@ohshit604@lemmy.halstead.host
ohshit604
member since 19 Jul 2026 01:06
comments
- on Which VPN do you use and why? in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 17 Sep 2026
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on The quickest nope of a cookies popup I've ever seen in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 16 Sep 2026
Block element ≠ Agree
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on Which VPN do you use and why? in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 16 Sep 2026
If I’m at home:
Device > WireGuard Tunnel > ProtonVPN Endpoint
If I’m disconnected from my home network:
Device > WireGuard Tunnel > Home Network > WireGuard Tunnel > ProtonVPN Endpoint
Essentially created my own multi-hop network, works like a charm.
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on What do you do for email? in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 16 Sep 2026
I suspect their encryption scheme falls outside the SMTP/IMAP protocols hence the requirement for an application to decrypt/encrypt the message before being delivered to and from your desired email reader.
Thunderbird doesn’t know how to decrypt/encrypt an email if it isn’t given the tools to do so 🤷♂️
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on What do you do for email? in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 15 Sep 2026
I use mailbox.org because both proton and tuta do not support IMAP, which is generally needed to use a 3rd party client.
- on Why is Google still serving dodgy ads? in c/technology@lemmy.world · 14 Sep 2026
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on I am required to use Gmail as the email client for my school email in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 14 Sep 2026
See if you can setup a rule to forward all email out of that inbox, it’s likely this feature is disabled or blocked through a policy but it doesn’t hurt to try.
As others said, get a separate device for work/school tasks, don’t intertwine it with your personal life.
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on Why is Google still serving dodgy ads? in c/technology@lemmy.world · 13 Sep 2026
Growing up you’re told “If it don’t make dollars, it don’t make sense” and I think that sums up the answer to this question.
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on Stop Doing Swap Partitions in c/programmer_humor@programming.dev · 13 Sep 2026
Meanwhile here I am partitioning 20Gb of SWAP because I want 0 chance of an OOM moment.
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on The new Apple Watch will use microphone and other sensors to generate AI recaps of your day - 9to5Mac in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 13 Sep 2026
Given that Apple gladly replaced my Series 5 watch for free when the screen came off, I think I can get another 6 years out of it.
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on Backflip: Apple now wants to train AI models with user data after all in c/technology@lemmy.world · 13 Sep 2026
Stopped updating my iPhone 16 Pro in hopes of jailbreaking it one day, it would be nice to find a Linux phone as well someday with decent hardware.
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on I am asked for Gmail in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 13 Sep 2026
This really does not sound like it’s your fault at all. You and your teacher should be raising this issue to management, claim that you do not agree to googles terms of service nor privacy policy and that they can’t force you to comply.
SMTP and IMAP are documented protocols and they’re choosing to place these arbitrary restrictions upon students and teachers, time for them to reap what they sow.
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on [AIP] Cliparr 2.0 Release - Self-Hosted Plex/Jellyfin Clipper in c/selfhosted@lemmy.world · 11 Sep 2026
Community Rule 7 & 8.
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on Bites & Bytes in c/programmer_humor@programming.dev · 11 Sep 2026
Ya know, when I first made that comment all I did was a quick check on your profile and saw no data;
But then I realized my instance is only a month or so old so perhaps I’m missing data, and Lo and behold I was correct, I just figured it was a 3yo account with absolutely no activity coming back to life, I retract my previous comment.
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on Bites & Bytes in c/programmer_humor@programming.dev · 11 Sep 2026
3 year old account and now is when you decide to introduce yourself?
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on DigitalOcean contributes 3 million and joins the Omacom (Omarchy) Foundation in c/selfhosted@lemmy.world · 10 Sep 2026
How can an outsider support your business?
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on DigitalOcean contributes 3 million and joins the Omacom (Omarchy) Foundation in c/selfhosted@lemmy.world · 10 Sep 2026
Take that survey, express yourself
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on LG TV shown scanning LAN for third-party phones and other devices in c/technology@lemmy.world · 9 Sep 2026
Desolder the kill switch
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on Shutting down our public encrypted DNS servers and sponsoring Quad9 instead | Mullvad VPN in c/technology@lemmy.world · 5 Sep 2026
Hosting your own DNS resolver is quite simple. Suggest trying PiHole.
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on US military disables ad trackers on troops’ phones amid security fears in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 4 Sep 2026
US military officials say they have disabled advertising trackers on a range of phones and computers, according to letters released on Friday by the US senator Ron Wyden and statements given to Reuters.
Someone should let those officials know that disabling and or refusing trackers is yet another way of tracking.
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on what to do with your phone on nternational travel? in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 4 Sep 2026
Flight staff are obviously a very fringe example that you have chosen while trying to make a point
While I respect the sentiment you’re trying to convey, the point I was trying to make is most folks aren’t willing to upend their careers and livelihood for their personal beliefs.
Fathers/Mothers who are required to travel for work aren’t going to drop everything and starve their families all for a protest.
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on what to do with your phone on nternational travel? in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 3 Sep 2026
And if you’re a flight attendant or pilot? Or any other profession that involves travel?
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on Me when I enter any website in 2026 in c/programmer_humor@programming.dev · 30 Aug 2026
The 35 people who downvoted his comment likely also agree with you.
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on Streaming from restaurants (shitpost minirant) in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 27 Aug 2026
Be an adult, either ask her yourself or a staff member that you don’t appreciate being recorded in a private setting. If nothing changes and she continues to record you take your business elsewhere.
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on I can definitely maybe do this! in c/programmer_humor@programming.dev · 26 Aug 2026
Thank you for the affirmation, I got reverse proxies and certificates relatively down, however I am struggling to understand headers and their purposes, I know Mozilla has great documentation regarding headers but lately I’ve gotten lazy, haha.
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on I can definitely maybe do this! in c/programmer_humor@programming.dev · 26 Aug 2026
As someone who understands the concept of network but has never professionally entered the field, i assume this just dumps a TCP packet to be inspected, correct?
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on Android users can't remove nude-scanning app as Google opens the feature to app developers in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 26 Aug 2026
And anyone who takes a photo of you needs to ask your consent.
Hah, good luck when everyone has dashcams and door cams. In a perfect world this would be nice.
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on How often do y'all use a VPN? in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 24 Aug 2026
Here you go, I’ve done my part in this discussion and from what I can tell you choose to remain ignorant to do any research yourself or to accept the provided data for what it is.
As I said in my previous comment this is your choice to support a company with the initial intention of distributing malware, I will not discuss this further.
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on How often do y'all use a VPN? in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 23 Aug 2026
CyberGhost currently has alway an excellent review in IT publications and independent benchmarks
In that very same article…
It’s Not Just Mid VPNs
Kape doesn’t just own multiple VPN companies, they also own several media outlets and other ‘cybersecurity’ software. Let’s start by looking at one of their most egregiously misleading ‘cybersecurity’ software offerings: ReImage.
ReImage is/(was?) marketed as a PC scan and repair tool. It’s actually something called scareware and it’s specifically designed to ping you with alarming messages about your computer containing multiple vulnerabilities, and prompting you to purchase a license to have their software perform the critical fixes necessary. I say ‘was’ marketed because when you go to their website, it doesn’t work. I was only able to look at their website through the web archive tool. Their crunchbase page gives the appearance that they’re still in operation, and you can still download their software off third-party websites. I wouldn’t though.
Kape Owns VPN Review Sites Too
You know what’s better than gobbling up market share of the VPN space? Gobbling up the websites that review them too, and creating your own vertical integration.
So not only does Kape own some of the biggest VPNs in terms of market share, but they also have complete control over the affiliate ecosystem that shills their subpar products onto unwitting consumers. Oh and that’s not all, they also own a middle-man company that specializes “in monetizing high-quality traffic by connecting them with the brands they need.” In other words, they own the VPNs, the VPN affiliate marketing platforms, and the VPN review websites. They’ve created an entire ecosystem that they control, all explicitly designed to go after your data and your wallet.
Here are some of the Kape Controlled entities that you may or may not have heard of before:
- Webselence
- Affiliate monetization platform.
- VPN Mentor
- VPN “review” site peppered with affiliate links from Kape VPNs and other owned software like Intego antivirus.
- Safety Detectives
- Another VPN “review” website, loaded up with affiliate links from Kape-owned businesses.
Whether or not you trust a company with the initial intention of distributing malware is on you, and by using their Proxy you’re still pushing your traffic to their servers albeit in a less-secure manner, and to believe they don’t retain your data is merely laughable as they’re obliged by the Five Eyes Alliance due to their headquarters being in London and are required to retain personal information you provide them.
I don’t use Windscribe myself because they’re a Canadian company and obliged by FVEY, but at least they’re independent from Kape Technologies.
- Webselence
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on How often do y'all use a VPN? in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 23 Aug 2026
CyberGhost extension
Suggest digging into CyberGhost and their history and association with Kape Technologies.
windscribe.com/blog/what-is-kape-technologies/
Kape’s Sketchy Beginnings
Let’s just take a brief moment to look at the origins of Kape. It wasn’t always known by this name, the original company was called Crossrider.
Crossrider dealt in Malware (they called it “ad injection”), and their specialty was building a platform that allowed mobile app developers to easily inject ads into their software or web application. They were so good at it, they caught the attention of Google’s security research team who were incredibly alarmed by what they had found: an entire ecosystem of thousands of companies, broken down into various segments (Software, Distribution, Injection, and Ads).
Crossrider’s main purpose was to function as a distributor, and they were incredibly effective at this. They used their network to drive as many installs as possible, all while collecting a commission for each install of the ad injection software. For those curious about this ecosystem, an archived version of Google’s Security Blog can be found here.
Rebranding as Kape Technologies
Due to the increasing negative attention their antics were causing, the company underwent a massive rebranding and emerged as Kape Technologies.
Nowadays, Kape Technologies is a conglomerate of multiple “privacy-first” software companies, including Express VPN. Express is not their only play in the VPN space though: they’ve also acquired a few larger-scale VPN operations over the past few years. Their first VPN acquisition was Cyberghost for €9.1M back in 2017, followed by Private Internet Access for $127M and Zenmate for €4.8M in 2018. Then came the Express VPN whale in 2021 for $936M, giving Kape a massive foothold in the VPN marketplace.
If Kape VPNs are known for anything, it’s being kinda sketchy. Since we’ve already covered Express in a previous article, the focus will be on the other three lesser-known VPNs that are part of the Kape Corporate Umbrella
Kape Acquires Cyberghost
Cyberghost was the first VPN that Kape acquired, back when they were still called Crossrider. Cyberghost was founded in 2011 by German entrepreneur Robert Knapp, who moved to Bucharest with $100,000 in seed capital ready to exploit the cheaper labor market in Romania. Robert’s own bio on the Cyberghost website claims that he’s passionate about building a privacy-preserving product, yet he had no problem cashing out for almost $10 Million to a company run by ex-Israeli spies and insider-trading billionaires. The irony is apparently lost in translation I suppose.
There’s also an issue with vulnerabilities. In 2023, professional pen testers exposed a vulnerability in the Cyberghost VPN client that could lead to system compromise, yet they had an incredibly difficult time getting any sort of response from the Kape security team (who quickly and quietly patched the issue).
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on Means to privately connect to my home server other than Tailscale? in c/selfhosted@lemmy.world · 23 Aug 2026
Out of curiosity, how is WireGuard blocked in your country? I would assume you cellular provider and or ISP sniffs for the default port (51820) - can’t you just put it on another port?
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on Pet owners say smart pet feeder outage led to furry ones going unfed in c/technology@lemmy.world · 15 Aug 2026
Fun fact, companies want every piece of data you’re willing to give them, including your pets. Not to mention that the average person doesn’t realize the risk of connecting a device to the internet.
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on Why is no one using Quad9 instead of Cloudfare? in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 13 Aug 2026
iPhone > Safari webkit > WireGuard tunnel home network > PiHole DNS (Quad9 upstream) > WireGuard tunnel ProtonVPN endpoint
That is the flow of my current network.
Edit: I ran curl from my server
┌─[user@debian] - [~/compose] - [Thu Aug 13, 12:26] └─[$]> curl -v https://angieguardian.org/ * Host angieguardian.org:443 was resolved. * IPv6: (none) * IPv4: 77.61.56.117 * Trying 77.61.56.117:443... * ALPN: curl offers h2,http/1.1 * TLSv1.3 (OUT), TLS handshake, Client hello (1): * CAfile: /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt * CApath: /etc/ssl/certs * Recv failure: Connection reset by peer * TLS connect error: error:00000000:lib(0)::reason(0) * OpenSSL SSL_connect: Connection reset by peer in connection to angieguardian.org:443 * closing connection #0 curl: (35) Recv failure: Connection reset by peer ┌─[user@debian] - [~/compose] - [Thu Aug 13, 12:27] └─[$]> curl -v angieguardian.org * Host angieguardian.org:80 was resolved. * IPv6: (none) * IPv4: 77.61.56.117 * Trying 77.61.56.117:80... * Connected to angieguardian.org (77.61.56.117) port 80 * using HTTP/1.x > GET / HTTP/1.1 > Host: angieguardian.org > User-Agent: curl/8.14.1 > Accept: */* > * Request completely sent off * Recv failure: Connection reset by peer * closing connection #0 curl: (56) Recv failure: Connection reset by peer
Can confirm my PiHole is resolving the requests and forwarding the requests to Quad9.
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on Why is no one using Quad9 instead of Cloudfare? in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 13 Aug 2026
Yeah something ain’t right here chief. Now I have to ask, what was the LLM policy in regards to the development of this software?
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on Why is no one using Quad9 instead of Cloudfare? in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 12 Aug 2026
Seems a little odd that the fediverse uses Cloudfare.
You need to be more descriptive, use in what regard? Both are capable DNS providers but as far as I’m aware, Cloudflare is also a domain registrar.
Also each instance of Lemmy is configured differently, perhaps Lemmy.zip uses cloudflare but that isn’t the case for every instance of Lemmy.
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on I need a new hobby, I'm going to set up my own Lemmy instance. Am I an idiot? in c/selfhosted@lemmy.world · 12 Aug 2026
I also know there is a script you can set up which will handle the initial contact to federate automatically.
I tried finding such a script but had no luck. I was able to export my subscription list from sh.itjust.works and imported it on my instance.
I had to unsubscribe and resubscribe to the communities I follow as I was experiencing the ‘Subscribe Pending’ issue but after a little while things seemed to start evening out and becoming a bit more stable.
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on I need a new hobby, I'm going to set up my own Lemmy instance. Am I an idiot? in c/selfhosted@lemmy.world · 11 Aug 2026
My instance has been online for about a month, the supplied docker-compose.yaml was quite straightforward, had a little headache with Nginx but nothing overly complicated.
The long-con so to speak is federation, you have to subscribe to each community manually to begin federating with them, i have noticed timing issues with other instances such as Lemmy.world and have not been able to resolve them.
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on Reddit forces login to access old.reddit.com in c/technology@lemmy.world · 11 Aug 2026
Redlib is great but has not seen a new release in over a year, the maintainer who took over the Libreddit project is clearly burnt out.
Suggest following this GitHub issue as folks have created forks of Redlib.
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on Is this the death of FreeTube? in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 11 Aug 2026
Chiming back in 3 hours later, just downloaded the latest release from Freetubes website, i can confirm that with my invidious instance that everything seems to be working fine. While my invidious instance is a private one, ill share it with you in the meantime until your normal setup gets back in order, shoot me a DM.
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on Is this the death of FreeTube? in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 11 Aug 2026
I’m not home to verify my Freetube however, I just checked my invidious instance and can confirm that the first video I attempted to play errored.
I am updating my Invidious instance to see if it still persists, perhaps the instances you’re using are out of date, I know invidious updates quite frequently to stay on-top of YouTube changes.
Edit; Updating invidious appeared to resolve my errors, I can only assume the instances you’re using are out of date. I’ll check Freetube when I get home.
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on Is this the death of FreeTube? in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 11 Aug 2026
Freetube is capable of utilizing the Invidious APi and provides more functions such as sponsor blocking or click-bait thumbnail removal.
Lots of customization features that I highly suggest pairing with Invidious.
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on Is this the death of FreeTube? in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 11 Aug 2026
Freetube either runs off of YouTube’s APi directly or an Invidious API to proxy requests to Youtube, how is your application configured? If you’re using Invidious have you tried another instance?
Have you read any of the issue reports on their GitHub? it seems like issue #9526 might be what you’re looking for.
I have answered this question previously -
lemmy.halstead.host/comment/91222
I use the WireGuard app with 1 profile when I’m not on my home network, my router does the rest.