--- /dev/null
+<!DOCTYPE html>
+<html>
+ <head>
+ <meta charset="UTF-8" />
+ <title>So Your Country Is Censoring The Internet. What Now?</title>
+ <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image" />
+ <meta
+ property="og:title"
+ content="So Your Country Is Censoring The Internet. What Now?"
+ />
+ <meta
+ name="twitter:title"
+ content="So Your Country Is Censoring The Internet. What Now?"
+ />
+ <meta
+ name="description"
+ content="The UK's online safety act sucks. Let's get around it."
+ />
+ <meta
+ property="og:description"
+ content="The UK's online safety act sucks. Let's get around it."
+ />
+ <meta
+ name="twitter:description"
+ content="The UK's online safety act sucks. Let's get around it."
+ />
+ <meta
+ property="article:published_time"
+ content="2025-07-24T00:00:00+00:00"
+ />
+ <link rel="stylesheet" href="../main.css" />
+ </head>
+ <body class="whole-site">
+ <div>
+ <iframe class="embed-title" src="../shared/title.html"> </iframe>
+ <div class="main-container">
+ <div class="main">
+ <div class="entry">
+ <a href="../index.html">Home</a>
+ <div class="title-block">
+ <h3 class="blog-title">
+ So Your Country Is Censoring The Internet. What Now?
+ </h3>
+ <h3 class="datestamp">24/07/2025</h3>
+ </div>
+ <div class="content">
+ <div class="content">
+ <p>The UK's online safety act sucks. Let's get around it.</p>
+ <p>
+ If you use one of many popular social networking sights and
+ are a resident of the hellhole commonly referred to as "The
+ United Kingdom," you have likely recently been asked to submit
+ your ID for age verification. If you haven't yet, it's coming
+ soon to whatever sites you use - Bluesky, as of this morning,
+ are asking every UK user to get an ID check in order to use
+ DMs or see 'adult' posts. Instagram and Facebook are about to
+ roll it out too. Twitter probably won't but only because it's
+ the nazi site. You should not be using twitter unless you're a
+ nazi.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If you're like me, you probably think this is Quite Bad. And
+ it is Quite Bad! The cause of this is the 'Online Safety Act,'
+ a well-intentioned but ultimately disastrous effort by the UK
+ government to Protect The Children by preventing easy access
+ to 'adult content.' Unfortunately as ever this means a lot of
+ not adult stuff, particularly queer media and LGBT people's
+ accounts, get caught in the dragnet. Considering the UK's
+ current approach to queerness (they hate it, especially
+ transgressive genderfucks like me) this may worry you. It
+ should.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, maybe you want to avoid uploading your ID to a third party
+ who can use that data how they then wish. (They all promise to
+ delete your ID. I do not trust them to do this.) Great news!
+ Much like all UK internet legislation, it is quite trivial to
+ avoid this. Admittedly, it is not as easy as avoiding IP
+ blocks on pirate websites, which was as simple as changing the
+ DNS settings on your connection. but it's not actually that
+ far off.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You have probably heard of VPNs by now. Every other youtuber
+ is advertising them. Unfortunately, they are advertising the
+ dogshit ones that you simply should not use if you care about
+ privacy. Surfshark, specifically, will not hesitate to hand
+ your data over to authorities. It should ONLY be used for
+ watching other country's netflix catalogues.
+ </p>
+ <p>But I digress.</p>
+ <p>
+ As part of my own research to get around this, I had a scan
+ over the current crop of paid VPN services currently
+ available. After some evaluation, my recommendation is
+ <a href="https://protonvpn.com/"><b>ProtonVPN.</b></a> Proton
+ is a swiss company that specialises in privacy-focused
+ internet applications. They started with ProtonMail (which I
+ also use), but ProtonVPN is their next-most mature offering.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Proton offers exit points in basically every country in the
+ world, with quite a lot of servers in each. Speeds are solid
+ (I have basically not noticed a drop) and ping seems
+ serviceable for those of you who play a lot of twitch
+ shooters. The free offering lets you connect to 5 random
+ countries for one device, which isn't a whole lot of good - if
+ the countries you draw don't include say, Iceland, Switzerland
+ or the Netherlands, you're not gonna live a truly uncensored
+ life. The free tier is also what every other prole is using,
+ so speeds are going to be generally worse than on the paid pro
+ version. The pro version is <b>£8 a month</b> which is IMO
+ quite reasonable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Like many other offerrings, Proton provides its own app on all
+ platforms that allows you to choose the country to connect
+ via, but it also supports router-level configuration via
+ OpenVPN and Wireguard, the two most common VPN protocols.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "What are these things?" ok yes I just said scary words. You
+ probably don't need to worry about it - the pro tier supports
+ 10 independent devices, so you can install the VPN on every
+ geneal purpose computing device you have without worrying
+ about the router level stuff.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But I'm a nerd, and the purpose of this particular post is to
+ inform people about these things! So let's get into those
+ scary words. OpenVPN and Wireguard are open-source VPN
+ protocols, they are used to standardise how you connect to a
+ VPN on any device. All the apps that VPN services provide are
+ based on one of these two protocols. Most modern routers
+ <i>that are not provided by your ISP</i> support one or both
+ of them!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So yes, if you want router-level protection you will probably
+ need to buy a new router, and realistically that's gonna be
+ another <b>£50 - £100.</b> Which I grant is a significant
+ outlay! Hence why I don't think any random person is going to
+ want to do this unless they're a nerd like me. I already
+ maintain a lot of my own network infrastructure, so yes, I'm
+ the freak here lol.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But! If you do go down that route, it's worthwhile, because
+ you can
+ <a
+ href="https://protonvpn.com/support/installing-protonvpn-on-a-router/"
+ >set up your network to route <i>all</i> traffic via your
+ VPN,</a
+ >
+ ensuring every device you use in your home is private. It's
+ what I'm doing! But like I said I'm a freak so don't
+ necessarily follow my lead on this one.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ ANYWAY. Point is it's actually kinda trivial to get this nerd
+ shit set up nowadays! The apps services provide are simple and
+ easy, and they're also pretty cheap! I suggest getting one
+ now, before the continued censorship of the internet gets
+ worse! OK thanks I'm out, see ya later for a more interesting
+ post probably.
+ </p>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <iframe class="embed-links" src="../shared/links.html"> </iframe>
+ <iframe class="embed-footer" src="../shared/footer.html"> </iframe>
+ </div>
+ </body>
+</html>
projects / gnargle.github.io.git / blobdiff