That really depends on you, keep in mind a lot of distro’s like Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Kali Linux are based off of Debian just using different repositories and with system files in different locations.

I personally went with Debian and have had little to no complaints, definitely BASH/Shell/Terminal heavy so if you’re not willing to learn BASH I would probably use an immutable distro that you can’t easily break like Bazzite.

I’m mostly into protecting my data

Debian. Not Ubuntu - just Debian. Or Linux Mint Debian Edition (Debian with Cinnamon on top).

I use Linux Mint, which supports AppArmor or SELinux if you need the extra security, as well as allowing full disk encryption to be setup during install. Cinnamon (its default desktop environment) is very usable, especially if you’re used to Windows.