I got hit by what I believe was 0day WinRar vulnerability. Installed a nasty XMR miner that was a massive pain to disable. It took over the whole system and blocked any attempts around removal or even reading relevant articles about the miner.

Was able to get rid of it via safe mode and finding a cleaning tool from rather niche (region-focused) sources.

I’ve been searching for an alternative search engine. Found Searx to be subpar.

Was thinking about Kagi, but if they work with the russians, that’s an immediate no go for me.

The irony.

This is how you know they are a bunch of malicious bullshitters.

This is exactly the type of narrative about Snowden’s alleged sainthood that I was talking about.

Snowden publishes content in his social media that directly aligns with russian propaganda messaging (and can be directly correlated with calendar events) and also openly boosts and promotes anti-Ukrainian rhetoric. For example, statements like “all Ukrainians are Nazis” by Glenn Greenwald, (who I will add says this without being stuck in russia). I will also add that Snowden is clearly deeply engaged in his social media fame. Surely if he had reservations about being forced to promote russian genocidal messaging he wouldn’t be shitposting about the Nvidia 5000 series GPUs.

I say Snowden is a piece shit for doing this.

You reply that we must ignore this and we must always assume that under any and all conditions the bad things he does is because of someone else and he always innocent.

You’re making a claim of innocence that goes against the evidence that we do have (his social media account, that Snowden himself states is not run under pressure), yet you weren’t (initially) willing to make any arguments to back up your claims.

You then bring up Navalny. What does he have to do with what we are discussing? Did you bring him up because that’s all you know about russia?

When did Snowden start a russian political party that opposed putin’s rule? How did he start such a party without knowing russian? Did he do it remotely from the US? And russians supported him even though he worked for US intelligence? This does not sound realistic.

What sort of information did Navalniy reveal about US domestic spying? Are you saying he left Germany and returned to russia because he was afraid of being captured by US authorities for revealing classified US intel info?

This is a very sophomoric argument that assumes the russians are some star wars bad guys that are incapable of any kind of sophistication in their external influence operations.

I never said anything about Snowden being a bad guy for not publicly opposing russian interests. I said he is a piece of shit for going along with supporting russian genocidal imperialism. These are two very different things and I don’t understand why you are bringing up “opposing putin”.

All that Snowden had to do was to not promote russian genocidal imperialism. Or at the very least to not be so casual about it if as you claim (for which you provided no arguments) he was pressured.

Perfect example of the “Saint Snowden” syndrome. Denying reality to protect the innocence of your precious.

Propagandists are legitimate targets in a state of war. Your moralising is shallow and insincere.

But why does the inetol instance not give any results for “android new tab” (this wasn’t what I as looking for, but I truncated the query for testing)?

This is even though the results page states safe search if off and en-US is auto detected as the language?

I am looking to get off regular google, but these issues are not giving me confidence about Searx.

I am not putting words in your mouth. You literally state that it is impossible that Snowden made a decision to support russia for more malicious reasons. The only scenario you are even willing to consider is that he is innocent by default and he was pressured, without even a drop of nuance.

I’m merely stating the most likely explanation for his actions.

How do you know this? Can you read russian? Have you ever had any type of contact with russian officials or members of the elite (in any capacity)? What do you know about russian doctrine on foreign propaganda? What other historical examples can you cite to strengthen your argument?

What does me being or not being there have to do with anything?

He did have a choice to not support russian genocidal imperialism. He made a decision to support the russians even though they do terrible things (both in context of violent imperialism and spying on their own citizens).

The tone of his social media posts suggests that he rather enthusiastic about using his fame and social readership to promote an agenda. One that is explicitly aimed at harming those who oppose russian genocidal imperialism.

Treating him as a saint; because he revealed the NSA stuff, all his subsequent actions are justified and he should not be subject to criticism.

This is an extremely common view in some part of the English speaking internet.

I reject this approach. As far as I am concerned, I hope him and his family get to experience what they the wish upon Ukrainians in the occupied territories (getting sent to to a torture camp for speaking Ukrainian).

No, he had a choice to keep quiet, but instead he chose to support russian genocidal imperialism. That makes him a bad person.

He is a PR win for russia, they are not going to harm him as that would undermine their interests.

And how does this justify Snowden promoting russian genocidal imperialism in Ukraine?

He did a good thing, so now he is an untouchable saint?

The issue is that he is supporting russian genocidal imperialism. His messaging clearly aligns with russian propaganda goals.

Is it not reasonable for me to consider him my enemy (he directly supports doing harm to me, my family and my fellow citizens)?

As far I am concerned, I hope Snowden and his family will one day be on the recieving end of russian brutality.

I don’t buy the logic of “he did one good thing, so it’s fine for him to promote russian genocidal imperialism”.

If he can’t stay consistent, he should have never got involved in the NSA issue in the first place.

He clearly enjoys the attention (just look at this post). He could have simply shut up and not worked with russian security services (the russians wouldn’t kill him, they need him alive).

He is not simply pretending Putin is a nice guy, he is clearly collaborating with russian security services. Just look at his comments on internal US politics. And he also was spreading misinformation that russia wasn’t going to invade Ukraine in Feb 2022.

He might be a hero for many, but if you’re Ukrainian (like I am), he is clearly a piece of shit.

I tried two instances search.inetol.net and priv.au and I got no results for basic web search.

But northboot.xyz worked.

Am I missing something? How do I pick a given instance?

I was also curious about this (it’s rather surprising news). This seems like tankie misinformation.

The only somewhat relevant source was this article in SCMP from Jan 17th where a Shanghai party official called from partial lifting of internet restrictions in some areas.

That being said, it doesn’t look like this went over well:

It is not clear when the post was put online but it was removed on Friday morning.

It’s like we are living in some sort of satirical, absurdist play or novel about a dystopian future.

You can’t compare VOA, RFE to Russian propaganda sources. Especially their non-english coverage, it easily beats private American sources.

Saying both of them are the same is some internet edgelord BS.

Russia is occupying Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova and Belarus though.

What sort of bullshit is this.

While I tend to avoid conspiracy theory type thinking, the nature of modern social makes it very easy to run astroturfing/botting campaigns. It’s reasonable to be suspicious.