Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

NordVPN disables features when you turn off auto-renew

reddit.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 238 posts

Re: NordVPN disables features when you turn off auto-renew

#61

Post by dvfjsdhgfv »

dheera wrote: post #55
notRobot wrote: post #5

Honestly, nothing holds up to Mullvad [1]. They don't even take an email address while creating accounts, and you can pay easily with Bitcoin or even with cash mailed to them. I'm not affiliated, just a very happy customer. Mullvad is also who Mozilla trusts for the Mozilla VPN [2]. You can sign up with that if you'd like Mozilla to get a cut. [1]: https://mullvad.net/ [2]: https://vpn.mozilla.org/

I totally understand using a VPN service if you're trying to access the internet from another location, e.g. to get past the China firewall or get access to content from a different copyright jurisdiction. However, I don't fully understand the privacy argument. It would seem to be that instead of handing over your entire DNS query history and unencrypted HTTP history to your own corporate IT department or the Starbuc…

The privacy argument simply haven't stood the test of time. However, the first reason is still valid: some companies think they can segregate people based on their IP address, and VPNs offer a simple solution to that - even if it often doesn't work, and in many cases becomes a mouse-and-cat game with the service provider.

Re: NordVPN disables features when you turn off auto-renew

#62

Post by aswerty »

I've used NordVPN previously and thought they were fine as a VPN service. In fact I went back to use them earlier today before seeing this submission. But yeah, on reflection, they really do go out of their way to scare/screw their customers into auto-renewing with various dark patterns. So maybe next time round I'll check out something less evil.

I use a VPN for geo blocked free-to-air sport(6 nations <3) from my home country so VPNs work well for my needs. Ironically it's not even possible to pay for access to view the sport in a legitimate way since everything is region locked.

Re: NordVPN disables features when you turn off auto-renew

#64

Post by lliamander »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #54
LordHeini wrote: post #7

Why are these VPNs even a thing? The only reason i would use one is to get cheaper steam keys from brasil and for that i can get a free one. From a security standpoint it is awful because you increase the number of providers you have to trust. Apart from your ISP and the server you connect to, you got a third party involved for no reason. And VPNs can not that trustworhty as shown by the leaks of logs and what not. M…

1) people believing long-outdated guidance about not using open WiFi networks without a VPN 2) protecting your browsing traffic from being observed by your ISP (where you may not have much choice), at the risk of it being observed by the VPN company (which you trust). 3) Torrenting without having to worry about fines, nastygrams and other annoyances 4) Bypassing geoblocking 1 + 2 is what the VPNs advertise, but I thi…

Wait,, what's wrong about 1?

Re: NordVPN disables features when you turn off auto-renew

#65

Post by LiberatedLlama »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #54
LordHeini wrote: post #7

Why are these VPNs even a thing? The only reason i would use one is to get cheaper steam keys from brasil and for that i can get a free one. From a security standpoint it is awful because you increase the number of providers you have to trust. Apart from your ISP and the server you connect to, you got a third party involved for no reason. And VPNs can not that trustworhty as shown by the leaks of logs and what not. M…

1) people believing long-outdated guidance about not using open WiFi networks without a VPN 2) protecting your browsing traffic from being observed by your ISP (where you may not have much choice), at the risk of it being observed by the VPN company (which you trust). 3) Torrenting without having to worry about fines, nastygrams and other annoyances 4) Bypassing geoblocking 1 + 2 is what the VPNs advertise, but I thi…

> 1)

Open wifi networks still exist. When last I was at my public library (a year ago... covid) they still had an open wifi network for public use. I think for them it's a matter of principle, since it means nobody has to ask permission to use it.

Re: NordVPN disables features when you turn off auto-renew

#66

Post by nicoburns »

hahajk wrote: post #47
nicoburns wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asssuming they don't MITM your connection.

And how would they do that? Your browser should warn you the certs aren’t trusted.

And if your browser does warn you: what do you do? You use a VPN.

Re: NordVPN disables features when you turn off auto-renew

#67

Post by dheera »

wwwwwwwww wrote: post #33
gopty wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is mullvad able to drill through the Great Firewall of China? Few VPN can

Nowadays its probably best to set up your own VPN server for that. Back when I lived there, most VPNs got occationally blocked, then they would get new IPs and work fine again. But from what I heard, it got way worse since Winnie the Pooh took over.

Agree. I always use my own VPN for this.

Most VPN services get blocked eventually and then play cat-and-mouse to get themselves back up, so the service is overall unreliable.

The China firewall also does some "intelligent" blocking of common VPN protocols by fingerprinting their traffic patterns, handshakes, ports, and other things.

If you set up own server, it helps to modify the protocol or wrap it in a proxy that obfuscates the VPN traffic as something innocent-looking. Basically, if you implement something like TCP/IP-over-cat-picture-jpeg-files-on-HTTP-port-80 you'll generally have a rock solid experience. (That's not exactly what I do, but it's along the same lines of thinking, you get the idea, be creative.)

Unfortunately I'm not going to provide code to do this though because that makes it vulnerable to its traffic pattern being fingerprinted and blocked.

Also, avoid AWS. Using slightly lesser-known IaaS providers helps.

Re: NordVPN disables features when you turn off auto-renew

#68

Post by nicoburns »

bzb6 wrote: post #37
nicoburns wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asssuming they don't MITM your connection.

Which you would notice immediately because of the big, scary warnings.

Right, but how do you respond to that? Using a VPN seems like a reasonable approach in this situation.

Re: NordVPN disables features when you turn off auto-renew

#69

Post by cube2222 »

lliamander wrote: post #64
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) people believing long-outdated guidance about not using open WiFi networks without a VPN 2) protecting your browsing traffic from being observed by your ISP (where you may not have much choice), at the risk of it being observed by the VPN company (which you trust). 3) Torrenting without having to worry about fines, nastygrams and other annoyances 4) Bypassing geoblocking 1 + 2 is what the VPNs advertise, but I thi…

Wait,, what's wrong about 1?

Almost everything is over https now, and with it, the wifi network security doesn't matter much.

Re: NordVPN disables features when you turn off auto-renew

#70

Post by lebaux »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #63

From the thread: >The secret to not dealing with crapty company practices is to avoid ones that advertise literally everywhere 24/7 nonstop around every single corner you look. This is so true it nearly qualifies as physics.

* This is so true it nearly qualifies as physics.

I am going to (over)use this phrase from now on. Thank you.

Post reply on HN