There are a lot of people searching for "free nodes". I will not persuade you to give up or bring goods. I will just state the facts clearly: free nodes. It works, but you have to know what the cost is and what you should never do on it. After reading this article, decide whether or not to use it.
1Where do free nodes come from?
- Public welfare sharing: Some people spend their own money to open a server and share it, but it is usually overcrowded and stops at any time.
- proxy providers diversion trial: The experience nodes released by service providers are limited in speed and time, and are essentially advertisements.
- Reptile collection collection: It is crawled in batches from various "Daily Free Node" websites, the source is completely unknown, and the lifespan is measured in hours.
Common points: You don't know who is sitting behind the server. This is the source of all risks behind.
2What can the node owner see about you?
All your traffic passes through the node server, and the other party can see more than most people think:
- Can see: Your real IP, which domain names were visited at what time (the SNI of HTTPS is clear text), and how much traffic each website uses.
- Can't see: The specific content of an HTTPS website - the path behind the URL, the password you submit and the page content are encrypted and cannot be read directly by nodes.
- Full nudity: Visit the old HTTP clear text website, the content is completely transparent to the node, including everything you enter.
Iron rule: Certificate error = disconnect immediately. Malicious nodes can try man-in-the-middle hijacking, in which case the browser will pop up a certificate warning such as "Your connection is not a private connection." Normally this warning is rare - if you see it in a proxy environment, never click "Continue" and change nodes directly. Once this line of defense is broken, the protection of HTTPS is gone.
3Four types of typical risks, all in one place
- Privacy risks: As above, browsing records are transparent to the node master. Using free nodes to handle sensitive matters is equivalent to handing over your whereabouts to strangers.
- Account risk control: Free node IPs are shared by thousands of people and have long been marked by major platforms. Log in to Google, Steam, and social accounts on it, and at least you need to repeat human-machine verification, and at worst it triggers a risk control account lock.
- Quality risk: Speed limits, oversold, and disappearing at any time are the norm. It can be used to check information in an emergency, but it is unrealistic to expect it to be stable for work.
- Subscription risks: The "free subscription collection" from unknown sources gives you hundreds of nodes at a time, and there is no way to audit what is mixed in them. Only select the ones you need to import, and don't wait for automatic updates of subscription links you don't recognize for a long time.
4If you decide to use: A self-check list
- Verification of ownership: After connecting, visit ip138 and other query stations to see if the export IP is consistent with the nominal region. Nodes marked with "Hong Kong" that are actually in the Mainland will be deleted directly.
- Only do hypoallergenic things: You can check information and read public content; Never touch online banking, payment, main email, or company systems..
- Do not save the password and open a private window: Reduce the probability of successful login.
- Delete after use: Prevent invalid nodes and strangers from subscribing to the resident list.
The import method is no different from that of ordinary nodes: for a single link, use "Import batch URLs from the clipboard" (see Manually add tutorials), click the subscription link Subscribe to import tutorial operation.
5If you use it for a long time, don't expect it to be free.
Free nodes are suitable for only one scenario: temporary emergency. For long-term use, you can either choose a paid service with a good reputation (pay a few yuan to a dozen yuan a month, in exchange for a stable and relatively accountable operator), or build your own server if you have the ability to do it - the cost is controllable, and the person sitting on the server is you. The security reinforcement that can be done on the client side is limited. Choosing whom to hand over traffic to is the biggest security decision.