As far as I know, the options are:

• Use a QR reader app that doesn’t auto open links (or lets you configure it like that), so you see the URL and inspect it before opening the URL in the browser.
• In case of a short URL, use a short URL resolver so you can see what is the real destination without actually opening the URL yourself.
• Using a DNS with block lists (that are updated often) of known phishing sites.

If these 3 checks fail, there is not much more you can do.

If it is the OS, you could try “systemd-analyze” and “systemd-analyze blame” on the terminal to see what is going on, you can post the output of blame here and maybe someone can pinpoint something strange, or you can search online how to speed up or disable certain elements from the list.

MSI Sword 15 here, with Intel + Nvidia, In my personal experience is runs almost without issues using Manjaro as a Distro (have not tried other distros on this specific machine).

Your experience could be different depending on your specific laptop model and how recent it is.

Keyboard lighting and fan on/off works without issues, the only ‘Fn’ key that does not work apart from the one for MSI windows software is the one to block the trackpad (and I just configured another keyboard shortcut for it).

Using Wayland, I can not use an external monitor connected to the HDMI port on the Nvidia card (No idea if it is fixable now, haven’t looked on it recently), but with Xorg I can run an external monitor in the HDMI port and extra ones with a dongle on the USB-C (so far tried with 3 without issues) Edit: I can use multiple monitors without issues on Wayland as of my last test.

Friendly distros recommended these days as far as I know are Mint and Zorin if looking for something Ubuntu or Debian Based, Apart from that there is Fedora or Arch based distros but may need a bit more knowledge and getting used to.