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

VPN Report – Reviews of the top VPNs

vpnreport.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 235 posts

Re: VPN Report – Reviews of the top VPNs

#211

Post by davidreiss »

sp00ls wrote: post #193

Lol this site is a joke, how much is TunnelBear paying him for the top spot? They're the only VPN provider I see consistently spending money on marketing and sponsoring YouTube videos. 'Fun to use'..what? I don't care if my VPN is 'fun', I want it to protect my privacy. He mentions that 2 of the VPNs are 'uninspired'. Sorry, I didn't realize that tunneling traffic to protect privacy was an art project and not a techn…

> Lol this site is a joke, how much is TunnelBear paying him for the top spot?

Sadly, this is the case for a lot of media/recommendations/etc now. Maybe it has always been this way, but it's much more noticable now.

The fan driven recommendations/sites are a thing of the past as everyone is trying to monetize and make money off their articles.

Even worse, with the move by corporate america/government agencies/political groups into the social media space, even comments/submissions have to been viewed with some degree of skepticism.

It seems like every other article/submission/comment/etc are selling something and the internet/social media/etc is no longer a community but a marketplace.

Re: VPN Report – Reviews of the top VPNs

#212

Post by davepeck »

JohnStrange wrote: post #186
davepeck wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither, I suspect, did you read my post. We can probably end here. :-)

Looks to me like you're primarily advertising Cloaks, owned by a US-based company. There are tons of reasons why privacy-minded users would want to avoid a company under US jurisdiction, but you mention none of them.

There might indeed be reasons to avoid US jurisdiction -- that's true, but it's not relevant to the point I attempt to make, which is that labeling the US "bad" by default and without qualification is silly, and is one (of several) ways TOPS might lead less savvy potential customers astray.

As an aside, I'm skeptical that there are "tons" of actually good reasons to avoid US jurisdiction. I don't doubt that good reasons exist. It's just that I've seen plenty of bad ones! :-)

And to clarify: no, advertising Cloak is absolutely not my goal. If you're interested, I'm always happy to recommend trustworthy VPN services that aren't Cloak. I mention Cloak in that post because in my (biased!) opinion it's a good exemplar of the six criterion I look for. That's no accident, since I co-founded Cloak and built it in part to satisfy those criterion. That I'm Cloak's co-founder is pretty clearly disclosed both here on HN and on my personal blog. I should mention, for completeness, that I'm no longer affiliated with Cloak.

Re: VPN Report – Reviews of the top VPNs

#213

Post by captaindoe »

demas1252 wrote: post #194
captaindoe wrote: post #144

Founder of OVPN.com here. I’m happy to answer any questions regarding our infrastructure, policies or tech stack.

Do you have kill-switch functionality on iOS ?

Unfortunately not. We do not have a custom app for iOS or Android.

Re: VPN Report – Reviews of the top VPNs

#214

Post by demas1252 »

captaindoe wrote: post #213
demas1252 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have kill-switch functionality on iOS ?

Unfortunately not. We do not have a custom app for iOS or Android.

Does something like this (https://github.com/iphoting/ovpnmcgen.rb) will not help here ?

Today I was trying your service and missing killswitch in iOS app is the single reason why I have decided to wait.

Re: VPN Report – Reviews of the top VPNs

#216

Post by deadlyllama »

wikibob wrote: post #171
deadlyllama wrote: post #143

I'm disappointed that Mo flat out disregards options "due to their website experience being poorly designed." A slick website means that money was spent on the website. I've been using EarthVPN[1], one of his unreviewed options, for several years, and am very happy. It's cheap and cheerful, but yes, the website isn't great. The company is registered in Cyprus, and at USD40/year with three concurrent connections (from…

Does it currently work with Netflix?

I haven't tried. I use one of their UK servers for iPlayer, with dnsmasq and policy routing so that Netflix NZ still works. I should try putting the Roku's default route through the US.

That's the advantage of several connections from the same IP :-)

Re: VPN Report – Reviews of the top VPNs

#217

Post by pdcerb »

posguy wrote: post #146
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…

PIA has a surprisingly broad reach, financially and in some cases structurally supporting Freenode, Snoonet, Fight For the Future, EFF, Software Freedom Conservancy and many more. Its actually unnerving how many of the same projects and groups they support, in some cases being the main benefactor. https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/companies-we-spo...

AirVPN similarly supports many projects including tor, ooni, opennic etc., but this "tech-savvy" guy conveniently chooses not to review it and many others including tor guard, due to issues in site navigation.

Re: VPN Report – Reviews of the top VPNs

#218

Post by JohnStrange »

davepeck wrote: post #212
JohnStrange wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks to me like you're primarily advertising Cloaks, owned by a US-based company. There are tons of reasons why privacy-minded users would want to avoid a company under US jurisdiction, but you mention none of them.

There might indeed be reasons to avoid US jurisdiction -- that's true, but it's not relevant to the point I attempt to make, which is that labeling the US "bad" by default and without qualification is silly, and is one (of several) ways TOPS might lead less savvy potential customers astray. As an aside, I'm skeptical that there are "tons" of actually good reasons to avoid US jurisdiction. I don't doubt that good reas…

Nah, I don't buy your reply but totally understand your perspective. My assessment and general advice stands as is, for most people (including US citizens) it makes a lot of sense to avoid any US or UK based VPN providers. I'd personally also avoid a company operating under French jurisdiction.

Re: VPN Report – Reviews of the top VPNs

#219

Post by BrandoElFollito »

JohnStrange wrote: post #161
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 re…

Possibly because PIA is a US company and therefore someone in Europe does not care?

For someone in, say, Germany a German VPN would be way more worrisome because of the same jurisdiction.

Re: VPN Report – Reviews of the top VPNs

#220

Post by ehxcaet »

bitexploder wrote: post #45

TunnelBear claims to be secure but all they offer is an opaque app. Uhh, no thanks. I prefer to run my own VPN client that doesn't have potential spyware in it. I am surprised this was so highly rated by someone reviewing VPNs. edit: I know you can't make everyone happy, but there are a LOT of VPN options out there and only the very best should be making it through.

https://www.tunnelbear.com/blog/tunnelbear_public_security_a...

They just got audited

Post reply on HN