After Reccomendations for a Reliable and cost effective VPN service, had enough of the constant adverts every 3 mins on youtube, and other sites and this “age verification” bull, that seems to have infiltrated every website that could be considered anything other than PG…. its driving me mad!
There seems to be a minefield of VPN sites offering this, that and the other but im copmletely bamboozled by it all, so reckoned on the technical people on here knowing what I can use!
Need enough coverage for a couple of laptops, this desktop and my phone!
Whilst I dont use the VPN function very often, I do have a suite of utilities named CC Cleaner. The pro version comes with the Kamo utility which is effetively a VPN.
I think the whole suite was about £80 for 2 years covering 3 device which included android.
Also in the quite are items which free up drive space and manage browser cookies and keeping drivers up to date (if you want that sort of stuff).
For the limited time I need a VPN it works for me but it isnt the main reason I have the suite.
Avoid Express VPN in particular, it is owned by Kape Technologies. Sure most of the commercial VPN offerings these days are owned by just a handful of companies (or letterboxes in a wall offshore).
If you don’t own the exit nodes and VPN infrastructure then you cannot trust it for anything you wouldn’t do normally. But they are useful to get around ‘nanny-state’ legislation for grown adults.
You don’t need a VPN to stop adverts on Youtube et al. you just need a decent browser and some adblock/Javascript stopping plugins. You’ll still be in the UK when it comes to age verification etc.
I use a remote VPS and proxy my web and web-DNS traffic through it using SOCKS5. The result is my web and web DNS traffic appears to originate from the VPS in a non-Five-Eyes, non-EU country. This is enough to defeat most UK ‘helpful’ internet laws.
Firefox uses uBlock Origin, Ghostery, NoScript, & CleanUrls plugins and a SOCKS5 proxy
Brave uses Brave’s native adblocking/script stopping and uses my native UK IP address.
Pick the browser for the task. There is a latency and speed penalty for using SOCKS5 but not much, not noticeable on a 20/130 internet connection.
Get yourself a Raspberry Pi, and then build yourself a Pi-Hole server to block adverts:
To block adverts all you have to do is change the DHCP setting on you router to use the Pi-Hole IP address (on your home network) to resolve DNS lookups (instead of your ISP DNS servers). Pi-hole will then block traffic from advert servers when websites (e.g. YouTube) try to show you them. It will do it for all your gadgets at home.
E.g. Don’t do your banking or online shopping or anything financial, HIPPA-able etc with it.
I wouldn’t suggest a beginner ‘roll their own’ either. VPS instances et al are to ‘rum characters’ like blue lights are to flies. Plus you’ve to monitor and maintain them.
Do use them on ‘free’ WiFi / public WiFi SSID’s you trust though, prior to connecting to the SSID if on your blower.
Pi-Hole won’t block inline ads on Youtube, it’ll just block inline ads on websites.
That said, if you watch your Pi-Hole activity, it can alert you to viruses on your computer that your AV misses. Years ago I saw some DNS activity on Pi-Hole that was suspicious. Turns out it was indicative of a particular malware that wasn’t getting detected by my AV, nor a bunch of other AV apps I tried. I blocked the destination on my firewall while I tried to determine exactly what was going on but ultimately had to rebuild the system.
FWIW, Pi-hole also runs fine on any Linux system you might have. I run it in a container on my Linux server that also serves as my backup system and personal lab.
To be fair the legislation is not to prevent grown adults doing anything, but to prevent children accessing adult material.
I understand that Ofcom have published a list of websites that are in breach of the rules making it easy for anyone to access such material without having to verify their age.
The legislation is neither of those, just the MPs like to cry “won’t someone think of the children” and it is in fact to be able to identify anyone in the uk online and to normalise the government’s actions into reducing its citizens’ privacy to zero.
For impromptu VPNing, Windscribe is convenient on all devices. Proton provides a VPN and they sound reasonable.
As others have said, a VPN doesn’t block adverts. In the case of YouTube the adverts are put into their video stream by YouTube, so I believe the only way to get rid of them is to take out a paid subscription with YouTube.
As regards age verification on websites - this can be a valid child-protection requirement or a scam. To block scam and adverts on websites, there are plugins for browsers. Go to the “store” for whichever browser you use, Edge, Brave, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera etc. etc. and you should find a plugin.
On the more general question about using a VPN to protect your PCs or smartphone-tablets (especially when away from home), and given that you are a licenced amateur, a service from ARDC might be of interest.
ARDC (Amateur Radio Digital Communications) is the group that registered a class A Internet address block, many years ago and while they have sold off a quarter of it to provide money to sponsor ham radio-related projects and education, they still own a large portion of all 44.x.x.x. Internet IPv4 addresses and a new service allows you not only to get a range of static IP addresses for your use in amateur radio but they also provide a VPN service with a choice of where you enter the Internet - Germany, Canada, USA, using the WireGuard client (which, among other things gets around carrier grade natting, which can make remote access to your radio impossible).
i use some of CCleaners free products, i might have a look at that!
will go have a look, thanks!
Thats exactly what it is! and it isnt just restricted to adult sites, ive been “age verified” on reddit FGS!
I used to use ublock origin, but now its been removed from the listings… i suspect as youtube (google) has threatened them!
I did think about this one, but it doesnt block “in stream” adverts sadly…. you need a VPN and tell it you are in a country that doesnt support advertising!
But it doesnt! i know 100% first hand that it prevents nothing! if they were serious about this sort of stuff, then a block at ISP level would have been much more sensible, with a password for the account holder to over ride if needed… its absolutely nanny state control!
100% this!
another vote for Proton, cool!
you can VPN to a different part of the world that doesnt support monetisation, and im led to beleive if you do this, you will next to no in-stream adverts!
Consider these vpn-less options specifically for tackling YouTube ads but the former everywhere:
Web - Librewolf: uses adblocking out of box (no config) and stops some of Firefox’s creepy changes.
Mobile - NouTube (Android app): available from fdroid (alternative app store) no adds, no shorts and works whether logged in or not.
There are other solutions I’m sure and I don’t offer this information on the basis it it “best” just what I’m doing.
I’d avoid free cleaning apps or cheap vpns as this is an obvious attack vector for cyber douches.
One caveat to this is Google attacking projects like f-droid as it has got a long time like windows does with bogus virus warnings, future android phones are very likely to prevent third party app install fully with only official app stores permitted, thos workaround likely will flow.
My personal observations of Enshitification over the last 20yrs of internet seem likely to be leading me to a dumb phone, eventually and anything else on a Linux laptop. Making do with less tech and extracting myself from the noise of the world feels sensible.
