Oddbean

from the IVPN page Despite what many VPN providers advertise VPNs are useless (at best ineffective) at: Achieving anonymity. Preventing Google or Facebook from collecting your private data. Preventing unwanted profiling by social networks or search engines. Providing better security when ‘working from home’. Protecting your passwords. Hiding your mobile phone location (GPS). Helping you avoid data breaches on services you use online. Defending against “cyber threats” and identity theft. Do not rely on a VPN to protect you in any of the above scenarios. However, a trustworthy VPN can be very effective at: Encrypting your data so your ISP or mobile network provider cannot monitor or log your online activity. Without a VPN, HTTPS still exposes the domain name or IP address you are visiting to the ISP. Encrypting your DNS requests so your ISP or mobile network provider cannot monitor or log the domains you visit. Increasing your security on untrusted public networks by preventing MITM attacks. Masking your IP address from websites and servers you connect to. Circumventing censorship or geographical blocks on websites and content.

PROTON only because it is the only non-obvious spook that offers free tier if you cant pay for the service. If you need the service and want to pay for it, MULLVAD and IVPN are infinitely better (no mail-based login, bitcoiners as first-class citizens...)

This was excellent. Flashed a DIY Start9 that I like very much. Many things to list that I find amazing on the individual bitcoiner level. - connect over tor to phone - keep interface links unbookmarked and launch from dashboard - run a pruned node for lightning - host your own webserver for Mutiny wallet - host your own btc payserver - host your own robosats - host your own memepool - run your own nostr relay - host your own simpleX server

I like the start9 solidity, although the interface still needs to be improved, give more information than what the instances do on the Server at the graphical level. For new users, it was a headache to find out. And not everyone wants to go to a console. For the rest, 💯 🤙🏼🫶🏼

I can't make a reliable connection via Tor with @umbrel between my Umbre LN node and my Zeus wallet. If you can confirm m that yours have a stabe, fluid and witout issues connection via Tor I will inmediatelly give up with Umbre and I will migrate to @Start9

For any podcasters out there did you know you can install the Helipad app to view Boost and Boostagrams on your @Start9 node? This does require that you add a split for your node to the ValueBlock for your podcast. "Helipad shows boosts and boostagram messages coming in to your Lightning node from your listeners who are using Podcasting 2.0 apps." https://image.nostr.build/82339136488e3434ec627902a123a46e689e00f92876bce78eea3aad41641fa9.png https://marketplace.start9.com/helipad

I enjoyed this talk. Decided to wipe an older laptop and install StartOS and a Bitcoin Core Node. Syncing right now. It is a very different feel to my pieced together node. I don’t know how much I like it, yet. Lots out of my direct control, but that may become a good thing. I will give it some time. And I will check out other services from the marketplace. I am hopeful that I will eventually love it!

As a fan of arm SBC, my main worries are energy consumption and proprietary BIOS. Even though coreboot has its blobs, it makes power efficiency better around 20-30%. Pine64 sells a risc-v SBC. Still early but my bet for the "perfect" server is a risc-v SBC with two nvme s2 native support.

Ultimately, it looks like a stripped down Debian build. BIOS is for their proprietary systems; my laptop still has its BIOS after the install. There appears to be limited hardware recognition (including wifi adapters). I haven’t dug into it much to this point, and trust the Start9 team based on my limited trust circle. But I could dive into it if I had time. I like SBCs too. Although I don’t have any RISC-V ones at this point, but I could check it out on an ARM SBC at some point. I use the laptop because it was unused, has sufficient tech, has a decent battery, and other laptop benefits.

IMO it's the best node package. Their documention is also incredibly well written. I'm considering running another machines with StartOS. One for Bitcoin and one for non-bitcoin services. I'm glad that clearnet access is going to be improved and released soon.

a Monero node isn't a shitcoin node GFY love StartOS tho nostr:nevent1qqswq3kff6d7g8tta2x3u8lm7apfw9vda2ny2g66qwjlukyv0c7vsyqprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuumwdae8gtnnda3kjctvqgsqfjg4mth7uwp307nng3z2em3ep2pxnljczzezg8j7dhf58ha7ejgrqsqqqqqp3lluva

that's bullshit. the whole point of FOSS is that it empowers others to create something new. "i don't want to empower others to create something that competes" is a shitty attitude. See Matt Hills recent interview on CD for the correct attitude. nostr:nevent1qqswq3kff6d7g8tta2x3u8lm7apfw9vda2ny2g66qwjlukyv0c7vsyqprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuumwdae8gtnnda3kjctvqgsqfjg4mth7uwp307nng3z2em3ep2pxnljczzezg8j7dhf58ha7ejgrqsqqqqqp3lluva