List your favourite privacy everyday tool/apps!

DeletedUser1127

How is it usability wise and also does one need a VPN etc for the privacy buffer?

DohnJoe

Emplyes-Mustwashhands If anonymity mean "Stay the same in the crowd"

I can see how being always different, even if unique, is a good form anonymity, but is it the case with Vanadium?
I think Vanadium has a very recognizible, unique, non-changing fingerprint, or I am assuming wrong specifics?

argante

DohnJoe Wouldn't this reduce anonymity?

Tor Browser attempts to anonymize itself so that the browser has the same fingerprint on all devices (we all look the same, and individuals tend to blend in). In this respect, it's better than Vanadium, which currently doesn't offer good protection against fingerprinting. The reality, however, is that AI-powered fingerprinting systems are so advanced that even Tor Browser won't be able to protect itself (or even without AI support: for example, a mobile browser will have different window sizes on different phones because different phone models will have different screen resolutions). On the other hand, Tor Browser offers a significantly worse level of security. So, you have this situation: Tor Browser - terrible security and questionable protection against browser fingerprinting vs. Vanadium - excellent security and, by definition, weak protection against fingerprinting. You can't have anonymity without first ensuring security.

Emplyes-Mustwashhands

DohnJoe
In GOS browsers case I don't think they added good Tor support (Again take this with a grain of salt) and with Tor VPN or Orbot (Didn't check Orbot but should have these vulnerabilities aswell) have weakness or vulnerabilities see
https://support.torproject.org/tor-vpn/security/threat-model/#5-known-weaknesses
My personal opinion is to stick with the Tor Browser and limit yourself to certain Sites with the "Safer" option enabled and do any Web browsing using the Desktop Tor browser or TailsOS

Kamika242

DeletedUser1127 How is it usability wise

Getting one and top up is very easy, if you are familiar with crypto payments. Otherwise handling is like with each other (e)SIM.

DeletedUser1127 and also does one need a VPN etc for the privacy buffer?

It's your personal decision, if you additionally need/want a VPN.

argante

DohnJoe I'll probably be attacked for what I'm about to write (because I've had some pretty heated and dramatic discussions here before). Tor itself currently offers a rather weak level of anonymity. Sorry, but it's true. Mullvad DAITA or NymVPN offer some protection against packet analysis. Tor offers nothing. Even if the Tor browser has the same fingerprint (ideally), all it takes is a sample of the traffic we're interested in, and the packet sizes and spacing will be like a barcode that good detection systems can find in all the traffic. Using Tor might make sense, for example, with SimpleX, where packet sizes are always the same, but SimpleX itself isn't yet popular enough to blend in. Therefore, it's better to use NymVPN or Mullvad DAITA, for example.

EDIT: https://pulls.name/blog/2025-03-27-daita-v1-and-v2-defenses/

Emplyes-Mustwashhands

argante
Tor anonymity comes from their Web browser to and their larger user base

Taking Mullvad DAITA, it uses the protocol "Wire Guard" which can be considered less private, and Mullvad using Tor's Browser which makes a small subset of user's using Tor's browser with Mullvad IP's, this can make correlation attacks easier as if someone uses DAITA they can nit pick Tor user's with Mullvad IP's (This is feasible but not really as Mullvad users can connect to Tor through Mullvad and hundred of other things)

NymVPN in practice is more private than Tor (their mixnet would make tracking not an option) and Im not sure if they use their own Browser or you use your own browser which makes fingerprinting easier

Tor uses Packet padding and with how big Tor is they definility built more on this, heres an Article on the Tor blog as early as 2011
https://blog.torproject.org/experimental-defense-website-traffic-fingerprinting/

argante

Emplyes-Mustwashhands Tor uses Packet injections and with how big Tor is they definility built more on this, heres an Article on the Tor blog as early as 2011

To my knowledge, this hasn't been implemented. It concerned the old HTTP protocol (1.1), and today it's rather outdated.

In my opinion, Mullvad has a completely different problem: data centers where it hosts its servers and traffic optimization. There's a high probability that all traffic will be within the same data center (for faster traffic), which makes traffic identification trivially simple. It was for pointing out this issue that I was somewhat criticized for undermining Mullvad's reputation. By comparison, Nym doesn't manage individual servers (nodes) on the network. The servers belong to users independent of Nym. Even issuing a court order to Nym to log traffic won't help, because Nym doesn't control other people's servers; it only provides infrastructure software. This approach is somewhat closer to Tor. Mullvad has no such arguments in court because the entire network infrastructure belongs to it.

Another thing is that before entering the mixnet, Nym traffic passes through edge servers that implement the Amnezia protocol, where traffic is masqueraded as other protocols. Nym therefore offers two layers of network traffic protection.

DeletedUser1127

Kamika242

I mean Simplex. Been trying to get friends to give it a try with me but they assume it's quite technical so I meant it as is it easy to use feature rich bit like Discord.

Emplyes-Mustwashhands

argante
Your right I'm not really invested in how Tor works and the articale was outdated

I did find an articale more recent, not sure if its true or not but it does look llike Tor has some type of Packet padding

Carrousel7956

Use Mullvad's Daita and Multihop before Tor for anonymity.

Carrousel7956

I got to look into Nym. What makes it so goo?

Emplyes-Mustwashhands

Carrousel7956
The only benifit for Mullvad's DAITA is for WF (website fingerprinting) which Tor combats already

Kamika242

DeletedUser1127 I mean Simplex.

You should quote text passages on which you are referring in future. 😁

DeletedUser1127 Been trying to get friends to give it a try

It's really hard to do this in general, but for the moment there is no need for me to convince someone from SimpleX, as all of my contacts use Signal or Threema.

DeletedUser1127 it's quite technical so I meant it as is it easy to use feature rich bit like Discord.

I've never used Discord, but I think SimpleX's settings are not more or less complicated than the settings of Signal, Threema or WhatsApp. With SimpleX you can start out of the box, deeper settings are more for people who really care and which want to get the most out of privacy.

Carrousel7956

Emplyes-Mustwashhands their blog about it says:

Since every website generates a pattern of network packets being sent back and forth based on the composition of its elements (like images, videos, text blocks etcetera), it’s possible to use AI to connect traffic patterns to specific websites. This means your ISP or any observer (like authorities or data brokers) having access to your ISP can monitor all the data packets going in and out of your device and make this kind of analysis to attempt to track the sites you visit, but also identify whom you communicate with using correlation attacks (you sending messages with certain patterns at certain times, to another device receiving messages with a certain pattern at same times).

Seems the threat it's built against is network observers.

Emplyes-Mustwashhands

The mentioned part you pointed on focused on Website fingerprinting which is a part of network surveillance and network observers

Carrousel7956

Emplyes-Mustwashhands ??? You said:

Emplyes-Mustwashhands The only benifit... is for [website fingerprinting]

(emphasis mine)

Mullvad says:

Carrousel7956 This means your ISP or any observer

ISP ≠ website fingerprinting.

ISP example: xfinity.com

Website fingerprinting example: fingerprint.com

Do you disagree with Mullvad? I'm curious what your reasoning for saying this is.

TGOS

Interesting from the hated one about mullvad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UmyDGjxO_s
For privacy I'd go with NYM which has pretty affordable prices and more sophisticated anonymisation teqniques. Bc I need VPN's mostly for streaming geoblocked content I'll have to wait for Black Friday and go with Proton. Cash envelope is prepared.

Emplyes-Mustwashhands

Carrousel7956
"The only benefit" line was from a reply about using DAITA for anonymity for Tor

In the blog
"it’s possible to use AI to connect traffic patterns to specific websites. This means your ISP or any observer (like authorities or data brokers) having access to your ISP can monitor all the data packets going in and out of your device and make this kind of analysis to attempt to track the sites you visit"

It about how AI can fingerprint websites for tracking on which websites you go to. You are confussing website fingerprinting as browser fingerprinting (What OS you use, addons and or plugins, size of the windows, etc), website fingerprinting in this context is the unique packets of websites when you connect to them, use them or do something inside. Mullvad is a great company and I don't disagree, we had a confusion on two different things here and I should've stated it before

This thread is getting offtopic, it would be better to not keep going or delete messages further up not along the main point of this discussion

TGOS

Part of my list:
PC

Fedora Workstation
Brave Origin (free for Linux)
Cherry Studio (AI Chatbox for e.g. OpenRouter/Requesty)
Keepass (credentials, 2FA)

Router

OpenWRT
adblock
banIP
dnscryptproxy2

Smartphone

GrapheneOS
KeepassDX (credentials, 2fa)
Brave
C24 (free Giro, creditcard works flawless with GOS)
Tubular (Youtube without ads ++ Sponsorblock)
Chatbox (AI Chats with OpenRouter Token)
Auxio (media player for downloaded Flacs, fmhy.net tells you where you'll get the sources)
Florisboard (simple keyboard)
Whisper (STT)
Easy Notes
Thunderbird (Mails)
OsmAnd~
OSS Documentscanner (create professional documents in a good designed OSS App)
PWA's: Deepseek, Claude, Shazam, LEO.org, Google Maps

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