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?

  • GrappleHatEnglish
    24•9 months ago

    If you care about privacy and wanna use Windows… God help you…

    You want Linux my friend

    • GrappleHatEnglish
      9•9 months ago

      …and if you want to torrent then you need a respectable peer-to-peer VPN service like ProtonVPN

        • @zzzzz@beehaw.org
          1•9 months ago

          Mullvad is no longer ideal for torrenting because they discontinued port forwarding. Airvpn is a good alternative that still provides port forwarding.

          • @msage@programming.dev
            1•9 months ago

            The topic is privacy, torrents are not very private to begin with, and Mullvad uses disk-less servers and you can pay with cash.

            • TipponEnglish
              2•9 months ago

              i want to get into things like torrenting

              The second line of the original post. The topic is privacy and torrenting

    • @QuietStorm@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      1•9 months ago

      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?

      • @msage@programming.dev
        7•9 months ago

        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.

      • ikiru
        4•9 months ago

        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.

      • Lemongrab
        3•9 months ago

        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-release in 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.