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VPN Report – Reviews of the top VPNs

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Re: VPN Report – Reviews of the top VPNs

#161

Post by JohnStrange »

abstractbeliefs wrote: post #12

Regardless of how you feel about _why_ PIA sponsor the organisations they do, it is surprising to see someone claiming they "perhaps put [their money] to better use" given their record of supporting foss and digital/online rights [1]. Additionally, the characterization as being extremely focused on the tech illiterate I feel isn't really the case either, they have lots of docs about how to use OpenVPN [2]. Thirdly, w…

I don't know, the criticism in the list is certainly irrelevant, but as far as I can see PIA is a US company and I believe it is kind of absurd to nowadays trust any US or UK company about privacy-related matters. The UK has become one of the worst countries in the world regarding privacy due to the Investigatory Powers Act, but the US also doesn't have a good reputation in this regard.

A simple Google search also reveals various user complaints that PIA apparently uses a Ruby (!) script to constantly write an extensive local log of all web activities, and the option is switched on by default. That's not inspiring my confidence. Their pricing is great, though.

The problem I have with VPNs in general is that quite a sizable number of them look as if they had been set up by dubious entities solely to collect data on their customers. Especially the ones with competitive pricing.

I would rather trust some of the more expensive ones from e.g. Sweden.

Re: VPN Report – Reviews of the top VPNs

#162

Post by JohnStrange »

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…

That observation matches my experience, at least for cheap offers. I bought a one-year subscription to ivacy.com (a Hong Kong based provider ~ Chinese government controlled) at a ridiculously low sales price and it turned out that they impose a maximum password length of 8 characters limited to a small ASCII set. It's like buying a cheap Casio watch imitation with a "waterproof" sticker on it - not really waterproof...

Re: VPN Report – Reviews of the top VPNs

#163

Post by mstaoru »

Macuyiko wrote: post #152
mstaoru wrote: post #128

I'm still looking for a reliable provider that would support openconnect and / or wireguard. Alas, here in China OpenVPN-based VPNs are getting more and more flaky, with talks of shutting down completely soon (not talking about the fake Bloomberg article). IPSec and Socks5 never really worked. Streisand only really works on AWS and having an AWS public IP means no Google most of the time (they block whole IP ranges),…

I once tried to set up OpenConnect on one of my servers as I heard it provided good results in China. Not only was the setup process relatively annoying, it was also relatively quickly throttled by the GFW. Shadowsocks / Lantern / ExpressVPN combo remains the best working option for me ATM.

Interesting. I had decent results with openconnect over daily rebuilding t2.nano instances in ap-* regions. Didn't try wireguard yet since I have a Mac, but UBNT ER-X is on the way and it has wireguard support.

Re: VPN Report – Reviews of the top VPNs

#164

Post by Proof »

Horrible article. If he tried the services he didn't like the websites for (fucking childish excuse btw), he would realise that airvpn offers all the services he was treating as a pro. This is a dissapointing read, and even more disgusting it made its way up to the top of this great website.

Re: VPN Report – Reviews of the top VPNs

#165

Post by thinkMOAR »

I kind of expected network based tests as reviews.

E.g. throughput, latency, connection setup, encryption strengths, fixed ip address etc etc. This is just a feature compare, where one trusts the vpn provider on their blue eyes, e.g. "No logging or tracking"

I cannot imagine a sane service provider that doesn't have some kind of logging, not of your (in vpn case,) browsing activity itself, but when you connected, what accounts are getting brute forced, etc etc. This is logging too.

Re: VPN Report – Reviews of the top VPNs

#166

Post by SXX »

kelnos wrote: post #113
SXX wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 y…

> Money prevents it. Of course datacenter could toggle logging for particular server, but logging everything is very expensive. They'll absolutely log a particular server if a law enforcement agency requires that they do so, and they'll bill the agency for it, so money isn't a factor.

I have no doubt about that, but I totally sure nobody logging every running server at all times. On other side commercial VPN services...

Re: VPN Report – Reviews of the top VPNs

#168

Post by headmelted »

kelnos wrote: post #115

What's the intended audience for this? As a tech-savvy person, reading his commentary on TunnelBear completely discredited his site in my eyes. He talks about things that are completely irrelevant and are incredibly silly to even remotely care about from a VPN provider. Despite his listed criteria at the top, the star ratings and rank order seem to be based on how the provider made him feel , and has nothing to do wi…

TunnelBear - 5 stars, because "it's just so much fun to use."

I hate being a cynical ass (I really do) but this guy has no business at all running this website.

I'll not preach the long form of my usual VPN rant (briefly: they introduce another man-in-the-middle - who is probably anonymous to you, one who is very likely not subject to and utterly unaware of data protection laws, which makes you less safe rather than more).

People will read this site, think he knows what he's talking about, and get themselves into a lot of bother because of the bad advice this dude is giving out. He really needs to read up on what he's advocating here, as he clearly has no knowledge of the critical security factors behind these services.

You might think to yourself:

"Easy on, maybe he's writing for folks that don't care about security and just want US Netflix unblocked in their country."

And you would be right if not for the bottom of the page saying this:

"If you've found this site useful, please share it with a friend who you think would benefit from safer, private browsing."

So yeah, actively encouraging the spread of this terrible security advice is probably worth calling out.

Re: VPN Report – Reviews of the top VPNs

#169

Post by headmelted »

headmelted wrote: post #168
kelnos wrote: post #115

What's the intended audience for this? As a tech-savvy person, reading his commentary on TunnelBear completely discredited his site in my eyes. He talks about things that are completely irrelevant and are incredibly silly to even remotely care about from a VPN provider. Despite his listed criteria at the top, the star ratings and rank order seem to be based on how the provider made him feel , and has nothing to do wi…

TunnelBear - 5 stars, because "it's just so much fun to use." I hate being a cynical ass (I really do) but this guy has no business at all running this website. I'll not preach the long form of my usual VPN rant (briefly: they introduce another man-in-the-middle - who is probably anonymous to you, one who is very likely not subject to and utterly unaware of data protection laws, which makes you less safe rather than…

Also:

Unreviewed VPNs

The following VPNs were not reviewed due to their website experience being poorly designed. This can mean heavy use of stock photos, utter disregard for detail, difficult navigation, excessive and hard to follow text, non-defaulting to HTTPS, and overall poor usability.

At least he understands what's important in a VPN. Kudos for excluding services that use stock photos in their website design.

Re: VPN Report – Reviews of the top VPNs

#170

Post by wepple »

matt4077 wrote: post #57
wepple wrote: post #27

> Extremely bland, stock-photo website. I felt uncomfortable giving them my email address, let alone my payment info. That's not valuable information. > A heavily marketed product lacking inspiration which I ultimately couldn't get to work properly. At this point you've given up even trying. It's not a useful comparison any longer.

This comment is a nice example of how the "I'm a rational person and only features matter"-mindset actually works against its stated goal. With any VPN provider, there are certain crucial features where you have to trust them, "no logging" being the most prominent. Since you're unable to get to the actual truth (until it's too late), you're left with trying to get a sense of the provider's character: are they support…

I agree with your basic premise, and I definitely use some kind of fuzzy gut feel metric when doing my own evaluations. That said, if someone is claiming to do an unbiased review, we need more than gut feel.

If your goal is no logging and one of your metics is "Do they have humor"? You're in deep trouble.

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