Submitted 2 days ago by Pro@programming.dev to technology@lemmy.world
https://koi-security.webflow.io/blog/spyvpn-the-vpn-that-secretly-captures-your-screen
cross-posted from: programming.dev/post/35967051
Most people turn to a VPN for one reason: privacy. And with its verified badge, featured placement, and 100k+ installs, FreeVPN.One looked like a safe choice. But once it’s in your browser, it’s not working to keep you safe, it’s continuously watching you.
God that ai image the article uses is such shit
The dingy color scheme gives it away immediately.
It’s similar to something we’d do on purpose in the mid 2010’s, deep frying, when people made satirical MLG compilations they would throw memes in as many filters as possible, making a piss yellow slowly cover the meme the more filters you used.
I guess the P in VPN stands for “Public.”
Any free VPN is a scam.
Proton isn't.
andy yen is a pro big tech fash so yeah it is
Didn’t even know they offered a free vpn. I thought it was only on paid plans. Shrugs, I already use mullvad
is ProtonVPN a scam then? no.
Most are, but not necessarily
Honestly I thought their vpn was only on paid plans. Kinda impressed they offer it free. I assume it’s a way to get people into the ecosystem and also use their email and etc
Unless you sign up for a VPS free trial yourself and set it up. I have two Oracle always free instances running right now
be forewarned, oracle is known to randomly just delete free VPSs out of nowhere with no warning.
Ya if you are hosting it yourself then pretty different. I use them for a basic Nextcloud server myself. Their ARM servers are dirt cheap even when you have to go above their free generous cores and ram.
What’s the point of setting up a VPN like that?
pay an illustrator, ai slophorse.
it’s FreeVPN.One
There’s no such thing as free vpn. Any idiot who falls for this quite frankly deserves it.
Sure THIS will protect the children!
/s
How the fuck else do you think a for profit company is offering free tech?
Free trial with limitations is a classic method that has worked well
I’m saying it’s literally a free VPN. But they’re q company. If they’re offering you free shit, you’re the product.
Hey, you know when people in the UK were saying that the online safety act would drive teenagers to use dodgy vpns? This is what we meant.
There are things on the internet that are free and fine to use. VPNs are not one of them.
good thing they got rid of adblockers to make users safer tho
First mistake: using Chrome.
Malicious extensions are also found in Firefox, and everything else is Chromium.
Except for all of the WebKit ones
Stopped reading as soon as I saw an AI image for the article.
Isnt that at the top?
Yup. Spent about 1.5 seconds on that site before closing it out.
You can’t trust extensions these days. Granted if you are using a “free” vpn, you are the product.
VPNs are wild to me. “Hey! Pay some company to promise not to watch you so you can pretend to be private and not have some company watching you.”
better than having a company that is directly known as watching you and sending all of it to your government
some companies have built a strong reputation
Knowing a company is watching me because it’s openly known, is to me better than paying a company to not watch me and likely risk them simply selling out eventually like they all do.
Its funnier when you expected them to protect you and don’t.
It’s like 23andme. Too fucking funny and everyone deserves it for their stupidity.
What’s better? The devil you know or the devil you don’t?
Generally speaking, if you’re paying for a VPN, then you should be paying for a provider that is no log. Free VPNs, you get what you pay for, which is nothing. So you don’t really get any security with that.
How do we know the “no log” VPNs don’t log our activity?
Also any recommendations? I can’t find one that says they don’t log and refuse to cooperate with 5 eyes.
I’ve watched this go down long enough in enough industries to know better than to believe their claim of not logging.
You’re being watched. Hell, your data’s probably being handed over to cops without your knowledge.
use either Mullvad (yes, I know, the GUI sucks) or set up your own VPN.
the mullvad cli is very quick and easy. it’s a lot faster than what it was. OR set up your own wireguard VPN on your server, again very easy to set up.
Those two are for pretty different use cases, no? First is for general internet access - for semi-anonymity or to skip Geo blocks. Second is when you want to access specific services you host yourself.
What about proton?
Ubiquiti router with all traffic (excluding streaming sites and video games) encrypted via Mulvad. Checkmate atheists.
Whats more is that, anyone who creates a server can scrape all the data on fediverse. It’s every AI company’s wet dream.
And any comment you delete will still be visible to server admin.
Lemmy does have these privacy issues
Meh you’re not wrong, but I just wanna browse content and not see ads. Capitalism is gonna capitalism, but I just want it to leave me alone. There’s a good chance I’m gonna regret this later lol.
OMG! They will know all of Hue Manne's secrets!!!
excluding
Why?
I’m looking to expand beyond my edge router X. What router do you use?
I’m using a cloud gateway max with a single U7 Wall Pro AP. 10/10 performance for my medium small sized apartment.
So Microsoft Recall but by a third party?
People won’t plug their phone into a USB socket in an airport lounge, but they will install software that sends 100% of their web traffic to a third party and has unfettered device permissions.
But you have to understand that it’s still preferable to a wanking license.
What about Firefox? Looks like it exists for more than just chrome. I know because I literally used it this week for the first time ever due to being on vacation in a state that wants my photo to view porn… I couldn’t believe this shit actually exists now.
Not unexpected
This is the reason I’ve always been skeptical of all those Video Download Non Plus Ultra Pro 9000 extensions, also in Firefox. I’m like yea right. Next thing I know I’ll be getting copyright infringement and piracy notices plus cease-and-desist letters.
Yup. You gotta read the fine print folks. You can all got to stack social and pick up 5 years of adguard vpn with no log policy. Its not the best out there, but its not horrible either. And at around 26 quid for 5 years, it aint bad.
YIKES.
RedPandaRaider@feddit.org 2 days ago
Never use VPN add-ons for your browser. Unless you get them along with your paid VPN. You should run your entire network through the VPN, not just a browser.
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
Do you not run into issues doing this? I’m constantly having to split my VPN or disable my VPN for certain logins to work, such as banks, government sites and shit.
cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 2 days ago
Most people don’t need to run everything though a VPN. That just slows everything down. You would normally only use them to access resources on a private LAN such as when working from home or accessing your self hosted services when away from home.
RedPandaRaider@feddit.org 1 day ago
For some games and websites I have to turn it off yeah. Or at least switch the server to one that isn’t blocked.
It’s a shame that websites are allowed to track and block VPNs.
Wildly_Utilize@infosec.pub 1 day ago
Separate browser for Clearnet /KYC
iopq@lemmy.world 1 day ago
That’s why I temporarily disable it for some websites
artyom@piefed.social 1 day ago
Unfortunately that means disabling my entire network VPN anytime I need to bypass a VPN block. And also makes switching between different servers significantly more complicated.
pwalker@discuss.tchncs.de 1 day ago
I use my paid vpn extension (Nord) to select a Country for twitch.tv which isn’t served ads. However I would all my traffic go through that specific vpn as it causes trouble with other appe/pages. So being able to cnveniently switch my IP per domain is pretty nice sometimes.
RedPandaRaider@feddit.org 12 hours ago
It is a paid VPN luckily though. The issue is with “free” VPN browser add-ons.
There’s also different adblocker rules and extensions for twitch ads.
BeardedBlaze@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Curious, what country doesn’t get twitch ads?
fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 1 day ago
Not to be confused with “Tor Browser” (not a VPN, just providing clarification)