r/RecommandedVPN

Proton founder Andy Yen made a point in his TechRadar interview that deserves more attention: checking which users are children means checking adults too.

That’s my issue with the whole “just verify your age” argument. We’re being asked to trust more companies with sensitive information just to use websites. What could possibly go wrong?

Yen argues that if age checks happen, they should stay on your device, with no personal data sent to a central server or retained afterward. That seems like a much better starting point than another company collecting your ID.

He also explains why Proton keeps expanding: he thinks competing with Google requires an entire ecosystem. On AI, his argument is that an assistant should serve the person asking the question, without advertising incentives shaping its answers.

Fair enough. But privacy needs to come with products people actually enjoy using. Otherwise, convenience keeps winning.

So I am asking here, would you switch away from Big Tech for better privacy, even if it meant losing some convenience?

The starting point for the creation of Psiphon was the University of Toronto, where researchers created it in support of people under oppressive regimes. Now, it is used by around 20 million people. Yet, it seems Canada’s government might create the conditions for it to leave Canada.

The bill known as Bill C-22, or Canada’s Lawful Access Act, ensures that providers build surveillance mechanisms into their systems. Psiphon was correct to say that the passing of the law would lead to “the transformation of the service.” Psiphon might stop operating in Canada if the law passes without any adjustments.

The most unpleasant thing about this situation is that Psiphon positions the service as “the service that won’t be able to be compromised by your government.” If Canada forces this compromise through the law, it will make Psiphon’s position weaker.

So there’s another anti-piracy bill in Congress, and this time VPNs are explicitly on the list of services that could be ordered to block foreign websites for US users.

According to EFF, the proposed ACPA would let copyright holders seek court orders forcing VPNs, ISPs and DNS providers to block sites labeled as piracy sites. That label could be applied without the website operator showing up to defend itself. Sites with legitimate uses could still get caught up in it.

And yeah, the bill includes safeguards. But blocking entire websites has already caused collateral damage in Spain and Italy. Apparently “oops, we blocked unrelated sites” is an acceptable feature now.

It’s a proposal, not law yet. Still, “protecting copyright” is doing a LOT of heavy lifting here.

For me it's when it turns itself on without me asking and some app just quietly stops working. No error message, nothing obvious, it just breaks. And I'll spend like 5 minutes trying to figure out what's wrong before it even occurs to me to check if my VPN auto-connected in the background.

Does this happen to anyone else or is it just me. What's yours, the thing that's annoying enough to bug you every time but not quite enough to make you switch providers?

According to Reddit's announcement on the last day of September, the Old Reddit version will only be available to those who logged in within six months before that date. This is an extension of the July change, which mandated logging in before accessing Old Reddit. RSS, a long-time internet tool, will no longer work in November.

Everything in this situation stems from monetization and not from security-related motives. Unauthenticated visitors don't follow ads, and their data cannot be used for AI licensing deals. Changes may seem small, but they align with the trend of making reading Reddit impossible without knowing who reads it.

There is a certain irony in the fact that the very platform where this discussion is happening limits anonymous access to services, which would disappear if applied anywhere else on the web.