Another thing is I need a systemwide VPN, this one only has a Browser VPN as far as I understand.
Yes, but it's important to understand the difference. Are you trying to protect your identity, or trying to keep safe from 'man in the middle' attacks?
The problem with most VPNs, is that today's OSs constantly chatter with all sorts of services, and start doing so immediately upon internet connection, before a VPN can even be established (unless the VPN has some way to tell the OS to stop all traffic, make the internet connection, then make the VPN connection, then start traffic... I'm guessing some high-end corporate VPNs do this).
So, say you're at the airport and you turn on your WiFi. It's a good idea to use a VPN, but before you can establish the connection, it's already connected to Apple, Dropbox, and XYZ service. Most of these use encrypted login, but still, if you connect to a compromised network, those packets (while encrypted) will be in the hands of someone.
If you're trying to protect your identity though, the VPN is simply a pipe in the middle. Even though you're virtually at some other IP address than your home/office, you've connected to Dropbox, Apple, etc. as well as that site you're trying to be identity-free on. That site won't make the connection (unless you use a browser with cookies that could link you), but anyone with aggregate data could, as the same IP, at the same point in time, made a connection to the secret site AND John Doe connected to his Dropbox account. In other words, a government or someone with access to the right aggregate data could figure it out.
With a VPN built into a single app, now your overall data (Apple, Dropbox, etc.) comes from your real IP address, while *just* the data from that browser session is coming from that virtual/alternate IP address. That is actually safer in terms of identity, so long as the VPN/browser combo can be trusted not to release the records.
But, these are two very different concerns... identity anonymity vs man-in-the-middle attack protection.
This is now a Chinese browser. I'm so conflicted over it because it was finally becoming good again after the Chromium reboot. Storing my user credentials and using VPN's with some Chinese product? I'm just using Vivaldi now. I don't have a good feeling about this at all.
I thought I'd read it was possible there would be a sale. Has it actually happened? But, even so, I guess I'd trust China more than the USA at this point, in terms of privacy protection.
Also,
*NEVER* use the capabilities of these browsers to store credentials (or your OS, for that matter... like Keychain). Use a password manager like PasswordWallet by Selznick (my favorite) or 1Password (preferably the non-cloud version if you're really paranoid).
I installed Vivaldi the other day, and aside from the convenience of Safari and it's integration with the OS, it's my next most favorite browser already.
No access except the government. There is no such thing as privacy in a Communist country. Amazing the lack of knowledge people have in a knowledge based Era.
Probably in history 1,000 years later (if the planet is still around) they will say "The Information Age" was when the world forgot or understood the least when the most information was available....but was also the most filtered or the most skewed.
Well, there's no such thing as privacy in a 'free' country either, anymore. While China has no doubt, has a pretty bad track record, it's more out in the open. In the USA, there's a perception of being safe, and a lot of propaganda to that effect, but in reality, it's probably approaching China in the level of corruption at the top gov't level.
But, for sure, we've got such a huge amount of info and access to it, yet it seems we're about the most intellectually challenged and propagandized (despite the capability to see it) people in history.
I would rephrase the comment in the article like this:
If people truly knew how a vpn worked, they would think harder about who the operator of the vpn is and what they can do.
Bingo.
I see the recommendation for PIA, do you guys have any others that would be good for iOS and MacOS both.
I've been pretty happy with IPVanish, though to be honest, I've not carefully looked into their ownership or background. It came highly recommended by a good friend who is usually in the know about this kind of stuff. I've been with them for about 3 years now.
As a service, it works well, has a lot of location choices, and is usually quite speedy. And, yes, it supports both MacOS and iOS. They even have client apps for each (I've had a bit of issue with the iOS one, but part of the problem could be my iPad 2... as it's become a bit unstable for just about everything since iOS 8.)
