11 hours ago, kerdios said:how can you make sure these scripts and custom installations don't come with some kind of malware preinstalled in them?
That is of course a risk with any random thing downloaded off the internet. So you should always do some research first. However, scripts are the safest because all the code is visible, which makes hiding malicious stuff in them impossible. At least for those who can read the code. So when you see thousands of people using a open source script from a public repository on github, it's probably pretty safe.
But there are of course other issues you can run into as well. Again, it all comes down to how much of a trade-off you're willing to make between security/ease-of-use and privacy/control. I'm personally more than satisfied just using a debloat script and have had no issues with it so far.