DNS over HTTPS. It allows encrypted DNS lookup with a URL, which allows for url-based customizations not possible with traditional DNS lookups (e.g. the server could have /ads or /trackers endpoints so you can choose what to block).
DNS Over TLS (DoT) is similar, but it doesn’t use URLs, just IP addresses like generic DNS. Both are encrypted.
I don’t think there’s any simple answer to what’s beginner-friendly, because so much is hardware-dependent. They mentioned obscure laptop hardware, and at that point I wouldn’t even make a recommendation to someone beyond “see if any distros have a wiki page about that specific hardware, and search for forum threads about it”.
I’m sure there are cases when Arch is a lot easier than Mint. I’m not sure why they dismissed Fedora out of hand, though. What’s wrong with Fedora?
No love for cvs?
Yes, his name is Headmaster Gandalf.