You can live without them.

Not really. They have persistent tracking even between browsers.

They will ask you for a phone number and VoIP numbers won't work. Instagram even asks you se send them a picture of you while holding a code written on a paper in your hand. Pretty sure FB will confirm your identity before you can start using their services.

Just stay away from Meta, if you can.

Your usage pattern will most likely betray you.

Think changing chromium for something like mull, on a seperate device/sandboxed user profile where you never input other information and setup a killswitch for the vpn would probably be better

No!

With anything owned by Meta; you will be required to verify your identity.

That's a decent start, but you need a browser that's resistant to fingerprinting through some plugins and something like ublock origin that will block all embedded content. At some point, it may require you to use a phone number, and at that point you may have a problem. If you avoid that, one of the biggest threats are the facebook and related meta content placed on other pages around the internet. The pixel is one aspect, but almost any facebook content can still track you across sites. These are easily blocked with a decent adblocker and probably privacybadger too.

I know lots of folks will disagree, but I'd care less about Facebook tracking you as they mostly only care about serving you ads and making content suggestions to keep you on the platform to view more ads. Facebook has never served me a relevant ad, and even with a lot of use still can't recommend things I'm interested in. Data leaks and sharing is a concern, but that's a concern with every site. I think when it comes to privacy, there's far bigger concerns.

well your activity can still be tracked and eventually associated to your other internet activities.

• your online times can be correlated with your other accounts and software you use on the same device
• browsing behavioral patterns
• a combination of tracking mouse movement, clicking and typing can be used to create a very unique fingerprint
• VPN's are not really "anonymous". you just trust some random company to not sell you out

but realistically nobody has any interest in what random facebook groups you join as long as its nothing legally complicated. so the questions is do you want to prevent your friends and family from seeing what you are doing, or do you want to do stuff that could get you in jail? if its the former then a separate account is sufficient. if its the latter then you should do a lot of reading.

You can remain anonymous to the people in those groups. No VPN required either, just a different Facebook account.
You can't be anonymous towards Facebook itself, because that social network requires an account.
You can't be unidentifiable by Facebook, because they would require you to very your account.
You can remain unlinked to your real identity (as seen by Facebook) if you use a different SIM. And a different phone if you're planning to use the app.
You can't remain unlinked to your real identity as seen by the government because you need to provide your id when buying a new SIM, so when necessary they can query Facebook for your phone number and then query your phone provider for your id.