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What options for secure browsing are available these days? I always used Tor, but since the DDOS attack, even simple sites like google.com need almost 2 minutes to load.

By "secure browsing" I mean that nobody can track your source IP address, not even governments if they would try (considering you do not make mistakes, like logging into your private Facebook account or whatever).

Yeah, I know, in theory, all Tor nodes could be compromised and bla bla bla bla.... but come on, you know what I mean. What is the best way to go these days? I do not trust VPNs.

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You will be tracked regardless if anyone really wants to track you down. There are several hundred data points your web browser sends to any website you visit unless you disable JavaScript but that fact alone is enough to again track you. Tor Browser mitigates that somewhat but not perfectly, and there are very few people who use Tor, so you're all in a very tight circle of people and tracking you becomes a whole lot easier - even easier than tracking users who don't use Tor.

If you don't trust VPN providers that doesn't leave you with a lot of options.

  • You could buy VPS but companies normally give you a single IPv4 address and an IPv6 subnet but all the addresses in it will lead to your VPS, so it's kinda not what you want. Still, e.g. Linode has multiple data centers, so you can use different Linode end points.

  • You could use anonymous online HTTP proxies - there are tons of lists of them on the net, but since you don't trust VPN providers you certainly cannot trust anonymous proxies who are owned by God knows whom.

  • You could start working for a large ISP - those have legal access to lots of IP addresses but I'm not sure the company will be happy once they learn what you're doing.

  • You could buy a throw-away SIM card daily, browse the websites you need and get rid of it.

  • You could use Internet cafes but those normally have a very small number of IPs allocated to them, so it's unlikely what you need.

  • You could roam around your city and try to use public open Wi-Fi hotspots but that doesn't work in all countries. E.g. here in Russia for all public hotspots you need to verify your identity using a phone number (text message/phone call) and anonymous SIM cards are again outlawed.

  • Lastly, IMO, the best option, you could chain several VPN providers e.g. from different countries/jurisdictions, so any one of them will only see that incoming traffic is from another VPN provider but figuring out the entire chain may not be legally or technically possible if at least one has a real no log policy.

Some of these options can also be combined.

If you have any habits of browsing the web, i.e. you regularly open the same websites, it's impossible to imagine ways of being anonymous - IP address is only of many ways of tracking you and probably not the most efficient.

Here's something else: if you open certain websites at approximately the same time and have a normal sleep schedule, it's possible to figure out your timezone which allows to zero in on your location.

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    "You could start working for a large ISP - those have legal access to lots of IP addresses but I'm not sure the company will be happy once they learn what you're doing." This assumes that you will be able to actually access/use those IPs... if you think just "working for an ISP" will allow you this you certainly never worked for one of them. They are generally composed of dozens of almost indipendent groups, doing anything is a dance of cross approvals. Access to anything is generally severily limited... Not impossible, but you need a very specific role to do it before they find&fire you
    – GACy20
    Aug 26, 2022 at 13:22
  • There are a few big VPN providers who claim to have a no-log policy like NordVPN and ExpressVPN. Do you guys think this is for real? Somehow I canot believe it is real. I heard in 2016 a ExpressVPN server in turkey got seized and there were indeed no data, but that was 6 years ago, a lot could have changed. But if there are serious criminal activities, does the VPN provider seriously just says to the law enforcement "sorry, we have no logs" and they get through with it? I somehow can't believe that
    – JoeRogaan
    Aug 27, 2022 at 17:35

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