A Hacker's Black Friday/Cyber Monday

Black Friday has become the single largest shopping holiday in the west, even overtaking Boxing Day in Canada.

Most people go into this weekend with Amazon, Walmart, or (god forbid) physical retail shopping in mind. I prefer to kick back and lurk for online deals. Here's my list of stuff you might be interested in if you're like me.

DISCLAIMER: the hyperlinks provided all lead to the American versions of each respective site. Make sure you visit the correct store site for your country. I am also aware that this article is over a week early.

Internet Goods

Throughout the year, I get into conversations about the services I use. Often times people ask me how I manage to get them for so cheap. Well, my secret is buying everything on black friday/cyber monday.

Almost every online service that you can name has a sale around this time. These are all my personal favourite services for hackers/developers/privacy gurus:

Note: * indicates that the service also has a free tier.

• Namecheap - Park all those domains you've been secretly thinking about getting.
• OVH - 20-50% off 12-month VPSes. Snag a few and use them for whatever (usually comes out to 3.50€/month).
  • Pro tip: don't get scammed by lesser-known hosting providers with super cheap "deals". I've had servers completely deleted by these types of providers, and I was even ghosted by customer support.
• VPN Services - Most run Black Friday sales. Pick your provider of choice and see if you can snag a sweet deal for a year's subscription.
• Protonmail* - 50% off pro plans, even if you're an existing paid user. I like Protonmail for their domain email hosting.
• 33mail* - Catchall email without your own domain. Last year they offered 50% off if you paid with bitcoin.
• Shodan* - Lifetime individual membership for $5, down from $49. I got mine a couple years ago and still use it to this day
  • UPDATE: unfortunately they're not running it this year :(
• Standard Notes* - 50% off a 5-year subscription. This is the best notes app in the game (for privacy/security), if you haven't already heard.
• Charles Proxy - 30% off licenses (normally $50). Basically a system-wide proxy for traffic analysis/fuckery.

Hardware

I should preface this section by saying that I'm a homelabber and a data hoarder. This is by no means a "build your own PC" sale index (go to /r/buildapcsales for that).

• Hak5 - Discounts on all devices (ranging from -$10 to -$90) as well as books and other stuff you didn't want.
• Hacker Boxes - 20-25% off cool hacker care packages.
• Newegg - The internet's favourite source for PC parts/accessories year round.
  • Great deals for: monitors, SSDs, and CPUs/GPUs (especially AMD)
• Tiger Direct - Basically newegg--; when it comes to sales and customer support, but they tend to have a similar inventory.
• eBay - Find basically any computer part in existence. Every Black Friday I buy at least 1 thing from eBay, usually used/refurbished things from reputable sellers.
  • If you want a cheap laptop for your homelab, check out the ThinkPad X220/X230 and T420/T430.
• Best Buy - I shop at BestBuy for one thing and one thing only: WD EasyStores.

Books/Resources

• No Starch Press - The best hacker books in the game (exploitation, programming, etc.). Last year they ran a 42% discount.
• Pragmatic Bookshelf - Books on programming, data structures, and more computer science-y topics. 40% off.
• LibGen - Download any ebook for 100% off!

Other Stuff

Things that don't fit into the other categories, but I that still wanna recommend.

• Stickermule - This is where I print my stickers, and they tend to have some pretty good sales.
  • Pro tip: get some stickers for your own logo/pfp/whatever. They're the new business cards, haven't ya heard?

Hopefully this information will aid you in your Black Friday endeavours. Don't forget to stay safe!

~Pupper

 
P.S. let me know if I missed anything by emailing your suggestions to blog[at]pupp3r.net