ccx
Computer, tea and ttrpg nerd.
🔐
$argon2id$v=19$m=64,t=512,p=2$wXiBwNF6MfIDQkluoPDiTg$PQ/bjA0NtNiaYRmBIThCmQ
Tor.
And the correct term is anonymizing proxy. Having the term VPN overloaded to mean two completely distinct things is rather annoying and/or confusing.
I’m fairly sure I’ve seen an NNTP based imageboard that distributed it’s content through that protocol and different instances had overlap of boards. That’s about the closest match to federated system you’re going to find with this model I think. Interesting concept. Not something I’d want to interact with personally though.
It’s probably the best one when it comes to web-based videocalls. I had much better experience with native apps (e.g. Mumble) when it comes to sound quality though.
For anonymous proxy (which is what you seem to mean instead of VPN) I just keep using Tor for almost everything. Sure, some services do block it - more than your usual commercial offering. But TBF that mostly saves me time from tying to deal with them.
Original WhatsApp was XMPP with phone number for your username. Pretty much what https://quicksy.im/ does now.
WhatsApp today is completely different beast.
It’s been a year or two, but last time I tried it their app worked fine on x86 Android in qemu. Not the most efficient way to run it, but at least it’s isolated from the rest of the system.
Re profiling, I don’t think instances will bother doing that (unless they start running ads). However, they also don’t prevent anyone from building that profile themselves from observable behavior. And creating such database might constitute original work by itself. Now, they don’t get as fine-grained interactions as you would with tracking-infested sites. But they will get the most valuable ones such as active participation.