Techlore has existed since December, 2014 - that's a LONG time! We ask everyone reading this to reflect on what they knew 5+ years ago and how much they've grown since then. We are no different. We made mistakes, we could have worded something better, we could have been more mature, etc. Rather than doing nothing, we wanted to take an active approach and use our mistakes as teaching lessons for our community (and hopefully other creators as well!)
In this doc, you'll see all the changes we've made to our channel's content and why each decision was made. We encourage everyone reads the reasoning and we hope this sparks healthy discussions throughout our communities. Much of our content already had disclaimers before this doc was created, so this will not include previous fixes.
This is our first video with nearly half a million views! It recommends a free VPN with no particular business model or transparency. We were previously unaware of the complexity of VPNs, as many people are today. To help educate users, we decided to keep the video up, but add a disclaimer in the description, a pinned comment, in addition to adding a "LEGACY" tag in the title. The disclaimer is as-follows:
Notice: This is a legacy video being kept up for educational purposes. You should be aware free VPNs are heavily discouraged due to the high likelihood of data misuse. We have done a lot of growing over the years and have gathered tools to help users learn properly about VPNs.
Here is another oldie. This video recommends an application called "iOnion" to access Tor on iOS. While there is still no official Tor browser for iOS, the Tor team themselves recommend "Onion Browser", making the recommendation in this video a bad one. To help educate users, we decided to keep the video up, but add a disclaimer in the description, a pinned comment, in addition to adding a "LEGACY" tag in the title. The disclaimer is as-follows:
Notice: This is a legacy video being kept up for educational purposes. iOnion is not recommended, and we recommend using the Tor-recommend "Onion Browser" from the App Store for the best safety on iOS. It's worth noting there is still no official Tor Browser for iOS, so we recommend sticking to other platforms if the option is available for maximum safety.
Both of these videos recommend the same VPN provider: SoftEther/VPNGate from a Japanese research team. While there is no evidence of data misuse, free VPNs should come with massive disclaimers when there are no accompanying business models. To help educate users, we decided to keep the videos up, but add a disclaimer in the description, a pinned comment, in addition to adding a "LEGACY" tag in the title. The disclaimer is as-follows:
Notice: This is a legacy video being kept up for educational purposes. You should be aware free VPNs are heavily discouraged due to the high likelihood of data misuse. We have done a lot of growing over the years and have gathered tools to help users learn properly about VPNs.
This video is severely outdated with no room for educational benefit. We have opted to delist it. It is still accessible using the link above but doesn't publicly appear on YouTube organically. It has also been given a "LEGACY" tag.
Our old Tor setup guide has some A) Outdated information B) Incorrect information. A few of the tips go against the anonymity aspects of Tor and are no longer recommended by us. We did make a newer guide that fixed some of these issues that is already linked on the video, and we have also added a disclaimer in the description, a pinned comment, in addition to adding a "LEGACY" tag in the title. The disclaimer is as-follows:
Notice: This is a legacy video being kept up for educational purposes. A lot of this advice is either outdated or incorrect and we advise using Tor with default settings and only configuring the basic "Safer" sliders in addition to other practical tips covered on the official Tor Website.
Similar to our Windows version of this guide - While there is no evidence of data misuse, free VPNs should come with massive disclaimers when there are no accompanying business models. To help educate users, we decided to keep the videos up, but add a disclaimer in the description, a pinned comment, in addition to adding a "LEGACY" tag in the title. The disclaimer is as-follows:
Notice: This is a legacy video being kept up for educational purposes. You should be aware free VPNs are heavily discouraged due to the high likelihood of data misuse. We have done a lot of growing over the years and have gathered tools to help users learn properly about VPNs.
This video is severely outdated with no room for educational benefit. We have opted to delist it. It is still accessible using the link above but doesn't publicly appear on YouTube organically. It has also been given a "LEGACY" tag.
Similar to our Windows version of this guide - While there is no evidence of data misuse, free VPNs should come with massive disclaimers when there are no accompanying business models. To help educate users, we decided to keep the videos up, but add a disclaimer in the description, a pinned comment, in addition to adding a "LEGACY" tag in the title. The disclaimer is as-follows:
Notice: This is a legacy video being kept up for educational purposes. You should be aware free VPNs are heavily discouraged due to the high likelihood of data misuse. We have done a lot of growing over the years and have gathered tools to help users learn properly about VPNs.
I (Henry) really became obsessed with the cryptocurrency scene after the 2017/2018 explosion - as many people did. Here's a video I did covering some cryptocurrency investment advice which...is something I'd like to stay clear of. To add damage, some projects mentioned like Substratum were complete scams. We have opted to delist it. It is still accessible using the link above but doesn't publicly appear on YouTube organically. It has also been given a "LEGACY" tag.
Probably the worst video on this list so far. There are actually a plethora of warnings given during this video that these cloud mining services are likely scams and people should avoid them - so I'm unsure why I felt it was a good idea to make a video on it anyway. Either way, we have opted to delist it. It is still accessible using the link above but doesn't publicly appear on YouTube organically. It has also been given a "LEGACY" tag.
Here's a sad one. Braver/Bold Browser was supposed to be a fork of Brave without the 'crypto crap' following the Brave affiliate link scandal. Unfortunately, Brave threatened to sue them and the project has ceased all forms of communication and updates since then. Their GitHub repo is dead, their Discord server is dead, and no word on the project has been released. I consider them a dead project at the time of writing this - hopefully I'm wrong. We decided to keep the videos up, but add a disclaimer in the description & a pinned comment. The disclaimer is as-follows:
Notice: Unfortunately, Brave threatened to sue them and the project has ceased all forms of communication and updates since then. Their GitHub repo is dead, their Discord server is dead, and no word on the project has been released. I consider them a dead project at the time of writing this - hopefully I'm wrong.
- GrapheneOS Installation Guide (Simple, Fast, & EASY!)
- GrapheneOS Camera Comparison: Do Photos Suck?
- GrapheneOS Install Error Troubleshooting Guide
The project involved in these videos is beyond upset about our content. We have unlisted the videos above as we don't believe they add good value, especially the outdated installation guide. However, we have chosen to keep the original review & final recap of the project's attacks live.
Notice: These changes were implemented in late 2021, but we forgot to make them live here.