China and Chinese products

[dromia]

The only reason I am still on line now is because of my web site as it serves as a shop window for some of my stock and is appreciated by many of my customers.

Shooting and legal gun ownership will decline especially full bore with the unavailability of ranges and continued quasi legal harassment from many in the establishment and police, combined with no effective national action from any of our so called "representative" bodies in support of legal gun ownership. Mainstream society and media are now very anti gun, regardless of total unreasonableness of such a view it means that fringe lunatics like Packham become cultural heroes, their bigoted opinions get traction and become mainstream.

This current lockdown will also speed the decline of legal gun ownership and shooting as people will give it up and not return to it afterwards. Then there is the economic impact, how many shooting related businesses will survive this, not just here but across the world? This will be compounded by the post lockdown/covid-19 recession with millions un-employed and money very very tight.

An effective vaccine is the only way to any normality returning and that is 18 months away at best, even if restrictions are lifted somewhat over the next few months there will still have to be strict distancing and behavioural conditions set and abided to so as to stem a further unleashing of the virus. I doubt very much that many ranges will be able to or be bothered to function in these restricted conditions. I could go on to discuss the possible effect of the psychological malaise that this pandemic will have on societies but I think you get my drift for now.

Whatever happens things will not be the same post covid-19 and legal gun ownership and shooting in the UK is already in too fragile a state for it to stand a good chance of surviving this blight, yes us die-hards will no doubt stick in there to the bitter end but we will be the the last remnants afore extinction.

So with that context the need for my website will be less and less and when I stop that then my need for any internet will be gone.

I came into this world without it and I hope I live long enough to exit this world internet free, it has become too much of an intrusion into my life especially as the government now embraces it for everything as a key element of its shrinking the state and centralisation dogma. All your eggs in one basket is not a good idea and who is developing the next level of 5G digital connectedness for us? Our old malady creator China! How much of our current internet activity goes through Chinese based or owned servers? It is not just things located in China but companies and services owned and provided by China. So if you want to be China products free then you will need to come of the internet/mobile phone etc.

This along with all the issues of principle that it raises as discussed by me earlier in this thread means that the internet is something that will not be in my future.

[WelshShooter]

The only reason I am still on line now is because of my web site as it serves as a shop window for some of my stock and is appreciated by many of my customers.

Shooting and legal gun ownership will decline especially full bore with the unavailability of ranges and continued quasi legal harassment from many in the establishment and police, combined with no effective national action from any of our so called "representative" bodies in support of legal gun ownership. Mainstream society and media are now very anti gun, regardless of total unreasonableness of such a view it means that fringe lunatics like Packham become cultural heroes, their bigoted opinions get traction and become mainstream.

This current lockdown will also speed the decline of legal gun ownership and shooting as people will give it up and not return to it afterwards. Then there is the economic impact, how many shooting related businesses will survive this, not just here but across the world? This will be compounded by the post lockdown/covid-19 recession with millions un-employed and money very very tight.

An effective vaccine is the only way to any normality returning and that is 18 months away at best, even if restrictions are lifted somewhat over the next few months there will still have to be strict distancing and behavioural conditions set and abided to so as to stem a further unleashing of the virus. I doubt very much that many ranges will be able to or be bothered to function in these restricted conditions. I could go on to discuss the possible effect of the psychological malaise that this pandemic will have on societies but I think you get my drift for now.

Whatever happens things will not be the same post covid-19 and legal gun ownership and shooting in the UK is already in too fragile a state for it to stand a good chance of surviving this blight, yes us die-hards will no doubt stick in there to the bitter end but we will be the the last remnants afore extinction.

So with that context the need for my website will be less and less and when I stop that then my need for any internet will be gone.

I came into this world without it and I hope I live long enough to exit this world internet free, it has become too much of an intrusion into my life especially as the government now embraces it for everything as a key element of its shrinking the state and centralisation dogma. All your eggs in one basket is not a good idea and who is developing the next level of 5G digital connectedness for us? Our old malady creator China! How much of our current internet activity goes through Chinese based or owned servers? It is not just things located in China but companies and services owned and provided by China. So if you want to be China products free then you will need to come of the internet/mobile phone etc.

This along with all the issues of principle that it raises as discussed by me earlier in this thread means that the internet is something that will not be in my future.

I know my comment is off topic, but with regards to Chinese owned servers I would highly reccomend looking into using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) service. This prevents your ISP from "spying" on you and they are unable to view your browsing history. Finding a trusted VPN service is a different story but there are quite a few out there to choose from.

[dromia]

Finding a trusted VPN service is a different story but there are quite a few out there to choose from.

I have tried to get a VPN a few times over the years but all the companies I tried provided an unsatisfactory service, have you any recommendations?

[meles meles]

Finding a trusted VPN service is a different story but there are quite a few out there to choose from.

I have tried to get a VPN a few times over the years but all the companies I tried provided an unsatisfactory service, have you any recommendations?

A reasonabubble halfway house is to use a browser with an integrated VPN. OPERA for example has a VPN that you can toggle on / off at will. We tend to leave it on most of the time, just switching it off for specific websites that need to know we're accessing them from the UK.

https://blogs.opera.com/desktop/2016/04 ... ndows-mac/

A more complex option is to install a VPN directly to your router rather than your pc but we'd only recommend that for smart oomans.

[Christel]

A list of smart phones NOT made in China.

https://www.zdnet.com/pictures/10-best- ... n-china/4/

Asus Zenphone (various)
LG (various)
Samsung (various)
Sony (various)

[TRG-22]

A list of smart phones NOT made in China.

https://www.zdnet.com/pictures/10-best- ... n-china/4/

Asus Zenphone (various)
LG (various)
Samsung (various)
Sony (various)

And the components - none of them made in China?

Or even if none of the components are, what about the raw materials? None sourced from Chinese companies? None mined anywhere by Chinese owned/controlled/invested-in companies? Do none of the makers of the prodcuts, the components, or the producers and shippers of them and raw materials rely on Chinese made technology to run their businesses?

I'm afraid that the chances of being able to cut out Chinese involvement in our lives and our purchases is zero.

If it makes people feel good though, go for it. I personally boycott products from Israel and Nestlé in protest at their behaviour, but I don't expect it to change their behaviour one little bit.

[WelshShooter]

Finding a trusted VPN service is a different story but there are quite a few out there to choose from.

I have tried to get a VPN a few times over the years but all the companies I tried provided an unsatisfactory service, have you any recommendations?

What type of disattisfaction do you receive? Lack of support for your OS? Price? Connection speed/stability?

I've used NordVPN for the past 2-3 years and have used them with a few OS's (MacOSX, Android, Raspberry Pi distro - think it's Linux based). They make applications suitable for many OS's including many distros of Linux, but you can also configure OpenVPN to use servers from Nord which I did on the Raspberry Pi. I got a good deal on a 2 year subscription, but I'll likely change to ProtonVPN after this has ended. Tech support from Nord has also been great, live chat response times are excellent.

The application support is good, such that it's literally download, install, log in and choose your country, however, I'm finding that the program tends to crash on my Mac recently but since I can't update my 12 old mac to the most recent version, I can't update the Nord application. The application on my Android phone is fantastic, I never get any crashes and it sits in the background doing its thing. Once I have my VPN active I do find that there are a few websites which ask me to complete captcha as these websites think there must be a bot on these servers, not sure if all VPN's are like this or just Nord. The good thing is that you can configure the application to act as a kill switch and force close programs (such as Internet browser) in the event of a disconnection. The connection speeds have been great and I'm able to successfully connect to other regions and view region locked content (such as US sites which block European users due to GDPR).

I may change to Proton VPN once I give the free version a go. I already use a paid service from Proton Mail (the creators of Proton VPN) so I may be able to save money by combining the services. I'd reccomend checking them both out and see what works for you.

[dromia]

TRG22, where ya been?

I was just about to do a post to that effect.

With your relish for evidenced decision making I would be interested your view on the evidence that is supposed to be informing domestic covid-19 policy making.

Israel and Nestle are also on my "have feck all to do with" list BTW.

[dromia]

WelshShooter it was mainly functionality, connectivity and support, unable/unwilling to resolve my issues.

I am sure that have I tried Nord VPN and was not happy with them but it was few (5) years ago at least.

Not sure of all the people I have tried as I am not on my main PC at present, I suspect that Linux was a problem for them that hey did not want address.

I am having to use a windows7 laptop at present so cannot do Linux look for VPNs, if there are any.

I have also heard a lot of debate about the efficacy of VPNs. How true it is do not knoww.

[dromia]

smart oomans.

You and your oxymorons.