10x10

Just looked at review for Russian free Urban VPN. More holes than Swiss cheese. Still it was amusing to read at how bad it is.

I currently use PIA as required.

Yes, I get that feeling too!

Yes that's a good point. I'm thinking ahead in case my current VPN starts logging and looking at alternatives but your right, it's nearly traceable as not using an VPN at all.

I think your right that yes it does seem like a coordinated crack down at the moment. Almost like round 2.

My experience with Russian sourced software is to treat it as low trust, like I do everywhere else, until proved otherwise. An example is gitflic.ru. I'm cautious about it but can see a number of developers moved there after being thrown of MS's Github so a very legitimate reason to use it. Is potential Russian surveillance any worse than the government of the country in which you live? Probably not.

As others are saying, rip anything you can't download from anywhere else otherwise just download. I've been through this too and ripping old VHS or DVD takes a lot more time and hassle than downloading it.

Genuine question, are Russian sites any worse or better than anywhere else these days?

In the professional world it's called "Distributed backups" and is recommended technique for archiving. I'm doing my bit daily at no charge to the media industry, just out of the goodness of my heart :)

Whack a mole.

Looks quite possible. It does connect every time you visit a site on the bypass list but not viewing other sites.

Just tried all 3 sites on desktop and dab.yeet.su working fine again. The other two are still 30sec samples.

Thanks. Interesting, just tried dab.yeet.su and it's working fine now. That's on my phone so will check on my desktop in case it's an issue at my end.