Yahoo is offering a VPN service now. Any comments or recommendations? Thanks.

No comment on the service directly, but the last time I heard Yahoo is now owned by Verizon....

I also know back in the very early days of the Internet (around the time Al Gore invented it... ) there were a lot of chronic rumors that Yahoo was supportive of spammers and helped feed them email addresses and so on. I know I used to get a lot of spam w/ Yahoo from addresses, which may have been faked but headers showed it at least passing through their servers.... At least some of the rumors claimed that they had made test addresses that only started getting spam after posting messages on Yahoo with them....

WheelyCurious

Arab Nights (imported) wrote: Sun Jul 24, 2022 5:38 am Yahoo is offering a VPN service now. Any comments or recommendations? Thanks.

IMHO, I'd avoid VPN that is in the same jurisdiction as you are But I am paranoid.

There's an old saying: "There's no such thing as a free lunch."

No matter how sweet the deal sounds, if you're not paying for it, there's gonna be a catch.

In the case of things that are "free" (such as browsers!) YOU are the product. You and your use of the 'free' product.

As far as VPN's go, it's up the user to decide which to use. There are tons of pages and videos out there comparing VPN's, and hardly any of them agree with one another.

For example, the Opera browser was the first (I think) to offer a free, bundled VPN. The catch was that it was slow. It was also prone to go offline quite a bit. But they were both free, right? Uh-huh. See where that went?

In the end, it's all down to the code that runs the software.

Someone had to write it.

Someone knows how to go around it.

Someone, somewhere, is no doubt watching - VPN or not.

Probably the person who wrote it!

I have never used VPN.

I really don't want to use that kind of service.

I understand that in some situations people have to do this

Valery_V (imported) wrote: Sun Jul 24, 2022 6:21 pm I have never used VPN.

I really don't want to use that kind of service.

I understand that in some situations people have to do this

You will laugh, but I'm not even sure about the confidentiality of regular e-mail correspondence...

Therefore I dare to speak frankly only here at a forum (and especially, using "Private Message", an option which is given by EA website when you have on the account not less than five posts here at a forum).

Valery_V (imported) wrote: Wed Jul 27, 2022 6:15 am You will laugh, but I'm not even sure about the confidentiality of regular e-mail correspondence...

Therefore I dare to speak frankly only here at a forum (and especially, using "Private Message", an option which is given by EA website when you have on the account not less than five posts here at a forum).

Oh sweet irony!

Yes, e-mail is NOT confidential by default - up to recent times it was not even encrypted in transit - if you wanted encryption - you used PGP/or whatever to hide the contents - though not the headers of the message.

Think of it as sending a postcard. Or snail mail. Even if you encrypt the message - envelope is still seen.

More modern times - it is encrypted in transit (though not guaranteed), so no third party can see the contents, but it is still stored unencrypted on the server.

But forum... where encryption is not used in connection to it, in a world where HTTP traffic is constantly getting smaller and smaller - nope, that is not confidential too, and it will stand out.

Everyone can see what you post - your computer, your router, your ISP, any ISPs in between and so on.

This is why you use VPNs

fhunter wrote: Wed Jul 27, 2022 8:09 am Oh sweet irony!

Yes, e-mail is NOT confidential by default - up to recent times it was not even encrypted in transit - if you wanted encryption - you used PGP/or whatever to hide the contents - though not the headers of the message.

Think of it as sending a postcard. Or snail mail. Even if you encrypt the message - envelope is still seen.

More modern times - it is encrypted in transit (though not guaranteed), so no third party can see the contents, but it is still stored unencrypted on the server.

But forum... where encryption is not used in connection to it, in a world where HTTP traffic is constantly getting smaller and smaller - nope, that is not confidential too, and it will stand out.

Everyone can see what you post - your computer, your router, your ISP, any ISPs in between and so on.

This is why you use VPNs

I hope I'm only interesting here at EA, and I just don't want to draw the attention of complete strangers to me by using any kind of encryption and such (which I'm really bad at, by the way).

FWIW, I use TOR when accessing EA, and the things it links to if they will work (many don't, so I have to go to a regular browser....) I do wish EA would implement HTTPS, which is supposed to be relatively easy (lots of advice on how to on the EFF website, including getting a free certificate) but that is a different issue.

In terms of VPN's, I don't use one, but many people who's stuff I read, including folks w/ serious comp security chops have suggested "Proton Mail" - its a paid service so they have less motivation to sell users info, and doing so would be really damaging to their business model...

WheelyCurious