That's not what you told us initially.
You reported the three "strange visitors":
https://mail.trinitydesktop.org/mailman3/hyperkitty/list/users@trinitydeskt op.org/message/J32P3DLUUN2WLBDDKWQ7E4R2N7GZL7PC/
then nearly 18 hours later you said:
Now here's another puzzle. I don't know if it's related to my previous question about unwanted visitors in top, but I decided that I ought to start a new thread. I managed to get rid of those pesky unwelcome visitors, and imagined that I was on the way to having a machine that actually does what I want. All of a sudden, most of my browsers will not launch at all. I even went on a spree, and downloaded lots of different browsers, just to try them out (and to see if I could get anything to connect to the Internet).
True, but the first thing I noticed is that some of my text editors were acting a little weird, and wouldn't launch. I didn't think that so important at the time. Next thing is that I noticed the "strange visitors"; but these occurred after an upgrade, for which nothing different was added, and nothing to do with Gnome or TDE or anything remarkable.
I am confident that the computer is fine for doing work, or at least it will be once you stop "fixing" it and actually do fix it. I am not a betting man, but if I were, I would bet dollars to donuts that the problems you are having have nothing to do with the hardware, or that Devuan is broken.
I don't keep "fixing" it. I only tried to track down Gnomish packages after Nik's remark, and I kept track of what was removed and installed. Then I did another system reinstall, and haven't removed anything.
Bill