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VPN Report – Reviews of the top VPNs

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Re: VPN Report – Reviews of the top VPNs

#91

Post by toomanybeersies »

danso wrote: post #39
toomanybeersies wrote: post #36

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…

Do DigitalOcean's IPs fall in a well-known IP range that would make it a target for IP blacklisting, as in the apparent case of AWS [0] (i.e. EC2 and Heroku)? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=883622

Probably. I was using it to watch Top Chef Last Chance Kitchen on BravoTV's website. I don't think they're so strict on it compared to Netflix.

My main use for now it is for security, not for watching geoblocked things, so I'm not so worried about it.

Re: VPN Report – Reviews of the top VPNs

#92

Post by toomanybeersies »

newbear wrote: post #73
toomanybeersies wrote: post #36

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…

Where do I learn about how to do this?

I followed this guide: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-set-...

Re: VPN Report – Reviews of the top VPNs

#93

Post by DennisP »

eatbitseveryday wrote: post #68
kevinr wrote: post #63

lololol. Half of these VPN vendors show up on Kenn White's VPN Hall of Shame for offering unsafe configurations: https://gist.github.com/kennwhite/1f3bc4d889b02b35d8aa For anything actually sensitive, you're better off not using a VPN than using a VPN which provides an unsafe configuration. If you'd rather not do your own pager duty for something like Algo, here's a recommendation I put together a while ago: https://…

Regarding the blog post you shared [0] > In general, US persons today on residential broadband are safest not using a VPN. > Only connect to US-based VPN servers while in the US. Even if your VPN provider offers servers outside the US. What? No reasons given. Smells like FUD. [0] https://free-dissociation.com/blog/posts/2017/03/quick-and-d...

In the two comments at the bottom, someone asked about both those points, and got detailed answers.

Re: VPN Report – Reviews of the top VPNs

#94

Post by jlgaddis »

mobitar wrote: post #10
joshstrange wrote: post #5

Private Internet Access > A pretty boring company. Extremely transactional. You get in and get out. It delivers its experience the way a utility company would. Sometimes, that may be a good thing. But in this case, since I have choice, I'd rather give my money to a company who would appreciate it a little more — perhaps put it to better use. PIA might be very "transactional" but I like them and I've never had any iss…

They connect on port 80 (HTTP instead of HTTPS) on startup. That's unacceptable for a privacy company.

That, in and of itself, is not an issue. Your browsers, for example, download Certificate Revocation Lists over plain-text HTTP as well -- but they are digitally signed.

Re: VPN Report – Reviews of the top VPNs

#96

Post by charlieflowers »

joshstrange wrote: post #5

Private Internet Access > A pretty boring company. Extremely transactional. You get in and get out. It delivers its experience the way a utility company would. Sometimes, that may be a good thing. But in this case, since I have choice, I'd rather give my money to a company who would appreciate it a little more — perhaps put it to better use. PIA might be very "transactional" but I like them and I've never had any iss…

PIA used to be fast, a year ago. Somehow at times they were faster than my underlying connection!

Now, they're _much_ slower. Surely it's not just me.

Re: VPN Report – Reviews of the top VPNs

#97

Post by Shorel »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #13

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 checked the VPN I use, and I think the analysis presented does not correspond to the privacy policy and FAQ of the service.

Re: VPN Report – Reviews of the top VPNs

#98

Post by [deleted] »

jwfxpr wrote: post #80
mobitar wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They connect on port 80 (HTTP instead of HTTPS) on startup. That's unacceptable for a privacy company.

> That's unacceptable for a privacy company. Why ? The fact of a connection being established in port 80 is to do with how TCP/IP works. You aren't even claiming to understand what protocol is in use on port 80, not to mention whether the data is in the clear, what it is for, etc. This isn't analysis , it's... something far short of analysis that I can't think of a kind name for.

[deleted]

Re: VPN Report – Reviews of the top VPNs

#99

Post by SXX »

mahyarm wrote: post #34
tptacek wrote: post #6

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…

You have the security of the datacenter provider instead when you use something like Algo. That datacenter provider is going to have logging, probably wouldn't take pseudoanonymous payment methods like BTC directly, does not have legal insurance, will shut you down if you get enough file sharing complaints and probably wouldn't do things like having RAM only VPN servers w/ read only boot media. Nothing prevents the d…

> Nothing prevents the datacenter provider from doing the bad crap that commercial VPN providers can do.

Money prevents it. Of course datacenter could toggle logging for particular server, but logging everything is very expensive. Most of their clients aren't running VPN servers or file sharing software so it's easier for them to just kick you out on DMCA arrival or when something shady is going on rather than keep your bandwidth.

On other side any commercial VPN service is always waiting for problems with law enforcement to come. And unlike datacenter huge part of their customer base will be doing something shady so they can't just stop providing service in every of such cases.

Re: VPN Report – Reviews of the top VPNs

#100

Post by Kadin »

nilved wrote: post #21
mobitar wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They connect on port 80 (HTTP instead of HTTPS) on startup. That's unacceptable for a privacy company.

It's worse than that. Back when I used PIA a few years ago, they would pass your username and password around in the query string, completely plain-text. That was their session mechanism. I sent them an email explaining the problem and got a refund. Their security mistakes, and the fact that they are based in the US, disqualify them for me. I really wish people would recommend someone else.

I would be interested to know more about this; why they were doing it at the time and if it's still being done.

The use of port 80 is not really important; I'm not sure if the article's author is using "port 80" as shorthand for "unencrypted" but that's sloppy writing if so; you can certainly establish encrypted connections over port 80, of course. I used to do SSH on port 80 all the time to get around stupid firewalls...

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