Like others have mostly said, Mint is a great choice.

All the different distros can basically all do the same things for the most part. The main differences between them are mostly philosophical and don’t matter to a new user.

Once you get comfortable with linux, you can easily switch to a different distro if you get annoyed with something.

For now, just choose a popular distro that you think has a nice user interface.

I think mint, popos, and Ubuntu are all great choices.

Just get a vpn to be safe. They are so cheap. I live in a country where no one cares about it, but I still use a vpn to be safe.

Also consider that people might not care now, but in the future, the rules might change and there might be a record that you torrented.