Looking for VPN recommendations
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I'm so fed up with more and more applications (including Windows itself) requiring internet connections and sending out tons of data with little or no control about what is sent and what it is used for. Also, more and more web sites liberally use geolocation data to artificially restrict what I can use, and how. While in some cases, there may be a legal foundation for this behaviour, I doubt that is true most of the time. It doesn't seem like anyone even cares to point that out - which to me is just another red flag, and I am well within my rights to deny that information. Anyway, I was wondering about ways to at least confound all these user data abusing techniques. There are only two things that came to my mind: using TOR, and using a VPN. I'm not sure how much either will help, but I understand that for VPN I need to choose a provider. Different providers provide different services, for a price - or, sometimes, free. And I have no idea what to look out for. So, my question to the community is, do you have recommendations for a first-time VPN user who just wants to retain a lttle more control over his personal data, even if obtained only through obscurity? I don't mind if down/upload speeds go down a bit. Also - this might be a stupid question, but I simply don't know - would it affect my choice of VPN if I were to use TOR, or does it even make sense to use TOR over a VPN? P.S. (2017-4-10): best info found so far: That One Privacy Site | VPN Section[^]
GOTOs are a bit like wire coat hangers: they tend to breed in the darkness, such that where there once were few, eventually there are many, and the program's architecture collapses beneath them. (Fran Poretto)
I'm a big fan of Nord. I've used them for over a year and am very happy with their performance. /ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
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Thanks for the suggestion but it doesn't seem 1.NET offers anything I don't already have. More importantly, it doesn't appear to offer any of the obfuscation I was hoping to gain by using a VPN and/or TOR. As for VPN disadvantages, I am sure there are some, but if it's the only way to achieve what I want, that may not be relevant.
GOTOs are a bit like wire coat hangers: they tend to breed in the darkness, such that where there once were few, eventually there are many, and the program's architecture collapses beneath them. (Fran Poretto)
If obfuscation is what you are after, then VPN only offer a leaky protection since it works at IP level. The domain names have to be resolved before leaving the entry point of VPN, which means your applications (browser or anything else) have to make requests to local DNS providers ... 1-NET and maybe TOR can let the other end of the "VPN" tunnel to make DNS requests for you and thus transfer you browsing history completely to the other end ...
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Thanks for the suggestion but it doesn't seem 1.NET offers anything I don't already have. More importantly, it doesn't appear to offer any of the obfuscation I was hoping to gain by using a VPN and/or TOR. As for VPN disadvantages, I am sure there are some, but if it's the only way to achieve what I want, that may not be relevant.
GOTOs are a bit like wire coat hangers: they tend to breed in the darkness, such that where there once were few, eventually there are many, and the program's architecture collapses beneath them. (Fran Poretto)
And also, 1-NET is designed to have both ends of the "VPN" tunnel under a user's control (self hosting, not using third party services), there is no third party logging involved ...
Find more in 1-NET: connects your resources anywhere[^]. Email searcher Email Aggregation Manager[^].
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I'm a big fan of Nord. I've used them for over a year and am very happy with their performance. /ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
Sheer coincidence that my PIA is due for renewal again Ravi: plus my thanks for the recco of Nord. hate auto renewal (your payment details on file), so had disabled that on PIA - now getting nags: 'reminder: only a few days left' - no standard option for one-off payment (re-sub, allow payment, unsub - still you get the full year usage but with nags) Time to go shopping: summary Nord vs PIA: (seems to be the 2 best from reviews) speed/feat/service: equivalent. PIA slightly cheaper (not by much) ... ... but now: Nord 2 years 72% off (even go direct without the coupons): nice timing. - realise Nord also want payment details on file - let's see how that goes back thought: hope Nord deep discounts are not signs they are going down.
Sin tack the any key okay
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Sheer coincidence that my PIA is due for renewal again Ravi: plus my thanks for the recco of Nord. hate auto renewal (your payment details on file), so had disabled that on PIA - now getting nags: 'reminder: only a few days left' - no standard option for one-off payment (re-sub, allow payment, unsub - still you get the full year usage but with nags) Time to go shopping: summary Nord vs PIA: (seems to be the 2 best from reviews) speed/feat/service: equivalent. PIA slightly cheaper (not by much) ... ... but now: Nord 2 years 72% off (even go direct without the coupons): nice timing. - realise Nord also want payment details on file - let's see how that goes back thought: hope Nord deep discounts are not signs they are going down.
Sin tack the any key okay
Lopatir wrote:
realise Nord also want payment details on file
I use my PayPal account to pay them. /ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
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Stefan_Lang wrote:
Any confidential data stored on my disks, including e.g. stuff related to my work, is effectively compromised by MS, no less.
So, you're concerned they might send your Microsoft Money file to their servers? Technically, any program you install on your PC has the capability to do that. But that's fair. A couple of times I've had charges show up on my credit card that I did not do. First time I called and disputed. Gone. Second time, I did it online. No big deal. Not that it couldn't be worse but I guess I don't see it as enough of a threat to worry too much about it.
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who can extrapolate from incomplete data. There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
RyanDev wrote:
So, you're concerned they might send your Microsoft Money file to their servers?
Erm, no. I'm not so much concerned over data they send to their servers, but third parties hacking their servers and doing real bad stuff with it. MS might be using my data to take advantage of me, but I trust they won't do it in such a big way that it hurts me real bad - after all they've still got some reputation (and money) left to lose. But others may have less scruples. But all of this is missing the point. I was looking for advice on VPN, not to discuss privacy. I am concerned, for various reasons. VPN seems a good way to reduce the risks. I am well aware that it may not solve the issue entirely, but I rather do something than nothing at all.
GOTOs are a bit like wire coat hangers: they tend to breed in the darkness, such that where there once were few, eventually there are many, and the program's architecture collapses beneath them. (Fran Poretto)
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I'm so fed up with more and more applications (including Windows itself) requiring internet connections and sending out tons of data with little or no control about what is sent and what it is used for. Also, more and more web sites liberally use geolocation data to artificially restrict what I can use, and how. While in some cases, there may be a legal foundation for this behaviour, I doubt that is true most of the time. It doesn't seem like anyone even cares to point that out - which to me is just another red flag, and I am well within my rights to deny that information. Anyway, I was wondering about ways to at least confound all these user data abusing techniques. There are only two things that came to my mind: using TOR, and using a VPN. I'm not sure how much either will help, but I understand that for VPN I need to choose a provider. Different providers provide different services, for a price - or, sometimes, free. And I have no idea what to look out for. So, my question to the community is, do you have recommendations for a first-time VPN user who just wants to retain a lttle more control over his personal data, even if obtained only through obscurity? I don't mind if down/upload speeds go down a bit. Also - this might be a stupid question, but I simply don't know - would it affect my choice of VPN if I were to use TOR, or does it even make sense to use TOR over a VPN? P.S. (2017-4-10): best info found so far: That One Privacy Site | VPN Section[^]
GOTOs are a bit like wire coat hangers: they tend to breed in the darkness, such that where there once were few, eventually there are many, and the program's architecture collapses beneath them. (Fran Poretto)
You can setup your own on cloud, I have done this and able to VPN my way out of blocks (Even in China). I have 2 VPNs setup, one in USA (Ubuntu VM, AWS - Free!!) and another one in Singapore (Win Server VM, Azure) I have setup OpenVPN access server on both. Here is a guide I followed for setting up VPN on AWS[^] The link for setting up on windows is dead now, though I have it on my onenote, I can provide it if you need.
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And also, 1-NET is designed to have both ends of the "VPN" tunnel under a user's control (self hosting, not using third party services), there is no third party logging involved ...
Find more in 1-NET: connects your resources anywhere[^]. Email searcher Email Aggregation Manager[^].
Following your link, my impression was that 1-NETs main purpose is the connection of your devices, not so much the obscuring of your presence in the web. The direct device-to-device connections may offer the obscuring as a side-effect, but I don't see how it would help me when I (or some unwanted program service on my system) connect to anything else on the web. It surely looks interesting for the specific purpose of connecting my devices. But beyond that, I'd still need an actual VPN.
GOTOs are a bit like wire coat hangers: they tend to breed in the darkness, such that where there once were few, eventually there are many, and the program's architecture collapses beneath them. (Fran Poretto)
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Following your link, my impression was that 1-NETs main purpose is the connection of your devices, not so much the obscuring of your presence in the web. The direct device-to-device connections may offer the obscuring as a side-effect, but I don't see how it would help me when I (or some unwanted program service on my system) connect to anything else on the web. It surely looks interesting for the specific purpose of connecting my devices. But beyond that, I'd still need an actual VPN.
GOTOs are a bit like wire coat hangers: they tend to breed in the darkness, such that where there once were few, eventually there are many, and the program's architecture collapses beneath them. (Fran Poretto)
OK, maybe the front page of the 1-NET website is a little confusing that give you the said impression, its still work in progress, you know. It stipulates the ultimate effects of connecting a user's devices across LAN boundaries using the user's existing network resources (the connection is of course encrypted and have both ends authenticated). But as one would expect, connected devices can pass data through the connection using custom or standard protocols, like SOCKS. Otherwise what is the point of connecting? Majority of mature networking applications can handle SOCKS protocol, including but not limited to ssh, git, ftp clients, some remote desktop clients and of course browsers the list goes on .... A user can use one of his/her existing devices located in a set "safe" locations (LAN) as exit endpoints that his/she can delegate all his/her web browsing to (this feature is build into the 1-NET gateway). The external world only knows only these endpoints are doing the browsing but the user may actual doing the browsing at an endpoint far a way (logical or physical) from exit one, (e.g. across Atlantic Ocean, etc.). Is this what you were asking for? It's a build in feature of the 1-NET gateway! In the VPN services on the market, the "exit endpoints" are controlled by the services providers who does not belong to the "external world". In our solutions, the "exit endpoints" are controlled by the user himself/herself. So the later is a more privacy respecting architecture in design ... If one really like to have pure IP level VPN solution, there is no problem at all. There are open source tun2socks lib that one can use to build VPN systems base on SOCKS tunnels. Some compiling and networking setup may be involved, but we are programmers, right? But as I stated VPN can handle simple application scenarios, for more sophisticated ones at larger scale, a more controllable one is needed and our solution is 1-NET ...
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I'm so fed up with more and more applications (including Windows itself) requiring internet connections and sending out tons of data with little or no control about what is sent and what it is used for. Also, more and more web sites liberally use geolocation data to artificially restrict what I can use, and how. While in some cases, there may be a legal foundation for this behaviour, I doubt that is true most of the time. It doesn't seem like anyone even cares to point that out - which to me is just another red flag, and I am well within my rights to deny that information. Anyway, I was wondering about ways to at least confound all these user data abusing techniques. There are only two things that came to my mind: using TOR, and using a VPN. I'm not sure how much either will help, but I understand that for VPN I need to choose a provider. Different providers provide different services, for a price - or, sometimes, free. And I have no idea what to look out for. So, my question to the community is, do you have recommendations for a first-time VPN user who just wants to retain a lttle more control over his personal data, even if obtained only through obscurity? I don't mind if down/upload speeds go down a bit. Also - this might be a stupid question, but I simply don't know - would it affect my choice of VPN if I were to use TOR, or does it even make sense to use TOR over a VPN? P.S. (2017-4-10): best info found so far: That One Privacy Site | VPN Section[^]
GOTOs are a bit like wire coat hangers: they tend to breed in the darkness, such that where there once were few, eventually there are many, and the program's architecture collapses beneath them. (Fran Poretto)
I used AirVPN for a couple of years mostly for Netflix. Wasn't completely seamless, but got the job done. Was cheap enough, but no idea how trustworthy the guy is.
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I'm so fed up with more and more applications (including Windows itself) requiring internet connections and sending out tons of data with little or no control about what is sent and what it is used for. Also, more and more web sites liberally use geolocation data to artificially restrict what I can use, and how. While in some cases, there may be a legal foundation for this behaviour, I doubt that is true most of the time. It doesn't seem like anyone even cares to point that out - which to me is just another red flag, and I am well within my rights to deny that information. Anyway, I was wondering about ways to at least confound all these user data abusing techniques. There are only two things that came to my mind: using TOR, and using a VPN. I'm not sure how much either will help, but I understand that for VPN I need to choose a provider. Different providers provide different services, for a price - or, sometimes, free. And I have no idea what to look out for. So, my question to the community is, do you have recommendations for a first-time VPN user who just wants to retain a lttle more control over his personal data, even if obtained only through obscurity? I don't mind if down/upload speeds go down a bit. Also - this might be a stupid question, but I simply don't know - would it affect my choice of VPN if I were to use TOR, or does it even make sense to use TOR over a VPN? P.S. (2017-4-10): best info found so far: That One Privacy Site | VPN Section[^]
GOTOs are a bit like wire coat hangers: they tend to breed in the darkness, such that where there once were few, eventually there are many, and the program's architecture collapses beneath them. (Fran Poretto)
To those who are interested in this topic, here is some useful information I found: After following a couple of links provided here, and searching for various services, I stumbled upon That One Privacy Site[^], which has an excellent informative section about the things to watch out for when selecting a VPN service. Even better it provides a huge sheet that shows how well 179(!) existing VPN services fare with regard to these things. What convinced me most about the usefulness of this site is how it perfectly describes some of my experiences I had when trying to find more information: That One Privacy Site | That One Privacy Guy’s VPN Reviews[^] . For those who start out like me, I recommend a visit to this site, if only to get an idea what to expect.
GOTOs are a bit like wire coat hangers: they tend to breed in the darkness, such that where there once were few, eventually there are many, and the program's architecture collapses beneath them. (Fran Poretto)
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Ah, you're thinking of browsing. I'm more concerned about stuff like Microsofts CompatTelRunner that does scan your entire hard disks even if you don't participate in CEIP. MS states that (1) it should only be running if you participate, which is a blatant lie, (2) that you can uninstall and hide the related KB update(s), which doesn't help since they wrapped up all KB updates in the cumulative updates, and hidden updates will keep getting unhidden on a regular basis, (3) that it doesn't report any data that I should be concerned about, which I don't believe because of (1) and (2). Any confidential data stored on my disks, including e.g. stuff related to my work, is effectively compromised by MS, no less.
GOTOs are a bit like wire coat hangers: they tend to breed in the darkness, such that where there once were few, eventually there are many, and the program's architecture collapses beneath them. (Fran Poretto)
I disabled the CompatTelRunner service only to find it had been re-enabled a few days later. Seems as if the only sure way is to pull the RJ45 out.
We're philosophical about power outages here. A.C. come, A.C. go.
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The other option is to use 1-NET gateways :-O . VPN works at IP level which makes it invisible to applications once it is setup properly. But there are at least three drawbacks: 1) it requires at least one LAN (local area network) to have a public IP which is expensive or to use some kind of dynamic IP/name mapping services. 2) VPN connected LANs can not have same (private) IP address space, otherwise VPN will not know how to route data. Since most LAN are setup using default private IP space, it is most likely that they will collide in IP space without readjusting. This makes it not scaleable. 3) Setting up of VPN is not easy. I have almost zero knowledge about TOR however both TOR and 1-NET gateways uses SOCKS protocol to connect client applications. 1-NET gateways do not have the above limitations of VPN, namely it does not require to acquire any public IP address, it is scalable since it does not require to make any change to existing LANs and it is easy to setup. It is under internal testing right now. The present message is in fact sent to codeproject through a pair of above mentioned gateways separated by Pacific ocean connected by a very slow line: one is in Asia and the other one is in North America. It can make use of a user's network bandwidth very efficiently, meaning it can be very fast as long as the network bandwidth is high. We are using it to do web browsing, trans-LAN administration (ssh, remote desktop, etc.) now. It can be used by any software system that knows how to talk via SOCKS. Drop me a note if your are interested in testing it when it is ready (including finishing documentation, packaging, etc.) ...
Find more in 1-NET: connects your resources anywhere[^]. Email searcher Email Aggregation Manager[^].
Shuqian Ying wrote:
- Setting up of VPN is not easy.
This is absolute rubbish in most cases. I use CyberGhostVPN and once you install the client all you have to do is login, select the country and you're done. If so desired, you can even select a specific server in the country. They have almost 900 servers in 27 countries and do not keep logs so there will be nothing to hand over when some 3-letter agency comes calling.
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If obfuscation is what you are after, then VPN only offer a leaky protection since it works at IP level. The domain names have to be resolved before leaving the entry point of VPN, which means your applications (browser or anything else) have to make requests to local DNS providers ... 1-NET and maybe TOR can let the other end of the "VPN" tunnel to make DNS requests for you and thus transfer you browsing history completely to the other end ...
I don't know what you mean by it being leaky. Once you are connected to the VPN, DNS requests will go encrypted through the VPN as well. VPNs would be kind of pointless if that wasn't the case.
Blog: [Code Index] By Mike Marynowski" Company: Singulink
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I've always like PIA (Private Internet Access). But if you want a more independent review, here is an old-ish review for you: Which VPN Providers Take Your Anonymity Seriously? - TorrentFreak[^]
I can vouch for PIA as well. Reasonably quick and it cost something like $40 for a whole year. That said, don't expect 100Mbps through it, so if you are downloading large files you want quickly you will probably want to disconnect, but it's the best VPN I've used in that price range by far and I've tried a several of the top recommended options on review sites.
Blog: [Code Index] By Mike Marynowski | Business: Singulink
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Shuqian Ying wrote:
- Setting up of VPN is not easy.
This is absolute rubbish in most cases. I use CyberGhostVPN and once you install the client all you have to do is login, select the country and you're done. If so desired, you can even select a specific server in the country. They have almost 900 servers in 27 countries and do not keep logs so there will be nothing to hand over when some 3-letter agency comes calling.
I know it easy if you use a third party service which host your "other endpoint" for you. But then you are letting the service provider as an insider of you network. That is why they almost all declare that they do not do logging, etc. Do you really trust them, that is the problem ... Try to host the other endpoint your self! Just try it, then you will know ...
Find more in 1-NET: connects your resources anywhere[^]. Email searcher Email Aggregation Manager[^].
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I don't know what you mean by it being leaky. Once you are connected to the VPN, DNS requests will go encrypted through the VPN as well. VPNs would be kind of pointless if that wasn't the case.
Blog: [Code Index] By Mike Marynowski" Company: Singulink
I am talking about true VPN working at IP level, in which case the application has to resolve any none IP address into IP before using VPN ... Any one that claim otherwise is not providing true VPN service (they most likely are providing one endpoint SOCKS proxy service, but it's different from 1-NET which contains pair of SOCKS endpoints that forms a secured tunnel) Suppose a user has two zones (LANs), one is the one he/she want to secure (obscure, in OP's word) and the other one is "safe" and the application is in the first zone. The user want to delegate all his/her internet activity to the second one. If one use VPN to connect (tunnel) the two zones, the all the network layer "authorities" (service provider, ISP, etc ...) in the first zone still know what the use is doing since the use is making DNS requests in the first zone and they can control what are visible by the user by controlling the DNS providers. That is what leaky mean in my post. But using 1-NET secured tunnels, one can choose to do DNS requests inside the other zone ...
Find more in 1-NET: connects your resources anywhere[^]. Email searcher Email Aggregation Manager[^].
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I know it easy if you use a third party service which host your "other endpoint" for you. But then you are letting the service provider as an insider of you network. That is why they almost all declare that they do not do logging, etc. Do you really trust them, that is the problem ... Try to host the other endpoint your self! Just try it, then you will know ...
Find more in 1-NET: connects your resources anywhere[^]. Email searcher Email Aggregation Manager[^].
Do you plan to have your own servers in 27 countries? If you do, start your own VPN company and make some money in the process. Otherwise, having your own VPN server is 1. unnecessary because there are plenty of VPN service providers 2. impractical because you will be severely limited in your access points 3. an unnecessary, potentially prohibitive, expense you have to carry 99.9% of people just want some reasonable way to not be constantly tracked or spied upon or to have access to websites that would otherwise not be accessible because of geographic limitations. For that purpose, any good VPN service is more than adequate and that was what the poster was looking for. The only thing that really counts is that the VPN provider does NOT keep logs and that they are NOT based in the USA or the UK, the two largest mass surveillance centres in the world.
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Enjoy! ;)
I have used PIA over a year and recommend it. But you also asked about TOR. PIA provides privacy so that your internet provider can't spy on you. It also provides encryption so you are safe on public Wifi. However, your browser also collects data on your browsing habits, so something like TOR is extremely valuable, in addition to a VPN. I don't use TOR, but I configured my browsers (both Chrome and Firefox) to clear my browsing history when I exit.
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Ah, you're thinking of browsing. I'm more concerned about stuff like Microsofts CompatTelRunner that does scan your entire hard disks even if you don't participate in CEIP. MS states that (1) it should only be running if you participate, which is a blatant lie, (2) that you can uninstall and hide the related KB update(s), which doesn't help since they wrapped up all KB updates in the cumulative updates, and hidden updates will keep getting unhidden on a regular basis, (3) that it doesn't report any data that I should be concerned about, which I don't believe because of (1) and (2). Any confidential data stored on my disks, including e.g. stuff related to my work, is effectively compromised by MS, no less.
GOTOs are a bit like wire coat hangers: they tend to breed in the darkness, such that where there once were few, eventually there are many, and the program's architecture collapses beneath them. (Fran Poretto)
In this case, you should not use a VPN to provide protection since VPN are not visible to applications, anything "your" application can do can also be done by third party applications ... I have not think this way before, but I belief there should be a solution to this problem using security gateways (black list them is one of potential the solution). But it's not build in yet, I will think about it
Find more in 1-NET: connects your resources anywhere[^]. Email searcher Email Aggregation Manager[^].
