To settle this curiosity, hence the following questions:
1. How can I keep my Bitcoin safe?
2. Is there an alternative to centralized exchange?
3. I would appreciate suggestions that are less technical as I'm not grounded in tech.
To maintain bitcoin security much better is to use a hardware wallet it will be more secure than anything I use Nano Ledger X to store Bitcoin assets. Or you can use Electrum, Trustwallet, Coinomi, Exodus which is important to have a private key that we can control ourselves.
Namely decentralized exchanges as an alternative maybe you can try some of the decentralized exchanges mentioned, but I myself still use centralized exchanges but I never keep them there too long just simply trade or convert and then withdraw them.