From: Dmitry Alexandrov <dag@gnui.org>
To: znavko@disroot.org
Cc: help-guix <help-guix@gnu.org>
Subject: Re: Avoiding ad-hoc provider-branded OpenVPN clients (was: python-pip is broken after updates)
Date: Tue, 26 May 2020 04:08:36 +0300 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <d06r7baj.dag@gnui.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <87e9403535bd9159ce4ed4a84527fbfb@disroot.org> (znavko@disroot.org's message of "Mon, 25 May 2020 15:46:33 +0000")
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znavko@disroot.org wrote:
> An advice about using protonvpn is not safe.
Is that supposed to be a reply to me, despite you have been addressing @efraim@flashner.co.il?
If so, Iʼve said nothing negative about ‘safety’ of protonvpn.com.
(Though, I could of course: their Tor gateway or rather the way they advertise it tells a lot about how they regard their usersʼ safety. Thankfully, itʼs not available on gratis plan.)
> If the software is opensource programmers can check if it is safe or not.
Except, that there is zero need in doing that, when ad-hoc software can be simply avoided. Thatʼs even more so on GNU, where OpenVPN support is well-integrated into end-user networking configurators (such as ‘Network Manager’).
But let us recall, that business interests of any service provider push them to limit the official support of standard solutions in favour of getting as much users as possible addicted to their branded software.
In fact, some proxy-on-top-of-VPN-providers, which are fine with driving some users away — like donation-based riseup.net — have already _ceased_ to officially support anything but their branded clients. Under the hood they still use the normal OpenVPN, of course, so itʼs possible to extract the configuration, but you would not find it anywhere on their website.
Therefore, please keep in mind, that what you are doing by installing a branded ad-hoc software instead of supplying generic client with credentials (besides acquiring technical problems for yourself) is contributing your mite to promoting vendor lock-in.
> In Russia protonmail.com is blocked I did not know why
Itʼs not hard to discover: https://roskomsvoboda.org/54951/
> but after I've discovered protonvpn I understood why.
Nope. Googling is usually better than wild guessing. protonvpn.com is _not_ blacklisted in Russia [1].
[1] https://reestr.rublacklist.net/search/?q=protonvpn.com
> The same is for tutanota mail.
Yes, paradoxically enough, sometimes even state censorship should be thanked for opposing companies, that are trying to finish off the open Internet, such as tutanota.io or (less so) protonmail.com. (Though censors obviously have their own reasons for doing it.)
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prev parent reply other threads:[~2020-05-26 1:18 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 6+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2020-05-24 15:55 python-pip is broken after updates znavko
2020-05-24 22:34 ` Dmitry Alexandrov
2020-05-25 6:11 ` Efraim Flashner
2020-05-26 1:00 ` Dmitry Alexandrov
2020-05-25 15:46 ` znavko
2020-05-26 1:08 ` Dmitry Alexandrov [this message]
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