Good VPN overview

[Chris]

Just watched a good video on VPNs and their varying levels of actual privacy.

The two recommendations are Mullvad and Proton. Mullvad has some interesting tech around beating AI packet analysis. You can also pay for it with an envelope of cash, quite cool. I personally use Proton because of the suite that comes with it, but may give Mullvad a go some time.

The video is worth watching though if you want a bit of an explanation on how VPNs work, why most of the big names are really not that private or have some shady relationships.

 

[Chris]

Here’s the follow up video on browser privacy:

 

[Bushcraft4life]

I’m still using Nord - I haven’t had any issues but interesting none the less.

 

[Nice65]

Started using Proton even though I have a Nord sub that runs another few months as I’ve been assured Nord isn’t as private as they claim. Brave is now default browser, and I have 4 email addresses plus regular DuckDuckGo throwaways. I confess to not always bothering to use the secure ones, Gmail is easy to remember and operate.

The aim of all this, in the main, is so I can look something up and not have Google tracking my interests and purchasing.

This may be paranoid, and I usually don’t worry too much about such things, but I had a conversation with a friend in my kitchen about titanium non stick frying pans the other day. I haven’t made any manual searches for them. Since then I’ve had titanium pans pop up in my YouTube sidebar recommendations and in Google popups. That would indicate the phone mic is being used, and it’s not set as active except for Merlin, WhatsApp and Shazam, and only when the apps are being used.

 

[hughtrimble]

Since then I’ve had titanium pans pop up in my YouTube sidebar recommendations and in Google popups. That would indicate the phone mic is being used, and it’s not set as active except for Merlin, WhatsApp and Shazam, and only when the apps are being used.

It's much more likely to be targeted ads at you both converging than surreptitious microphone listening. The more hopeful one is that it's just shared demographics etc. and interests which result in a similar profile being shown similar things. The more horrifying option is that if your friend had location on, and e.g. Meta know it's your home address or you too had location on and you're both associated in some way via Meta's products, they'll be showing you things they know your friend has been looking at recently and vice versa as they know you were together and quite possibly talking about products that they can then target ads at you for.

Their level of tracking is phenomenal. It's horrifying but phenomenal.

 

[stonepark]

Kaspersky VPN built into anti virus

 

[Chris]

Kaspersky VPN built into anti virus

If you’re privacy conscious, you may find some interesting info on Kaspersky here: https://cyberinsider.com/antivirus-privacy/

 

[hughtrimble]

If you’re privacy conscious, you may find some interesting info on Kaspersky here: https://cyberinsider.com/antivirus-privacy/

Absolutely this