• Absaroka@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    3 hours ago

    If you’re looking for a VPN, check out Mullvad.

    It’s just €5 / $5.25 / £4.15 a month. They haven’t changed that price since launching in 2009. So they’ve also been around a while. Does everything you need a VPN to do. And they’re based in Sweden, which seems to have some good privacy rules. They also don’t keep logs.

  • kitnaht@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    59
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    edit-2
    24 hours ago

    These fucking things always tip-toe around the issue anyone wants a VPN for: Piracy.

    Are you pirating shit? Yes? Use a VPN.

  • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catOP
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    22
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    23 hours ago

    I like how the article boils down to, “Except for some isolated use cases, Tor is far superior to a VPN in both cost and safety,” and a lot of the comments boil down to “YEAH VPNS ARE GREAT GET A VPN.”

    It is okay to read the article before writing a comment, guys. In some circles, it’s even encouraged, because you might learn something.

    • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      5 hours ago

      Don’t just use Tor, use VPN on top of it.

      If you use tor frequently, you’d eventually get a bad “roll of dice” on the nodes and get 3 government run nodes. Its not a matter of “if” but “when”, roll the dice enough times, and the holes in the “swiss cheese” eventually line up.

      If you are using Tor, also use a VPN along with it. It might make the traffic a little slower, but its worth it in case you get 3 NSA nodes.

    • umami_wasabi@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      18
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      23 hours ago

      Except many services are very aggressive to Tor exit nodes, namely Google and Cloudflare. Everytime I just met with CAPTCHA after CAPTCHAs, and eventually I gave up on the site.

      Yeah, I should cut ties with Google but cutting YouTube on NewPipe is hard. I’m on Proton and watching YouTube is already hard.

      • pineapple@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        6 hours ago

        I’ve had the same experience with van’s requiring a captcha for every second website I visit.

      • ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        edit-2
        21 hours ago

        You may want to give Freetube a try, which may avoid that issue (especially if combined with libredirect).

      • Claudia@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        22 hours ago

        The latest captchas and cloudflare-turnstile approve you because the google-cloud flare networks have already determined who you are as an individual and just wave you through.

        Tor gets the checks because they don’t know who you are and are seeing you for the first time. Getting a captcha means your privacy strategy is working.

          • Claudia@lemmy.blahaj.zone
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            12 hours ago

            It’s a massive oversimplification. But with captcha systems everywhere, they’re able to see you visit a newspaper, visit the journal site, try to download a journal pdf, and captcha is able to easily conclude that you’re a human and have automatic approval.

            Maybe if you’re going straight to a site for the first time today it would measure your single mouse click. And then from there tracking you across the Internet, assuming you’re online for maybe 6 hours like 99% of connected humans.

            Tor blocks all the fingerprinting, and anonymizes the ip address. Captcha is only able to see a computer arrive at the website requesting access. Captcha’s only tool is to give challenges which the bots are able to beat. So they make you run the challenge multiple times, seeing how long it takes your or randomizing how many times you’re willing to do them.

            Source: some tech YouTuber did a mini documentary about it. You could watch it yourself I assume.

            • 0x0@programming.dev
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              7 hours ago

              and anonymizes the ip address.

              The hell it does, it’s the exit node’s IP address, nothing anonymous about that… and that’s the problem, they know it’s a Tor exit node so they’ll give you extra shit for it.

        • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catOP
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          21 hours ago

          Yeah the whole logic of “If I protect my privacy effectively, I won’t be able to use Google services anymore! O woe” is a little bit strange to me.

  • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    11
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    24 hours ago

    I love the ultra paranoid path Proton offers. It reminds me.of GoldenEye.

    You -> VPN Server 1 -> VPN Server 2 -> TOR -> endpoint.

      • kitnaht@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        17 hours ago

        And Tor sucks. You shouldn’t use it for torrenting, it’s frequently targeted by intelligence agencies for IP unmasking, etc.

        • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catOP
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          17 hours ago

          You shouldn’t use it for torrenting

          True.

          it’s frequently targeted by intelligence agencies for IP unmasking

          I would take issue with “frequently,” in the grand scheme of things, but yes. It is a sufficient level of protection that state intelligence agencies have to have specific methods, which sometimes work and sometimes don’t, to try to specifically attack one specific actor on Tor if they care enough to do it. In contrast to a VPN, which any bumbling fuckhead in more or less any jurisdiction can generally defeat with a single subpeona, and even a fairly stupid intelligence agency can defeat without blinking.

          Tor sucks

          Your axioms don’t add up to your theorem. There are cases where a VPN is better, torrenting being one of them, that part is true.

          • kitnaht@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            edit-2
            16 hours ago

            https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2024/10/tor-browser-and-firefox-users-should-update-to-fix-actively-exploited-vulnerability

            This was just in October. This is only the latest in a long history of Tor being a target for attacks. Sorry you’re ignorant of that fact, but Tor is quite possibly the worst choice for any task. A VPN will always be faster, more reliable, and more secure.

            Here’s another in January: https://www.securityweek.com/tor-code-audit-finds-17-vulnerabilities/

            And, it’s basically the only service where it relies on freely added Tor exit nodes, where anyone can set up a node and start siphoning off data – as data between the exit node and your end path is NOT protected.

            Granted, this is the same for VPNs, but anyone can set up their own Tor Exit node. VPNs have a business incentive to make sure not just anyone is in the chain for access to that data.

            I can fully saturate a symmetrical gigabit connection with my VPN. I can’t touch a fraction of that with Tor.

            Tor is for oppressive countries where anonymity and misdirection are more important than performance. It’s literally worse than a VPN in every single way unless you’re concerned with a major country coming for your head. And even then - Tor isn’t going to save you.

            • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catOP
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              16 hours ago

              I typed up a long sarcastic response as to why this isn’t true, but I think I’m going to let you keep believing these things. If you think VPN-using browsers do not have vulnerabilities that need updates to fix actively exploited vulnerabilities, or that data is protected between the exit node of a VPN and the end path, then I’m going to let you keep thinking those things. I’ll never stand between a person and their dreams.

              • kitnaht@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                edit-2
                16 hours ago

                Read your own damn article:

                Because it’s designed with privacy and anti-surveillance in mind, it generally runs slower than the regular internet and is not designed for content streaming.

                For Fucks sake…

                If you think VPN-using browsers do not have vulnerabilities

                VPN is not “a browser”, it’s a network stack. It is separate from whatever you use for a browser. If you use Tor, you still use a browser. So your argument is absolutely coming from an asinine point of view where you clearly don’t understand the technologies behind each.

                • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catOP
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  16 hours ago

                  Actually, I should have said specifically: It is true that Tor is slower and unsuitable for some applications, streaming and torrenting being two of them. It was more your statement that it is somehow less secure that I was disagreeing with.

                • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catOP
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  arrow-down
                  2
                  ·
                  16 hours ago

                  VPN-using browsers

                  VPN is not “a browser”

                  Diesel-burning cars

                  Diesel is not “a car”

                  See how language works? You need to relax man.

    • kitnaht@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      17 hours ago

      Windscribe $2/mo. Also supports Wireguard. I don’t even use their dumbass client, I just export a profile for Wireguard - which is quite a bit faster than OpenVPN