Pay for the privilege of having your rights sold!

[Seperallis]

That's right, friend! You too can pay for the lovely privilege of having the overwhelming burden of your pesky rights lifted off your shoulders, for only $59.99 a month! Browse the internet without having to worry about an expectation to privacy...because you'll have none! Of course, if you're an America-hating liberal who cares about such ridiculous crap like "freedoms" or "rights", you can pay an "optional" penalty fee of only $29.99 a month, and trust us to keep our word and not sell your soul anyway. \o/

But before Drumpf and the "Republican" congress hurriedly tries to further erode the FCC and our associated rights, I was wondering about some good VPNs, browsers (that aren't owned by Microsoft, Google, et al), ad-blocking software (I know I made a thread about that somewhere...), and...maybe, like, a good search engine that isn't notorious for logging every little detail about your life? That'd be cool.

I know Zab uses some interesting stuff, and I know you guys know a lot about this kind of thing. I've gotten old, though; back in the days before data & algorithms, back when the web was "surfed" and life was free... ah, good times...

[Severyane]

Here is one that was recommended to me: https://openvpn.net/

I haven't used it personally though. Yet.

Also this: https://www.reddit.com/r/VPN/comments/4i..._the_best/

[Arkiania]

Well there is Tor, for adblock I use uBlock Origin. Also if you want to half-ass it. Just avoid any site that isnt https. While an ISP can still detect what site you are on, it cant detect what page you are on with https.

[Zabuza825]

I've actually been shopping around for more VPN services and can offer some advice.

First of all, if all you want is the most barebones of VPN's, you can try SoftEther's VPNGate. SoftEther and VPNGate are projects started by the University of Tsukuba as part of one of their student's doctoral thesis research. This will give you free access to VPN servers elsewhere using the OpenVPN protocol.


Here's the link: http://www.vpngate.net/en/

However, there are upsides and downsides to consider when using this. Consider them carefully. They are:

Pro's	Con's
Completely free No limits to use Available on iPhone and Android as well	Fast speeds not guaranteed, in fact there will definitely be servers that have ridiculously slow speeds. Not all servers are guaranteed to be online all the time, there will be times when you wake up to find the server you use is gone for good and you'll need to reconfigure it to use a new server. All of your activity will be logged on 99.99999% of the servers available. On top of that, a lot of their servers are run by people you don't know. Even if they say they won't log you, they might do so quietly in the background anyway. On top of that, even if they do tell you that they log you, you have no way of knowing what they do with said logs.

As for me? Well, ever since the passage of that law I have been using a VPN called Windscribe. I used it off-and-on before but that was because I used it mainly to get around geolocking and watch stuff from Japan that I otherwise wouldn't be allowed to watch (namely the web-based TV sation AbemaTV). I bought myself a lifetime pro subscription to it for $40 when they had a special deal going on (they have a similar deal that I can confirm is happening as of 03/29/2017, however the current deal ends on 3/31/2017 and is about $100 more expensive than when I first bought it). Oh and yes, there was a catch when I bought the lifetime subscription, keep reading if you want to know what that catch was.

I've been having a great experience using Windscribe, but there are things to note about it.

Pro's	Con's
They are based in Canada - which has a good record when it comes to privacy laws though there are some exceptions (look up 5 Eyes for more info). They have servers in many countries on many continents Decent speeds - they aren't the fastest but I can work with these speeds Available on iPhone They also have standalone apps for certain browsers that block ads and do other things to ensure privacy They also have a very limited free trial They don't maintain any activity logs	They support Android, but only through a third-party app that is a pain in the ass to set up. As of 3/29/2017, they do not have a standalone Android app (hopefully this changes in the future). I've heard people complain about limited customer support options - I haven't had to deal with their customer support so I can't really comment on how it is overall. Very expensive compared to other VPN services - especially if you get a monthly or yearly subscription. They might not maintain activity logs, but they do log how much data you have used on their server. This is a level of logging acceptable to me personally, but for some people even this level of logging may be unacceptable. Some servers aren't located in the best of countries (eg Vietnam). The lifetime subscription I bought from them is actually a 10-year subscription that's freely renewable by contacting their customer service - my guess is that the company is betting (probably correctly) that most people didn't read the fine print and thus will let their "lifetime" subscriptions expire after the 10 years.

If you want to look for other VPN options on your own, here is my advice.

• If you want the best of the best VPN service, be prepared to pay monthly or yearly.
  
• ALWAYS look at reviews of the VPN service before you buy from them. Make sure they provide the sort of privacy and speeds that you want before you dish out any cash. Also make sure that others have had good experiences when using the service.
  
• If you are willing to go a tier lower in exchange for a "lifetime" subscription, try looking at places like the Digg Store (link) for lifetime deals.
  
• Especially when looking "lifetime" subscription deals, always, ALWAYS look up reviews for the VPN service. I know that I already mentioned this, but I cannot emphasize it enough. Companies that own some VPN services, such as VPN Unlimited, keep logs of your activity (link) when you use their services (EDIT: reading the article closely, this is for things other than the VPN, but my point still stands) negating any privacy benefits from using their service.
  
• When looking at "lifetime" subscription deals, ALWAYS read the fine print. There will most likely be a catch. For example, right now there is a lifetime subscription to TigerVPN available on the Digg Store, but it seems like that is a "lite" subscription that only gives you access to part of their service (the Digg Store advertises 15 server locations in 11 countries, while the TigerVPN homepage advertises 63 locations in 43 countries). You don't want to be fucked over if it ever comes back to haunt you.
  

If you want to get a VPN and don't know where to start looking, you could start with TorrentFreak's list of VPN providers and their answers to questions concerning privacy. Every year they ask different VPN providers on their privacy, I only linked to their 2017 edition.

If you have any more questions, feel free to ask.

[Soyabarian Empire]

Actually I got a couple of questions?

How usefull is/ are these vpn's on a more personal vendetta against crime?

secondly, are there mailboxes available to use there?

[Severyane]

As an update, I've started using IVPN.

https://www.ivpn.net/

[Zabuza825]

Actually I got a couple of questions?

How usefull is/ are these vpn's on a more personal vendetta against crime?

secondly, are there mailboxes available to use there?

First question: what the hell are you talking about? VPN's on a vendetta against crime? what? They just provide a service that people want and will pay for. Some people want to get around geoblocking, VPN's can provide that. Some people (in countries like China) want to get around internet censorship, VPN's can provide that. Some people want a more private and secure internet connection, some (but not all) VPN's provide that.

Some VPN's will claim they are on a pro-privacy quest, but let's be real, they wouldn't be able to do that if they didn't make money from it.

Second question: By "mailboxes" I assume you mean encrypted email services. There are a number of them out there. I would recommend either ProtonMail or Tutanota. I have accounts on both, but prefer ProtonMail. If you mean like, actual physical mailboxes though, I'm willing to bet that you're out of luck.

---

Also figured I should mention this.

If you're looking for a privacy-oriented search engine, DuckDuckGo is probably the way to go.

As for adblockers, I use the same thing that Ark uses (uBlock Origin). In their 3rd-party filter settings, you have the option to enable an anti-adblock blocker that works on some (BUT NOT ALL) sites that would otherwise block you from using their website with an adblocker on.

[Seperallis]

See, this is why I hang out with young people.

On the note of browsers, don't you use something like Waterfox or something? I've never heard of it.

[Zabuza825]

See, this is why I hang out with young people.

On the note of browsers, don't you use something like Waterfox or something? I've never heard of it.

Yeah, I use Waterfox. It's basically a more improved version of Firefox though, only it's 64-bit instead of 32-bit, removes Adobe DRM, gets rid of Mozilla's standard data collection, and on top of that is compatible with almost all Firefox addons. If you want it, you can get it here: https://www.waterfoxproject.org/

Not going to lie though, in terms of web browsers privacy usually isn't a big concern for the people who make them. I would recommend using Waterfox, Vivaldi, or Opera if you want a good web browser that's sort-of secure though.

If you also don't want your data collected, do NOT use Edge/Explorer, Firefox, or Chrome. Mozilla Firefox is a bit iffy on privacy (it's neither good on privacy nor bad on privacy, it's just meh) but you can never be too safe. As for Edge/Explorer and Chrome, Microsoft (or should I say Micro$hit) has zero trust from me after all the backdoor bullshit they pulled in Windows 10 and Google has my trust but not so much to where I'm willing to give them my browsing history on my google account.