Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Quite frequently, the companies responsible for being watchdogs are in bed or compromised. One example of "trusted" companies caught flat out lying about the very thing they should have been warning everyone about are the Credit Rating Agencies:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_rating_agencies_and_the_subprime_crisis
The issue with VPNs is there is no way to verify their claims.
Typically, you want VPNs to promise not to collect data about you, or what sites you visit. They can promise to delete or never store data, but there's no way to verify they are doing what they say.
Many, many VPNs have claimed they don't store user data or allow traffic sniffing, only to later have been compromised by a government or other entity to track everything you do and hand it over to a hostile government after a subpoena / information request.
This is a more important issue than any feature or service they may provide.
Your MAC address is not transmitted on TCP/IP packets, it's only on layer 2 of the OSI model. Also, you can change your MAC address at will on most OSes, but again, it's only used on your local network and cannot be seen once your packet traverses an IP router. They're cataloging VPN exit nodes, if anything.
Tony Stark (Iron Man), Reed Richards (Mister Fantastic), Hank McCoy (Beast from X-Men), Doctor Light (even has the Doctor in his name!) are more good guys with PhDs.
now there's a sing-along blog that I haven't heard in a long time.
Shortest 163 floor building in the world.
I wouldn't do this. You're leaking important information that was specifically protected by proton to any app that asks for it and to google.
Short answer: no. Tor is specifically designed to mask all network requests from the Tor browser. All the cafe can see is your connection to a Tor node.
If they were somehow detecting video based on traffic patterns ( how often packets are transmitted or received they'd have to sever the only connection they see and your whole Tor session would freeze or need to connect to a new bridge. I believe Tor even attempts to try to mask traffic patterns to disassociate guard node and exit node traffic.
Most likely invidious was having issues.
If you control the access point at home, see if you can put your devices on a separate VLAN. This should help isolate your devices from any infected devices. Otherwise using a hot spot will isolate you from infected devices.
get in the EFI (BIOS) and reduce shared RAM for graphics down to 1GB. this is entirely dependent on your EFI, I can't really tell you what to click on. If there's a search function in your EFI, search for "shared". Test if you can get away with less if you don't game.
To strip out the most graphical eyecandy press Win + R to open the Run dialog. Type sysdm.cpl and press enter. go to advanced tab. in "performance" section, click settings and select "Adjust for best performance" then apply, ok.
Run the Win 11 debloat script, that will also help immensely.
That's about as good as you're going to get unless you switch away from a toy operating system to Linux. (gottem)
UNIX Neckbeard here:
Magnets use to affect the magnetic hard drives (spinning platter, HDD) that were inside computers. This was especially bad because it would erase data permanently. It was the main concern about magnet+computer that everyone was worried about. CRT monitors were affected by magnets, but the inbuilt degauss or a handheld degaussing coil would usually correct the issue.
If your device has solid state storage (basically everything nowadays) that concern went away. Any other issues (like affecting the compass or accelerometer in a phone) are only temporary.
I have never heard of a magnetic field damaging an LCD and a quick google search says that's a myth. Pressing on an LCD will damage it, so maybe a really strong magnet that was placed on an LCD that had ferrous metal behind it physically broke some LCDs and the myth was born, when really it was just pressure that broke the LCD.
What about batting?
