It doesn't really matter how private your browser is when your OS is spying on everything you do. Using Tor is still better than using any other browser, but if you are using Windows 11 you should assume your privacy is roughly zero.
Or even below zero
There are few tweaks and modified settings you can use to reduce how much you are spied by microsoft, but it will never be good base for any privacy.
I don't see any good reason for anyone to use windows unless they are lazy, or they simply don't care about privacy.
And let's not even start talking how most malware are made for windows.
Personally I like Debian, but for brand new Linux users migrating from Windows, I always recommend Mint. It is far more newbie friendly than some other Linux distros, the GUI is the most similar to Windows, and there is an extensive online community which can assist with troubleshooting.
I tried most of the big Linux distributions including Debian, and problem I have with Debian is often outdated old software, even if you are using latest testing instead of stable.
Another problem is that my hardware was not detected so I had to install different version and do a lot of manual post installations and fixing.
Mint is fine and it usually works for most people, but I don't like Ubuntu base, so maybe it's not a bad idea for people to try
Mint Debian release.