31–40 of 235 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I heard VPNs don't work on netflix anymore.
Sort of; they are good at flagging VPN ips but you can always spin up your own to get around this.
This guy has been reviewing VPN services for a while and has put together an incredibly comprehensive table as well as a selection of more detailed reviews, selected from the list at random so as to remain impartial. Recommended. https://thatoneprivacysite.net/vpn-section/ For example, TunnelBear scores highly on security, but poorly on ethics.
I suspect that, for less savvy potential customers (read: the vast majority of them), "That One Privacy Site" can do more harm than good. I wrote a bit about choosing VPNs, and about my concerns with TOPS, here: https://davepeck.org/2017/04/16/why-its-hard-to-choose-a-vpn... PS: Since this is HN, I just want to say that if you can, you should run your own VPN. Use Algo, full stop -- it's put together by some of the b…
TOPS is one of the extraordinarily few impartial guides to VPN providers. We would be far worse off without it.
Running your own VPN is fine if your goal is to protect yourself from a malicious LAN, but useless if you're trying to hide your identity. The IP of whatever provider you choose can reveal your identity just as easily as your home IP.
To steal (and paraphrase) what is basically the perfect summary of this from @SwiftOnSecurity: Commercial VPNs: for when you want all the security of Ukrainian coffee-house wifi from the comfort of your own home. Taylor Swift isn't wrong about this. Use something like Algo to run your own VPN if you have to. If you must use a commercial VPN to get to Netflix or whatever, do it from inside a virtual machine that you u…
Nothing prevents the datacenter provider from doing the bad crap that commercial VPN providers can do. There are ones out there that let you use standard clients as well, so the bad client software part is kind of moot. The only advantage you get is control and responsibility over the vpn server.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suspect that, for less savvy potential customers (read: the vast majority of them), "That One Privacy Site" can do more harm than good. I wrote a bit about choosing VPNs, and about my concerns with TOPS, here: https://davepeck.org/2017/04/16/why-its-hard-to-choose-a-vpn... PS: Since this is HN, I just want to say that if you can, you should run your own VPN. Use Algo, full stop -- it's put together by some of the b…
I don't see how having more information can be harmful. There's even a simplified red/yellow/green table if you don't want the details. TOPS is one of the extraordinarily few impartial guides to VPN providers. We would be far worse off without it. Running your own VPN is fine if your goal is to protect yourself from a malicious LAN, but useless if you're trying to hide your identity. The IP of whatever provider you c…
It can be harmful in the hands of less savvy potential VPN customers, when it leads them entirely to the wrong conclusions. (You're unlikely to fit in this category.)
I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to make it almost a turnkey operation, just run the script and you're good to go, and then it would be a viable option for non-technical people.
Of course, not ideal for anonymity, but a perfectly fine solution for if you want the security benefits of a VPN, or to get around geoblocking (I originally spun up my VPN to watch something that was geoblocked, now I keep it for when using open wifi connections).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see how having more information can be harmful. There's even a simplified red/yellow/green table if you don't want the details. TOPS is one of the extraordinarily few impartial guides to VPN providers. We would be far worse off without it. Running your own VPN is fine if your goal is to protect yourself from a malicious LAN, but useless if you're trying to hide your identity. The IP of whatever provider you c…
> I don't see how having more information can be harmful. It can be harmful in the hands of less savvy potential VPN customers, when it leads them entirely to the wrong conclusions. (You're unlikely to fit in this category.)
Obviously not ideal for non-technical users, but I found it really easy to spin up a VPN on Digital Ocean. I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to make it almost a turnkey operation, just run the script and you're good to go, and then it would be a viable option for non-technical people. Of course, not ideal for anonymity, but a perfectly fine solution for if you want the security benefits of a VPN, or to get around geoblock…