Elbrus

This still has the best SOCKS5 proxy abilities, even over normal Firefox

Could you please elaborate a bit on what exactly do you mean by that?

E.g. in Firefox one can do the following:

- Connection -> SSH -> Tunnels in Putty connection options.

- Add a dynamic tunnel there.

- Start the session.

- Then enter 127.0.0.1 and the chosen port as a SOCKS v5 proxy in Firefox options.

Congratulations! A poor man's VPN is ready.

An extension like FoxyProxy can be added for further convenience.

What can be done in SeaMonkey on top of that?

So if you'll pardon my pun, I think they've probably just duck-taped a standard VPN client app into their browser app

If it's true, then I'll only double the pun.

But that's why I'm also curious about the "No need to install a separate VPN app" part.

Never tried WIreGuard in Windows, but AFAIK it tries to mean serious business, "no connection runs past". So there should be things similar to WinPcap or something like that under the hood.

And they're unlikely to work without installation. Moreover, quite likely require a reboot after the install. But I could be wrong.

Yes, Connection -> SSH -> Tunnels in Putty connection options.

Add a dynamic tunnel there.

Start the session.

Then enter 127.0.0.1 and the port you've chosen as a SOCKS v5 proxy in Firefox options.

Congratulations! Your poor man's VPN is ready :)

Most likely SOCKS5?

AFAIK, there's still no proper SOCKS user authorization. So if I do something like that on my own VPS, I'll quickly have like 10 000 open connections from Pakistan there.

At least in Firefox there's builtin UI for configuring it separately from OS

Yes, also extensions like FoxyProxy.

SOCKS4/5 configuration in Firefox is a pure joy. Adding a Putty tunnel there is probably the only simple way to achieve what I described in the comment above.

No need to install a separate VPN app. Once you sign up for Privacy Pro, you can install our VPN right in your DuckDuckGo browser

we use the open-source WireGuard protocol

Any info on how that is implemented?

Did they build some plug-in, where a user can enter VPN details/credentials?

Asking since I'd love to have something, where I can add my own self-hosted VPN details to have browser only (not the whole machine) connected through VPN.

[Friday mode on]

US English:

Oii... It‘s the rong soid of the interwebe ye was postin' down, innit?

[Friday mode off]

what do I start with as a base OS these days

IMO, there are two primary options:

— Rocky Linux (or AlmaLinux) if you prefer a “bit more corporate” flavor after getting used to Windows;

— Debian if you'd like to get “more community” one.

Once you're somehow familiar with one of these, you should be able to figure out what else you may want to try.

maintainability of things when you're not around

The real issue, which is only getting worse.

The guy from Reddit says: “The operating system of either server. They're probably Macs, but more than that I don't know ... EDIT: Based on comments, probably Linux”.

↑ And that's the very basics. Modern apps tend to get “fancier” each year and the underlying stack of technologies, programming languages, and dependencies grows beyond reasonable.

E.g. one can probably find a Linux admin, a PHP or Python developer within their circle, but something beyond that is way less common. So the options are either hiring some stranger or ditching the setup (and data) entirely.

Being an enthusiast, who highly supports decentralization movement, would like to post just one suggestion while the project is new and the list of apps isn't huge:

I believe it would be to good to have some indication of each app's system requirements and what software stack it requires. Maybe as a filters.

Unfortunately, these days some apps require a rather ludicrous software environment with a DARPA-comparable computing power.

Writing this from my recent experience: I was using Mailcow few years ago. Recently decided to get back to it. Went to the official site aaannnd...

“6 GiB RAM + 1 GiB swap are fine for most private installations, while 8 GiB RAM are recommended for ~5 to 10 users. A company with 15 phones (EAS enabled) and about 50 concurrent IMAP connections should plan 16 GiB RAM.”

Just in case, Mailcow is a mail server, which has recently become a “suite”.

Did you ever see Mark Ferrari's animated pixel art landscapes from the 1990s?

I have seen these long ago, thanks a ton for the working link.

Considering it is not some modern trendy pixel dithering, I can hardly imagine the amount of work required to create this art back then.

I started moving my company's team and contractors (as well as family and friends) ... onto Aegis

An important question on this, if you don't mind:

If the phone, where Aegis was installed, is dead/lost/stolen, which options are available to make sure that access to the accounts linked to that phone wouldn't be lost either?