Sometimes they work, and sometimes I have to close one or the other, or every connection gets blocked. I haven’t blocked anything from Proton VPN on Portmaster - just some Windows services and domains that don’t break the internet when Proton VPN is off.
Do you have any idea what may be happening or how I can discover what’s going on?

  • both on the free plan.

Edit: I might have figured it out. It seems like they are fighting over DNS resolving. When I removed the DNS settings from Portmaster (it’s already set in the browser anyway), it started working again :)

  • irmadlad@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    16 hours ago

    Using Windows, it’s crazy that on startup you already have like 9 pages of random Windows processes trying to call home and tell them what you’re doing lol

    A lot of those call-home processes can be blocked with your .host file. Additionally, PrivacySexy, WPD, and or O&OShutUp can help strip out all the crap. I hear a lot of people saying that updates to Windows revert the changes. I’m not sure if that is relevant to whether you are using Home or Pro. I use W10Pro and I have not seen any of my updates revert any of my changes. I believe Enterprise also doesn’t revert the changes upon updates. It might also be that major feature updates (like the 22H2 upgrade), may revert the changes, however, it’s fairly trivial to run PrivacySexy after the update.

    • PiraHxCx@lemmy.mlOP
      2·
      15 hours ago

      It happened a few times to me during major updates, but most don’t restore packages you’ve removed. They do change other things, though.
      I recently wrote this small guide: https://fuckbigtech.neocities.org/#06, and I was just about to re-read it to update, for example: Last time I was on Win11, the Windows Update had downloaded the HEIF and AV1 codecs, they were even listed in the app list to uninstall if I wanted, but they didn’t come with the laptop I have now, nor were they added through updating it. I just noticed folders weren’t displaying AVIF image thumbnails after I had debloated (and removed Windows Store). Then I discovered you can no longer download Windows utilities through their site, and it won’t work directly through PowerShell either because all download and installation is forced through Windows Store. I had already debloated extensively, so I decided to just factory-reset the laptop. This time, I downloaded both packages before removing Windows Store. Guess what? Removing Windows Store also removed the packages! So here I am, after another factory reset, leaving Windows Store there, hoping the lack of it doesn’t fuck me in the future lol
      fun story: I also discovered it no longer comes with Notepad, Paint and Calculator! You have to download all from the Store, and they integrated with Copilot lol - it did come with Outlook, Maps, Teams and other crap, though… even some hidden legacy Zune, IE and Skype packages…

      • irmadlad@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        14 hours ago

        for example: Last time I was on Win11

        Interesting. I must live in bizarro world. I wonder if it has to do with Win11’s new advertising platform. Were you running a local account or hooked up to the mothership? I’m running W10 on a local account only. Additionally, I’m blocking the world (almost - lol) in my host file.

        I just ran Get-AppxPackage and besides the runtimes, wsl, Microsoft.VCLibs, NET.Native.Frameworks, Microsoft.Windows.Photos (blocked from calling home), I don’t see anything that would throw a red flag. I am definitely intrigued.

        • PiraHxCx@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
          1·
          13 hours ago

          My father loves '00s and late '90s RTS games, so I built him a Win7 PC. I got a bit jealous of how tight its running lol
          Pre-built systems, though, come with way waaay more bloat. To get a free Windows license included in the product, they shove tons of shit in. My mother had a Win10 LG All-in-One, and I recently reset and cleared it to give to my niece, I had to remove a lot of crap, but it was way worse in the Win11 Dell All-in-One she got to replace it. I’ve never seen anything like that, shit came with Spotify, Netflix, Amazon, Candy Crush… and, worst of all: McAfee. This Win11 laptop I’m using right now came with Norton hehe - but those Bing News, Bing Weather, Bing Maps, Bing This, Bing That, all the Xbox stuff, which you need to remove through command prompt, they were in all of them. However, I’ve never tested a Win10 or Win11 that wasn’t on a pre-built device, my guess is that if you bought a license (or acquired some other way, I don’t judge hehe) and installed the OS yourself it is way cleaner… but also surely Win11 is worse than Win10 on bloat.

          edit: I had written Avast but it was actually McAfee, it wasn’t even full license and it expired, also it constantly hijacked the browser and changed the search engine to Bing… pure malware behavior, crazy stuff.

          • Zerush@lemmy.ml
            1·
            5 hours ago

            I know, it’s normal that after a good Windows release always follow an crappy one, independent from the bloatware which it always have. W7 good, W8 crap, W10 good, W11 crap…, but at least, for an advanced user possible always to gut all of these trash and even eliminate this crappy Fisher Price UI in W11, which try badly to imitate the UI of an Mac, eliminating, I don’t know why, a lot of setting to customize the UI, needing scripts to do it.

    • Peffse@lemmy.world
      0·
      16 hours ago

      Windows Defender will pick up any alterations to hosts file and revert it back to default. You have to whitelist the file before setting up any changes.