Newsletter Archives

• Which Web browser is the most secure for 2025?

  Posted on April 28, 2025 at 02:44 CDT by B. Livingston • Comment in the Forums

  PUBLIC DEFENDER

  

  By Brian Livingston

  With all the malware threats we face on the Internet these days, running an antivirus program is a must. But your browser can help, too, warning you about shady websites and preventing your browsing history from being tracked by corporations or governments.

  I most recently wrote about protecting yourself while Web surfing in my AskWoody column titled Browsers with the best security and privacy in 2021.

  Much has changed since that time. We need to question whatever our old choice of browsers may have been and update our knowledge with the latest ratings by security experts.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (22.17.0, 2025-04-28).

  Public Defender Brave, Chrome, Edge, Epic, FreeNet, Newsletters, Opera, Puffin, Safari, Security, TOR, Vivaldi, Waterfox, Web Browsers

• A note of caution when using proxies, VPNs or TOR to get to AskWoody

  Posted on January 22, 2019 at 14:19 CST by woody • Comment in the Forums

  Proxies/VPNs /Tors encrypt the data from the source to the server, but on the other end it’s not encrypted from the server to the destination. That means if you use a VPN to get to AskWoody, which is perfectly fine, the IP address we see here may be from a known-spammy (or known-aggressive) source.

  The purpose (for “normal” people) is to disguise the source to avoid tracking, but the “bad guy” use it for the same purpose.

  Consequently, the IP addresses issued by the proxies/VPNs /Tors may have a dirty history.

  Firewalls and Spam filters (both of which AskWoody has, and employs vigorously) build blacklists of the series of IP addresses used by bots, spammers and hackers for nefarious purposes.

  If the proxies/VPNs /Tors connect you to AskWoody with bad IP addresses, you can be rejected/refused connection.

  Please be sure your proxies/VPNs /Tors service provides you with “clean” IP addresses because we have no control over the blocking.

  Other proxies, TOR, VPN