I’m a strong advocate for Protonvpn. If you’re also looking for e2ee email, proton is also your guy, so I have a proton unlimited plan. It’s a wonderful plan considering you get simplelogin premium for free and you get 10 vpn connections.

My fav VPN is mullvad, because they have support for this new, lightweight VPN protocol called wireguard. Its nice cause its really lightweight and saves battery on mobile.

But if your new to VPNs, nordvpn is a good start ( although someone else could tell me if they have privacy issues). They have apps for all platforms, and are pretty cheap, like usually $5 / month, a small price to pay for getting rid of Netflix / Amazon / paid music services.

Then ya for good search engines, thepiratebay, 1337x, torrents2.eu. One of my main open source projects besides this one is https://torrents-CSV.ml, which is an open source search engine that has nearly all torrents in a single file that people can make additions to.

Qbittorrent is my fav client for desktop, libretorrent for android.

I made a super introductory video for my friends about how to torrent here, but thats only if you’re starting from scratch.

I have no complaints with AirVPN (ok one complaint, google is blocked on their Dallas servers but this is avoidable). Wait for a sale for 25% off but even without that it’s cheaper than Proton VPN.

They support both OpenVPN and Wireguard protocol and they have a GUI client called Eddie for basically any platform.

For books I use lib gen. It’s full of interesting and informative textbooks. I got my hands on a lot of stuff relevant to off-gridding there, such as an in depth guide to low cost pole construction as well as illustrated guides on subjects ranging from botany to machining and so forth.