Concerning the rebuilding of the OS every so often, this is where VDI or virtualization can be most helpful :).
Create a clean image. Clone it. Spin it up.
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I am amazed at the helpful comments this brought up.
All in all I forgot the name of the search engine I prefer because it is the world's most secure. It is called Start Page.
You could do all your web surfing withing a virtual machine.
The virtual machine can be configured as a bastion host.
After 3-4 months of surfing, delete the VM. Clone a template. Keep on riding.
You will want to save links, profiles, and other permanents to a shared drive.
I recommend Oracle VirtualBox for desktop virtualization.
For hypervised virtualization, I'm partial to either XenServer, VMware, Xen, or Hyper-V ... in that order.