Hi, its the GNUfairy,
So the vi-mode for the web browser can mean two things. Firstly, on firefox based browsers such as GNU Icecat, there's an extension at gnuzilla.gnu.org called vimC where you can get vim based keybindings added to your browsing. Then there are browsers built for Vim based browsing from the ground up. Here the original one and the more minimalist one was Vimb, Vimb is based on the WebKit engine and runs totally free software, it is infact configured via a config.h file in its source tree (USE=savedconfig if you use Gentoo). However Webkit for all its freedom is very limited and will crash on most bloated modern websites. Therefore, Qutebrowser which is based on the QtWebEngine which itself is based on the Chromium web-engine. This is good and bad. Good because it is fantastic at loading modern websites, Bad because the default build bundles in proprietary codecs and third party vendor files into the build. Qutebrowser itself takes like 14 seconds to compile and is almost entirely python. Qtwebengine on my T420 i5-2050M takes about 15hrs. I suggest using the build from GNU Guix since it cuts out third-party vendor firmware, disables DRM widevine (not to be confused with Direct Rendering Manager lol) and minimizes proprietary-codecs by using the system FFMPEG to decode. Qutebrowser has native vim bindings, JKHL GG/Shift+G. Beyond that you can script the browser in python via $HOME/.config/qutebrowser/config.py. There is no ad-blocker to speak of however.
To the meeting I brought my project laptop, my Dell Latitude E6400 with a core2duo which I got on ebay for 50 ish dollars all included. This is a special laptop since it can be flashed internally using a program called dell-flash-unlock. The process is very simplistic. The good part is that the entire Intel ME can be removed except for the Mask ROM (equivalent to lobotomizing a computer to just microcode, the ME is totally disabled). Before the flash you will have an Intel ME region, after the flash you will notice it is gone. This is then totally free software in the main boot flash, and in my case, up from the BIOS main flash to the operating system itself with linux-libre kernel. My other computer that I brought is my T420 thinkpad, on Sandybridge the Intel ME is no longer as easy to get rid off. The first two modules required to boot the ME are signed with a cryptographic key and they are verified by the Intel ME mask ROM, something we cannot touch. Hence the whole ME cannot be removed we must keep the BUP and ROMP modules, equivalent to having a computer with only a partially complete BIOS but no operating system. It is not then totally free software in the main boot flash, about 5KB of the ME are remaining (down from about 5MB). However if you like the modern web, this generation is very capable with GLES 3.1 (as opposed to the very dated 2.1 on the core2duo) so I see it as a good compromise.