this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2026
78 points (100.0% liked)

Privacy

50637 readers
450 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Bit of an uphill fight with captchas everywhere. Do people here conduct all online activity over VPN whenever possible? Only for the sensitive stuff? Or perhaps the inverse because the bank already knows you? Maybe when travelling or getting around region blocking? Something else?

The one provided by my work aside, I realized that I don't have any consistent rules around using VPN. Except sometimes, you know, when downloading ISO's for my favorite distos.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] artyom@piefed.social 65 points 6 days ago

Pretty much always. If someone blocks my VPN, I just don't go there or don't use that. Sucks but it is what it is. I'm just not willing to enter your site bareback.

[–] Zoma@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 days ago

Allways use your vpn and just spit tunnel things that don't work with them eg freetube. If you're getting captchas lots you could look into getting a residential socks5 proxy, I use mullvad's socks5 they wont be as good as a residential one though.

[–] webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 17 points 6 days ago (6 children)
load more comments (6 replies)
[–] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 5 days ago

UK porn ban, always-on VPN

[–] geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml 10 points 5 days ago
[–] oeuf@slrpnk.net 23 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Mine is on pretty much all the time. Capchas are indeed annoying, but I'm choosing to see that as something which helps me to be more intentional about my use of the internet.

My bank and government portal don't seem to care about it, even if my traffic is coming from a random country on the other side of the world because I've forgotten to route through one of my VPN's domestic servers. Online freelancing platforms, on the other hand, have instantly banned my accounts, and I've had problems with corporate social media (which I try and use for my business).

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] ohshit604@lemmy.halstead.host 11 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Phone > WireGuard Tunnel to my House = Reap the benefits of my PiHole and other hosted services > WireGuard Tunnel to ProtonVPN endpoint = Reap the benefits of appearing outside my country

Essentially created my own multi-hop VPN, which I use 24/7 outside of my home-network.

[–] LlilL@lemmy.zip 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

May I ask how you have that setup? I’ve been trying to do exactly that using my Ubiquiti gear in the middle, but I don’t think I Ubiquiti’s UnifFi is capable.

[–] ohshit604@lemmy.halstead.host 7 points 6 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Picked myself up an Asus WRT router (AX86U) flashed it with Merlin firmware - the custom firmware includes a feature called “VPN Director” which lets me connect up to 5 different WireGuard clients and route my devices through whichever one I choose, given that the Asus WRT router is also capable of hosting its own WireGuard server I created a VPN director rule that routes that server through one of these clients.

The VPN director has a priority ruleset, so if for example WireGuard client 5 dies it will either kill all outbound connections and wait until it’s back online or fallback to WireGuard client 4, WireGuard client 1 being the highest priority right before WAN.

I like this setup because it’s my router doing the routing, not a secondary server hosting WireGuard like Tailscale.

Edit; It also works with oVPN if you prefer that protocol over WireGuard.

[–] Squizzy@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Must look into Merlin, I want to stay away from closed source or US companies so Unifi was out.

Could you have a residential static VPN as one of the wireguard profiles and have it be somewhat local to you so you could use banking apps etc on specific devices? Trying to get this to pass the wife test but if streaming or banking is affected I will have to roll back to no vpn.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] MasterBlaster@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

I should probably try what the O.P. did as I also have an ASUS router with Merlin. However, in my case, I have a Synology NAS and I set up VPN on that and use that server as my VPN. I have a certificate-based sign-in through a single port on the router.

I use a Public VPN service when I'm out and about and then connect to my VPN when I need to do stuff on my network, Like syncing my Joplin notes.

Permanently on. Anything I can't access without it I generally find an alternate with very few exceptions. I have a quarantine virtual machine I use for the couple of websites that are worth making an exception for.

[–] communism@lemmy.ml 5 points 5 days ago

On at all times at the router level. Because it'd be annoying to selectively disable it. My VPN isn't really an anonymity feature anyway; I have a dedicated browser profile for things like banking where I intend the fingerprint to be associated with my government identity.

[–] manuallybreathing@lemmy.ml 15 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I use a VPN 99% of the time, i turn it off when i need to access archive.org, or watch something on the public braordcasters streaming platform

yeah sure the captchas are annoying but it's not like websites load within 10 seconds anymore

I only wish protonVPN was a good as the one i used previously, but i cancelled it cause it had ties to israel

[–] utopiah@lemmy.ml 4 points 6 days ago

You might want to check into split tunneling.

[–] eremophila@lemmy.zip 15 points 6 days ago
[–] mildseason@sopuli.xyz 3 points 5 days ago

All the time, baby!

Unless it's absolutely necessary, vpn and kill switch stay on.

[–] alexquiniou@lemmy.zip 3 points 5 days ago

Always. Wireguard is easy to setup and work like a charm.

Truenas + wireguard for pc, server and phone. Always everywhere.

[–] non_burglar@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago

100% of the time.

My VPN turns on automatically when I leave my home lan. I don't use split-tunneling, so all my traffic goes back to home before going to internet.

[–] Ravenheart@lemmy.zip 8 points 6 days ago

Basically all the time.

[–] wuphysics87@lemmy.ml 13 points 6 days ago

Most of the time, but I would emphasize always in airports or public wifi

[–] Newhere@lemmy.ml 4 points 5 days ago

Alll the time with kill switch ON.

[–] Alpinefolk@slrpnk.net 10 points 6 days ago

Always. The captcha drive me crazy though.

[–] Zedd_Prophecy@lemmy.world 13 points 6 days ago

I have a VPN configured at the router. I use a PI-hole with a lot of restrictions and lists to run my own DNS and downstream DNS is Adgaurd. Several machines I let bypass the VPN umbrella and they have local clients they can switch on at will. I'd like to make a Linux firewall too but not with prices where they are now. These days you have to distrust everything.

[–] swelter_spark@reddthat.com 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)
[–] AfricanExpansionist@lemmy.ml 6 points 5 days ago (6 children)
[–] swelter_spark@reddthat.com 1 points 4 days ago

The internet is fast where I live, so there's no noticeable speed difference.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 10 points 6 days ago

98% of the time. I hate having to turn it off to look at my local grocery store's website but I have done it before.

[–] RodgeGrabTheCat@sh.itjust.works 10 points 6 days ago

100% of the time I'm behind a vpn.

[–] Crackhappy@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

All the time basically

[–] hexagon527@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 6 days ago (1 children)

always except for banking, government stuff, job searching. that's when it looks more sus.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] somegeek@programming.dev 5 points 6 days ago

Constantly.

[–] Brutticus@midwest.social 3 points 5 days ago

maybe like 75 percent of the time. the Invidious APIs for Freetube.

My job requires secure outlook and access to our database. I do occasionally have to interface with banking sites.

[–] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 6 days ago

Almost always. I turn off for certain websites that are blocked otherwise, but I hate to leave it off.

[–] Nighed@feddit.uk 4 points 6 days ago

My phone almost always has a Vpn on to my home network (gets me pi-hole goodness)

Other than that, very occasionally use the Firefox built in one + the one for my "Linux iso" torrenting container, that's not on most of the time though.

[–] willington@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 5 days ago

Always, unless by mistake it is off.

[–] Luminous5481@anarchist.nexus 6 points 6 days ago

absolutely at all time. I can't say that I see many captchas. I think the last one was for some site I used a couple weeks back that used google recaptcha. it's pretty rare for me to see one.

[–] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 6 days ago (20 children)

Mostly just for torrents, one machine on my local network is always using a VPN to connect to the external internet. I would use it for more things like private web browsing, but without substantial additional setup I think my web browsing is guaranteed to be fingerprinted regardless of whether I conceal my IP so until I bother to set that up it doesn't seem like there is much point.

load more comments (20 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›