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Who owns Express VPN, Nord, Surfshark? VPN relationships explained (2024)

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Re: Who owns Express VPN, Nord, Surfshark? VPN relationships explained (2024)

#211

Post by braza »

Despite all the shenanigans related to their corporate structure, does someone really trust in those services in terms of real privacy?

It's hard to believe that for USD 10/month you can have a high-trust VPN so that your ISP will never know who you are, and you can surf the internet untraceable from the IP perspective.

I mean, that kind of infrastructure costs money, and the mechanics to make it happen must be very expensive, and it is hard to believe that this is very commoditized.

It sometimes sounds like someone is selling a 2-cent pizza in Zürich: If you're paying that, maybe you're not ready to know what is inside.

Re: Who owns Express VPN, Nord, Surfshark? VPN relationships explained (2024)

#212

Post by sciencejerk »

michaelt wrote: post #129
justapassenger wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With TLS being everywhere, and just few clicks away from having DNS over TLS, I really don't get eavesdropping on public wifi prop value.

1. example.com is not on the HSTS preload list 2. Because you normally visit example.com using an incognito window, your browser hasn't cached the redirect to SSL, or the address bar suggestion, and you haven't bookmarked the site. 3. You key in example.com, the browser connects over http, and the evil wifi MITMs your unencrypted connection - removing the redirect to SSL and messing with the page however the evildoer…

Will Chromium generate a "Your connection is not private" warning in this scenario, that the user has to click through to proceed? And the user would have to type example.com in the browser bar; https://example.com would also trigger a warning, correct?

Re: Who owns Express VPN, Nord, Surfshark? VPN relationships explained (2024)

#213

Post by dchftcs »

ivanmontillam wrote: post #148
ashirviskas wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, why were the employees shared? EDIT: I'm not saying being related to Tesonet is bad, but it is a fact that you cannot run away from.

> Proton VPN was briefly sharing employees with Tesonet during initial app bringup I assume they needed the experience in how to run a VPN company, so that initial partnership was needed.

But why would tesonet spend resources to help a competitor to start? I'd be surprised if there wasn't at least an equity deal.

Re: Who owns Express VPN, Nord, Surfshark? VPN relationships explained (2024)

#214

Post by vivzkestrel »

mjbale116 wrote: post #172

Can someone explain to me why should I use a VPN when Tor is out there? It just seems to me odd that one would pipe their communications through a private company, that operates over a jurisdiction when said jurisdiction can compel the company in actions that may compromise my anonymity. From my perspective, its like shifting my trust from my ISP (an entity with way more oversight) to a pvt ltd. Isn't Tor as safe as…

because i ll get added to a "hidden list" as soon as I even attempt to download tor, let alone use it

Re: Who owns Express VPN, Nord, Surfshark? VPN relationships explained (2024)

#215

Post by eszed »

crossroadsguy wrote: post #196
nerdsniper wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a good friend from Lithuania, who has told me so many amazing/wonderful/superlative things about the country he grew up in and loves very dearly, as well as its people. I can't wait to visit someday. Unfortunately, he only has Russian and American citizenship, so he can't purchase real estate there currently, but luckily most of Lithuania's restrictions have been very common-sense (applying only to people who…

I couldn't really get that segue from Lithuania to Estonia. Did you mean to type "Lithuania" in the last paragraph as well? Here.. > Additionally, I've always been very impressed with Estonia's … Before that you were talking about Lithuania exclusively. And then: > … Estonia's digital infrastructure and Ukrainian software engineering - not just JetBrains … I think it was founded in CZ and is now HQed in NL. Right? A…

They're neighboring small countries with similar (centuries' long) histories of tension with Russia, in its various guises. They're often considered en bloc:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_states

Re: Who owns Express VPN, Nord, Surfshark? VPN relationships explained (2024)

#216

Post by praveen9920 »

idatum wrote: post #195
codazoda wrote: post #124

If you’re worried about your VPN provider but you can trust your VPS provider, try an SSH Tunnel. https://joeldare.com/ssh-tunnels-my-vpn-alternative-for-priv...

This is the way: SOCKS5 via SSH You do need some minimal technical understanding and some scripting. Pick any cloud provider that can give you a VM with SSH access. Read up on doing this on your local device or another device on your LAN: ssh -NT -g -D 10001 -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null -o ConnectTimeout=5 -i your_ssh_private_key your_cloud_login@any_cloud_provider_ip Change 10001 to whatever. Now read up on how y…

Major issue I faced in this method is the network egress costs the cloud providers charge. I had to remind myself not to accidentally land on YouTube or some other video streaming sites.

Are there any cloud providers who don’t charge for network egress?

Re: Who owns Express VPN, Nord, Surfshark? VPN relationships explained (2024)

#217

Post by kmarc »

codazoda wrote: post #124

If you’re worried about your VPN provider but you can trust your VPS provider, try an SSH Tunnel. https://joeldare.com/ssh-tunnels-my-vpn-alternative-for-priv...

This, and FoxyProxy for domain-based proxy settings is my go to when connecting to some websites (self-hosted bit bucket/confluence, etc) behind Corp intranet boundaries.

Re: Who owns Express VPN, Nord, Surfshark? VPN relationships explained (2024)

#219

Post by botanical76 »

sciencejerk wrote: post #209
walterbell wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SSL certificates have a centralized hierarchy. Many browsers trust a long list of root certificate authorities from multiple countries. https://cyberscoop.com/russia-tls-security-certificate-autho... https://jpgamboa.com/china-ssl-authority-revoked-by-browsers...

Do some countries force the browser companies to add their root cert, despite abuse?

I imagine so. I understand that Opera GX, for example, provides a specialized version to Russian IPs that locks down the search engines that can be used.

Re: Who owns Express VPN, Nord, Surfshark? VPN relationships explained (2024)

#220

Post by y-c-o-m-b »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #156
dkga wrote: post #155

I’m not a big expert on the VPN tech side, but it always seemed to me that the most logical option for those that actually understand about VPN is Proton, or am I missing something here?

Im a happy Proton user myself but if someone wanted the absolute most secure and private and reputable VPN I would point them to Mullvad. The main reason I use Proton is because I use the other apps in their suite as well and I get the VPN in the package deal. The threat model is good enough for my use cases

I am also a relatively happy proton user (now, but wasn't always this way). I second this. Based off the site, it looks like Mullvad passed a real world test too, Proton has not. I haven't tried Mullvad in a couple of years, but they were always reliable and fast. The only issue I had with Mullvad was getting connected to enough peers when torrenting, especially on older torrents where the pool of users is small. Proton's port forwarding feature did noticeably help with that. I do enjoy being able to pay a discounted yearly subscription price with Proton and their user interface is nice. There are some minor problems with split-tunneling in Proton though, sometimes it doesn't work and I haven't figured out why.
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