Hello, I'm wondering if there is a way to download webpages anonymously, without actually having to visit the website. I want to access this website, but it requires Javascript. So, instead I'm just wondering if theres a way to download the webpage (I want to download the webpage with its functions, like any audio features along with it, for say, Ultimateguitar.com). I recall there being some GNUWebProxy downloading tool or whatever, I just forgot the name of it.

Thank you!

This post is not really about questions I have. I just feel like I need to write this somewhere to express my concern.

First of all, online stores have become a huge part of our society and I admit I heavily rely on that. That alone could be privacy issue but I’d ignore that for the sake of not missing the point of this post.

The problem is rather in the way these online stores send out their receipts. You might already know that emails are by default not client side encrypted. That means your email server admin (Google if you use Gmail, Apple if you use iCloud mail. And Proton if you use Protonmail. Yes Proton claims it stays encrypted as soon as the emails arrive to their server but who can really vouch this? It’s behind the curtain anyway. ) has access to your receipts including of the past.

Now email has been around for a really long time. And the client side encryption part has been worked in a lot of forms such as S/MIME. But none of the online services really implement it even though they contain critically personally identifiable info such as items I bought along with my name & address.

And the thing is even though these online sellers acknowledge this privacy risk, they don’t have options to not email us receipts. For example, Amazon has a dedicated page on their site where I can see the list of everything I bought. That’s literally enough for me. They can stop sending me the receipts in the worst possible way! At least they could provide us with better way (even WhatsApp will do) yet they don’t. This is a severe privacy issue.

I can’t help feeling, with all the sophisticated technology we have at hand, that we deserve better.

So, I had an idea for an Invidious alternative that would be pretty difficult for YouTube to block. Basically, YouTube can block instances because it is really easy to detect which IP is making a lot of requests. But what if everyone using Invidious were an instance? Like, if one person wants to watch a video, they would get it from a random person using this software. I don't really know how it would be done—if it would be something like torrents, which have a direct connection, or if it would go through some server in the middle. This is just a suggestion; I don't really know how I would implement it. But if it can be done and someone wants to do it, it would be great.

Edit: switching to https://sky.rethinkdns.com/ worked, thanks for all the suggestions!

Hope this is the correct forum to ask this question.

I've recently switched to RethinkDNS and quite like it. I've run a PiHole on my home network for a while, and Rethink finally gives me the same functionality and customizability while away from my house.

When I'm at work at [REDACTED BIG CORPORATION] my Internet won't connect at all while on company wifi with Rethink active ("No Answer" response to all queries). I just turn DuckDuckGo app tracking protection on instead (also technically a VPN according to my phone), and the Internet works. CyberGhost VPN behaves the same as Rethink, so I'm unsure why DDG doesn't run into issues.

Does anyone know of a way to automatically swap between VPNs while on certain networks? I'm sure it is possible to do so with a GPS fence and SmartThings, but I don't want to give that app (or any for that matter) location permissions.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to do this (I'm fine using apps outside of Google Play, as you can infer from my use of RethinkDNS and DDG in the first place), I'd love to hear them!

Cheers, Hank

How trustful do you guys find the answers/opinions generated by modern chatGPT services (GPT-4o mini, Claude 3 Haiku, Llama 3.1 70B, Mixtral 8x7B) ?

I don't directly mess with them. Instead, i use duck.ai chat to use them.

I find those answers generated by these chat models are insufficient. These are more focused on satisfying users that providing genuine answers on aome topics like privacy, surveilence, politics, etc...

What you guys think from your usage of these models ? (If you used it) And what you guys think as a solution for it ? Building a more privacy focused and open model is possible by the privacy community ?

I use the built-in sync service in various Firefox forks to sync bookmarks/history/tabs, using the default Mozilla servers.

When I went to "Manage Account" to review and prune the devices ("services?") linked with Mozilla Sync down to what I'm actively using currently, and noticed "Mozilla Monitor" in there.

I can't find any info on why Mozilla Monitor required sync credentials, and I don't remember Mozilla Monitor telling me it would be gaining access to my sync data, nor can I find any way to review what data "Mozilla Monitor" has access to.

Any ideas?

For now I'm signing out that entry, while I consider other sync options.

Edit: changed title from 'Mozilla/Firefox sync - why is "Mozilla Monitor" a signed in device?'

I'm thinking of paying for Mullvad, but I don't want to waste my money if I won't be able to use it. My ISP blocks Tor (at least that is the conclusion I have come to - I can only connect via a bridge). Is there anything I can do to make sure I will be able to use Mullvad before I end up paying for it?

I don't need anyone to tell me that Facebook sucks because I already know that, and I would never use it unless in my country, for reasons unknown to me, public and private institutions use Facebook as a primary method of sharing news, such as schedules or promotions.

I don't have the slightest intention of creating a Facebook account, but as I said, I need to see posts from certain Facebook accounts and every time I go to a Facebook page and scroll for 2 seconds I get a pop-up forcing me to create an account. And as far as I know, there is no sort of Piped front-end for Facebook, I would appreciate any help.

And I just assumed they called Rainbolt

I found that Mozilla VPN uses Mullvad servers and I thought it may be a good way to use Mullvad while supporting Mozilla. Then after further research I found that Mozilla bought an ad firm for 'privacy-centric-advertising' and that sounded sus to me. Is it reasonable to suspect that Mozilla VPN may not be as private as Mullvad VPN?

Not sure if anyone else noticed but reddit is now testing a beta of an answers feature that generates answers based on reddit posts. Maybe this explains the phenomena people noticed of deleting posts only to have their posts reappear? Just saying if reddit was already bad for privacy it just got worse in my opinion.

I'm only on a free Proton plan but I'm still considering switching because of recent news. I've seen disroot's website before and they seem more politically left-leaning which I appreciate. How have people's experiences been?

I've been trying to find a good privacy respecting browser, but I can't really decide on what to use. I don't like the search results with Brave Search. DuckDuckGo shares my information with Microsoft and SearchXNG shows me NSFW images even with strict search on. I really like Presearch, but I'm not really sure what they're about.

EDIT: After tinkering with the settings of my SearXNG instance, it seems to have reduced the amount of NSFW images. I think I will stick with SearXNG for now.

If I pair my Android phone and my laptop, I can share files over Bluetooth from the phone to the laptop. I've started finding this a really convenient method for me to send files to a Linux laptop without needing to install a separate app on either the phone or my laptop. Especially when I'm away from my home network (I use SFTP at home).

How secure is this? Is there encryption by default and could someone else nearby with a receiver potentially decode the file you're sending?

Currently ripping my DVDs and building a Jellyfin server. Now on desktop and mobile streaming works fine but the Raspberry Pi 4 + Libreelec + Jellyfin/Jellycon Setup i tried has been somewhat janky - both in terms of navigation and also the framerate drops at times though it isn't really an issue.

Pretty sure the folks in the Jellyfin Subreddit/Forums would tell me to just get a Firetv stick, so I was more curious what experiences and recommendations you guys have.

Firetv + firewall whitelist?

Fix my Raspi install?

I don't know if it's the right place to ask.
I don't want a Google account. I don't use yt that much but I still need it.
I even tried yt revanced. None of them works