Engadget: Russia to start blocking major VPNs after censorship refusal. “Russia’s hatred for censorship-dodging VPNs is well-known, and it’s now prepared to follow through on its warnings. Telecoms oversight chief Alexander Zharov told Interfax that he expected to block nine major VPNs, including ExpressVPN and NordVPN, for refusing to connect to a national blacklist that would prevent people from accessing sites through their tunneling services. He expected that the crackdown could take place within a month.”
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TorrentFreak: Russia Orders Major VPN Providers to Block ‘Banned’ Sites
TorrentFreak: Russia Orders Major VPN Providers to Block ‘Banned’ Sites. “Ten major VPN providers have been ordered by Russian authorities to begin blocking sites present in the country’s national blacklist. NordVPN, ExpressVPN, IPVanish and HideMyAss are among those affected. TorGuard also received a notification and has pulled its services out of Russia with immediate effect.”
Engadget: Opera’s free VPN is now built into its Android browser
Engadget: Opera’s free VPN is now built into its Android browser. “Opera is adding a free, unlimited VPN to its Android browser. It’s rolling out the VPN gradually to beta users first before making it more widely available. You’ll be able to set your location as America, Europe or Asia, or use a setting to automatically pick the optimal connection. There are also options to turn off the VPN while searching so you get more localized results and to only activate it on private tabs.”
BetaNews: Facebook has been paying people to install a VPN that harvests data about them
BetaNews: Facebook has been paying people to install a VPN that harvests data about them. “An investigation has revealed that Facebook has been paying people aged between 13 and 35 to install a data harvesting VPN tool. The ‘Facebook Research’ VPN was offered to iOS and Android users who were paid up to $20 per month — plus referral commissions — to provide the social network with near-unfettered access to phone, app and web usage data (a Root Certificate is installed to give a terrifying level of access).”
Best VPN services of 2019: Reviews and buying advice (PC World)
PC World: Best VPN services of 2019: Reviews and buying advice. “Choosing the right virtual private network (VPN) service is no simple task. A VPN should keep your internet usage private and secure, but not every service handles your data in the same way. Just look at the critiques of notable computer security experts and online pundits to understand the challenge.”
Ars Technica: Google adds always-on VPN to its Project Fi cellular service
Ars Technica: Google adds always-on VPN to its Project Fi cellular service. “Today, Google announced a new feature for its Project Fi cellular service: an always-on VPN. Project Fi’s VPN previously was used to encrypt traffic while connecting to a network of free public Wi-Fi hotspots, but now Google will enable the VPN for all your traffic, be it over the LTE service or a Wi-Fi connection.”
CNET: Mozilla’s Firefox offers VPN service to boost privacy for $10 a month
CNET: Mozilla’s Firefox offers VPN service to boost privacy for $10 a month. “Mozilla is experimenting with a VPN (virtual private network) service to get a little financial wiggle room from people willing to spend some money to have their internet traffic encrypted better to thwart internet service providers and others from snooping on their online activity. Mozilla will test the offering with a portion of Firefox users in the US starting Wednesday.”
