i use windows because its the only os i know how to use. i want to get into things like torrenting because free stuff is cool but im afraid to. ive heard of tails os, a os that boots from a flash drive, is that worth checking out or should i stick with windows?
what is your advice? what should i do?
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You don’t need to jump from Windows to TAILS for torrents, try mint that is basically the same user experience as windows xp.
Ig? Not really like win xp for any of the desktop environments I’ve seen.
If you care about privacy and wanna use Windows… God help you…
You want Linux my friend
…and if you want to torrent then you need a respectable peer-to-peer VPN service like ProtonVPN
Mullvad
Mullvad is no longer ideal for torrenting because they discontinued port forwarding. Airvpn is a good alternative that still provides port forwarding.
The topic is privacy, torrents are not very private to begin with, and Mullvad uses disk-less servers and you can pay with cash.
i want to get into things like torrenting
The second line of the original post. The topic is privacy and torrenting
and a True Linux ! not one that has been “infected” with parts that do not respect The Four Essential Freedoms of Free Software
So avoid Ubuntu for example…
have a look a this video https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/20140407-geneva-tedx-talk-free-software-free-society/
And for a Linux distrio have a look at https://www.devuan.org 💓
and about windows --> https://itvision.altervista.org/why-windows-10-sucks.html
ok ill give linux a try then but is there a certain version of linux you would suggest? one person suggest mint btw. if i go with Linux do i need a vpn or am i good without one?
You need VPN to hide your traffic from your internet provider, your OS will not help with that. Use Mullvad, nothing else.
If you want more secure OS, that will respect your privacy, your only options are Linux or BSD. If you only have experience with Windows, go with Linux Mint. Keep in mind that it is a fork of Ubuntu, so guides and packages for Ubuntu will work for Mint almost always.
Mint is more suited for newcomers.
AirVPN is better option for torrenting since Mullvad stopped offering port forwarding.
The topic is privacy, torrents are not very private to begin with, and Mullvad uses disk-less servers and you can pay with cash.
I use Ubuntu Budgie and that works perfect for me, but I hear Mint is good for beginners too.
And if you live in the US, always use a VPN when torrenting. But if you live in a country where you know no one will give a shit about you downloading a movie, then have at it.
In terms of digital security best practices, though, you should pretty much always use a VPN anyway. And follow this guide if you feel like you do need a VPN when torrenting.
Mint was designed to be easy for windows users. Learn some stuff about the package manager (software manager for GUI, and either apt or apt-get) and you should be alright. Fyi Linux Mint is basically Ubuntu (but with some good changes) so find what Ubuntu version you are running (using
cat /etc/upstream-release/lsb-releasein the terminal) and thats what software is compatable. I’d avoid full drive encryption because Timeshift (system snapshot app) doesn’t work with ZFS drive partitions.Also configure UFW (firewall service).
There’s a lot of helpful comments here and being your age is a great time to start tinkering with computers! Just start by installing them into a VirtualBox because if you don’t have the knowledge it’s very easy to break things and anyone else that has to use the computer isn’t going to be very happy with you.
However, I want to point out something that actually address your concerns.
- If you are concerned about getting “caught” for torrenting then Windows vs any other OS makes zero difference.
- If you are concerned about viruses, Linux is more secure based on the fact that most viruses target Windows. However, this does not mean it is impossible. Learning basic security practices will help you on Windows and much as any other OS.
Windows 10 IoT enterprise LTSC and disable telemetry. Don’t bother with 3rd party apps for privacy unless you are 100% sure they are safe.
And never install from an ISO that’s been tampered with. Get directly from Microsoft.
This video by Mental Outlaw is very helpful on debloating and despooking Windows 10: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhitETZb8s0&t=0
However, these are just bandaid solutions, and are best used when you really need Windows for whatever reason, whether it is for work or school or just certain software that does not exist or have an alternative to on Linux.
If you would like to switch to Linux, check out Linux Mint. It is the best version of Linux for beginners, and you can honestly use it without ever having to touch the terminal if you don’t want to do any mildly advanced stuff. I would also heavily recommend you dual boot Windows and Linux Mint, rather than completely switching to Linux Mint, OR, try Linux Mint in a virtual machine and get used to it before you wipe your Windows installation and replace it with Linux Mint completely.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=NhitETZb8s0&t=0
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Ameliorate your Windows 10 and Windows 11 installation.
Can recommend this, too!
I used their script several years ago to debloat my win10. It needed to boot into linux to fully get rid of certain files and features, but this worked fine.
They now have different scripts used as playbooks to get win to the desired state. Haven’t tried yet.
Seems like an interesting website, thanks for sharing.
If all you want to do is torrent just use a vpn, as it sounds like all you really want is to avoid DMCA notices.
This is a good lesson in understanding your threat model.
A “just works” distribution like Linux Mint is miles ahead compared to Windows and Tails OS is a step even further as it is only Live and routes everything through TOR.
Linux is not hard to be honest. Your main concern in difficulty is third-party software support. (Creative cloud and office 365 does not work for instance.)
If you want to try out any of these, just ask me if you need any help
office 365 does not work for instance.
Well that’s not true
O365 via the browser works perfectly fine and has done for years. You can’t install windows executable apps if that’s what you meant
Yeah, the executable is what I meant. Sorry for being unclear
Tails isn’t really designed for daily driving. I’d go for a user friendly distro like Ubuntu if you an on switching from windows.
It is possible to make windows a little more private if you didn’t want to switch. Here’s a pretty good guide in modifying the the iso before installing: https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/create-custom-windows-11-install-disk
Modifying window does help users gain more control and privacy, but windows is proprietary so a person can only do so much. Be careful on what you remove if you GI this route, windows relies on weird apps to function.
Another note, I wouldn’t be afraid of torrenting. The inky person that would care that your getting free movies and such is your ISP, and you can just flip on a VPN to clear their radar.
If you know how to use Windows, you can easily master a popular Linux distribution. It will dual boot with Windows so anytime you can’t do something in Linux, you can switch back or run an emulator.
I dumped Windows for Linux bout 12 years ago, but because I wasn’t too sure, I didn’t do the jump all in one go. I spent about 12 months “dual booting”. What this means is that you install linux to a USB / pen drive (Mint seems a great option). Once you’ve installed Mint to a USB drive, you can boot your Windows machine into Linux Mint from that USB drive. That will give you the chance to poke around and try it out as often as you like. Just remember that it won’t be as fast as it would be if you installl to your hard drive. If you like it, then you can install it alongside your Windows system. This is dual booting. When you power up your laptop or PC, you get to choose whether you boot into Windows or Linux. All this was quite daunting for me at the time, as I wasn’t “techy”. But quite quickly I’d become quite comfortable as it is easy once you’ve done it. There are a range of tutorials online about creating a bootable USB drive with Linux and how to get your machine to boot from it. My best advice is to give that a try.
Download whatever distro seems interesting, if tails is something you want to try then try it I actually had a similar introduction to Linux but I doubt youd stick with tails as its not a daily not to say tails doesn’t have its place. I personal like arch distros and if your moving from windows you’d probably like KDE plasma. Using Linux won’t instantly net you privacy, this is something that you’d need to pro actively aim to be private, like what is the URL for the pirate bay, 1337x, can I trust this torrent? Which browser do you use and search engine, what torrent client can be trusted.
I’d recommend using transmission, qbittorrent or anything Foss with half decent user base. VPN you’ve got proton free, mullvad costs but I’d say its worth it or you can tunnel through tor network. Distros you’ve got lots of options, recommend you look at distrowatch or youtubers like distrotube. Find a small pall of trust worthy torrent sites and names of trust worthy repackere, fitgirl, dodi, jc141 to name a few.
But most importantly. Make sure to seed 🙃
Just… Don’t torrent over Tor. It is not only slower, but also making it worse for other users.
The German government has an ongoing investigation into achieving this: https://www.bsi.bund.de/EN/Service-Navi/Publikationen/Studien/SiSyPHuS_Win10/SiSyPHuS.html
I’m mostly posting this to say that it’s a lot of work. They dubbed it “SiSyPHuS”, not because that acronym just came naturally from the study’s title…
One thing I have done more of, of late, is using an external drive plugged in to the fastest usb port I’ve got (thunderbolt, in my case), and installing Mint on there. I’ve got an NVME enclosure with Linux Mint Debian Edition on it, and it has a USB A or C cable, so I can boot into it from several different computers. It’s also great for rescuing files off of non-booting Windows machines. You take a bit of a speed hit, but it’s not as bad as you’d think, and it fits in my pocket. (Good party trick, too.)
If Windows is the only thing you know how to use, don’t use tails. Use something that has a KDE desktop environment which is like Windows. Suggestions for distros in these comments are pretty good. It’ll look and operate like windows, except you install apps from app stores like you do on your phone.
