some don't trust Electrum that comes bundled into Tails because you cannot really verify it. But overall I do like to have a Tails stick around; last time I've used it it also had TOR by default iirc.