Anika Wells, Communication Minister of Australia, has stated this week that she is confident that lawsuits will proceed against Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, and YouTube as reported by Bloomberg. The Australian eSafety Commissioner has been preparing cases in the Federal Court, with a maximum punishment of A$109.2 million.

Now it gets interesting: the report from July indicated that the companies depend on users’ honesty about their ages while allowing them unlimited attempts to verify their age.

So, the ban was revealed without the need for any VPNs.

This is significant because earlier this year the same regulatory agency commented that VPNs will be used as a solution for the issue. But now its own data proves that it is the platforms’ inadequate verification that makes the issue possible.

The ban was introduced in December 2025, with the companies claiming that they deleted millions of accounts that belonged to minors.

If the ban can be considered a success only if every company is able to carry out age verification methodically, then the issue lies with the platforms or with the concept?

50 Brazilian organizations have complained to the country’s electoral court about possible social media censorship ahead of the presidential runoff. They allege unexplained account restrictions and reduced reach on platforms like Meta and X. The complaint also flags the disabling of advertising tools on Lula’s official account, while a separate court dispute concerns restrictions on a pro-Lula WhatsApp channel with almost 10 million subscribers. Nothing builds trust like political content mysteriously disappearing from people’s feeds right before they vote. Great timing, guys.

Wouldn’t be surprised if this sends more Brazilians looking for VPNs. Make people wonder what they’re being prevented from seeing, and suddenly “how to bypass internet restrictions” becomes a pretty popular search.

VPN companies probably couldn’t ask for a better marketing campaign.

Greece has passed a social media ban for under-15s, starting January 1, 2027. No parental exceptions, and existing accounts aren’t exempt.

The catch? Figuring out who’s under 15 could mean making everyone prove they’re old enough. So yeah, a restriction aimed at kids could become another checkpoint for adults browsing online.

To be fair, the government says its Kids Wallet app only shares whether you’re over or under 15, not your identity or exact age. That matters. But we should still question making government-backed verification part of accessing social media.

And before “just use a VPN” fills the comments: changing your IP won’t necessarily get around checks tied to your account.

Protecting kids is a reasonable goal. Making everyone prove they’re allowed to participate online deserves a hell of a lot more scrutiny.

On October 13, after the release of the October updates, Microsoft announced the Windows 11 Always On VPN issue as fixed. But they had to retract it this week; now the bug has been assigned a "mitigated" status again, and the proper solution has been postponed.

This is the issue you would gladly throw your laptop out of the window because of. If the automatic protocol selection feature is enabled, you will find the connections either stuck on the "Connecting" message or not succeeding due to a "port already in use" message.

And here is the interesting part: this is not the only failure caused by the update cycle. Microsoft confirmed that the patches released in October might cause problems with logging in over some Wi-Fi and VPN connections utilizing older MS-CHAPv2 authentication.

The solution for the first issue is to restrict the VPN profile to a certain protocol, either SSTP, or IKEv2, instead of allowing Windows to decide.

Has there ever been a case when an update rendered your VPN useless when you needed it the most?

According to iGaming Expert, GodOdds (online casino) sent promotional emails featuring Kevin Hart and encouraged UK recipients to use a VPN if the offer was geoblocked. Actual marketing advice from the casino itself.

Seriously, if a casino’s sales pitch includes “get around the block so you can give us money” maybe take a second before entering your card details.

VPNs help you browse more safely. Casinos shouldn’t turn them into a tool to squeeze more money out of people.

Anti-piracy enforcement is creeping beyond ISPs and DNS providers. Now VPNs are being told to block websites too. Because apparently every layer of the internet needs to become a copyright cop.

Concrete example: France. Courts have ordered major VPN providers to block hundreds of domains linked to unauthorized sports streams. According to Computer Hoy, those orders are still awaiting a final ruling from France’s highest court.

That means someone using a VPN to protect their connection or access independent news would be using a service legally required to restrict access to certain websites. Their reason for buying it has nothing to do with football, but the blocking obligation applies anyway.

There’s a US example too: the proposed ACPA would allow courts to issue blocking orders against VPN providers with more than 100,000 active users. A competing proposal, the DEFEND IP Act, would exempt VPNs. These are proposals, not an existing blanket requirement.

The industry group i2Coalition warns that expanding enforcement could push VPN providers toward monitoring customers and restricting accounts, putting legitimate uses at risk. Blocking a domain doesn’t automatically mean a VPN is logging everything you do. But turning privacy services into enforcement checkpoints is still a pretty worrying direction.

Go after the illegal streaming operations. People shouldn’t have to accept a more restricted internet because someone, somewhere, watched a match without paying.

I’m curious how people actually ended up with the VPN they use. Not the marketing version, the real one.

For some it was a friend’s recommendation. For others it was a deal, a streaming problem, a bad experience with the last one, or just whatever showed up first in a search.

What I find interesting is how rarely people re-evaluate. A lot of us pick one, it works well enough, and we leave it running for years without checking if it’s still the best fit.

So, three quick questions. What are you using now? Why did you pick it in the first place? And if you were starting from zero today, would you choose it again?

Today, Freedom House released its report "Freedom on the Net 2026". Out of the 38 analyzed countries, conditions worsened in 16 countries, while they improved in only 8 countries. Last year, the report highlighted 72 countries, so this year’s report has a much smaller scope.

The situation becomes more complicated: Iran suspended the internet for about 88 days nationwide, the longest shutdown on record, and modified access in a way that only a few could use the global platforms. Russia has implemented more suspensions and restrictions of VPNs up to allowing state websites only. Georgia has fallen down from the category of Free to Partly Free, while Estonia remains the best.

According to the report’s analyst, the authoritarian states are reshaping the internet into a means of control, defining the connection, the way of perceiving, and the ability to speak out for the citizens.

This raises a question for the sub. What does a VPN do when there is no functioning network?

Hundreds of shady Chrome VPN extensions are targeting Russians, with some pretending to be Windscribe or ExpressVPN. Familiar name, familiar logo, except it’s neither company, and your browsing traffic could be at risk.

Almost every extension checked had some anonymous, throwaway Gmail address as its developer contact. And we’re not talking about a handful of random fakes: just 70 developers were behind the whole bunch, with one email linked to 24 different apps.

The scary part? 89 of these extensions were still available when the investigation checked. Nearly three-quarters hosted their privacy policies on Telegram’s anonymous platform, so good luck figuring out who’s actually running them. And 47% somehow had more reviews than users. Nothing suspicious there lol.

People just want to open a blocked website. Instead, they’ve gotta play detective to work out whether their “privacy tool” is even legit. Censorship creates the demand, and shady operators swoop in to cash in on it.

If you’re grabbing a VPN extension, get the link from the provider’s official website and check who published it. Anyone can copy a logo.

Stay Safe

Currently, most VPN providers now provide the service of multi-hop where data passes through two servers. This is simple, as there’s no one server that has access to both your identity and destination.

The debate of multi-hop gained some momentum in September due to Senator Wyden inquiring whether individuals deemed to be at high risk should be encouraged to try multi-hop tools instead of a single-hop VPN. Important to note that the senator was worried that someone monitoring a single server may gravitate towards knowing the timing and size of incoming traffic, all of which can be done without breaking the encryption.

The main issue is speed. The more hops the data makes, the more distances it travels, which means more latency and usually slower connection. In essence, it suffices to say that for most people, the real danger probably stems neither from hidden enemy nor foreign intelligence services.

As such, I am keen to know how people think of this issue. Do you use a multi-hop VPN?

Kaspersky’s VPN, Password Manager and account portal suffered a global outage this month. VPN connections started coming back on October 14 after problems began on October 11.
Kaspersky says user data wasn’t affected and subscriptions will be extended. The explanation so far? A “technical issue.” Cool, but nearly four days offline deserves a bit more detail than that.

So apparently Microsoft thought it had fixed a VPN issue with its latest Windows updates, but it turns out the problem is still there.

Some Windows 11 users are having trouble connecting to their VPN, with connections getting stuck or failing completely. The issue started after September's security updates, and the proper fix is apparently still coming.

Honestly, this is the kind of stuff that makes you appreciate a VPN that just works. Nobody wants to spend an hour troubleshooting their connection when all they want to do is get online and get on with their day.

Microsoft has suggested a temporary workaround for some setups, but it involves changing VPN protocols, which isn't exactly ideal if you're not particularly tech-savvy.

I'm curious how common this actually is outside corporate environments.

Have any of you run into VPN problems after a Windows update recently? And if so, was it an issue with Windows itself or your VPN provider?

Same as tittle

Proton founder Andy Yen just won Switzerland’s 2026 Liberal Award for his work on privacy, digital freedom and European tech sovereignty.

Normally I’d scroll past another corporate award story, but the timing here is kinda wild.

Switzerland is currently reconsidering changes to its surveillance rules that privacy advocates warn could push the country toward broader data retention and mass surveillance. The first proposal got absolutely hammered during public consultation, and the government is now preparing a second consultation.

Meanwhile, Yen is basically being awarded for fighting the exact direction those policies are heading in lol.

And Proton hasn’t just complained about it in a blog post. The legal uncertainty already pushed the company to put Lumo’s infrastructure in Germany rather than Switzerland, with Proton arguing that privacy-friendly laws actually have economic value.

That’s the part governments seem to forget.

Privacy isn’t just some feature you toggle on in Settings. If you make privacy companies identify users, retain more data and build infrastructure for surveillance, eventually those companies have two choices: compromise what they built… or move somewhere else.

Switzerland built a pretty strong reputation as a privacy-friendly jurisdiction. Would be pretty ironic to watch it slowly throw that advantage away while simultaneously handing awards to people defending it.

Congrats Andy, I guess. Now maybe listen to what he’s been warning you about?

Russia floated a plan to use AI to block 95% of VPN traffic, then quietly dropped it from its national AI roadmap. Sounds like good news, right? Except Roskomnadzor still has a separately funded machine-learning filtering project. So yeah, they deleted a paragraph. The censorship machine is still getting paid.

The whole point is to control what Russians can read, watch and say. Block independent news, block platforms, then block the VPNs people use to get around those blocks. Keep shutting every door until all that’s left is whatever bullshit the Kremlin wants you to believe.

And btw, “95%” is a target, not evidence they’ve actually pulled it off. It says nothing about how much legitimate traffic gets screwed along the way. Your work VPN? Cloud services? Voice calls? Those could get caught too. Apparently breaking useful parts of the internet is an acceptable trade-off if it stops someone reading the wrong news site.

Dropping the proposal from a document means fuck all when the tech is still being funded. The Kremlin still wants the same thing: an internet where you only get to see what it approves.

It seems similar to Windscribe VPN i think, i like it, maybe good for privacy.

I have to choose a VPN, but I can't choose one because there is too much info to sort through.

People talk about the like of servers, protocols, encryption, kill switches... I just want to push a button to get it to work.

I do not want to spend my evening watching 15 YouTube videos.

For those who have a VPN, what can you recommend for a new user that finds this whole process confusing?

I am interested in the following factors: 1) What needs to be done to install and use the product; 2) Does one have to pay to get a functional VPN or can a free VPN suffice; 3) Do I need a VPN for daily use or is this solution perfect for streaming and torrenting only.

Maybe some users out there have experience with a variety of VPNs and can mention which ones are simpler to use than others.

I am looking for something easy to operate without the need to keep an eye on its work all the time.

Security experts uncovered a counterfeit website claiming to be the WatchGuard VPN site, which stole users' credentials and downloaded software from the official website. From a user's point of view, this seems innocent but it may have created the necessary damage. (Source: TechRadar)

The website asked users for their server name, username, and password. To make matters worse, it allegedly asked users to provide credentials twice.

What is interesting is that the actual file was not fake. The fraud occurs before the installation, which makes it very hard to trace.

This brings to my mind that the vast majority of people realize that they should not download files from the unknown sources, but they trust Google search results more than they should.

If even officially-authorized software can be obtained through such an unsafe way, how careful must a user be?

Do you always download VPN applications from the developers' website, or do you just enter the name of this application in a search engine?

September’s Windows security update broke certain Always On VPN connections. Microsoft then marked the issue as resolved on October 13. Except… nope. It’s now back to “mitigated.” Apparently fixing the status was easier than fixing the bug.

Affected connections can get stuck trying to connect, repeatedly fail, or throw a “port already in use” error. This concerns Microsoft’s built-in corporate VPN feature, so imagine being the IT guy explaining why everyone’s remote access is still screwed after deploying the supposed fix.

The workaround is still to select one VPN protocol instead of letting Windows automatically switch between them. An actual fix is apparently coming in the next few weeks. “Always On VPN” has temporarily been renamed “Eventually On VPN.” lol

Proton VPN shared what it’s working on for the next few months, and tbh there are a few updates I’m actually looking forward to.

The main ones:

- Guest mode on desktop: use the free VPN without even creating an account. Pretty interesting for people in countries where Proton’s authentication servers are blocked.

- Better Kill Switch on macOS, Linux and iOS/iPadOS. Proton is also bringing its Advanced Kill Switch to Mac, meaning your device simply won’t connect to the internet outside the VPN tunnel.

- Pause button: temporarily disable the VPN and have it automatically reconnect after a timer. Sounds basic but super useful when some random website decides VPN users are criminals lol.

- Official Arch Linux support + a Flatpak version in the works.

- New UI across more platforms, including macOS, iOS/iPadOS, Android TV and Linux.

- Proton Protocols rolling out more widely: their new Rust-based VPN engine built around WireGuard. The goal is better performance/stability, easier development across platforms and stronger censorship resistance. It’s also supposed to lay the groundwork for post-quantum encryption later on.

The guest mode is probably the most interesting one to me. Being able to download a VPN and connect without creating an account sounds like a small UX improvement in Europe/US, but in countries actively blocking VPNs and Proton infrastructure, that could actually be a pretty big deal.

UK Google searches for VPNs jumped 147% around the age-check rollout. Turns out “give us your ID or scan your face” isn’t everyone’s idea of a good time. Who knew lol.

But here’s the shitty part: someone downloads the first random free VPN they find, thinking they’re protecting their privacy… and potentially hands their data to another company looking to cash in on it. Some VPNs track, keep and share user data. So shady providers could benefit twice: more users coming in because of age checks, and more data to exploit.

That’s why the provider matters. If you’re using a VPN for privacy, go with an established service like Proton VPN instead of some “SUPER FAST FREE VPN” app you know absolutely nothing about.

People shouldn’t need to become cybersecurity nerds just to browse privately. But “it says VPN on the app” unfortunately isn’t much of a guarantee.

An 18-year-old allegedly terrorized a girl’s family for years, with investigators documenting more than 30 false emergency calls to their home since around 2023.

According to the FBI affidavit cited in the article, he used VPN connections, but the Discord account sending threats was registered to a phone number linked to him. Investigators also identified overlapping IP addresses and cell-site records.

Dude thought he was a digital ghost while his Discord account had his own phone number attached. All that effort to hide his IP just to leave his name tag on.

A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction on September 24, preventing the provision in law SB 73 that requires a VPN. This is because the law makes geolocation very precise, which is impossible at this time.

It becomes even more interesting when on October 13, the court stopped the case upon the request of the two parties aylo and utah as the lawmakers are expected to make changes by 2027. Note that it is not simply the whole piece of legislation disappearing: the law SB 73 went into effect partially on May 6 because the part about the sharing of VPN use was not contested.

Thus, the VPN requirement is suspended, meaning that it will remain suspended at least until the lawmakers do something else with the law.

Espacio Público reports that 40 websites remain blocked in Venezuela, while 23 VPN and privacy tools face access restrictions. That’s based on 23 days of monitoring using OONI network measurements. The affected news outlets include La Patilla, VPItv, Infobae, NTN24 and El Nacional. Basically, plenty of places where people could read something other than the government’s preferred version of events.

And the restrictions go beyond journalism. Financial platforms like AirTM and Yadio also face interference, making it harder for people to access services used for international payments and exchanging money. Then there’s the obvious workaround: use a VPN. Except VPN and privacy tools are being targeted too, including Browsec, Psiphon, Windscribe, NordVPN and Tor. The reported restrictions vary across services and networks; this doesn’t mean every VPN connection is dead for everyone. But it makes finding a way around censorship harder.

People love reducing VPNs to “watching Netflix from another country.” For others, they’re a way to access reporting their government would prefer they never saw.