Reading https://overengineer.dev/blog/2019/04/08/very-precarious-narrative.html explains vulnerabilities to VPNs. I was aware of several of them, but some I wasn’t.
Are VPNs still useful for torrenting?
Reading https://overengineer.dev/blog/2019/04/08/very-precarious-narrative.html explains vulnerabilities to VPNs. I was aware of several of them, but some I wasn’t.
Are VPNs still useful for torrenting?
I feel like this article has as much fear-mongering as the adverts it’s railing against! I agree with the article in that there are two big issues with using a VPN: 1) Cruddy VPN services that aren’t worth the money, and 2) Users connected to a VPN don’t change their behavior and give themselves away.
For #1, use a service that’s been well vetted (handles DNS, IPv6 properly, doesn’t keep logs, anonymous payments, killswitch, etc). ProtonVPN, Mullvad, iVPN are good choices imo. For #2, ah, see https://mullvad.net/en/help/first-steps-towards-online-privacy/
Yeah I kind of agree. Most of the Mullvad is obvious stuff tbh. Reading the link I posted, I thought browsers had betrayed my trust or something. It was good to see the note about Firefox multi containers though.
It’s not obvious to everyone though! VPN adverts make their services sound magical.
I think the most important behavioral change takeaway is not logging into services or doing the same activities while the VPN is active (if being anonymous is your goal). I do all my VPN torrents stuff through a Docker instance to avoid those pitfalls.