Based on a comment I got that said "if all you have is EQ, then it's the best you can do. Modern "AI"-based noise reduction can probably do a far better job in one click", I found this VST plugin that's free & open source: https://github.com/werman/noise-suppression-forReal-voicetime Noise Suppression Plugin.
This works way better, and although the breathing is much lower than feels natural, the overall sound is much better.
So I'd say the answer is that there is better noise reduction out there for free as long as you have access to VST plugins, which basically every sound program under the sun should do.