Free VPN apps on Google Play turned Android phones into proxies
Free VPN apps on Google Play turned Android phones into proxies
Over 15 free VPN apps on Google Play were found using a malicious software development kit that turned Android devices into unwitting residential proxies, likely used for cybercrime and shopping bots.
Free "VPN" app: look at me. You're the VPN now.
I mean what do you expect...
Also im pretty darn skeptical of all not Proton VPNs.
Proton is unfortunately using wireguard and openvpn protocols, both of which can be blocked with relative ease.
I used them before moving to China, and within 3 months of arriving, the service was permanently interrupted, and their support acknowledged the outage, said they can't do anything about it, and ghosted me on the refund request since I had an annual subscription.
Mullvad is generally considered the industry leader btw., though for China there's hardly anyone but Astrill that actually works.
Does this cover Proton's new(ish) Stealth protocol too? They made a big deal about it being unblockable, and I (in my relatively light usage) haven't had any problems with it.
@viking@infosec.pub @Mikufan@ani.social
In China there are lot of home brewed solutions like openclash, passwall, vmess...etc. Traditional commercial VPNs are too expensive or suck in China.Unfortunately vpn (and vps) providers are very wary about providing service that specifically target customers in china because when their service inevitable got ip-blocked by the gfw, those customers would immediately issuing chargeback, which is much more expensive to process than refund. The only providers that are still in the market for circumventing gfw now price their service accordingly (i.e. much more expensive than the usual vpn marketrate) to absorb this risk.
Mullvad doesn't have port forwarding, otherwise its good. There are some good providers along Proton, but not many and most are not reputable, Nord for example...
And how do you know Proton VPN isn't exactly the same?
Its completely open source and based in Switzerland. Also its kinda non profit and part of CERN.
I still use Nord. Never had any problems with it.
The only 3 good free unlimited options out there are ProtonVPN, RiseupVPN and BrightVPN(only for windows), limited ones Windscribe and PrivadoVPN(10GB per month).
These are the only good free options anything else it's a scam(you are the product) or you have to pay.
Another option maybe could be self-hosting in Oracle Cloud but it will not be anonymous at all, secure maybe but definitely not anonymous.
ProtonVPN, RiseupVPN and BrightVPN(only for windows), limited ones Windscribe and PrivadoVPN
Where did you get this idea?
Mullvad, IVPN, Perfect Privacy, and a few others have had independent audits of their no-log behavior and in some cases, law enforcement audits. They sure as hell don't proxy your traffic. They all accept Monero and cash. They all have multihop.
Edit: I see you said free. Yeah, I wouldn't trust a free VPN, regardless. If you're not paying for the product, you are the product.
Yeah I'm talking about free options. 👍👍
I agree,
However I got to a point that I'm skeptical even with paid, well established products. I don't need VPN but if I did I'd try something based on onion routing.
I just entered fake name and paid with crypto for my VPS.
Then you will be OK 👍👍
You get a different IP from someone else who uses the VPN, and someone else gets to use yours. Sounds like a win-win to me in terms of both privacy and having an excuse for damning evidence. "Your honor, I assure you that 'giant horse cock' and 'how to make anthrax' were from someone else on the VPN network."
Yeah, I don't know how strong this defense would be when they put you on trial for CSAM.
"Your honor, I didn't distribute distribute CSAM. That was somebody else." and "Yes, your honor, I did sign that internet service contract agreeing that I am responsible for all activity that originates from my network."
Only if they're stating this upfront, in a giant text. Those apps hide this capability and are thus categorized as malware. Turning the victim's computer into a residential proxy has always been a staple in botnet operations.