Vista changed the Windows security upside down. It brought all the modern kernel features Windows embraced upon. But they went overboard with graphics that average consumer hardware was not ready for. Despite that I don't remember it came with any bloatware like Windows 10 and 11.
Browsers were able to block pop-ups because websites used to open another browser window to display ads. Modern websites use modals using CSS and JavaScript within their page canvas.
It's hard to block them deterministically by the browser. Though uBlock Origin and NoScript can block almost all these annoyances.
Safari (desktop and mobile) also has tracker blocking built in. "Prevent cross-site tracking" and "Hide IP address from trackers" are two settings it has; I think the first is checked by default, I don't remember about the other.
In the DevTools network pane, it shows requests to known trackers, like Google Tag Manager, being blocked.
Try using Amazon in Safari sometime (in Lockdown Mode, no less): non-stop ads (some which flash), sponsored results dominating the first page of search, random Dufus pop-ups forcing AI. You can hide "distracting" elements but they just appear again later. Safari is not a user-friendly browser.
Safari is my default browser. I don't know what "Dufus" means, I don't recall any A.I. references. On Amazon, it's all first-party stuff, what browser blocks that natively? It seems like you're comparing using Safari without an ad blocker to a different browser with an ad blocker.
I know the most popular ad blocking extensions don't make a Safari version but there are ad blockers for Safari.
I don't get any of that in Safari or any other browser. "Rufus" is just a button in the main navigation, between "All" and "Same-day delivery" that I ignore. On individual product pages, there's "Ask Rufus" stuff in a couple of pages but it's no worse than other content I scroll past and seems just like previous features that didn't have a named AI identity.
I use Mullvad through Tailscale’s exit‑node integration, and it’s awesome. They are the only provider I trust these days.
To highlight virtual routing: it’s useful in scenarios where a country blocks VPNs but you still need an IP from that country to browse local websites. In such cases, virtual routing comes in handy. For example, when India required all VPN servers in the country to log user traffic, Proton moved its Indian server to Singapore and used virtual networking tricks to continue offering an Indian IP address.
I work for IPinfo. I am not sure what routing tricks Proton uses. I have looked into the smart routing and stealth protocol related documentation. I am not sure if Proton does anything unique when it comes to IP location. I am not saying this officially, but I am just curious here.
'Virtual' VPN server geolocation involves informing IP geolocation providers that their Singaporean servers are located in India. We looked into data and latency-based locations, but the industry at large uses self-reported location information for their data. So, if you use a service that uses IP geolocation provider (that is not us) they will just tell them that the Singaporean IP address is located in India, because that is the information they have and they do not have any other ways to verify it. But at the end of the day, the location information is coming from the VPN itself.
I could be wrong, and there could be technology and technique I am missing, so I am happy to learn. The blog is written by our founder who is accessible to the Proton team if they want to share their feedback with us.
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