There are some projects like coreboot and libreboot to counter the UEFI problem. Society is based on trust though, for example trusting UEFI vs trusting contributors to these other projects. These types of projects are not for the faint of heart. Should you try it I highly suggest a purpose built computer just for that.
Regarding the CPU chips, there's nothing you can do to the chips today. Many people use a single device these days and everything they do is on it. Having multiple devices for certain activities can help a little bit I guess but it only spreads the problem out not eliminating it.
You can always obtain older hardware to try and avoid the "features".
So, what do we do? Can we burn any of that out?
There are some projects like coreboot and libreboot to counter the UEFI problem. Society is based on trust though, for example trusting UEFI vs trusting contributors to these other projects. These types of projects are not for the faint of heart. Should you try it I highly suggest a purpose built computer just for that.
Regarding the CPU chips, there's nothing you can do to the chips today. Many people use a single device these days and everything they do is on it. Having multiple devices for certain activities can help a little bit I guess but it only spreads the problem out not eliminating it.
You can always obtain older hardware to try and avoid the "features".
No. It's baked in hardware level.
Gen4 and older Intel chips do not have them.
Some Gen5 chips, (broadwell) may,
Anything post Bulldozer will have this I'm guessing however