this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2024

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Privacy

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123

Bitwarden Privacy Software Stack Survey (forms.bitwarden.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

32 comments fedilink hide all child comments

From their Masto acct:

"It’s almost #DataPrivacyWeek - vote now for your favorite data privacy tools in this 1-minute survey! "

top 32 comments

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I am surprised by the lack of question about VPN/SPN

[+] [email protected] -6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (8 children)

VPNs do little for your privacy, unless there's specific reason to trust them over your isp

[–] [email protected] 29 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

ISPs pass on your data to various authorities in quite a lot of countries. My own country (UK) has such a terrible privacy reputation I wouldn't be at all surprised to find ISP's hand over data for every request.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Billion dollar business idea: ISP but its not run by scum.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Literally illegal in much of the US. Rentseekers must be protected.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

God it feels good to have some of the only municipal fiber in the U.S.. gigabit symetric for a flat $60/mo, never get ads from them, price is always the same, never gone down, speeds are largely as advertised... there's even a 2.5 gig and 10 gig option. once i have the hardware for it I'm looking at the 2.5 gig. right now I'm almost saturating my 1 gig with jellyfin and stuff, but if I get some more hardware I'm looking at using it to properly get in on the self hosting scene finally.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Its a double edged sword. You don't want the government to be the ISP but banning community broadband is silly. It should be perfectly legal and acceptable for a bunch if neighbors to get together and make there own network. It could function like a community garden.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Why is a private business inherently better than the government as an ISP, though?

Either way it has to follow all relevant local laws about how to behave. The ISPs will respond to law enforcement requests either way. But at least a public entity will also need to be accountable to the public and respond to things like FOIA, as opposed to a private entity which has all kinds of ways to resist transparency and is more accountable to the shareholders.

Either way it is a near natural monopoly because running redundant wires/fiber is a waste of resources. There won't be much consumer choice.

The idea that the government would be inherently inefficient is one that presumes a private entity that is highly insulated from market force wouldn't. Free markets create a lot of pressure to improve products, but there's no free market happening in a utility like an ISP. Even in the most competitive markets, that's still choosing one from maybe 4 providers that barely compete with each other at all. And you have to sign longterm contracts with all kinds of complex pricing to "test" the competition, and testing it requires pretty advanced knowledge beyond most users -- if you have no freedom to easily change your ISP, there's just not any competition.

If the sword is double-edged, one of those edges is safe enough for a renfair.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yep, same here. Its almost trivial for ISPs to hand over data to the govt on any invented basis. They also do so to any business or company that asks for it, but they will charge them fees AKA selling data.

Worst part is there is no oversight, and there really is no segment of population that cares about privacy to raise this as an issue either.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

How do UK based VPNs differ?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

imo it's always better to trust a well reputable VPN over your ISP. I don't know of any ISP that can be trusted. By not using them you're essentially turning a "maybe private" into a "certainly not private".

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (1 children)

There is no reason to trust your ISP.

ISP's in many countries happily share with government, they also sell your data to ad agencies.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

VPN providers are just ISPs you can hire without a physical connection in most respects there.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Nice try, ISP!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Nice try, VPN!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

There are few things I trust less than a regional data monopoly

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

A VPN can collect the same data as an ISP, and can be subject to the same requests/laws from governments

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I have a friend who works for a German ISP.

He personally has set up a system which automatically provides all the data requested by the police, without checking whether the request is formal and valid.

I rather trust a VPN provider from a jurisdiction where logging any user data is not required by law. Or an SPN, where even if logging has to be enabled by law, it is technologically impossibe to extract a user's activity from the data.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

So you have a specific reason to trust certian VPNs over your ISP. My point was just that VPNs aren't inherently better than ISPs

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I see what you mean, but I think that point is pretty inherent.

Most if not all countries have similar laws related to getting user data from ISPs by making them log it for some time. And people can only use the ISPs from their country.

On the other hand no country can force their law on a VPN provider from a different jurisdiction, yet people worldwide can use those VPN providers.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

If you are trying to maintain privacy from the bad actors that most people should fear -- that is, advertisers and marketers --
VPNs are very effective because they increase the cost of that kind of datasurvillenace of you enough to make it not worth it. At least for now.

If you are trying to maintain privacy against state actors, especially to hide criminal activity, they will not be particularly effective. But are still better than the ISPs who likely don't even have a policy of vetting state requests before turning over info.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

VPNs are very effective because they increase the cost of that kind of datasurvillenace of you enough to make it not worth it.

Not really, because you left out a huge asterisk. They are only effective after you have implemented a bunch of other methods to deal with cookies, tracking scripts, finger printing etc.

A vpn on it's own doesn't do shit if you don't auto wipe your cookies after every session for example. Which vpn marketing conveniently forgets to tell you

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Oh my sweet summer child

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

Thank you for this helpful comment providing insight into a complex topic

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago

Relevant topics also missing from the survey:

Choice of desktop operating system
Choice of mobile platform and OS
Use of email encryption
Use of cloud storage
Use and method of disk encryption

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Is "favorite" the one you use or the one you know you should use?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

I took it as “the one I currently use the most”

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Btw for Linux there is Goldwarden, a custom GTK client for Bitwarden, written in Go.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (2 children)

What are the benefits of this over the 1st party application?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

No electron I guess. It is web based, so you dont benefit from portals etc.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Proper desktop autotype for Linux and an SSH agent mode.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

Woo Librewolf getting listed as an option :D

Almost all my others were "other"