Dear friends,
I know! I know! You want maps. I will try to post one later tonight!
Right now I want to share a few things with you and ask a few questions.
First, accessing Russian websites. I notice that in the US a lot of .ru and .su domains are blocked. Today I had to use a VPN to go through Israel to access a page in Russia (https://www.vesti.ru). But my VPN does not offer any outlets in Russia.
Question: does anybody know of a strong, solid and quick VPN with Russian outlets?
Next, I am swamped with emails. Forgive me, but I am physically totally exhausted (it’s not just work, it is also being the object of hate, that is quite exhausting and I don’t wish that feeling on anybody). So I am sorry, but unless your email is marked “IMPORTANT AND URGENT” I might not reply to it. I will READ them all, but that’s the most I can promise.
I recently discovered the website The Gateway Pundit (turns out they used an article of mine recently) and I found out that, according to TGP, Duckduckgo also deranks and censors. As you might now, Google has massively deranked the Saker blog, and I don’t care since our traffic does not depend on search engines, but I do want to use a search engine which I could halfway trust when I need to look up something. So my next question to you is:
Question: which is the least bad, the least corrupt, search engine out there? It would have to be one physically and legally based outside Zone A.
Next, I was told by an IT friend that the messenger Signal is not truly free and open source (FOSS) software. Here my questions do you are:
Question: do you know of a 100% FOSS messenger, including its internal encryption mechanisms?
That’s it on my end.
By later this afternoon, I hope to bring you an update and, yes, a map :-)
Hugs and cheers
Andrei
I am using metager.de and recommend it
Is it in German (which is not problem) or it is based on the West somewhere?
Both Kaspersky and Yandex are physically in Russia, founded in Russia by Russians, but are registered in UK (K.) resp. NL (Y.) . Kaspersky just had to publicly declare (to Western journos, ofc) that it has no connections to Russian government agencies and is not affected by some specific Russian law; Yandex made its ascent by finding best solutions for Russian-language search.
1. VPNs with servers inside Russia:
https://www.vpnxd.com/vpn-with-russian-server/
VPN providers including NordVPN, StrongVPN, ExpressVPN, and IPVanish refused to cooperate with the Roskomnadzor. As a consequence, the services were thrown out of Russian datacenters and no longer provided Russian IP addresses.
2. Search Engines: Yandex, Baidu, Shenma
3. Signal is American, Telegram is Russian…if your using Linux: https://linuxkamarada.com/en/2021/05/10/open-source-privacy-focused-messaging-apps-alternatives-to-whatsapp/
To watch Russian tv on line a friend suggested:
ontvtime.ru
Which seems to be working at the moment in Europe……
Also Gab is hosting lots of information from Russia and about the current spec. op.
Odysee and Rumble show RT live everyday.
NordVPN had made data transfer to law enforcement agencies official.
In a revised data protection statement, the VPN provider NordVPN admits that the processed customer data will be passed on to the authorities as of July 1, if the available data allows them to identify a criminal.
Privacy Policy – NordVPN
https://my.nordaccount.com/legal/privacy-policy/
EVERY VPN provider will pass data to law enforcement of the country they’re operating it or legitimate requests from external law enforcement if passed through their own law enforcement (which it usually is.)
That should be obvious. They are subject to local law. VPNs don’t operate outside the law anywhere. Even a private VPN, if connected to an ISP, is subject to subpoena to that ISP.
There are no “secure” VPNs in that sense. Even TOR can be intercepted under the right conditions.
Surfshark?
Doesn’t work for sure. Their technical support gave me a lesson about bloodshed, etc. etc.
Unfortunately none of these work. I tried all 5 of them and had to cancel service right away after either server doesn’t exist or it can’t connect.
Yeah, I thought I remembered that neither Russia nor China is VPN friendly.
However, my VPN does offer a node in Venezuela. It seems unlikely that this country would block Russian websites, so it should work ok. It also has a node in Kazakhstan.
Private Internet Access.
It is US based IIRC.
So, maybe that’s not the answer you are looking for. But, perhaps the idea that there are other countries that could provide a ‘safe’ exit node for viewing .ru websites is helpful?
I use a VPN in China all the time.
The AI monitors behavior. If you frequently access websites deemed of a subversive nature against China, your access will be throttled back. Unlike the West, there is intelligence behind the monitoring of access.
tachyon and sentinel are both decentralized and encrypted. tachyon is using blockchain technology and still available in google play for android users. watching 15 sec ad gives you an hour of access to the fastest server but vesti.ru is surefire to work.
AM,
I think that almost any vpn would do — you just need to pick the “right country;” believe it or not, Turkey is one of the “free speech” countries…
Cheers, JaKo
Have you considered Kasperski Labs VPN?
As for search engine, how about Yandex?
Right now I am using express VPN which I like in terms of performance, but it has not outlets inside Russia
Does Kasperski?
Is Kasperskli actually legally and physically based in Russia?
What about Yandex, do you know?
I am using Yandex browser from Montenegro and Serbia. Can access most of RU websites although sometimes they are too busy. VPN via India works very well too.
I also use Express VPN. Going through Argentina will provide access at least to https://www.vesti.ru, server alias ‘ar’
Kasperski had to relocate to Switzerland some years ago, and that is their legal domicile, alas. Still recommended though. You can choose – in the premium version – from a variety of server locations, including Russia. In the free version, the location is assigned randomly.
As far as i know, both Yandex and Kaspersky Labs are based in Russia. I use both along with Astrill VPN and i can get around all internet censor blockages. I use the Russia based servers. Works like a charm.
No, most VPN providers (in Russia) was forced to move out of Russia servers due to the government new laws a few years ago.
They implemented law that forced VPN providers to collect sensitice data of whom the users were. In a way that could connect whom was doing what activities.
From a government security can understand it. But for personal security that is unacceptable.
So thats why many, even Russian providers, decided to move their bases out of Russia.
So hard to find a real (legal) vpn inside Russia.
Thank you for that update. I wasn’t aware of the new law.
I have my doubts that you can find a VPN server in Russia. Nothing in China either. VPNs are kinda like off-shore banking to some people.
Video Interviews from liberated area regarding Ukie military using civilians homes as bases with children locked in basement for last 2 weeks.
https://m.readovka.news/news/90792
For a search engine try gibiru.com. You can also sort the hits to include only those censored by establishment engines.
gibiru uses google and redirects all links via google. just try it and you will see
I don’t know if this helps solve your problems, but for ultimate safety you could self-host your videos.
Its been a few years since I set up a website, but storage space with a website had become cheap or free. Thus, the actual video file can be on your own website.
Then, you need a player you can put into your website to show your self-hosted videos. I started to do a quick search, (via duckduck) and came up with this tutorial video.
I would suspect there might be multiple players available beyond the one this person is touting. This is also rather dated, as it is some 8 years old, so who knows if the details are still any good.
But, if you really want control over the videos you want people to see, self-host the video file in your websites storage space, and then include some sort of video player to view it on your site.
You won’t be the only person wanting to do this. This person uses a very non-political reason early in his clip. His example is a membership website where the owner only wants paying members to be able to view the video. This obviously excludes putting the video up on YouTube at any time. So, you won’t be the only person looking for this sort of solution, thus I expect you can find several options.
—————
Note, way back in the Dark Ages, before YouTube, Instagram, Facebook etc, the left-wing activists who were trying their best to protest against and stop Globalization set up their own website. Going into the 1999 Seattle WTO meeting that signed the globalization deals, they knew that CNN would never give fair coverage to their protests. Thus, they had their own site, where activists could upload their own pictures, text, videos of the protests. A lot of what got out about the police violence that day in Seattle came out by this means.
Not saying that is the answer, but there is a history of self-hosting materials long before Youtube ever existed.
In order to host video and have it correctly play on various devices, you need to provide each video transcoded into several different formats. Freely available ffmpeg is a popular utility for this. Working samples of HTML5 video are at http://camendesign.com/code/video_for_everybody/test.html.
A basic video hosting service such as jwplayer costs $10/month for 150GB storage, and 500GB bandwidth. They do all the transcoding behind the scenes (probably with ffmpeg.)
Hi Andrei,
For VPN in the past my favorite was NordVPN, although I don’t know if it has Russian servers – but you should be able to check this on their website easily. Before this I used ProtonVPN, although I don’t trust them anymore since Protonmail – whom they are affiliated with – has gone woke in some instances, and supported the attempted coup in Belarus.
For search engine, it has been known for a while that duckduckgo was compromised (they announced a while back that they were helping the FBI with investigations.) I would recommend the brave search engine available with the brave browser – it’s a good browser to use anyway since it’s basically an improved version of chrome that has anti-tracking features.
I don’t know if I can help you with the messenger – but in the past I have used Keybase to good effect. I do not know if it fits your technical specifications. There are other more advanced encrypted messaging systems but they may be technically difficult to set up.
Cheers
No Russian servers unfortunatelly!
I checked NordVPN. No Russian servers. :(
NordVPN doesn’t have Russian servers. They left Russia in 2019 due to Russian anti-privacy laws:
https://techshielder.com/does-nordvpn-work-in-russia
I use Avast VPN. Two russian serwers
Nord does not have Russian servers, but does have a connection in Georgia (not in Belarus either)
I am able to get through to .ru sites with Nord connected to Brazilian server. It might be true for other VON services as well.
As I had posted above, NordVPN made data transfer to law enforcement agencies official.
100% FOSS messenger: there cant be one, as there is no ru-net.
How about Yandex for search engine?
Maybe Miranda as messenger?
Considered starting an IRC server/channel?
I’m using Yandex and so far, I can get everything I’ve searched for.
Proton VPN
Proton Mail
Startpage
@ Steve on March 11, 2022 · at 1:32 pm EST/EDT
Yes on ProtonMail and ProtonVPN. Very good. Swiss. I didn’t know about Startpage. Thanks!
There was some news that proton mail was a cover for the international three letters agency. I don’t trust the Swiss anymore since they got along with the EU sanctions.
ProtonVPN does have outlets in Russia and I have been successful accessing Russian sites. It also gives you the additional benefit of connecting (to Russia) through a privacy friendly such as Switzerland or Iceland as a connection point through p countries. Also protonmail is encrypted if emailing another protonmail account.
i use both Proton and Startpage.
The paid version of Proton VPN gives me ten Russian IP addresses. The upgraded paid version gives you ten more.
There’s about fifty countries to pick from, many of them in Zone B.
Yes Proton were involved helping NATO with the story of the forced landing of the plane with the Belorussian activist some time ago. Moon of Alabama wrote a lot about it. I quit Proton after that.
Have in mind that Proton Mail has to comply with legislation, and they repeatedly have handed over metadata information.
The messages themselves are encrypted, but the metadata (sender, recipient, date, time, size, etc) are exposed. Once they build a database of your contacts, authorities can then scrub open source information (like Facebook, etc) to build profiles and find relevant information.
Scrubbing open source information is not hard at all; there are services that will do scrub hundreds of platforms for you, for only a handful of dollars. I bet authorities have better access.
ProtonMail was used in “Belarus hijack commercial airliner” hoax.
ProtonMail is NOT impartial.
Sigh…
Once again, EVERY VPN and email service anywhere is subject to local law enforcement. If they get a court order, they have no choice but to comply or go out of business (in fact, IIRC, one service actually did that rather than comply.)
The key is whether they are storing anything useful. Proton doesn’t – except certain metadata which they must to be in the business.
There is only one way to be (relatively) “secure” (I hate that word, because it doesn’t exist): set up your own system on a set of compromised servers or servers that cannot be directly connected to your identity and your physical location. This is extremely complicated to do. It’s also best if you are mobile while accessing these systems which makes it harder to track your physical location.
This is not correct.
Metadata contain a LOT of information, including not only the sender ip and recipient ip, datastamps and such; and if you’re using ProtonMail through a browser, like we all do, these also contain browser fingerprinting — including CPU, GPU, RAM, screen resolution, OS version, browser version, installed plugins, installed fonts, timezone, language, etc.
These metadata + fingerprint information can then be used in combination with opensource intelligence (combing social media) to build a pretty solid case and arrest people.
And Protonmail Metadata have been used to ARREST people.
Read the following story:
«
PROTONMAIL REMOVED
“We Do not Keep Any IP LOGS”
from its privacy policy
This weekend, news broke that security/privacy-focused anonymous email service ProtonMail turned over a French climate activist’s IP address and browser fingerprint to Swiss authorities.
This move seemingly ran counter to the well-known service’s policies, which as recently as last week stated that “by default, we do not keep any IP logs which can be linked to your anonymous email account.”
After providing the activist’s metadata to Swiss authorities, ProtonMail removed the section that had promised no IP logs, replacing it with one saying, “ProtonMail is email that respects privacy and puts people (not advertisers) first.”
https://cutt.ly/TWSx17o
»
I don’t have time to find the citation, but I remember reading that in the last year ProtonMail helped the law enforcement in some 3,000 cases.
Admittedly, this problem can be avoided if one uses the TOR onion site of Protonmail, but then there is another big problem–with no easy solution: Java code integrity.
For your browser-accessed email service to work, your browser has to download some Java code from the ProtonMail servers—and there is no easy way for the average user to be sure that the java code received is not poisoned. All it takes is for Protonmail to serve changed code with a buried keylogger–and your security is taken away.
In closing, we have to remember that encryption works only when *both* parties use it; which is far from being guaranteed. I have hundreds of contacts, but only 2-3 people are using end-to-end encryption. I use ProtonMail with the understanding that it is only marginally better than gMail; but I understand the limitations and use it accordingly. It would be a folly, however, to think that it is a bullet proof solution.
ProtonMail is compromised – they are based in Swiss region but the French sent a request for a teen who was protesting climate change and ditching school – they complied and gave French authorities the IPN and info tied to the account, as a result he was arrested. Don’t trust ProtonMail.
If this is what they do to climate activists, imagine what they will do to someone of dissenting opinions during war time.
This is eye-opening. (I’m already signed up on Proton, but this goes further, another Swiss company.) He makes some strong claims with in-depth explanations. The interview is with Chris Martenson of Peak Prosperity, a straight shooter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ__bAcklms&t=867s
If you want a VPN for Russia, use Browsec.
It is not free though ($1.99 per month).
I use protonvpn and (ironically) go through Ukraine. All of their (protonvpn) servers in Russia are currently “under maintenance”. I use this to watch 1tv.ru.
I’m typing this while connected to the internet via a Russian based server from Proton VPN.
It’s not down for maintenance for me.
You’re right. When I tried earlier I had the message aout servers being down in Russia. It must have been a temporary thing because I am able to connect again.
Yasha Levin has written in his book surveillance valley that Signal is a CIA honey trap. There is XMPP which completely opensource as I understand, but I’ve never used it. I use telegram mostly…
For a search engine, why not yandex? I just switched to it, I don’t know where else to turn. i believe Goldman Sachs is a part owner or whatever, but don’t know where else to turn… baidu?
there are so many VPN providers out there that clearly just monitor you and steal your data. the best thing would be to have someone you know in russia set up a little VPN server for you… I don’t know if I’m using the lingo right, but if you have even an old phone in Russia that’s always on and always connected, you can quite simply set it up as a VPN…
Yes, some of these so-called VPN or other anonymizer apps are actually affiliated with or serve American and Western spy agencies.
TOR, for instance, is basically an American spook app.
Privacy Spooks: Almost everyone involved in developing Tor was (or is) funded by the US government
https://yashalevine.com/articles/tor-spooks
ProtonMail is also suspicious given its role in the Belarus regime change operations last year.
How ProtonMail Lost The Public Trust It Needs To Do Business
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/05/how-protonmail-lost-the-public-trust-it-needs-to-do-business.html
‘Like An Amoral Infant’ – How ProtonMail Contributes To False Media Claims About Belarus
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/05/like-an-amoral-infant-how-protonmail-contributes-to-false-media-claims-about-belarus.html
Yes, TOR was developed by the (American) Navel Research Laboratory, initially for use by CIA agents abroad. It remains controlled by the NSA.
TOR is pathetic
All nodes, for some reason go through NATO countries – or there pals, Sweden Finland, Ukraine.
Fun fact – Ukrainian TOR nodes still are working.
There are no TOR nodes in Mexico, South America, Japan, Korea, Russia
TOR is only good for hiding your traffic from your ISP.
With Swisscows using Brave browser running under Linux, the first 10 hits (after the Ebay, etc. ads) were for your blog.
Just dumped duckduckgo this week. I’m trying swisscows, as for now it looks fast and gives results like ddg or google one or two years ago. Not sure if it’s just me but the results provided by those two search engines are less and less useful.
As for the messenger go for Riot. It’s what you are looking for but the downside is that you have to set up your own server and share it with the ones you want to contact. Signal is compromised and I am not sure about tg as they are now based in UAE.
How about Yandex search engine? It is even Russian…
I second that. I use Yandex as first choice.
I knew DuckDuckGo is censored or at least dubious since PizzaGate.
Basically I use Yandex, and additionally for some matters also Ecosia / Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo and Google, since those are easily accessible in my browser.
But for political matters Yandex is clearly the best choice in almost all cases.
Also I want to add that I find the hate campaign against Russia and Russians absolutely disgusting. I can’t find words that this is happening. I wish you, Andrei, strength and all the best during this crazy hate campaign and I hope this terrible war propaganda will ease soon and some sanity returns.
Maybe try Brace and Tor browsers for browser/search engine?
Sorry, Brave*
And as for messenger app..Signal was funded by US government, whereas Telegram has been for some time attacked and villified by Empire of lies. So apparently it has not been hacked yet
Yeah, if you need pro-russian sources, why not use software from russian companies?
Isn’t the founder of Telegram one of Klaus Schwab’s “Young Global Leaders”?
Yes I just learned of the duckduckgo betrayal yesterday and in fact right now as we speak Twitter is showing one of their current top trending hashtags is #duckduckgone so everyone is dumping the engine. I’ve tried several new ones since yesterday and on several recommendations for now have settled on Brave Search from the people who created the Brave browser. https://search.brave.com/
I hear good things about yandex.com for search. It’s Russian based from what I understand, but so far I can still access it without using a VPN.
I am from Croatia and I am using CYBERGHOST VPN and it has Moscow server, works always…
To send message and post article, Telegram is not censored, same functions as whatsapp..
Not totally perfect but the best
I’m in Canada, there I can still access the yandex search engine, from there I can access any Russian site.
None of this was inevitable. Does anyone remember 2015, after Debaltsevo, Hollande and Merkel hustled their asses to Moscow to beg Putin to ‘do something’? Because it looked like the militias could have marched west as far as they wanted. And Mr Putin, ever glad to appease the Masters of War, called them off, evidently. Here we are now, lots of people getting killed, most of the world (the ones with the propaganda mouthpieces) in a russophobe fever (incl my relatives). The Masters of War have heisted the RF’s sovereign (sic) wealth, like some petty oligarch. Who’s making these decisions? (John Helmer’s recent post shines some light) The country is targeted for destruction. All raise your hand who think the RF has learned anything about the West. Personne?
Where’s your proof that Hollande and Merkel “begged Putin to do something”? Based on the chain of events happening, it’s more likely that they had gone to Moscow to deliver the potential Western “response”, should Putin allowed the Twins to continue.
Go Saker!!!!
Andrej,
I really appreciate your work very much. But please, don’t give in to a perceived demand for maps, for which you don’t have any factual basis. Please DO RESIST spreading any fake news.
Thanks a lot.
On a completely unrelated note, I’d like contribute to your cause, if you could provide an IBAN based channel for contributions. I don’t have a PayPal account and am not planning to open up one. Not even for you.
Thanks, and keep up your spirit!!
Regards,
Chris
It must be a typo.
Maybe : ”The Gateway Pundit” (= the Pundit of the Gateway City) ?
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/
“100% FOSS messenger, including its internal encryption mechanisms”:
Element (Matrix) – Messenger, inc. groups chats, E2E per device (Megolm ratchet algo), FOSS (Apache 2.0)
Source: https://element.io/open-source
Client software: https://matrix.org/clients/
My vote for Matrix too, probably it would be best for Andrei to set up his own matrix server
This is the correct answer for messaging.
Do you have an opinion on aTox (android client)? other clients?
For all the people that hate you, be sure that as many love you and have a deep respect for you insights and knowledge. Hating you is proof of knowing too little!
I’m using startpage.com. Uses google engines but doesn’t save your search. And I’m using Opera browser which has VPN incorporated. Works fine most of the time.
For search engine
https://www.qwant.com/
“in March 2022, Qwant filters Russian media websites from it’s search results.[25]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwant
I think you meant The Gateway Pundit, although The Gateway Putin is a good pun.
The Great Schism v2.0, I suppose.
No more St. Petersburg Intl. Economic Forum, no foreigners (western) at Valdai, no intl. sports events.
Oh, well… given the quality of Russian artists, it’ll be the west’s loss.
I knew about Signal… is Telegram not FOSS?
Engines – Ask, , Quant, StartPage (for Russian stuff, Yandex).
The best signal alternative I know is Briar (briarproject.org). But doesn’t have the voip and video capabilities Signal has. Only the cryptocurrency in Signal is not open source, its main threat still is the usage of amazon servers for storing messages (not for voip or video calls, as far as I know). Another voice and video communication alternative is Matrix, but requires a lot of technical knowledge to implement.
Question : quelqu’un connaît-il un VPN solide, solide et rapide avec des points de vente russes ?
Est ce que vous avez essayer Tor a partir des usa, Tor Browser est un navig gratuit et si ca marche c’est formidable pour les usa.
https://community.torproject.org/
Good maps fairly up to date Defense Politics Asia is a one man show, he is a little hard to understand at times but he uses Russian Military reports to chart the progress using GIS technology.
Defense Politics Asia – YouTube
Search engines – Swisscows is outside the EU (technically b/c it is located in Switzerland), but not sure that qualifies for outside Zone A.
You may have trouble finding a VPN service with servers in Russia – I use Private Internet Access but the Russian government seized their servers a couple of years ago because they refused to log traffic and make it available to the government (at least that’s what they said happened).
Thanks again for all you’re doing! You and your family are in our prayers!
J’utilise Kaspersky et ça marche bien.
Aye, I have not had any issues using Kaspersky VPN has 18 servers (including Russia) but can be accessed from over 200 countries. Lets you select country of servers to use including easy click switch from desk top.
Try Yandex.com or Yandex.ru. It has its own browser software too.
Mullvadnet vpn. You can pay in cash
Kaspersky VPN has Russia, Ukraine, Israel, etc. etc.
I have been been useing it for 3 years in addition to the password manager and Total Security.
Excellent product.
Where is Kaspersky physically and legally based?
Andrei
Le siège de la multinationale est situé à Moscou
Kaspersky Lab is a Russian multinational cybersecurity and anti-virus provider headquartered in Moscow, Russia and operated by a holding company in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1997 by Eugene Kaspersky, Natalya Kaspersky, and Alexey De-Monderik; Eugene Kaspersky is currently the CEO.Wikipedia
I do not know the implications of having a holding company in the UK.
I am using a brave browser and the brave search engine. They have publicly stated they will not be blocking sites or down rating Russian sites. They said this after the duckduckgo statement.
mention also that the brave search engine is complete ‘ab initio’ using Brave’s own web crawlers, spiders, and cataloging. All others duckduck etc just pay and pull from Goople’s heart of darkness and stick their names to it for a quick buck.
Andrei,, We love you. We look forward to your Articles. Hell with the Haters .
http://www.911.re is the best you can use to be able to bypass the blocking .
Perhaps https://brave.com/?
VPN(Express) located in US;Yandex; queried Saker: First page all vineyard.
Yes. But ExpressVPN does not have “exits” in Russia :-(
Andrei
Will Ukraine turn out to be a modern pre-2nd WW Spain or a new Libya ?
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/03/11/history-rhyming-biden-administration-constructs-familiar-war-plan-using-qatar-as-long-term-mechanism-to-fund-protracted-war-in-ukraine/#more-229751
VPN: Use Tor Browser (free) https://www.torproject.org/download/
Modify Exit Node to Russia: https://www.optimizationcore.com/security/set-tor-exit-node-tor-browser-country-code-specific-node/
Search Engines: Yandex https://yandex.com/
Brave Search https://search.brave.com/
Secure and independent communication, connected via Matrix : Element https://element.io/
VPN: Use Tor Browser (free) https://www.torproject.org/download/
Modify Exit Node to Russia: https://www.optimizationcore.com/security/set-tor-exit-node-tor-browser-country-code-specific-node/
Search Engines: Yandex https://yandex.com/
Brave Search https://search.brave.com/
Secure and independent communication, connected via Matrix : Element https://element.io/
PureVPN has one Russia server and verified to load vesti.ru
PureVPN is a CIA/MI6 front
I couldn’t find any servers in Russia listed. Perhaps they took it off?
I just got off DDG. My new search engine, at least for now, is Brave Search. I don’t know how good it is, but I trust Brave and am a long-time user of the Brave Browser.
Brave Search is notable for being built on Brave’s own independent index of the web, whereas many competitors rely on a mix of results from larger indexes like Microsoft’s Bing (although Brave has said it will pull in results from other providers where it can’t produce enough of its own). The company says its search engine does not track “users, their searches, or their clicks.”
https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/20/22736142/brave-browser-search-engine-default-google-quant-duckduckgo-web-discovery-project
Our neighbours from hell recieved a grim reminder today:
(http://www.rts.rs/page/stories/ci/story/3/region/4735279/milanovic-pad-letelica-zagreb-kako-je-moguce-nato-niko-ne-primeti.html)
The drone flew 40 minutes across Hungary and they did not blow it up. Milanović is pissed.
Serbia ❤ Hungary
Translation of a Russian summary of it:
The mystery of the UFO that fell in Zagreb has been revealed – the Ukropians confused east with west, launching the Tu-141 UAV left over from the times of the USSR over Europe. Flying over Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, he fell instead of Moscow in Zagreb. Summary: NATO air defense is a colander, since it misses such “pasta” still made in the USSR.
It gets better.
TASS said that Ukraine targeted Crimea using some old drones and one of them took a route of of it’s own.
According to the HU Defense Ministry the Tu-141 which crashed in Zagreb entered the HU airspace near Csenger.
Sándor Zsíros on Tweeter:
“Hungarian Airforce intercepted the drone – fighter jets followed it trough Hungarian airspace – they did not shot it because they considered it was harmless – Hungarian Foreign minister said of a 6 tons military drone that crashed near Zagreb.”
They ignored an old Soviet drone which left the assembly line approximately when Top Gun broke box offices.
More from Zsiros:
“So according to the Croatian press this type of Tu-141 military missile/drone was flying over Hungary for 40 minutes with a speed of 700 km/h before exploding near Zagreb. This thing is 14 (correction: 7 m) meters long and 6 tons heavy. What are we detecting if not this massive peace of metal?”
Hungary has probably informed NATO, but no one bothered to tell Croatia. Strategic partners indeed.
So NATO just got a big slap.
Croatian sovereignists had a field day, accusing the Government for neglecting the country’s security by outsourcing the defence.
I use Qwant as search motor. I’ve banned Google for one years at least and I’m happy. It’s a good one, French but international and effiscient enough.
My VPN is Ghost really not expensive, really good and there’s a plug in Russia, Bielarus, Serbia ans 78 other countries.
That allow me to read RT and Sputnik even if they are banned in UE.
Cheers.
“in March 2022, Qwant filters Russian media websites from it’s search results.[25]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwant
Delete Qwant. They are pro censorship.
From Switzerland, I use Surfshark VPN, no issues connecting to https://www.vesti.ru or rt.com.
When there are embedded video links with geo restrictions, I use a VPN server from Serbia or Turkey.
“When there are embedded video links with geo restrictions, I use a VPN server from Serbia or Turkey.”
I do this to, it works.
i also use Surfshark and connect via Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Albania, Bosnia, Serbia or Macedonia.
no russian outlets though
Yandex has a pretty good search engine. I saw an infographic somewhere – 60-70% of Yandex results correspond directly to the search term, indicating that Yandex doesn’t “de-rank” certain pages in search results. It’s very good for 9/11 Truth research and even reverse image search. + it’s based in Russia.
Yandex can translate the text IN IMAGES too.
for a brilliant review of search-engines, visit :
https://digdeeper.neocities.org/ghost/search.html
i often use Mojeek ( https://www.mojeek.com/ )
Take it easy and thankyou for all the work you do,i really wouldn’t know where to start.
Brave maybe? I don’t know, I’ve never used it, but it’s not Google, and it’s not Duckduckgo.
https://search.brave.com/
Does any one know anything about Firefox. I was using DucksDucksGo and didn’t know about them.
You must have been living under a rock. Mozilla joined the dark side long ago. Made a really good splash too: Whatever little was left of their userbase back then left in a matter of days, when the news broke they went full commie.
Thanks. Just switched to Brave.
PanQuake will be launched soon. It is the work of Assange activist Susie Dawson and essentially fulfils a request by Assange for uncensorable social media.
I live in Germany, which has of course blocked russian news site. I have found that my provider implemented this on the level of DNS protocol. So, instead of the provider delivered DNS name resolving service I chose a russian one like Rostelecom. It seems to have some minor side effects on non russian sites; but other than that it works perfectly well for me at no costs (like a useful(!) VPN).
You need to change your network configuration a bit, but it is certainly not difficult. Just look up the web for guidance
^This.
In most cases the Telecoms are ordered by the Government to “block” certain domains. That is often accomplished by the ISP configuring their DNS servers to not give the IP address for those domains. This will block most customers who only use default internet settings. However it’s the easiest thing to change what DNS server you use. So VPN is not usually required if all you want to accomplish is to bypass domain blocking of russian web sites.
You set your DNS server either in your device (PC, Phone), or in your home router.
Common open DNS options are cloudflare or google but there’s heaps to chose from.
https://www.techradar.com/au/news/best-dns-server
VPN
https://www.cyberghostvpn.com/de_DE/
Hello,
I am now using Ivacy VPN : https://www.ivacy.com/ rather cheap, around 1.19$/month for a 5 years subscription.
It is easy to use, can be added to Yandex, Firefox, Tor, any browser I think, and also to the PC itself. Has many servers everywhere, Russia included. It seems to be fast, efficient but I am not a VPN expert.
Kind regards,
luc
VPN: TorGuard has been pretty good so far
Search engine: Brave
My provider does not “block” RT or Sputnik but they always throw up an “error” screen to make you think it is unavailable. You just have to click the link a few times for it to appear. You might also lose the connection while perusing different stories. A total lack of class by typical American Aholes.
Why do my fellow Americans not realise that, if you deny free speech to others, you do not have free speech yourself? Therefore, all this talk of Ukraine being about freedom and democracy is just a bunch of rancid bologna.
I agree 100%, but you have to keep in mind that most people don’t think for themselves, TV thinks for them.
Windscribe Pro vpn has servers in Moscow and St. Petersburg. I was able to load the site Andrei mentioned via the Moscow server.
Since Europe has censored RT and Sputnik, I have installed Cyberghost VPN and in selecting a Belgrade server, I have acces to both RT and Sputnik. Cost is about 2€ per month for a 3 years registration.
Has RT’s YouTube channel been pulled from the USA?
‘This channel is not available in your country.’
As many note, Yandex is excellent. I replaced google with it after the coup in 2014. Yandex also offers a browser.
The Anti-Slav shit’s going to affect many; I hope you’re able to weather it.
Andrei
ignore the hate mail, as those people like the people running US UK EU are trash along with the UKN rebels who are doing evil things.
Great thread, thanks to everyone. I just downloaded Swisscows app and searched Ukraine. Every link was to a western, mostly US, big media player with the exception of cia.gov
So I do not recommend it.
Maybe the messenger Threema in Switzerland is still okay. This blogpost is in german but maybe it helps https://blog.fefe.de/?ts=a004ab5e
Searx is a decentralized and opensource metasearch engine which anyone can host, and their website has a list with over a dozen servers. This makes it censor-proof since nobody has control over the code or filters: If you notice one mirror doing bad stuff, you can just switch to another.
The downside? Well, it’s a metasearch that combines the results from dozens of other search engines (you can filter which ones), so it doesn’t really fix the problem of finding good search providers. It does help a bit though, since you’re getting results from multiple vendors, so censored sites have a higher chance of slipping through. The other downside is, you need to be a bit of a http-geek to get it integrated into your browser while saving your settings.
Private VPN
https://privatevpn.com/
Russia
Krasnoyarsk
Moscow
Ukraine
Nikolaev
Been using it for several years. It is however Swedish based.
Brave is a good search engine, very private-conscious and so far not censoring or deranking anything.
https://search.brave.com
I used brave search anyone, it is great.
https://search.brave.com/
https://www.infowars.com/posts/brave-search-and-presearch-say-they-dont-censor-search-results/
I would recommend ProtonVPN. I’ve had good experiences with it. There used to be plenty of Russian servers, unfortunately they are all “under maintenance” now. I guess it’s clear what that means. On the other hand, the Serbian servers are still functional. The question is for how long.
Unfortunately it is paid. The question is if it makes sense if they block the Russian and Serbian servers permanently.
I don’t know the answer to the other questions unfortunately. I use Signal, but the problem is that it runs on platforms that are themselves compromised.
I’m afraid that totally secure communication tools are virtually non-existent today. A friend once told me: Why encrypt if you have someone looking over your shoulder all the time anyway.
Maybe using Kali Linux would be an interesting option. It’s designed for penetration testing and there are plenty of IP/MAC masking tools and other useful tools.
So interesting choice will be to boot to Kali Linux, than connect via ProtonVPN, or another and than use TOR. It will be slow of course, but it could be pretty secure.
Plus: Kali Linux has built-in OpenVPN and at least one Russian server is still functional in it.
Mulvad. VPN had Bucharest/ Romania available, if that helps any.
When I was searching for VPNs Mulvad had the best ratings.
I am using the Free VPN for Chrome with the Brave browser. It can tunnel through Russian and Chinese IPs so I can access southfront and RT with no problems.
Question: do you know of a 100% FOSS messenger, including its internal encryption mechanisms?
Do you consider Matrix? (www.matrix.org)
Jami.org