There are occasional ways to use VPN tech in a way that improves privacy, but they are primarily a circumvention tool - a way to get around local censorship - unless you can be sure that both the incentives of the provider and the jurisdictions involved are more favourable to your own privacy than otherwise, then be skeptical.

Be incredibly skeptical of anyone offering privacy advice or promoting specific applications and services, especially those promoting software that relies on servers based in hostile jurisdictions (this goes double for VPNs and communication apps).

There is so much terrible advice floating around right now.

In my experience, most people model security issues as broken windows or loose locks, something easily fixed with some care and attention.

On the other hand, most security issues are better modelled as missing structural beams or sinking foundations, flaws that compromise the integrity of the entire structure and the safety people around and within.

@molly0xfff

Mostly I miss:

- the large number of semi-public topic-focused spaces (e.g. irc channels, forums)

- the large number of content-deep websites run by individuals / small groups - and the search engines that indexed them and made them discoverable

(approx: late 90s early 00s, falling off in 06-07)