I personally like Majestic Bank and unstoppable swap for privacy, no KYC, and no gay freezing your funds for validation. Both of those services use their own liquidity, which is key in avoiding the mentioned gayness.
Just make sure to get your links from kycnot.me, because of course - there are fake links where you will send you crypto to some indian dudes and never see it again.
Don't use CakeWallet if you want to protect your privacy, it's spyware and works along with chain analysis and goverment entities, read the the terms you'll find all the information they gather on every user of CK. got to give it to them it's very user friendly and easy to navigate and atleast they're one of the few "non-kyc" wallets that implemented XMR, but if your still gonna use it, use it whith a vpn, even tho they clearly discourage their user from using vpns while using CK. Stay safe
There's some risk in using the public bitcoin nodes that CK provide aswell for the exchanges from third parties . which will automatically add your wallets to the blockchain, where anybody can see it, at end it's mostly a personal decision depending on different factors and reasons for persons that are looking for more privacy. My comment was mostly for people that hold their privacy as the top priority or think that it can put themselves in jeopardy, but always try using non-kyc wallets that can run tor or if you want to stil use CK just use a vpn at all times while using to hide your ip. Even better wallets that allow you to run your own local bitcoin node as electrum and sparrow. At the end it will only matter if you think it can get you into trouble if you're just a law abiding citizen you can rest assure. If your're looking to purchase stuff on the DNM you may want to look into other secure non-kyc wallets like the ones i added before and using non-kyc exchanges if your looking to exchange your crypto or even p2p exchanges. nevertheless you can never stress enough your online privacy.
That's not true Cake has no telemetry and is open source so you can see for yourself. The terms are for the third party swap services. You don't have to use them in fact you can turn them off completely in settings.
But you should at least use a VPN when connecting to their nodes, like you said, but that applies to using any public node that isn't yours for any wallet.
you can still use it still works but would advice you to use a vpn, other even more private non-kyc can be sparrow, electrum, atomic and wasabi, nevertheless always use in conjuntion the electrum wallet and sparrow with a local bitcoin node for maximum privacy. obviously if you're privacy is priority and in risk CK can be liability.
i used to use cake wallet but now i use "fixed float", its a online converter. they have wayyyy lower fees then cake wallet and really saves me money for big orders. they have a 1% fixed rate, which means if BTC goes down while its converting, you don't lose money, it just stays fixed at the price it was when you made the exchange. or they have a .5% float rate which means if BTC goes down during the trade you lose money, but if it goes up, you'll make money. i always do the 1% fixed rate just because you never know how the market is going to go. but yeah i highly recommend them, after using cake wallet or 4 years, i couldn't be happier with the switch. just type in "fixed Float" on the clearnet and it'll pop up.