FYI: ctrl + shift + t brings back closed tabs.

While true, the last task is to create a general purpose machine so there’s no puzzle anymore. Only thing left to do is to make it go faster.

Use a hex editor to read binary files. I recommend ImHex https://imhex.werwolv.net/ because it includes all sorts of advanced analysis stuff.

Now my question is, how should I deal with these pacnew files?

Install pacman-contrib which includes pacdiff. Meld is easy for beginners.

DIFFPROG="meld" pacdiff --sudo

See https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacnew_files#Managing_.pac*_files for more options.

For documents: https://docspell.org/

For media files: https://hydrusnetwork.github.io/hydrus/index.html

Shamus was always worth a read: https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?page_id=16412

Sadly there won’t be coming new articles from him.