I think some of the arguments are quite flawed. Bitcoin itself has most of the properties it is said to have, but it lives in a world that doesn’t and so some only really apply if you manage to stay inside the system. Like, your Signal chats are private as long as you don’t copy-paste them to Facebook.

Regarding self-custody/decentralization and using custodial services: The problem here is not that those properties don’t apply to Bitcoin, but that some people just choose to give away control over their wallets or not use Bitcoin itself for certain transactions. Can’t blame that on the currency, unless you think it can’t be done any other way.

Regarding privacy: I don’t think any serious “Bitcoiner” advertises Bitcoin as private. The message has always been that it’s “pseudonymous”, that you have to take extra steps in order to make it anonymous, and that it’s transparent instead of private by design.

Regarding transparency/inclusion: These paragraphs actually argue about privacy again. One is trying to spin the existing transparency into a negative, which is a valid opinion but not something “Bitcoiners” are wrong about. The other circles back to the idea of staying inside the system. Bitcoin transactions are inclusive, but ofc you can still get into trouble if you have to fear external repercussions and can’t stay anonymous.

The juristiction where the provider operates, and the logging/disclosure requirements are very important! ISPs are often required to keep logs, VPN/Seedbox/Hosting providers usually are not. I’m not a lawyer and so on, but I could also imagine that logs from some VPN showing your IP was used to download/upload something are not as good as evidence as a mandatory (and probably somehow checked/verified) logs of an ISP are.

Another thing are provider incentives. If you’re running a general purpose hosting business you probably don’t want any shady stuff on your servers, and so you’re pretty happy to comply with any reasonable information request in that direction. As a VPN/Seedbox provider your business depends on people feeling safe and private on your servers, so you’ll do everything in your power to fight these requests, and there is a lot that can be done to fight them. And ofc if they do as they say and don’t keep logs then they don’t even have the requested information.

You operate it behind a VPN and the seedbox is just a means to get a 24/7 running Linux machine

I don’t think you need Seedbox + VPN. You can do that of course, but just one is usually enough. The important bit is that other torrent clients don’t see your personal home IP address, and the provider that does know your IP doesn’t have the obligation or incentive to disclose it. But if you want the extra protection you could search for VPN/Seedbox providers that accept crypto as payment, and chain multile VPNs or VPNs and a Seedbox, so none of them have the full picture. I think that’s pretty overkill though, and probably hell to set up and maintain. At that point you should probably go with Tor or I2P instead, because that’s basically how they operate (onion/garlic routing).

seedbox is just a means to get a 24/7 running Linux machine

They usually have very beefy connections, far better than what you get for your home internet, especially when it comes to uploads (asymmetric subscriber lines etc.).

You mainly depend on the fact that the providers don’t keep logs and don’t have to disclose your info. It’s not 100% safe, but nothing really is. The risk of misconfigurating your VPN and accidentally leaking your IP is very real as well for example.

Get a Usenet provider, a download client and a few indexers, set them up, and start downloading. Maybe automate with *arr apps at some point.

Some suggestions:

• Provider: UsenetServer ($1/month trial + $50/year discount)
• Downloader: SABnzbd
• Indexers: NZBGeek, altHUB, NZBIndex, abook.link (Forum), SceneNZBs (German), Tabula Rasa (invite only), NZBCat (invite only)

Most indexers let you search for free on their website, but grabbing download links and using their API with *arr apps is limited (e.g. 10 downloads and 100 API queries per day) unless you pay for VIP access (usually about $10/year/indexer). So you can try out a few, maybe pay for one or two that give you good results, and keep using the rest within the limits of free accounts.

If you don’t want to pay for an account anywhere (VPN/Usenet/Debrid/…), then you might want to try out Torrent + I2P. I haven’t used it myself, but from what I know it’s a slower but completely provider-less alternative to VPNs for anonymization, and Torrents are free ofc.

That being said, you’ll have a much easier time if you pay for a seedbox for example. It’s just a small server in a datacenter somewhere, that happens to be better connected and more private than your typical home internet connection, and that you can use however you like.

The company said cutting off PWAs was part of an effort to comply with the Digital Markets Act, arguing browsers other than its own Safari software would expose users to security and privacy risks that were not permitted under the law.

They are so full of shit, it’s unbelievable! Are they really claiming that their own browser is THE ONLY legal browser there is?!

We have blown the concept of ownership way out of proportion. No one should be able to own things they have absolutely no connection to, like investment firms owning companies they don’t work for, houses they don’t live in or land they’ve never been to.