Has anyone put a Pi running linux between their haiku box & their router so as to provide a layer of internet security?
I’ve been wondering about setting up a pi with the native linux firewall & a vpn. with such a setup i would use a lot more of the internet on haiku than i do now.
As it stands i always use a vpn on my computers, tablet, phone. have done on the computers for years now.
I‘ve heard about people using Pi-Hole for this, would be something to check out.
On haiku itself you can also use a hosts file based adblocking, would give a similar result, it depends a bit on what you want to accomplish
MX puts a modified hosts file (made of more than one of the one’s available on the net) on their distro (or at least provides & gives the option to use it.
I could transfer that one over.
Also, do people have some kind of safe proxy system that they can recommend i wonder? a whole lot simpler than setting up a pi for the job.
What is your goal?
You wrote above you want to use a vpn, now you mention a proxy, and the hosts file is yet another different thing.
What are you trying to guard against?
It‘s a bit hard tp know what to recommend when the question what you are worried about is not that well defined.
I use a vpn often, to connect my phone to my local network when on the go, but i doubt that is what you want here?
You can install and run hblock on Haiku, it’s a script that will set up the hosts file for you to block ads and various other things (depending on how you configure it).
If it’s just about blocking ads this way, this is probably enough, no need to set up an extra machine just for that?
Thank you both for your replies.
@nephele i would love to be able to run a vpn on haiku, i know that eventually the day will come. the proxy query is just me exploring avenues as:-
I’m a bit of a privacy nut. So i like to make it harder for me to be tracked by the trackers (all of them, who & whatever they are). i don’t like advertising in my web experience unless i choose to be exposed to it. & like to have my system’s data secured from the outside world.
The hblock script sounds good i’ll have a look at that. ty @PulkoMandy
[edit:] I just installed hblock:
[INFO] 447975 blocked domains!
I get the whole privacy aspect, but a vpn on it‘s own does not help there. : )
a vpn basically routes traffic in a virtual (since the actual topology of the network is different) network, if you put all your devices behind it the traffic would still have to leave the vpn at some point to get to where it needs to go, at which point whoever tracked you has the same info as before.
If you bundle severall peoples connections up into one vpn and surf that way you effectively hide your ip somewhat, but that is only one data point erased from trackers, so it really depends what you want. : )
And then, instead of the ISP having your data, the people behind the vpn server have it … 
Hiding your original IP address & adding another layer of encryption, plus using a different DNS, goes a long way toward making you harder to track. If the likes of a government agency is after you, they will be able to track you, but it is very expensive for them to do that.
As far as vpn providers invading your privacy is concerned. yes it happens, particularly with the free ones. i use one that won’t have any servers in australia (even though they’d love to) because of the government’s laws. this vpn keeps no logs, at all (which is what they all should do, but don’t). they have a lot of servers, in many countries & you can switch at will, from one to another. i’ve been using them for years.
using a vpn and using a vpn provider as you call them is two pair of shoes, it serves different purposes.
It might hide one point of data to trackers, yes, but that is hardly enough.
Switching dns providers does nothing for ypur privacy unless you want your dns provider to not be able to correlate request… but then switching it has the same problem : )
As for more encryption? that does not help against tracking at all, only against man-in-the-middle attacks
Yes, well i’m for making it more difficult for all the different kinds of tracking & “bad” hacking that exists. vpn is one important part of my toolkit.
i’m not trying to convert anyone, or win any arguments. i’m happy with what i do, & it works for me. so 
Yes, i’m using also Pi Hole, which runs perfectly fine on a Raspberry Pi Zero. For more protection there is also a small hardware firewall running OPNsense.
Pi Hole is pretty easy, OPNSense not so much 