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NordVPN disables features when you turn off auto-renew

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

#121

Post by monocasa »

LordHeini wrote: post #52
TillE wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing magical about a "private tracker", those are regularly infiltrated too.

I may be completely wrong on this one but... This is not much of a problem, because you are seeding to "friends" making the whole thing non commercial and a private affair in some legislatures. Not sure if the laws have changed but what.cd used to have a certain number of users which was capped by the number of friends some judge thought to be reasonable. If i recall correctly that whas around 200k meaning that you c…

None of that helps in the US.

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

#122

Post by rasguanabana »

midasuni wrote: post #57
yoz-y wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whereas the VPN provider might do something with your data, your ISP most definitely does .

Does it? I don’t recall giving A&A permission to deal with my data in any nefarious way, i’d doubt they would anyway. https://www.aa.net.uk/

This may be very different in countries different than yours.

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

#123

Post by beermonster »

gopty wrote: post #20
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/

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

Shadowsocks always used to work well enough to evade the GFoC if you hosted your own VPS. Which is simpler than say strongSwan - and IPSEC gives the game away anyway.

https://gfw.report/blog/ss_advise/en/

https://gfw.report/blog/ss_tutorial/en/

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

#124

Post by IshKebab »

fasicle wrote: post #77
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.

Audible might be the exception, I'm very happy with it.

Maybe better since Amazon bought them but before that they had an atrocious reputation for making their subscriptions impossible to cancel.

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

#125

Post by DesiLurker »

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.

my goto explanation for this is the crappiest companies out there have highest profit margin simply because they have a whole host of bad practices available to pick from. that basically means they have most resources to burn on marketing & promotion.. egro most highly advertised stuff is what one should avoid the most.

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

#126

Post by judge2020 »

midasuni wrote: post #57
yoz-y wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whereas the VPN provider might do something with your data, your ISP most definitely does .

Does it? I don’t recall giving A&A permission to deal with my data in any nefarious way, i’d doubt they would anyway. https://www.aa.net.uk/

So maybe you don't have to worry about the ISP itself, but your government:

https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/23/13718768/uk-surveillance....

https://www.amnesty.org.uk/why-taking-government-court-mass-...

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

#127

Post by amelius »

isoprophlex wrote: post #4

By now these VPN providers are like toothpaste, diapers or soft drinks: completely undifferentiated between competitors, and so only able to maintain their market share by spending loads on marketing. Of course the company with most egregious dark patterns and aggressive churn dampening wins. Thankfully a tube of toothpaste doesn't allow implementing dark patterns like this... yet.

Can't we give the FTC more teeth, so they take action whenever a company turns against their customers? Most dark patterns are well known, so how hard can it be to define some laws or set up a legal framework around this? The free market isn't everything, but at least we can try to make it less shitty.

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

#128

Post by grishka »

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/

You can't use any commercial VPN service and expect privacy. Those are only good for bypassing geographical restrictions. If you want privacy, buy a VDS and host your own VPN server. It'll cost about the same, and you can use it for other things at no additional cost.

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

#129

Post by beermonster »

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…

> Maybe someone can enlighten me why these services exist and what usecase they have?

Because there are lots of people that can't create their own VPN even though these days you can spin up a lightsail instance for $3.50 pcm and be up and running with Wireguard in minutes.

And for those people that cannot, their threat model changes to now needing to trust a single entity after they are up in minutes.

As you say, those providers have oftentimes been proven to not be so trustworthy. But how many CAs have been shown to be not trustworthy in the last couple years?

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

#130

Post by beermonster »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #39
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…

> From a security standpoint it is awful because you increase the number of providers you have to trust. No, a VPN replaces an ISP in most threat models (by shifting who can see your traffic). For some people, this is a good trade (ex. me: my ISP has straight-up admitted to analyzing people's traffic for marketing info).

ISP modifying DNS responses, or at the least potentially logging them. A good reason to use DoH/DoT.

ISP logging traffic anyway in UK in order to comply with, say, Snoopers charter.

ISP providing out-of-date router hardware with unpatched firmware that most people connect directly to their WiFI networks instead of isolating.

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