I use Proton. But I continue to run into more and more websites and services that detect my VPN and refuse my connection, or just run literally 40 captchas in a row until I just give up.
I use Proton because it has a “suite” of products under a single subscription, but that benefit is losing it’s allure as some of their products are pretty shitty from a user experience perspective, their customer support is atrocious, and they don’t seem to pay any attention to what their users actually want.
Does anyone track known VPN servers? Is there a specific provider that causes less problems? Does anyone test different VPNs for detection?
Thinking about cancelling my subscription and moving to Mullvad.
Mullvad, haven’t had any issues with it. If a site refuses my connection I just change servers until it works, even found a few that work on reddit
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have you considered using alternatives front ends for some of the major social platforms?
I use libreddit/redlib to browse reddit. you can run an instance locally or connect to remote ones. this way your IP isn’t logged by reddit in the first place & no JavaScript is required to be run for the website to function properly.
there is even an extension called libredirect which can automatically swap clicked reddit (& other platforms) links to the same page on public frontends, which removes the hasstle of manually changing the URL.
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Redlib works perfectly, I think they use IPv6 address rotation to evade IP bans
Have you considered not using Reddit?
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If you don’t need to log in, I would recommend a private frontend like Redlib (fork of Libreddit) together with the LibRedirect browser extension
VPNs are not meant for privacy. The concept is clunky, as is the concept of our internet.
Tor or I2P are made for privacy, but the interactions with the clearnet have the same problems, you need a legal entity hosting the server, IPs are known and can be blocked etc.
Hosting your own VPN does not anonymize you anymore but is very unlikely to get blocked.
Mullvad, it has ipv6 and way better linux support than proton
I used to be a Mullvad customer but switched to Proton because I use all the products on their suite. It makes financial sense to me.
Mullvad, however, has the best VPN experience ever. Faster, more stable and way less Captchas (though I’m not sure that’s good?). Plus, I love their bullshit free pricing. It’s 5 euros a month regardless if you buy 1 month or 2 years. Can’t recommend it enough, even though I’m no longer a customer.
Yep, I switched because I was moving away from the proton ecosystem lol. Their poor google-free android support for mail, and awful linux vpn support (they have a hard dependency on networkmanager, but I don’t use NM, I use iwd) plus no ipv6 pushed me away
No port forwarding though :(
I used to use Mullvad but after they disabled port forwarding I switched over to Proton.
AirVPN has port forwarding
There are only 2 VPN providers that are worth using IMHO: Proton and Mullvad. All the other VPNs are of questionable quality or their practices make you wonder if you should use them at all (eg logging and keeping logs)
Unfortunately there are websites that try to detect vpns and block you. Fuck those websites. Don’t encourage them by giving them eyeballs or money.
What don’t you like about IVPN? Audited, open source, great reputation. I don’t even use them but seems odd to count them out.
Unfortunately there are websites that try to detect vpns and block you. Fuck those websites. Don’t encourage them by giving them eyeballs or money.
It’s mostly CDNs like Cloudflare and Akamai that are notorious for blocking VPN and Tor users. Fuck CDNs, they destroy privacy and centralize the internet.
I’ve been using Nord VPN for years. Maybe someone can educate me on why it’s not good but I’ve had zero issues with it and it allows me to do everything I need to for a great price.
If I remember correctly, NordVPN keeps logs So, if a govt ever subpoenas their data, users can have their privacy violated.
Nord says they don’t keep logs. Who knows if they actually do or not.
“NordVPN is clarifying that it will comply with information requests from international law enforcement after publishing a blog post in 2017 saying that it wouldn’t.”
So, it seems they’ll turn on logging if asked nicely enough.
Mullvad, IVPN, Proton, AirVPN, or Windscribe are all fine. Depending on how much stock you put into audits the first three are probably a tier above for privacy.
Apparently unpopular but I use Mozilla VPN
You’re fine, it’s basically just rebranded Mullvad VPN
But at that point, you can just cut out the middle man and use Mullvad directly, I think their clients are much better and offer more features. They also don’t require your email address and you can pay anonymously with crypto.
Actually, the middle man is why I picked them… I’m just trying to give Mozilla extra revenue streams besides donations from Google.
But it is good to know its at least not a bad option. Their client is decent enough, I have no problems with it, so I’m happy to continue to support them and think of it as a monthly donation
Ok that makes sense, but wtf I just realized that it’s $10/month, Mullvad is 5€ which is $5.38 and they even give you a 10% discount if you pay with crypto
It’s $5/month with an annual subscription, but then you can’t go month to month like Mullvad.
ProtonVPN free (paid is still too expensive for me) and Mullvad.
I find that Mullvad is usually blocked more.
For the past 3 or 4 years I was just on ProtonVPN free tier. For past 15 days I am using Mullvad. I really like that you can choose some custom ports for WireGuard, and also the multihop.
What is unfortunate is that I can’t generate separate credentials for OpenVPN, like with ProtonVPN. It just uses account ID.I have also tried IVPN for a week. Nicer UI, but a bit more expensive, sort of. They have variable pricing based on subscription length, and that just makes me dislike them enough to stick with Mullvad. €5/month whether it’s 1 month, 6 months, a year or longer.
I don’t remember what specifically it was, but I know I also preferred the Mullvad’s ToS over IVPN, although both are fine.I also thought of AirVPN because of port forwarding, but for privacy I’ll stick to Mullvad.
What surprised me with Mullvad was the payment processing speed. It only took 4 days from me dropping the envelope with money into mail collection box in Slovakia to me getting the time added. Considering that shipping to Sweden is “3-5 days”, they must have just processed that basically immediately.
But perhaps I was just lucky. I’ll see the next time.this is the life i deserve, not the one i have
There’s always the option of renting a low cost VM in the cloud and running your own VPN. They will probably monitor your traffic though.
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Depends what you’re using a VPN for. If you’re using it for privacy, yeah, it wouldn’t help. If you’re using it for geo locked content, it works great. Or for privacy from specifically your ISP.
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If you’re trusting any other VPN provider, then you’re already willing to trust someone. What’s the difference between trusting Proton and trusting Digital Ocean?
If you’re only visiting HTTPS sites then your ISP already can’t snoop your traffic. A VPN gives you very little added privacy.
No matter what you use, you’re really only protecting yourself from your own ISP.
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Windscribe…had it for a few years now and seems fine. I’ll probably look into proton or mulvad when my subscription runs out, but I’d re-up if I find another subscription deal.
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Proton and Mullvad are the only 2 I’d trust. I suspect that they get similar results.
Proton has gotten a lot better since launch, but it’s always a moving target with these things. I really only have issues with some store sites that just don’t load with a VPN, which only tells me I don’t want to shop there.
IVPN and AirVPN are also very trustworthy and pretty popular in the privacy community
um I don’t use a vpn. Please tell me why I should use a VPN. It’s just something that costs money that seems unnecessary. I have nothing to hide. Why are you all hiding behind VPNs? What am I missing?
A VPN doesn’t protect you the way OP thinks it does. It just hides your IP address from the websites you visit. Of course, now instead of one website seeing that you visited it, one organization can see everything you visit.
Basically it just moves your trust from your ISP to your VPN provider. So yeah, if you don’t need that, and you don’t need to get around geo blocks, you don’t need a VPN.
“I have nothing to hide …”
Nice story, bro.
When you post a real photograph of yourself, wife, kids, and all your social security numbers and bank account numbers, along with a complete history of all video rentals and library books, and your private confessions of folly, vice, and sin-- post all that on your Lemmy profile, then I’ll believe you have nothing to hide.
My wife? Gross! I’m heterosexual woman. and everything else you described, except for social security numbers, sounds a lot like Facebook. Which I don’t use.
Nice try fed, won’t narrow me down that easily
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I don’t think there is one. Nord has dedicated IPs you can buy and use so that it’s always “your IP” but I’m not sure if they actually solve the blocks and captcha issues.
Nord is one of the worst VPNs I have used. Would not recommend
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wHaT aRe U uSiNg ur VPN fOr? /S
Not really answering your question, but there is this open source extensions that automatically solves captchas locally
