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Yep plus 1000 to this. I tried doing this 4 years ago and it was a miserable experience. And rightly so to be honest. For every privacy focused nerd, there are 1000 lowlife hackers and spammers trying to use something as a bounce proxy.
Any experience with using classical VPS as a proxy? Same problem?
Tinfoil hats aside, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if the NSA and other intelligence agencies around the world operated VPN service providers as a way to spy on users.
Tinfoil hats aside, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if the NSA and other intelligence agencies around the world operated VPN service providers as a way to spy on users.
It would surprise me if they didn't.
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A browser is just an application with some minimal services provided such as sync, extensions hosting, auto-updates. A VPN on the other hand consists of an application and usually unmetered usage of the company's bandwidth, which costs money.
Maybe "browser" was too specific. Replace that with an "organization" and that's Mozilla. They make firefox, but they're more than just an application, they're a group of applications developers that are pro privacy.
If Mozilla did, it probably would get the kind of attention and focus you’re suggesting. I just don’t see a lot of companies with a similar vision as Mozilla that are successful.
Nearly as disturbing as the number of people who tell me they use free VPNs. It is a bit mind boggling that folks are concerned about something and use a VPN...but choose a free one...
Agreed. With the possible exception of Psiphon which is built by and for activists. https://www.psiphon3.com Tor is obviously another option but I don't strictly speaking categorise that as a VPN.
How safe is it to setup a VPN (via Wireguard or something) with AWS?
Safe? Against what? - Preventing websites from seeing your true IP? (you'll want to disable webrtc as well[1].) Mostly yes. - preventing your ISP from spying on your traffic? (allowing Amazon to spy on your traffic in exchange...) Yes. - Avoiding risk of legal threats if you engage in copyright infringement? Mostly no. They can subpoena Amazon instead of your ISP, and your lightsail/EC2 ip isn't shared. Routing throu…
btw Turkey is notorious for blocking sites, Youtube got blocked for months, Wikipedia is still blocked today..
Tinfoil hats aside, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if the NSA and other intelligence agencies around the world operated VPN service providers as a way to spy on users.
Tinfoil hats aside, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if the NSA and other intelligence agencies around the world operated VPN service providers as a way to spy on users.
Nearly as disturbing as the number of people who tell me they use free VPNs. It is a bit mind boggling that folks are concerned about something and use a VPN...but choose a free one...
Yes, a more secure and practical alternative to "VPN services" is the Tor network, which externalizes the cost of infrastructure to volunteers and thus reduces the risk inherent with centralized control. While Tor is also not without risk, I really wish more privacy oriented services and software had decentralization as a core tenet of their design.
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i can't speak to the safety, but i think you'll find browsing with an AWS IP to be a frustrating experience. Many sites block traffic from known AWS IP ranges in an attempt to prevent scraping or abuse.
Use Google Cloud VMs. Nobody blocks Google IPs (they might even lift paywalls etc)