Comment by codingowl | Hacker News Reader

Comment by codingowl | Hacker News Reader

You don't need Tor to do this. Tor is slow and frustrating.

I use a heavily-modified Firefox instance over a VPN with uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, Disconnect, No Coin, Script Safe, Token Tracker Stripper, Neat URL and too many about:config edits to mention.

I do recommend disabling http/s referrer, CSS visited links, and others as can be learned online.

In addition, I pass all of this through a remote computer with a Raspberry Pi/Pi-hole instance. This has worked well for me for a couple of years. As I have no real social media accounts, I'm not building any meaningful profiles. Accounts like HN or Slashdot don't get any real info. I also don't add any apps to my iPhone. The apps that ship with the device are all I need. I can pass all of my phone's traffic through the VPN/Pi-hole instance and keep relatively safe. Being with T-Mobile means I get unlimited data so I don't need to connect to potentially hostile Wi-Fi.

I rather enjoy the "cold war" between the corporations and the security-minded. There are so great add-ons to uBlock and other add-ons that completely bypass the complaint scripts of using adblock.

Another quick way to get past fake paywalls or complaining pages is to use Startpage's proxy or even Google's cached link. I've set up so many people to use this set up and they are thrilled.

I am thinking of setting up remote desktops that can be accessed by friends and family that are VPN'd, Pi-holed, and with other security features that hide their real IPs, etc.

> Tor is slow and frustrating.

> I use a heavily-modified Firefox instance over a VPN with uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, Disconnect, No Coin, Script Safe, Token Tracker Stripper, Neat URL and too many about:config edits to mention.

That's faster for you? I guess I'm a bit of a speed freak, but I recall even Disconnect by itself slowed down pages enough to make me uninstall it, let alone that combination...

Tor speed is not is your control. Your hardware is in your control. As a "speed freak", I find it amusing that Disconnect would be slow for you. Interesting to see that a "speed freak" is running slow hardware.

> Tor speed is not is your control. Your hardware is in your control. As a "speed freak", I find it amusing that Disconnect would be slow for you. Interesting to see that a "speed freak" is running slow hardware.

I'm not on slow hardware; you just seem to prefer to just quickly make naive assumptions. First of all, the system naturally clocks down on battery, so I'm not always running at max GHz. Second, I'm not pulling this out of my rear -- I actually sat down in 2014 and measured in detail how much each of my extensions slowed the loading of Gmail, and I even still have the records. AdBlock slowed it down by 1.8 seconds; Disconnect slowed it down by 0.7 seconds (IIRC this was on AC power but I didn't record that part). I found both of these ridiculously unacceptable. Now, I've upgraded my laptop since, and so in response to this discussion right now I just did another quick test on Gmail on my current system (which I can again assure you is not slow hardware). On AC power, Disconnect still adds 120ms. On battery, it adds 400ms. Still neither of which I find acceptable (this is my email I'm talking about, not cat videos), though it's definitely better. Feel free to spend some time doing your own measurements and report them here if you have disputes.

Is that all?

Do you need a modern web browser at that point?

Might as well just browse with Lynx instead of using a standard browser.

I think the average person is better served through Tor even if it’s slow.

> Might as well just browse with Lynx instead of using a standard browser.

Then you make their job even easier since you are the only person within a 500 mile radius of your geolocation to still use Lynx. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

>Might as well just browse with Lynx instead of using a standard browser.

I've had good experiences with W3M. It's similar to Lynx but much more user friendly and supports images.

>> You don't need Tor to do this. Tor is slow and frustrating. > I use a heavily-modified Firefox instance...

So do I and it is slow and frustrating too.

I don't seem to suffer from slowness with my FF setup. My home connection is 400Mbit/50Mbit unlimited. I surf heavily/code/SlingTV all the time. I also keep a similarly locked-down instance of Vivaldi on hand for email and banking only. Everything else goes through FF or OpenSSH.

As I said earlier in another comment: In that setup your browser fingerprint alone is enough to uniquely identify you, and it doesn't protect you from tracking by the first-party domains themselves.

For speed, yes, that's the cost of having your traffic go through a 3 relay circuit, but Tor is much faster now than it used to be.

I found ScriptSafe a lot easier to use on Chrome, didn't realise Firefox had one too. What are your thoughts on ScriptSafe vs. NoScript + uMatrix?

ScriptSafe is light years better and easier IMHO than NoScript. NS tends to break most sites, whereas SS doesn't.

isn't it a little bit naive to pump all of your internet traffic through a browser created by google if you're interested in restricting online tracking by corporations like google?

Ooh I should have provided more context. I only use Chrome for development and when I can't for the life of me figure out which addon in firefox is breaking the page.

FWIW, I still use SS on chrome, now that firefox has SS I can hopefully just use purely FF for browsing and just have a different profile with minimal addons. I'd still have to have chrome for development though.

What's funny is I've been using Chrome heavily for development, but I'm moving more and more towards Firefox. Not sure why, but Chrome has been chugging really hard on loading GitHub PRs for me, whereas it's smooth as butter on FF...

Where do you host your review Raspberry Pi?

Most of the time in the Netherlands. Sometimes in Texas with IT friends. We do VPN sharing and passthroughs to mix it all up. Hence my wanting to set up more permanent solution like hosted, heavily VPN'd remote desktops with revolving IP addresses changed with a cron job. but one standard set maintenance port that never changes and likewise never used for joyriding. That IP would be accessed via OpenSSH authenticating to Radius/Kerberos.

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