You won’t even have to worry about fire then!

This could entirely be me being tired, and thus a little stupid right now, but how exactly are you rebooting the system? If it’s by hitting the restart button, or powering off and back on, you may be having issues with something getting “stuck” in RAM, essentially. Try fully powering down the machine, disconnect the power cable (and battery if it’s a laptop), press and hold the power button for 30+ seconds, then hook everything back up and test again. That should be enough to drain any little bits of electricity stored in the system, thus fully clearing anything that might’ve been hanging around from RAM. Also, make sure the browsers are fully updated and no outdated extensions/plugins/etc.

Like everyone else said, funding=/=ownership. I do suspect, however, that part of why these big tech companies fund Linux is because they rely on something built on Linux in one way or another. Linux tends to be the better options for things like servers, low processing devices, and more, and if they keep funding it, it continues to exist so they can use it. You’d be surprised about how much of the world actually uses Linux in some way.

I don’t think I’ve ever actually used WhatsApp. An old boss tried to tell me that it was mandatory for my job (there was a group chat where management insisted on tracking every single thing we did). Fortunately, Ontario has somewhat decent labour laws where if you’re required to use an app or something on your phone, your employer now gets to pay for your phone bill! Needless to say, she backed off pretty quick lol

Also, the concept of NEEDING WhatsApp for daily life is wild to me. It’s not the norm for businesses, banks, etc to require it, and if someone says they do, it’s probably a scam here…