Ask HN: What VPN service are you currently using? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What VPN service are you currently using?

#111

Post by neokantian » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 5:28 AM UTC

If you use something like sshuttle, you can use any arbitrary VPS. If you insist on openVPN, however, you can always:

$ sudo apt install openVPN

and run your own VPN instance.

But then again, openVPN requires an excessive amount of configuration, in order to achieve something as menial as a key exchange. The silly thing is that it does not achieve more than what "ssh-copy-id" does, without all the silly ceremonies.

By the way, commercial VPN services also tend to be more expensive than renting your own VPS, which you can nowadays even rent by the hour, if you want to.

In other words, OpenVPN is a service for people who do not know what they are doing. The problem with that is, that their security strategy will ultimately not work either. Paying money to an OpenVPN provider will not make any difference to the problem.

Re: Ask HN: What VPN service are you currently using?

#112

Post by legionof7 » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 5:29 AM UTC

I run an OutlineVPN client on my AWS server.

Re: Ask HN: What VPN service are you currently using?

#113

Post by Bilal_io » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 5:32 AM UTC

I use Windscribe. Very flexible. Pay only $1 for a country (may have multiple locations) , and $1 for unlimited data. (this can be purchased without a premium location as free locations are as good)

Re: Ask HN: What VPN service are you currently using?

#114

Post by satan9 » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 5:33 AM UTC

I use torguard extremely fast and reliable.

Re: Ask HN: What VPN service are you currently using?

#115

Post by Diederich » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 5:35 AM UTC

Not per your requirements, but Wireguard plus digital ocean/linode/etc just blows the others away in terms of robust and efficient service.

Re: Ask HN: What VPN service are you currently using?

#116

Post by ripa » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 5:37 AM UTC

dontbenebby wrote: post #70

ripa wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On macOS/iOS you can configure the built-in VPN clients to use "on-demand" mode, which wont allow traffic before the VPN connection is established. The only way to configure this however is using the Apple Configurator tool and create a custom profile. I run this for my OpenBSD IKEv2 servers which gives me automatic on-demand VPN on cellular and all non-known Wi-Fi networks (== not home).

Algo (another commenter mentioned it[1]) allows you to set this up to be the default for the VPN, very nice feature. I use it on my phone since I often connect to random wifi APs. More and more of the web is moving to HTTPS but a disturbing amount of unencrypted traffic abounds. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19242119

Yep, Algo uses the same approach. It's generating device configuration profiles with the necessary settings. I'm generating mine in the same way but slightly different to allow toggling Ethernet and to support the OpenIKED ciphers etc.

Re: Ask HN: What VPN service are you currently using?

#117

Post by Ttlequals0 » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 5:38 AM UTC

Shameless plug but this is super handy https://github.com/ttlequals0/autovpn

Re: Ask HN: What VPN service are you currently using?

#118

Post by bigiain » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 5:39 AM UTC

llukas wrote: post #76

muppetman wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So to me this filters down to: You care about your privacy and not have your (meta) data gathered up, but you don't care enough about it ensure that you're really protected, you just hope you are by piping your data off somewhere else, even though the place you're piping it to might also be doing the dirty you. I do understand your point, which is (correct me if i'm wrong) that you trust FSecure/Freedome to be taking…

I'd say you are grumpy ;) There is no comparison for ISP with TOS saying they can and will sell your data and VPN company which explicitly advertises privacy. First it is false advertising and second with GDPR such company would be wiped out after somebody figures it out.

GDPR seems to have comprehensively failed to "wipe out" Facebook and Google - who're quite obviously similarly in breach...

Re: Ask HN: What VPN service are you currently using?

#119

Post by SJetKaran » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 5:46 AM UTC

Trust.Zone, cheap (relatively), outside of the 5 eyes, and has an server in India

Re: Ask HN: What VPN service are you currently using?

#120

Post by frio » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 5:49 AM UTC

muppetman wrote: post #48

hannob wrote: post #41

The first question you should ask is why you want a VPN. Because I believe many people newer ask this question and have some vague idea about "it somehow improves security and/or privacy". In most situations this likely isn't true. You add an additional attack vector and you centralize your communication to a single point.

100% this. VPN marketing appears to have really gotten to people, everyone's always asking about it. Real reasons I can see to use a VPN service 1) You want your traffic to reliably egress in that country. i.e. I live in New Zealand but to access some Australian TV on demand, I need to "appear" in Australia. 2) Errr, I can't think of any others. If you are really trying to hide your traffic from your ISP: 1) Change I…

Travel is the other use case; if I know I'll be at a backpackers with free (but open) wifi, then having a VPN is very handy.